A link is created by taking a standard 8" x 11" sheet and slicing it in half longways, as seen in Figure 1—
Ceony’s eyes scanned the figures and their captions, then she turned the page and scanned them again, committing them to memory. Setting the book down, she pulled sheets of paper out of her bag until she found pieces already cut as the diagram showed.
She began Folding, her hands unsteady, but not shaking quite as badly as they had when she formed Thane’s pathetic heart. She prayed it still beat. If he died . . .
Ceony didn’t want to think too hard on the idea.
She matched up the edges and creased them. Another flash of Thane appeared behind her with his Folding board, this one in the correct shade of indigo. He phased in and out, Folding different things with his hands, his voice pealing and cutting short. Ceony could barely make out a word he said, but she thought she heard her name.
She saw a flash of herself in her apprentice’s uniform before both apparitions vanished.
Ceony refocused on her chain. “Do you want to keep teaching me?” she asked as she started her second link, working a little faster now that her fingers knew the Folds. The faint tingling sensation she felt when Folding now had almost become natural to her. “I don’t mind, if you do.”
Ceony listened to the steady, distant beats of Thane’s heart as her fingers pressed paper and her nails set the Folds’ creases. When her chain reached just long enough, she hooked its ends together diagonally over her breast and pulled out another sheet of square paper, Folding something Thane had given her several days to practice—a paper fan.
“Made well, it can give gusts that would embarrass a thunderstorm,” Thane had said. She had yet to test the spell’s true power, but she hoped the paper magician hadn’t been exaggerating.
The library began to waver about her as she finished—her small sanctuary had begun to collapse. She’d change scenes any moment now.
Stuffing her untested fan into her bag, she ran for the library door. Fennel loped behind her.
Ceony passed through the library door and, for the second time since meeting Mg. Thane, stepped into a room thundering with applause.
The Royal Albert Hall. She recognized the auditorium and the chandeliers, only these boasted electric bulbs. A spotlight blinded her, forcing her to shield her eyes with one hand. Unlike last time, she didn’t stand in the aisle, but on the stage.
Fennel panted at the sight of so many people. Ceony felt faint.
The glare of the spotlight diminished enough for her to take in her surroundings, the pale stain of the wooden stage, an older Tagis Praff standing at the podium stage left. Looking down, she saw herself dressed in a magician’s uniform, all its seams perfectly pressed. The white fabric fit her better than any clothes she had ever worn, and she noted she wore slacks, not a skirt. Didn’t all female magicians wear skirts with their uniforms?
“Ceony Twill,” Tagis Praff said, and the audience continued to clap. Ceony spied Thane in the front row, wearing his own uniform. Watching her with smiling, proud eyes. She drank that expression in, storing it in the deep wells of her memory.
Tagis Praff waved for her. Fennel trotted up to the podium, and Ceony, hesitantly, followed suit. She reached out to accept the magician’s hand.
The applause died and the spotlight vanished. Her sticky dress replaced the crisp white uniform of her dreams. The temperature dropped and Tagis Praff’s hand vanished, replaced by a long, stone hallway.
Ceony blinked twice and realized she was in a prison.
She gasped, having not expected a place so dreary to be within Thane’s heart. She stood at the end of the hallway, which was lined on either side by broad metal doors that bore the sheen of enchantment. Ceony had never been inside a real prison, but she had read books concerning them. And just like in those books, all the doors had locks, and the hallway had a gray, prestorm cast to it, made by thin trickles of sunlight that came through narrow windows between each cell. Windows that even a toddler could barely fit a hand through.
Ceony snapped her fingers to beckon Fennel to follow her, as her voice had been startled from her throat and floated somewhere between her lungs and her stomach. She took a step forward, her skirt swishing about her calves, the fabric cold after its dampening in the tight, suffocating passageway that had led her to this chamber. She hoped she wouldn’t have to pass through another. The thought gave her goose bumps, but the prison gave her chills.
The Paper Magician
Charlie N. Holmberg's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene