The Paper Magician

CHAPTER 5



PAPIER-MCHé IS TRADITIONALLY DONE in two forms, Ceony wrote in her ledger with a tired hand, paper strips and paper mulch, to which is added either glue or starch.

Sighing, Ceony set her pencil down and stared across her bedroom to its single window over the bed. The sun cast leafy shadows across her pillow.

Would Mg. Thane return today? She didn’t have even a tenth of her latest homework stack completed if he did. Surely he wouldn’t penalize her for that, but Ceony had come to learn that the paper magician only sometimes did what she expected.

The house, its doors and windows still locked from last night, sat quiet enough that if Ceony held her breath, she could hear the library clock ticking in the next room. Fennel had taken to adventuring downstairs, and Ceony had shoved Jonto’s inanimate bones into a closet in the office and left him there. Now the place seemed . . . lifeless.

She glanced down. The words in the papier-maché book blurred in and out. Yawning, she shut both it and the ledger and dropped them onto the floor, hearing a loud thunk in return. She pulled out Anatomy of the Human Body Volume II and flipped to her bookmark halfway through the chapter detailing the cardiovascular system. She stared at a picture of a dissected artery, turned the page, and stared at a diagram of a heart cut longwise to show its four chambers. She read a paragraph and shut the book again.

She heard Fennel climb up the stairs, pause, then climb back down. Eager to get away from her desk, Ceony abandoned her work and went downstairs.

She found Fennel sniffing about the door to Mg. Thane’s office, perhaps smelling Jonto, since Mg. Thane would never leave food sitting out. Ceony opened the door and the paper dog ran in, sniffing as he went. He stood on his hind legs to investigate the paper chains hanging from the window and, as suspected, trotted to the closet to smell after the paper butler.

Ceony glanced to the ivy-covered window. So quiet in the house. So irresponsible for a magician to leave his new apprentice on her own, wasn’t it? She should report it to Mg. Aviosky.

She lowered her gaze to the desk. Might as well take advantage of his absence before I do that, she thought.

The tiniest smile teased her lips as she sat down in Mg. Thane’s desk chair and began opening his drawers, none of which had been locked. She found nothing interesting—a few ledgers of conference notes, spare pens and pencils, a bizarre multipointed paper star that looked like it belonged on the end of a mace. A lint brush, a small sewing kit. Ceony made sure to leave everything straight and tidy before closing each drawer. She had no doubt Mg. Thane would notice a pen knocked a few millimeters out of place.

She reached for the wire note holder, running her fingers over the edge of the thank-you letter she had mailed out over a year ago. Fifteen thousand pounds.

She chewed on her lip, not wanting to dwell on that mystery for the moment. She thumbed through the other letters, reading off names, some preceded by “Mg.” or “Dr.” She spotted one that read “Alfred Hughes.” Thinking of the telegram, she pulled it free, only to discover it was an old Christmas card without a photo. Her memory tickled at her—she’d heard that name before. A Mg. Alfred Hughes sat on the Magicians’ Cabinet, didn’t he? Yes . . . he did. A Siper—a rubber magician. He’d given a speech at Tagis Praff once. Mg. Thane had friends in high places.

Oddly enough, none of the letters read “Thane” on them—none appeared to be from family. Mg. Thane had mentioned being an only child, but what about his parents? His cousins? Surely he had cousins.

She scoured the bookshelves next, finding more textbooks and old novels, ledgers filled from cover to cover. The only thing that stood out was a Granger Academy yearbook dated 1888–1889. Apparently she and Mg. Thane had attended the same secondary school, albeit twelve years apart. Odd that Mg. Aviosky would assign her to a magician so young, but there were few other options for Folders. Perhaps that was why she had sat so rigidly in the buggy.

Fennel pawed at her shoes.

“I know, I have work to do,” Ceony said, suppressing a sigh. She scooped the paper dog into her arms, laughing as he wagged his tail, and carefully pushed Mg. Thane’s chair back under the desk.

She spent the rest of the day Folding frogs and fans, reading more about anatomy than she ever wanted to know, and doodling in the margins of her notes on papier-maché.



When Mg. Thane didn’t return the next day, Ceony began to worry.

She had never considered herself someone prone to worrying, and it seemed almost silly to worry over someone whom she’d only worked with for a short time, let alone someone she hadn’t wanted to work with in the first place, but she worried.

