The Paper Magician

CHAPTER 2



“I ALWAYS FOUND BONDING incredibly anticlimactic,” Mg. Thane commented as he picked up the easel from the chair. “Do you want to save it?”

Ceony blinked a few times and held her bonding hand to her chest. “Save what?”

He shook the large paper in his hand. “Some find it sentimental.”

“No,” she said, perhaps a little too sharply. Mg. Thane didn’t seem to notice and placed the paper against the wall, and the easel atop the table perfectly parallel to the paper stacks.

Finding no empty table space, Mg. Aviosky crouched on the floor and opened her hard plastic briefcase, crafted by the hands of a Polymaker—a type of magician who had come into being only thirty years ago, after a rubber magician had discovered plastic itself. From the briefcase Mg. Aviosky pulled a crisply folded red apron and a short, black top hat: the garb of an apprentice.

Despite the gnawing inside her stomach and the pieces of heartfelt dreams collecting in a heap at the base of her skull, Ceony accepted the clothing with a quiet reverence.

Unlike the green student apron, the apprentice apron had pleats across the thighs and thin scarlet trim around the collar. The fabric covered more of the bust as well. It tied behind the neck and around the ribs and had two small half-circle pockets at either hip.

The top hat, stiff and shiny, was a mark of experience. Students didn’t have top hats. Even though the road Ceony had stepped onto would be narrow and unexciting, at least the apron and hat proved her worth. Proved she had achieved something, for graduating from Tagis Praff, especially in a single year and at the top of her class, had been no easy feat.

“Thank you,” she said, hugging the apron to her chest.

Mg. Aviosky smiled, the sort of smile she had always given Ceony at the school. The smile that made Ceony like her so much. If only I could study under her, Ceony thought. Given the choice, she would rather enchant glass than paper.

Mg. Aviosky squared her shoulders, dispelling that notion rather abruptly. “I’ll see myself out,” she said, “unless you have another paper servant to do it for me.”

Mg. Thane’s eyes smiled as he said, “It’s no bother to escort you, Patrice. Ceony?”

“I’ll . . . stay here, if you don’t mind,” she said. Ceony had the feeling that, should she get to the buggy with Mg. Aviosky now, she’d run away and never come back. And, though she despised it, Ceony knew she needed to wait for her new responsibility to settle before she could trust herself near any easy exits. She had bound herself to paper indefinitely, and it did her no good to push through a year at Tagis Praff just to throw it all away now.

Mg. Thane nodded once, then handed her back the wrinkled piece of paper he had had her “feel.” Confused, Ceony accepted it. It took a couple of seconds—enough time for Magicians Thane and Aviosky to reach the library door—for her to realize something had changed about the parchment.

She turned it over in her hands. It still bore no Folds, no writing, but it felt different in a way difficult to describe. It still felt like paper, of course—a medium lightweight that a sketch artist might find useful—but something beneath her skin tingled at the feel of it. Was this the result of the bond? Was this why Mg. Thane had insisted she touch the paper before, so she would notice the difference now?

Somewhat confused, Ceony set the paper on the chair and hurried to the library door, peeking out to see Magicians Aviosky and Thane moving down the hallway, discussing something too quietly for Ceony to hear. She couldn’t help but follow them. Ceony crept through the hallway as the magicians vanished down the stairs, then crept down the stairs as they vanished into the dining room, making sure to step over the creaking ninth step. She scuttled after them and saw that as Mg. Aviosky finally stepped outside, Mg. Thane followed her, keeping the front door propped open with his heel. They spoke in hushed tones, so naturally Ceony suspected it was about something she was not meant to hear. Mg. Aviosky never did trust her to do as told.

She padded quietly down the hall, eyeing the unmoving pile of Jonto’s paper bones near the door. She still couldn’t make out her teachers’ conversation, but dared inch no closer.

Instead, she turned the knob to Mg. Thane’s study and let herself in.
     



This room had more organized clutter than all the others, highlighted by a circle-top window on the far wall, facing the bespelled front gate. Yellow paper curtains had been drawn back to reveal glass that had not been washed on the outside for quite some time. Beneath the window sat metal shelves bearing more books, folders, and ledgers similar to the one Mg. Thane had been holding earlier. Kitty-corner to that shelf rested three cedar-wood triplets, four shelves high, weighed down with neat stacks of paper pressed into one another to minimize empty space. Yet more papers had already been Folded—starter Folds, perhaps, to save time. A great deal of trinket spells likely started with those V-shaped Folds. Ceony assumed a great deal of her apprenticeship would be spent making starter Folds of no importance for Mg. Thane to use at his leisure. She sighed.

