The Paper Magician

She’d rather face Emery’s shadows again than be here, so unarmed. But she couldn’t run, not from this. Not back to Emery, cold and heartless.

“You’re weak, just like him,” Lira said with a sneer. “Worthless. All Folders are. Emery never had any real power, and neither do you.”

Ceony stopped retreating. She would not be a mouse, nor would she be a grasshopper. She dug her heels into the black rock. She had no confusion sphere, but she had other ways of distracting Lira.

“He signed the divorce papers the night he hid you,” she said, letting her face relax into the sort of smugness she couldn’t stand in other people. The sort of smugness Lira would have worn, had her anger not boiled so close to the surface of her skin. “You weren’t as in control of the situation as you think.”

Lira’s countenance didn’t alter, save for the slightest quirk of her left eyebrow, but Ceony noticed. Lira continued to advance. Ceony held her ground, trying to ignore the cold sweat beading down her spine.

“You weren’t in his heart, either,” she added. “Not how you are now. Not outside of a prison cell, at least. Or didn’t you notice?”

Lira paused eight or nine paces from Ceony, her eyes narrowed to slits. She looked like a snake—a coiled viper ready to spring. Ceony had insulted the flesh magician’s vanity . . . or perhaps, deep inside the dark, hollow chambers of her heart, Lira still cared for Emery.

No. Not cared for. One didn’t rip out the heart of a man because she cared for him. No, to Lira, Emery’s heart was a souvenir, a trophy. Something to be owned. A sick sort of revenge for hunting Lira and her kind down. Emery may have been Lira’s lover once, but he had become her bane. Her nemesis. Her scourge.

And she hated it.

Swift as a falcon Lira drew her long dagger from her belt, her enthusiasm knocking its sheath askew. She held the knife out to her side like a broken wing and rushed Ceony. A distraction—Lira didn’t attack with the dagger, but with her crimson-stained hand.

“You must understand, Patrice, that Excisioners are a tricky matter,” Mg. Hughes had said. “They are wildly dangerous, and if they touch you, they can pull magic through your body. It is a killing magic.”

Ceony dashed to the side. Her right foot caught between two rocks, causing her to pitch forward. Lira’s outstretched hand swiped the air where Ceony’s head had been. Struggling, Ceony jerked her foot free, leaving her shoe wedged in its place. Jagged rock bit into her sole through her soaked and soiled stocking, but Lira didn’t allow her any time to dwell on it.

Lira spun, dagger windmilling through the air. Ceony leapt back, barely avoiding the tip of the blade as it whistled past her breast. Darting into a few inches of water between teethlike stones, Ceony yanked a paper glider from her bag.

The Folds fell apart in her hands. Too much water damage.

Lira charged. Ceony shrieked and scrambled to higher ground, dodging the hand that sought to enchant her own skin. Ceony rifled through the bag until she found a spell she could use.

“Breathe!” she commanded the paper bat, who took to the air with a two-sheet wingspan. It needed no more instruction than that, perhaps sensing its surroundings the same way Fennel did. The bat flew straight for Lira’s nose.

Ceony’s fingers grasped the binding chain, a chain woven with tight double rows of V-shaped links. The second spell Emery Thane had taught her in the chamber of doubt.

Ceony whirled around, hair fanning around her neck.

Lira snatched the bat from the air and crumpled its right wing.

“Bind!” Ceony ordered the chain.

Like a shark in deep waters, the chain darted from her hands toward Lira—

—who cut it into two uneven fragments with a broad sweep of her dagger. The binding chain’s pieces flopped to the rocks like fish out of water.

“As I said,” Lira spoke, only somewhat breathless, “no power at all.” Advancing, she took the last vial of blood from her waist and threw it at her feet. A cyclone of scarlet smoke enveloped her—the same spell she had used to escape the dining room after stealing Emery’s heart.

Only instead of fleeing, Lira reappeared a foot in front of Ceony.

Ceony’s exhaling breath dug claws into the soft flesh of her throat. Her hand shot into her bag for the rhombus, her last spell—

Lira grabbed her elbow—skin on skin—and held the dagger’s edge just below Ceony’s chin.

Lira grinned.

Ignoring the blade, Ceony shoved Lira away with all the strength her fatigued arms could muster and yanked the simple diamond-Folded paper from her sack.

“Do you know what happens when paper vibrates very, very fast?”

Lira growled and rammed into Ceony, shunting her into an eroded rock shelf opposite the ocean. Lira’s hand clutched Ceony’s neck. The point of the dagger pressed into her ribs. Lira smelled like blood and old, rusted coins.

Lira began to chant, and Ceony felt warm. Eerily warm. Too warm. Lira’s ancient spell seemed to coax Ceony’s very spirit from her bones.