The Paper Magician

“Leave him out of it,” Lira snapped.

Emery grabbed Lira’s shoulders and shook her. “This is Excision you’re dabbling in, Lira! Damn it, it’s Excision! What excuses could you possibly assign it? Have you turned your back on everything good and right in the world already?”

The room heaved as Lira’s hand sailed across Emery’s face. Ceony’s shoulder hit the office door—she had retreated from them and had run out of space, gaping as silvery light from the office’s one window highlighted their persons. This wasn’t the Emery Thane Ceony knew—his motions so sharp, his voice so commanding and hard. It scared her.

She fumbled for the doorknob behind her with a clammy hand, turned it, and fell onto her back.

She landed on cool, wet grass, a murky, overcast sky spread in even swathes above her. Soft half droplets of rain pelted her face and she quickly rolled over, protecting Fennel from the moisture. Cold air made her skin prickle and sent chills through her upper arms. Tucking Fennel beneath her shirt, Ceony pushed herself onto her knees, swiped a mess of rain-and sweat-dampened hair from her forehead, and took in her surroundings.

A flat lawn with no trees or gardens greeted her. A redbrick building that almost looked like a schoolhouse without a bell loomed far in the distance. No path led to it, but Ceony spied a cobbled road winding through the landscape far to her right. To her left stood several gray slate buildings with gabled roofs and no windows or chimneys. Too small to be homes. They looked like sepulchers, the homes of the dead.

Ceony found her legs and stood, her bag tugging at her shoulder. She switched it to the other side.

Standing gave her enough height for her eyes to find rows of neatly spaced indentations in the ground, each with its own cement plaque engraved with names and dates. Some had soggy or dead bouquets of flowers resting upon them. One had a small stuffed lamb, no larger than Ceony’s hand, soaked through with rain.

Ceony did not frequent cemeteries. They were such sad places. Even the heavens thought so, for they wept steadily above her.

Nearly five years had passed since Ceony last trod among graves.

Ceony reached back for the office door, despite knowing it wouldn’t be there. A chill in her arms drilled into her breast and stomach. “Not here,” she whispered, shivering. She hugged herself. “I don’t want to know what’s here, Emery. Please.”

But the scene didn’t warp or shift. The cemetery awaited her, quiet as snowfall, the accompanying drizzle soaking through her blouse.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Ceony trekked to the cobbled road and followed it up a shallow hill. Fatigue finally dragged at her legs. What time was it? How long had she been inside Emery’s heart? How long did she have left? She had no pocket watch, nothing to answer her questions. She imagined, by her weariness, that it had grown late . . . though her run-in with Lira and her scramble between chambers would be enough to tire anyone.

She pulled some cheese from her bag and ate it slowly, her stomach too tight for anything more. In the back of her mind she heard Emery’s voice looping like a disc stuck in a phonograph, betrayal and anger lacing his words. If this chamber turned out to be what she thought it was, Ceony wanted to leave as soon as possible.

The cobbled road stretched up and over a small hill, and off to its left side Ceony spied a small gathering of people dressed all in black—two men in black suits, a preacher with a white-and-black collar, and four women in long black dresses, three of whom wore broad hats and netted veils over their faces. She approached them slowly, sore legs trudging up the wet slope. One of the men turned to a woman and whispered something in her ear. Ceony knew the man—the beekeeper—though he looked different. Perhaps it was merely the sorrow lining his features that changed him, but he looked drawn. Tired. The beekeeper. Emery’s father. A jolt of panic shot through Ceony’s torso.

Finding a new store of energy, Ceony jogged the rest of the way to the gravesite. Surely this wasn’t Emery’s grave! No person’s heart could know the future, could it?

She froze mid-stride, only a few paces from the gravesite. Unless this isn’t the future, she thought. What if she was too late? What if Emery had already . . .

Biting her lower lip, Ceony phased through the women, none of them sensing her presence, and faced two clean graves above two fresh mounds of dirt.