A second, square window, blocked on the outside by some sort of ivy, had various paper chains hanging down in front of it, some tight-knit with sharp angles, others made of large loops torn on the ends and fitted together so loosely that a simple tug would pull the entire thing apart. Some chains were blue, some pink, others multicolored. The color didn’t matter, of course. Ceony knew that much from her History of Materials course at Tagis Praff.

She noticed small scraps of paper in the pale-green carpeting. Mg. Thane hadn’t cleaned in here, or perhaps he had only recently worked on a spell to further terrorize Ceony before her arrival. She scanned for such a spell, but the room held so much stuff she could barely tell a tabletop from a desk. The walls, in contrast, were mostly bare, save for Mg. Thane’s framed Magician’s Certificate and more shelves of folders pressed into the corners behind the desk.

She heard the front door shut, but Ceony didn’t hurry herself. She crouched down and picked up the paper bits from the carpet, unfolding them in her fingers. Felt that subtle, curious tingle beneath her skin once again. She wondered at the paper bits. None was larger than her thumbnail, and all appeared to be in strange symmetrical patterns.

The door to the study opened. “Amusing yourself?” Mg. Thane asked, his tone light.

At least he doesn’t have a temper, she thought. Out loud she said, “You were making snowflakes.” She studied a paper cut in the shape of an elongated heart. “That’s what these are from, aren’t they?”

He nodded, his face calm save for a glitter in his green eyes. “Very astute.”

Ceony stood and brushed off her brown skirt, which covered her from rib to calf. She would have thought he mocked her had his eyes not gleamed their sincerity. What a confusing man.

“Ceony,” Mg. Thane said, leaning against the doorframe. He folded his arms against his chest, his long sleeves drooping down from them. “I presume I can call you by your first name.” He didn’t wait for a response. “Folding is not as dreary as I’m sure you believe it to be. It may not be as exciting as Smelting or as innovative as Polymaking, but it has its own outlets for creativity. May I show you?”

Ceony hid a frown and tried very hard not to look incredibly bored at the suggestion. After all, she would be apprenticing under this man for at least two years, if not longer. She needed him to like her. She forced a polite smile on her face and moved toward the door.

Mg. Thane stepped out into the hall, but as Ceony followed after him, her eyes glimpsed something on the cluttered desk that made her pause. Something that wouldn’t have caught her eye at all if the envelope had not matched the stationery set tucked securely into a side pocket of her suitcase.

She stepped back and reached for the wire note holder that had been packed with various letters and postcards, each aligned with its neighbor along the left edges. She selected the peach-colored envelope near the holder’s center and tugged it free, too stunned this time to feel the tingling sensation in her fingertips. The address was not to Mg. Thane, but to the Magicians’ Cabinet . . . and in her penmanship. She had addressed it there because her donor had been anonymous, and she hadn’t known how else to contact her.

Or, apparently, him.

She didn’t need to open the letter to know what it said. She remembered it word for word.

To my anonymous donor,

I cannot begin to express to you my utmost gratitude for the scholarship I’ve received by your hand, though I have no name to address my gratitude to. It has been my dream since I was a young girl to learn the secrets of magic, but due to my family’s financial situation and some bad luck on my part, I had truly believed only a few days ago that my dream was unobtainable. However, I am happy to say I’ve officially enrolled in the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, and I plan to make you proud by graduating within one year.

Words are not adequate for my joy and thanks to you, but I plead for your patience as I try. You may have very well changed my life and my family’s lives for the better, and for good. Because of your generosity I feel capable of achieving anything, for nothing worldly can possibly hold me back from my ambitions now.

Please know that you have made a vast difference in my life. I only pray one day I might learn your name and find some feeble way to repay you.

Sincerely and with the warmest regards,

Ceony Maya Twill

Feeling a bit stiff, a bit light-headed, she said, “You . . . were my donor?”

Mg. Thane, just outside the doorway, lifted an eyebrow.