She imagined that flicker in his eyes just before he’d left, thought of the privacy of the telegram. And she worried.

She thought again to contact Mg. Aviosky, but didn’t. What would she say? Today, at least, she had no desire to get Emery Thane in trouble, so she busied herself with chores to take her mind off of things.

She fried fish and chips for lunch, enough for one. She wiped down the countertops and swept out the kitchen. She gathered her laundry to wash it.

Outside her bedroom, Ceony peered down the hallway to Mg. Thane’s bedroom door, which he had left closed. It would be kind to wash his, too, wouldn’t it?

Leaving her own dirty clothes in a pile near the stairs, Ceony let herself into the paper magician’s bedroom and spied around.

His bed was larger than hers, understandably, and the window across from its foot was larger as well. Three different candlesticks sat atop the dresser by the door, which was missing three of its bronze handles. A collection of beads, some sort of jewelry box, and a variety of paper gadgets that looked like chunks of machinery sat all around them. A bottle of brandy and a glass sat on the nightstand beside a novel without a cover, a bottle with a ship inside of it, and a tall paper box painted gray, violet, and peach.
     



There was a shelf stacked with larger sheets of paper, writing utensils, and books; a closet full of more long coats and dress slacks; and a hamper brimming with dirty clothes.

She put her hands on either side of her face like a horse’s blinders and went straight for the hamper. No snooping today. She was nineteen years old—she could respect a man’s privacy.

She washed clothes until her knuckles turned red, then hung them on a line in the backyard to dry.



Ceony woke up alone again the next day. After finishing her anatomy book, she took down the laundry and folded it. Unsure of where Mg. Thane kept the particulars of his clothing, she left it on his bed for him to put away when he returned.

She paused at a bookshelf on her way out. Good heavens, the man owned a lot of books. She perused the titles, wondering why these books had been kept in his room instead of in the library. Not snooping, not really. Just curiosity.

She found only a handful of textbooks—most of the volumes appeared to be leisure reading, both by popular and unpopular authors. She found a second copy of A Tale of Two Cities and a poetry book by Matthew Arnold. At the end of that particular shelf she found a hymnal.

“Strange,” she said, pulling the leather-bound book off the shelf. Her fingers left prints in the dust sprinkling its cover. Mg. Thane didn’t seem the religious sort. He didn’t say grace at dinner. The spine cracked. Ceony flipped through the pages, noting the excellent condition of the book’s spine.

Then she discovered the gold-etched inscription on the cover. It read “The Thanes.”

“Thanes?” she asked aloud. Who was the other Thane? Mg. Thane certainly wasn’t married, and the book looked too new to belong to his parents. Perhaps the paper magician had a bastard child out in Norwich and this had been someone’s clever way of blackmailing him.

She laughed at the idea and flipped back through the pages again, spying hymns both familiar and unfamiliar.

Something fell out from the back pages—pressed wildflowers.

Crouching, Ceony picked up the purple and orange blossoms with a soft touch and examined their brittle beauty. She wasn’t sure what sort of flowers these were. Which of the Thanes had kept them here?

Fennel barked from the hallway. Ceony returned the hymnal to its place on the shelf and wiped her dusty fingers on her skirt. She stepped out of her mentor’s room and shut the door behind her.

She didn’t enter it again.



A few days later, at approximately six in the morning, Ceony woke to a loud pounding on her bedroom door. She shrieked and jumped to her feet, remembering first Mg. Thane’s admonition to keep the doors locked—

“We’re learning about paper boats today!” Mg. Thane’s cheery voice said from the other side of the door. “Bright and early! Up we go!”

Ceony’s pulse pounded in her neck. Pulling the top blanket off her bed and hiding her nightgown with it, she cracked open the door. Mg. Thane stood there just as he had left, fully dressed and donning that indigo coat.

“I . . . when did you get back?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Just now. Where did you put Jonto?”

“In the . . . ,” she began, but instead said, “How did things go? Did you see this friend of yours?”

“Things went, at least,” he answered. “And thank you for doing my laundry, but you didn’t need to, as I wasn’t here to wear it. Library in ten minutes.”

He clapped his hands once and strode down the hallway.

Six days. The man had been gone six days, and that was all he had to say about it?

Ceony shut the door and rubbed the back of her neck. Then again, what right do I have to know where he goes?

Shaking her head, she dressed and combed through her hair, braiding it behind her left ear. At least he hadn’t mentioned more testing.

