The Paper Magician

She swallowed the fear and it formed a noxious lump in her throat. Still, it tasted better than failure. If Ceony lost Emery now, she’d never forgive herself. She had invested in this too deeply to go back.

Grinding her teeth, Ceony approached the tight valve sideways, pushing one arm between its thick walls, clutching her bag to her hip with another. She counted to three in her head.

On count two, she shouted, “I deserve a stipend after this!” The words echoed offbeat with the pulsing walls.

On count three she sucked in a deep breath and pushed herself between the walls.

The shield chain around her torso hugged her, and the hot walls of the valve pulled a few inches away from her, allotting her space to breathe. She sighed in relief, until she realized what an open valve would do to the rest of the heart.

Blood flooded around her feet, reaching clear to her thighs. The PUM of every PUM-Pom-poom shook her, freezing her every first beat of three. Her hair looped around her neck like a noose. Her own blood danced on her tongue from where she had bitten it.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe.

She forced her feet forward, her guiding hand searching for something to grasp. She squeezed her eyes shut as sweat from her forehead trickled into them.

Ceony felt empty space on the other side of the valve just as her lungs threatened to burst. She clutched the edge of the valve and pulled herself into a dark chamber, sputtering and gasping for air. Wiping her face on her dirty sleeve, she lifted her head and looked around. She stood in some sort of dark office. The only light came through a two-paned square window about three feet across, without blinds or curtains. Outside, a few stars glimmered in a deep-blue night. Was this the same office where Emery had finished his book? Wondering, Ceony pulled Fennel, still folded, from her bag.

Shuffling feet drew her attention away from the window. She scoured the room, searching for its source, but the shadows hid the perpetrator.

She clutched the folded Fennel to her breast. “Who’s there?” she asked.

The shadows moved, and someone flew at her, ramming into her like a train. Ceony sailed backward into a wall, her head slamming against the boards, her newly found air expelling from her lungs. Her attacker pinned her with a forearm across her collar. For a second the dark room spun. Lira!

But as Ceony’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she realized it wasn’t Lira who had thrown her back. It wasn’t Lira who scowled at her with bright emerald eyes.

It was Emery Thane.





CHAPTER 11



EVEN IN THE DARKNESS she could see the anger blazing in those eyes, feel them pierce her like two jagged shards of glass. Emery’s forearm pressed even harder into her collar with an almost painful strength. Black hair like shadows drooped over his forehead. The shield chain must not have recognized the pressure, for it did nothing to help her.

And suddenly Ceony stood on the other side of the office, Emery’s arm gone from her chest. She gripped the side of a long desk for support. She had moved, but Emery remained where he had been, only instead of Ceony pinned against the wall, it was Lira—a younger Lira, her dark hair in loose ringlets over her shoulders, but her face still held a touch of familiar hardness.

“How dare you!” Emery seethed, almost shouting. The venom in his words hit Ceony’s ears like hammers and shook her bones. It jarred her to hear such harshness from the paper magician’s lips. “Do you even understand what all this means?”

“Get off of me!” Lira shouted back.

Emery conceded only a few inches of space. Still clutching the folded Fennel in her hands, Ceony edged toward them.

“Three days with no word. No word!” Emery hissed, his hands flying through the air like striking cobras. His shoulders tensed and made his neck look shorter. “And now you’re a suspect in the Fr?ulein’s disappearance!”

Lira’s eyes widened.

Emery grabbed fistfuls of his hair and looked away for a moment—those boiling eyes passed over Ceony, but didn’t see her. Unlike the Emery Thane in the Anglican church, this one was fully incorporated into the vision, unaware of Ceony’s presence. Spinning back on Lira, Emery said, “And you don’t even know. How have you not heard, Lira? Where have you been?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, her voice just as sharp as his, but her words touched the air with frost, not fire. “I’m not your dog, Emery!”

“Do you think it’s not my business when my wife vanishes without a trace?” Emery asked, flabbergasted. A loud crash made Ceony jump, and it wasn’t until she squinted that she saw Emery’s fist against the wall, the paint cracked around his knuckles.

“Emery,” Ceony whispered.

He pulled his hand back, wincing, and turned to Lira. “It’s Grath Cobalt, isn’t it?” he asked, half angry and half hurt. The emotions rolled over him like thunder, the lightning flashing behind those fierce eyes. He rubbed his sore knuckles like they were his own heart.