Ceony turned the letter over in her hands. “This is my thank-you letter,” she said, heart quickening in her chest. She felt a blush creeping up her neck. “My scholarship. It . . . it came from you.”

The man merely tilted his head to the left. “Tuition at that place is ghastly, isn’t it?”

“Why?” she asked, swallowing to keep her voice from shaking. The walls of her throat grew sore. “Why . . . sponsor me?”

From the beginning Ceony had known she could only attend magic-preparation school—a requirement for all apprentices—if she received some sort of financial aid. She had studied hard during secondary school and was a nominee for the Mueller Academic Award after her acceptance to Tagis Praff, but lost the scholarship without explanation. Heartbroken, she had packed her bags and readied herself to move to Uxbridge, where she would take work as a housemaid for a year or so to pay for culinary school. Four days before her departure, Tagis Praff contacted her with an anonymous scholarship offer of fifteen thousand pounds, enough to cover one year’s tuition, books, and board. A miracle—no bank would allow a shanty nobody from Whitechapel’s Mill Squats to take out a loan for such a grand sum. She knew that from experience.
     



She cried after receiving that telegram. She wrote this letter the next day.

And Mg. Thane—a man she had not met until that morning and whom she had pegged as some sort of lunatic sorcerer—had been the one to give her the money, without interest or return. Without even a name.

Mg. Thane didn’t answer her inquiry. Rather, he simply asked, “Shall we?” with a sweeping gesture of his arm. A gesture that closed the matter. If Mg. Thane had wanted to discuss the scholarship, he would have listed his name when he gave it to her.

Shaken, Ceony set the letter down. Rubbing the back of her neck, she followed the magician out into the hallway and through the kitchen and dining room. He might have closed the matter, but she wouldn’t just let things stand pat. On the stairs she asked, “Did you request me?”

“I assure you that your assignment was pure coincidence. Or perhaps a bit of bad humor on the part of Magician Aviosky. If you can call it humor. I’ve always found her rather . . . dry.”

Some coincidence! Too stunned to think of a reply, Ceony traced Mg. Thane’s path back to the library, where her apprentice’s uniform rested on the floor. She slipped on her red apron but left the top hat. It was more for public show, besides.

Mg. Thane pulled around the chair and had her sit on it. Retrieving several pieces of paper from the table, along with something that looked like a cutting board, he sat on the short green carpet and folded his legs under him, his long coat puddling about him almost like the skirt of a woman’s gown.

“I-I can get you a chair,” Ceony offered. Part of her still held the disappointment of becoming a Folder, but another part felt strange sitting before Mg. Thane now, knowing what he had done for her and not knowing any of the reasons. Knowing that letter she had drafted and redrafted four times to her donor had actually gone to him. No etiquette class or textbook had ever explained to her how to handle a situation like this.

“Nonsense,” Mg. Thane said as he hunched over the board, seemingly unbothered by the hair falling into his eyes and the long sleeves hindering his hands. “I have a personal motto to never Fold on one’s lap.”

Ceony’s blundering thoughts paused at that. “One’s lap, or your own?” she asked.

Mg. Thane glanced up at her and she spied laughter in his eyes, even if it didn’t quite sound in his throat. “I think a person would think me quite peculiar if I were to Fold in his lap, wouldn’t you say?”

“They might think you peculiar besides,” she said, only processing the words after they had passed from her lips. She flushed. Her well-practiced snarkiness had tasted so much sweeter before the man’s revealed philanthropy. Perhaps the best way to handle the situation with her donor-gone-teacher would be to act like nothing extraordinary had happened just minutes ago. That would be easiest.

It helped that Mg. Thane smiled before returning his eyes to the board before him. “Everything is made of Folds,” he explained as he worked, Folding a square sheet of orange paper in half, then in half again. “But you know that. The trick is getting the Folds right. Everything must be aligned just so, or the spells won’t work. Just as you can’t enchant a mirror if it doesn’t reflect a perfect image.”

“Or bake a cobbler if you don’t have the right ingredients,” Ceony said softly. Mg. Thane only nodded, but she felt even that small approval was important. Ceony watched his average-looking hands move the paper this way and that, rotating it and flipping it over. It bent under his touch like water, and he never struggled in getting the paper to obey his direction. Ceony studied the movements, storing their images in her memory.