By the time Ceony made it to the library, Mg. Thane had already taken his usual position on the carpet with his board on his lap. A few pieces of rectangular paper rested beside him. Ceony studied him as he approached. Unsoiled clothes, clean shaven, but his shoulders had a slight stoop to them, and faint circles lined his eyes. Tired, then, but from what? Why make the effort of another lesson when he should be getting some rest?

Ceony sat across from him and didn’t ask. Let him keep his secrets, then.

“For a boat, we start with a half-Fold, then two double dog-ear Folds,” Mg. Thane explained, Folding as he spoke.

“What good is a paper boat?” Ceony asked. “No one can fit on it, and it will sink.”

“Ah, but an enchanted paper boat won’t sink easily.”

“Easily?”

“It will sink,” he said with a nod, more toward his knees than to Ceony, “but slowly. Generations of Folders have yet to waterproof paper, but they can at least make it stubborn. Boats are useful for relaying messages when sending one through air is too bothersome. Or too risky. A little outdated with telegraphs and this mythical telephone, perhaps, but you should learn it anyway.”

He flipped the spell toward her and Folded the paper’s edges to form the boat’s base. “Fold it like an animation. I’m sure you remember the rules.”

Ceony nodded, but as Mg. Thane finished the last Folds, she saw up his loose coat sleeve to a bandage coiled thickly around his right forearm.

Something inside of her twanged, like a fiddle string had been stretched down her torso, fastened between throat and navel. With a soft voice, she asked, “What happened to your arm?”

Mg. Thane’s fingers stilled. He glanced up at her, then to his arm. He pulled the sleeve down to the palm of his hand. “Just a bump,” he said. “I often forget how much focus walking requires.”

She frowned. That same string twisted, and she had a distinct feeling her tutor was hiding something.

She wondered if his arm hurt.

The paper magician handed her a sheet of paper and had her copy his Folds, which she managed to get right on her first try. The fact gave her little comfort.

Mg. Thane stood, board under his uninjured arm. “Now down to the river to test them out!”

Now the string pulled tight enough to snap. Muscles all over Ceony’s body went rigid, especially in the neck, shoulders, and knees. “R-River? The one outside?”

Mg. Thane grinned. “There’s hardly one inside, is there?”

Ceony felt herself root to the floor. Mg. Thane offered a hand to help her up, but she couldn’t lift her arms to take it. Her pulse quickened and her cheeks reddened. “I . . .” She cleared her throat. “Can we test them in the lavatory? The tub? Please?”
     



He lowered his hand. “I suppose. You’re not hydrophobic, are you?”

Ceony’s face grew hotter.

“Oh,” he said, sobering. “I admit that surprises me. You don’t seem the type.”

Ceony managed to loosen her shoulders enough for a shrug. “Everyone is afraid of something, right?”

The paper magician nodded, albeit slowly. “True. Very . . . true. The tub it is, then.”

He offered his hand a second time. Ceony grasped it and let him pull her up, getting a strange tingle in her fingertips just before he released her.

She pressed the fingers against her cheek to cool her face. She followed Mg. Thane to the lavatory, where they crowded around the bathtub and cast the spells “Float” and “Endure” on the boats. Before hers had a chance to sink, Ceony excused herself to her room and picked up Astrology for Youth, but for some reason she had a difficult time concentrating.



Fennel whined an airy whine at Ceony’s feet as she dropped the last fish cakes into the fryer. He wagged his tail, hopeful.

“You can’t eat it, silly thing,” Ceony chided the paper dog, scooting him back with her foot to open the oven. She pulled from it a shallow ceramic dish filled with asparagus. She had hated asparagus until she worked as a caterer during her last year of secondary school. Apparently anyone of importance ate asparagus, so she had coaxed herself into tolerating it as well.

The stair door opened and Mg. Thane emerged, looking somewhat less tired than he had that morning. Perhaps he had napped while Ceony cooked dinner. “Mmm,” he said. “I do hope you’re cooking for two.”

“I’m cooking for two so long as I can burn that papier-maché ledger without your review of it,” Ceony said. She picked up a fish cake with a fork and waved it back and forth, claiming both the magician’s and the paper dog’s attention. “It’s busywork I’d rather not finish, but if I must, I’ll finish it with a basket full of fish cakes in my lap.”

