“Thank you,” she replied. “But how will you—”
Ceony turned to him, but met only the stretch of empty, predawn space beyond the canyon. The paper magician—at least this version of him—had disappeared.
She barely had time to recognize Emery’s absence before the ground began to quake. Ceony reached out for something to steady herself with, but of course she found nothing amidst her barren surroundings.
The land shook in broader and broader patterns, bucking back and forth like a rodeo bull. Ceony took two steps away from the chasm before she stumbled to one knee and skinned her palm on the hard earth, which had begun to fade, revealing deep red flesh beneath it.
The vision slowly collapsed. The sky broke like shards of glass. The heart’s PUM-Pom-poom drummed so loudly Ceony felt it in her lungs. The pulse accelerated and the last of the vision faltered.
The walls of Emery’s heart throbbed and rippled. The beat grew uneven, and Ceony’s breath quickened. It didn’t sound right; it didn’t feel right. If Emery’s heart destroyed itself trying to free her . . .
Her hands turned cold. A world without Emery Thane. Her entire world up until a month ago had existed without him, but to go back to it now . . . The thought made Ceony sick. It crushed her.
The rivers of blood lining the perimeter of the chamber engorged and rose. The air grew thicker and hotter, as if she hung over a pot of boiling water, ready for cooking. The heart wrenched one way, then another, and Ceony felt herself fall.
She landed on her side, her left cheek pressed to wet, rough rock. Damp, cool air encircled her, clinging to her clothes and skin. Tasting of salt. She heard the sounds of swishing and spurting nearby—waves crashing against rocks.
Pale sunlight filtered through the mouth of the black cave. The sharp cry of a gull startled her to alertness.
She was free.
“You did it,” Ceony whispered, pushing herself to her feet and spinning to the rocky shelf that still held Emery’s beating heart in its pool of enchanted blood. Still beating, but even weaker than before. She could still save him, if she hurried.
She hoped.
Her eyes shot back to the cave’s mouth. Morning. Early morning. But had it been one night, or two? Exhaustion pinched the center of Ceony’s muscles and the edges of her brain, but it could not tell her how many hours had accumulated.
Ceony swallowed, realizing for the first time just how thirsty she was.
She approached the heart like a priestess to an altar. Would it need its pool of gold-rimmed blood to survive the trip back to London? It had beat in Lira’s hand after she had pulled it from Emery’s chest without a spell—at least, without any Ceony could see. Then again, she knew little of the working of magicians’ hearts, and almost nothing of Excision.
She needed something safe to carry the heart in, but as she considered her options the salty air began to burn her nose, and the blond hairs on her arms stood on end. Licking her lips, Ceony turned around to face Lira, whose dark hair fell in perfect, lush waves over her narrow shoulders, whose dark eyes narrowed to lightless almonds, and whose red lips curled into a sneer.
Setting her jaw, Ceony stepped away from the heart. She would allow no spell of Lira’s to miss her and strike it. She would keep Emery’s heart safe, especially from the woman who had treated it so very poorly.
If the Excisioner was surprised to see Ceony, she didn’t show it. Her pale skin flushed almost prettily with anger, or perhaps hate. Ceony couldn’t be sure—such loathing had never been directed at her before. Not to this magnitude.
Ceony took the first words for herself.
“Stand down, Lira,” she said, straightening as tall as her five-foot-three frame could straighten. “You want to escape? Then go while you have the chance.”
Lira smiled, looking distinctly like a cat gone half-feral. “Not when I have two hearts to take with me. Grath will find them such a handsome prize, even if I only let him keep yours.”
She lifted a bloody hand—her blood or another’s, Ceony couldn’t be sure—and with it rose from the ground three pairs of severed, undead hands that Ceony had failed to spot, as the uneven rock of the cave floor had concealed them.
Ceony’s windpipe constricted, reminding her of the bruises dotting her neck such hands had given her before. For a split second she felt herself paralyzed, but the whispered beating of Emery’s heart regrounded her. Forced her to move.
Her hands shot to her bag as Lira’s shot forward, sprinkling droplets of cold blood throughout the cave. The undead hands—fingers pudgy and swollen—rose like birds into the air and shot toward her on invisible wings.
Wings.
Birds.
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