Mg. Thane Folded the paper into what looked like a kite, then opened it into a tall diamond. Not too complex. Still, Ceony couldn’t see the bird among the paper until he had nearly finished. Not a bird like those hanging in the kitchen, but one with a long neck and tail, and broad, triangular wings creased to perfect points.

He held it out in his palm and said, “Breathe.”

Ceony inhaled, but the command hadn’t been for her.

The paper bird shook its head, and though it had no legs, it hopped once on Mg. Thane’s hand before flapping its orange wings and taking to the air. It flitted around the library, bobbing through the air almost like a real bird. Ceony watched it with wide eyes. It circled the room twice before perching upon a high shelf holding an assortment of calligraphy books.

She had heard of animation, of course, and seen Jonto for herself, but actually watching the magic unfold was, well, magical. She had never seen this sort of spell before. No paper magicians taught at Tagis Praff. And, as Mg. Aviosky had said, England had only twelve registered. Thirteen, once she completed her apprenticeship. But that was two to six years away, and Ceony still had difficulty imaging herself as a true Folder.

But she dearly wanted magic, even magic as simple as this.

“And you can do that with anything?” Ceony asked.

“You may use your imagination,” Mg. Thane replied, “but creating something completely new is time-consuming. You must discover which Folds work and which don’t.”

“How many do you know?”

Mg. Thane only chuckled quietly to himself, as though the question were absurd. In his hands he had already created another creature, a tiny frog of green paper. He commanded it, “Breathe,” and it bounded away, pausing every so often to look about and choose a new direction. Ceony half expected a long tongue to shoot from its mouth to taste for flies, but of course the simple creature hadn’t been created with one.

“Jonto,” Mg. Thane said, now Folding a sheet of white parchment, “was particularly tricky. He took me months to get right, especially with the spinal column and the jaw. Human anatomy is a mite bit complicated, especially when it comes to figuring out what sort of Folds something like a shoulder joint prefers. But though he is made of one thousand, six hundred and nine pieces of paper, he animates as a whole. Make it whole, and it will rise whole. That’s your first lesson of the day.”

His hands stilled, revealing a stout fish between them, puffed out in the middle to form a three-dimensional body. Folds similar to the orange bird’s wings formed its pectoral fins. Mg. Thane picked it up, whispered to it, and released it. The fish soared upward through the air as a real fish would in water, its tail fin paddling back and forth until it hit the ceiling—which Ceony noticed had been covered with long pieces of white paper tied together with a simple string. The white fish used its puckering mouth to bite down on the string and untie its looping knot.
     



To her amazement, snow began to fall. Paper snowflakes cascaded through the air, some as small as Ceony’s thumbnail, some as large as her hand. Hundreds of them poured down as the paper ceiling gave way, all somehow timed just right so that they fell like real snow. Ceony stood from her chair, laughing, and held out her hand to catch one. To her astonishment it felt cold, but didn’t melt against her palm. Only tingled.

“When did you do this?” she asked, her breath fogging in the library’s air as more snowflakes fell like crisp confetti from the ceiling. “This would take . . . ages to make.”

“Not ages,” Mg. Thane said. “You’ll get quicker as you learn.” He still sat on the floor, completely unfazed by the magic around him. But of course he would be—it was his creation. “Magician Aviosky mentioned you hadn’t exactly jumped at the news of your assignment, and I can’t blame you. But casting through paper has its own whimsy.”

Ceony let her captured snowflake fall from her hand and turned to Mg. Thane, wondering at him. He did all of this for me?

Perhaps the man wasn’t so mad after all. Or maybe it’s a madness that I can learn to appreciate.

As the last snowflakes fell, Mg. Thane rose and pulled a thin hardcover book from the shelf behind him. He gestured for Ceony to once again sit in the chair. She complied.

He handed her the volume. The cover had a silver-embossed mouse on it and the words Pip’s Daring Escape. Her mind quietly registered that subtle prickling beneath her skin as she accepted the book; she wondered if she would ever get used to it.

“A children’s book?” she asked. At least the snowflakes had had some majesty to them.

“I’m not one to waste time, Ceony,” he said. As though reading her thoughts, he eyed the scattered snowflakes with a frown, one that showed more in the tilt of his eyes than the curve of his lips. Ceony imagined he would have preferred them to fall in neat rows all perfectly aligned with one another, but real snow never fell that way. “I’m going to teach you something. Consider it homework.”