Mg. Thane laughed. “I’m sure this sort of bribery is disapproved by the school board. I really should read those letters they send me . . .”

Ceony let the fish cake hover, and Mg. Thane waved a hand. “Yes yes, let it burn. I’m famished.”

Grinning at her victory, Ceony put the fish cake back and pulled the last of them from the fryer before taking the dishes to the table she had already set. Mg. Thane pulled out her chair before sitting in his own.

“We need groceries again,” Ceony said, setting a fish cake on her plate before passing them to Mg. Thane. “And I was wondering what day of the month to expect my stipend.”

“I shan’t ever partake of my apprentice’s cooking without discussing money, so it seems,” he replied, setting two fish cakes on his own plate. He lifted his fork, again foregoing grace. “I will, however—”

At least one more word escaped the paper magician’s lips, but a loud explosion in the hallway muffled the sound.

Ceony dropped the asparagus dish onto the table and whirled around, staring with wide eyes as bits of wood and paper blew in on a breeze from the hallway and drifted into the dining room. The smell of dust and paint mixed with haddock and chives. Mg. Thane leapt to his feet.

Loud footfalls like sarcastic applause sounded in the hallway. Hard shoes with heels. Ceony stepped forward, but Mg. Thane held out his arm, stopping her. All the mirth had vanished from his face. He looked altered—not cheery nor distracted, but stony. Taller, and his coat seemed to bristle about him like a wild cat’s fur.

A woman stepped into the dining room. She was stunning—tall with long, waving hair such a dark brown it looked almost black, coffee-colored eyes, and fair skin without the slightest trace of freckles. She donned a black shirt well fitted to her rather ample figure, and tight pants with panels over the knees. She wore two-inch gray heels that fastened with two cords around her ankles.

There was something familiar about her. It took Ceony only seconds to pinpoint where she’d seen this woman’s face before.

The fortuity box.

Mg. Thane paled. “Lira?”

Ceony’s stomach sank. That was all the response her body could manage before the woman stepped forward, a vial of dark-red liquid clutched in her hand.

It happened in a blur. Mg. Thane grabbed Ceony’s arm and tried to pull her behind him, but the woman, Lira, dribbled the red liquid into her hand and flung it toward Ceony, shouting, “Blast!”

An impact like a giant fist slammed into Ceony. It knocked the air from her lungs and sent her flying into the corner of the table, hard enough that the table turned over with the impact, dumping its still-hot contents over the floor with a loud crash as ceramic plates split into hundreds of pieces across the hardwood. Ceony’s backside slammed into the dining room wall, and she slumped to the floor.

Everything went black for a moment, then morphed into shadows and light. Ceony blinked several times as something else thumped against the wall nearby—she felt the vibrations through the wood. Her vision clear and her back throbbing, she lifted her head to see Mg. Thane pressed against the wall, held up by invisible hands. He struggled to speak, but something unseen held his jaw closed. The artery on the side of his neck had swollen.

Ceony looked at her hands, spotting blood on them. She panicked for a split second until she realized the blood was cold and not her own. The liquid Lira had thrown at her—blood.

Her whole body froze.

Blood.

Flesh magic.

Lira was an Excisioner. A practitioner of the forbidden craft.

Ceony looked back up to see Lira grab Mg. Thane’s collar and rip it down clear to his sternum, exposing his chest. “I’m finally leaving, dearie,” she whispered, “and I’m taking you with me.”

She plunged her right hand into his chest. Ceony stifled a cry. A golden ring of dust sparkled about Lira’s wrist as Mg. Thane screamed between clenched teeth. Lira pulled her red-stained hand back out, clasping a still-beating heart between her bloodied fingers.

Sweat beaded on Ceony’s forehead and temples. Her own heart sped in her chest, making her dizzy.

Put your head down! she thought, skin cold. She tried to feign unconsciousness, but her body trembled and tears drizzled from her eyes. If this woman could so easily defeat Mg. Thane, then she would kill Ceony in an instant. She likely had meant to.

The heels clicked against the floor. Ceony opened her eyes, peering between toppled chairs. Lira dripped several droplets of Thane’s blood into her palm, smiled, then threw the blood to the floor. She vanished in a swirl of red smoke.
     



Ceony cried out the moment the woman faded. Scrambling to her feet, her hips screaming with deep-set bruises, she ran to Mg. Thane. Before she reached him, the spell holding him up wore off and he slumped to the floor.