The Paper Magician

She studied him, his peace and his contentment, the eyes that seemed to radiate life. She studied the shadowy woman beside him from head to foot. He wants to fall in love again.

Though she knew he would not see her, Ceony waved her hand before Emery Thane’s face, hoping he would blink and look up at her, wanting those eyes to notice her the way they had noticed Lira amidst cherry trees and gossamer. Because she needed his help. She needed Thane’s help to escape him, for if she didn’t escape him, she’d never save him, and Ceony felt she’d be doing both herself and the rest of the world a great disservice to let such a life-filling gaze vanish from existence.

And if Emery Thane died, some other poor chap with dreams of bespelling metal would be assigned to paper out of necessity, and Ceony certainly couldn’t let that fate fall onto anyone else’s shoulders.

She twisted her messy braid around her index finger. Hope. She wondered what her hopes looked like now.

She stepped onto the blanket, just at its edge, and knelt down, massaging her throat. She’d have bruises, surely, but nothing worse than that. Nothing she couldn’t manage. I’ve managed worse.

The warm breeze twirled about her shoulders before scooping up the seeds of an aged dandelion and tossing them into the plum tree’s dark leaves. The wind reminded her of the stickiness of her hair and stiffness of her clothes, the aftermath of pushing through the valve between chambers.

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to encourage herself, she slipped the paper chain over her head and studied it. Though she knew the version of Emery Thane beside her was not the real one, she felt safe in his presence. Safe as she could feel, sharing his heart with a practiced Excisioner, who could be anywhere . . .

A quick survey of the scene showed that Lira was nowhere to be found, so she turned her attention back to the Folded paper she held. Ceony passed the links of the chain slowly through her hands, studying each until she found one just a bit wider than the others—that must have been the error. Pulling a half sheet of paper from her bag, she began to create a replacement.

Laughter touched her ears, but not cold laughter. Not Lira’s. She heard a child’s laughter, light and happy. Fennel barked in response.

Ceony turned and saw a shapeless child that matched the woman beside her—a child no older than three, but without a definite face or solid coloring. A boy, Ceony thought. He ran through the wildflowers with his small, nondescript hands stretched high over his head. A moment later a second child joined him, a little taller. A girl. They laughed and twirled about one another, parading up and down the hill in their own little game. Their play woke an orange butterfly from the grass at their feet. Its wings looked like fire in the setting sunlight.

Ceony couldn’t help but smile to herself as she finished Folding the link. “So you want a family,” she whispered. “I do, too. Someday.”

She replaced the bad link in her chain and stowed it under the blanket, where Lira—should the woman be tracking her—wouldn’t find it. This time, when Ceony placed the chain around her, it stiffened and tightened like a belt. Hopefully that meant she had done the spell correctly.

As Ceony stood, she realized she didn’t want to leave this vision. This hope buried deep in Emery’s heart, so crisp and real that she could smell the sugar welling deep within the flowers’ stems and feel the lingering heat of the sun that seemed frozen in its descent. It was such a peaceful hope. Ceony wondered if her own heart could create something even half as stunning as this.

She touched Emery’s hand where it rested on the blanket, and found that, for once, she didn’t immediately phase through it. Instead, it felt like touching glass. “I’ll take care of you,” she said. “You’ll have this day. I promise.”

She and Fennel stepped off the blanket and back to the grassy door Ceony had stumbled upon on the last flowery knoll. She pulled the brass handle, and the sunset melted away into stone and wood.

Ceony stood in the middle of Parliament Square.





CHAPTER 10