Ceony slumped in the chair. “Homework? But I’m not even settled—”

“Read the first page,” he said with a jab of his chin.

Rolling her lips together, Ceony opened the book to its first page, which showed a small gray mouse sitting atop a leaf. Her memory sprang to life, whispering that Ceony had seen this picture before, and her mind spun until it settled on a rainy afternoon some seven years ago when she’d been babysitting her neighbor’s son. He’d been sobbing at the door for half an hour, mourning the departure of his mother. That family had owned this book, albeit a very worn edition. Ceony remembered reading it to him. The boy had stopped sobbing by page four.

She didn’t mention the memory to Mg. Thane.

“?‘One morning Pip the mouse came outside to get some exercise, only to discover a golden wedge of cheese sitting just outside his stump,’?” she read. As she moved to turn the page, Mg. Thane stopped her.

“Good,” he said. “Now read it again.”

Ceony paused. “Again?”

He pointed to the book.

Suppressing another sigh, Ceony read, “?‘One morning Pip the mouse came outside to get some—’?”

“Put some effort into it, Ceony!” Mg. Thane said with a laugh. “Did they not cover story illusion at Praff?”

“I . . . no.” In fact, Ceony had no idea what the man referred to, and she could already feel herself getting frustrated, despite her best attempts not to. She wasn’t used to doing something wrong twice, especially when she didn’t understand what she had done wrong the first time.

Folding his arms, Mg. Thane leaned against the table and asked, “What is the story written on?”

“What sort of question is that?”

“The kind you should answer.”

Ceony’s eyes narrowed. His tone carried an air of chastisement, but his expression seemed lax enough. “It’s obviously written on paper.”

Mg. Thane snapped his fingers. “There we are! And paper is your domain now. So make it mean something. And calm down,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

Ceony flushed, and she cursed her light skin for making it so obvious. Clearing her throat, she reread the passage slowly, letting herself cool down.

Mg. Thane motioned with his hand for a third repetition.

Swallowing, Ceony shut her eyes and tried to take herself back to her neighbor’s house, with the little boy on her knee and his beloved book in her hands. Like you’re reading it to him, she thought. Make it “mean” something. Then perhaps the paper magician would leave her be. She had already thrice reformed her assessment of his sanity.

“?‘One morning Pip the mouse came outside to get some exercise,’?” she said, reading it with the same inflections she had used seven years ago in attempts to calm her babysitting charge, “?‘only to discover a golden wedge of cheese sitting just outside his stump!’?”

“There you have it. Take a look.”

Ceony opened her eyes and nearly dropped the book.

There, like a ghost in the air, sat a little gray mouse with a fidgeting nose. His tail trailed behind him like a tired worm. Beside him stood a stump with a broad leaf and a golden wedge of cheese just like the one illustrated in the book. The image as a whole hovered nose level with her, and she could see through the apparition to the bookshelf on its other side.

Ceony’s throat choked with words. “Wh-What? I did that?”

“Mm-hm,” Mg. Thane hummed. “It helps when you can see an image, such as with picture books, but eventually you’ll be able to read novels and have those scenes play out for yourself, if you wish. I admit I’m impressed—I thought I’d have to demonstrate first. You seem familiar with the story already.”

Once again she flushed, both over the praise and over being called out for having read what, in her mind, was a childish thing. The ghostly images lasted only a moment longer before fading away, as all unread stories were wont to do.

Ceony shut the book and glanced to her new teacher. “It’s . . . amazing, but I admit it’s also superficial. Aesthetic.”

“But entertaining,” he combated. “Never dismiss the value of entertainment, Ceony. Good-quality entertainment is never free, and it’s something everyone wants.

“One more trick, then.” Mg. Thane pulled a square piece of pale gray paper from the table and began Folding it in his hands, without a board to press against. The Folds seemed relatively simple, but by the time he finished he held what looked like a strange sort of egg carton, one that could only hold four eggs and bore no lid.
     



He pulled a pen out from somewhere inside his coat and began writing on it. Ceony noted that he was left-handed.

“What is that?” she asked, setting Pip’s Daring Escape down on the cushion of the chair as she stood.

The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “A fortuity box,” he answered, flipping the contraption around and lifting its triangular flaps. Standing on her toes, Ceony peeked around his arm to see him scrawling symbols, one in each Folded triangle. She recognized the shapes as fortune symbols, the ones drawn on cards at fortune-tellers’ booths during carnivals.

“I’m no fortune-teller,” she said.

“You are now,” he replied, pinching the fortuity box in his fingers. He tilted it back and forth to show Ceony the placement. “Remember that you are much different now than you were an hour ago, Ceony. Before you merely read about magic; now you have it. Denying it won’t make you return to ordinary.”

Ceony nodded, wondering at that.

“Now,” he said, leaning back against the table. “Tell me your mother’s maiden name.”

Ceony knit and reknit her fingers, for telling Mg. Thane her mother’s maiden name could be a very bad thing, should he actually be mad. She had heard of a great many ancient curses that involved names during her studies, and she had been cautioned often about the power of names.

Mg. Thane lifted his eyes from the fortuity box. “You can trust me, Ceony. If you’re worried, be assured I could look up the information and more by requesting your permanent records from Praff.”

“How comforting,” she mumbled, but it tempted a smile from her. “It’s Philinger.”

Mg. Thane opened the fortuity box like a mouth, then split it the other way, moving it once for every letter in Philinger. It was a fairly common last name, so he got the spelling right. “Now, your date of birth.”

She told him, and again he swished the panels of the box back and forth.

“Pick a number.”

“Thirteen.”

“No higher than eight.”

She sighed. “Eight.”

Freeing one hand, Mg. Thane lifted a panel to reveal a symbol Ceony couldn’t see. He waited a moment, his eyes a little unfocused, before saying, “Interesting.”

“What?” Ceony asked, trying to spy around him, but he simply shifted the fortuity box from her line of sight.

“Bad luck to see your own fortune. What are they teaching new apprentices these days?” he asked with a click of his tongue, and Ceony could not tell if he jested, for his eyes were downcast to the box and therefore revealed none of their secrets. “It seems you have a bit of an adventure ahead of you.”

Yes. Living with you ought to be quite an “adventure,” she thought. Enough adventure for anyone. Still, part of her regretted the thought the moment it formed in her brain. Surely this man hadn’t personally offended her in any way . . . yet.

“That’s all it says?” she asked.

“That’s all I saw, at least,” he said, handing her the fortuity box. It made her fingers buzz, her body once again registering the new bond it had made.

“Did you catch that?” Mg. Thane asked.

“What you did?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” It had been simple enough.

“Well, go on.”

Ceony held the box in her fingers. “What is your mother’s maiden name?”

“Vladara,” he answered. “One r.”

Ceony opened and closed the box as Mg. Thane had done, then flipped it about for his date of birth. She had guessed right—thirty years old, and turning thirty-one next month. Finally, Mg. Thane picked the number three.

“The number three is bad luck,” Ceony said as she lifted the flap.

“Only for Smelters,” he retorted. A subtle reminder that she would never be one, purposeful or not. She chewed on the inside of her cheek in attempts to mask her still-brewing frustration at the fact.

A curling symbol with a wriggling head greeted her—one that was unfamiliar, for if she had seen it before, she would have remembered. Before she could open her mouth to ask for a translation, her vision doubled, and a strange image entered her mind: the silhouette of a woman, but none she knew. Strangely enough, a name pushed itself against her thoughts as well. Was that normal?

She lowered the fortuity box and narrowed her eyes at him. “Who’s Lira?”

Mg. Thane’s expression did not waver, nor did his stance, but for a moment Ceony could have sworn his eyes flickered dark and back. Only . . . no, they weren’t quite as bright as before. Perhaps it was the late-growing sun outside the library window, but she didn’t think so.

He tapped two fingers against his chin. “Interesting.”

“Who is she?”

“An acquaintance,” he said, and he smiled, all in the mouth. “I think you may have a natural talent for this, Ceony, which is a benefit to both of us. Practice with that, and with the storybook—I’d like to see its full illusion by Saturday. In the meantime, why don’t you unpack your bags?”

Mg. Thane said nothing more on the subject of the fortuity box. Instead, he walked to the door and poked his head out into the hall, shouting, “Breathe!” He waited a beat, and then called, “Jonto, would you come up here and help with this mess?”

Ceony set the fortuity box on the table, wondering if Mg. Thane’s “mess” referred to the snowflakes, or to her.