CHAPTER 10
AFTER SPENDING THE NEXT hour mirror-hopping, Ceony and Delilah rushed back into the Parliament lobby, receiving several quizzical looks from the red-clad foot guards monitoring the hallways. Immense relief washed over Ceony at the sight of the closed doors. Mg. Hughes was speaking loudly on the other side. She sank into her red velvet chair to keep from getting dizzy.
Delilah scuttled to the other chair like a crab, moving sideways as she stared at the doors. They didn’t open, and Delilah sat without consequence.
Ceony leaned forward, seized Delilah’s wrist, and said, “Promise me you won’t say a word.”
“But—”
“Not a word!” she hissed, glancing back to the doors herself. Had she heard a chair scooting back, or was she imagining things? It didn’t matter. They would have no way of knowing what she and Delilah had been doing.
She took a deep breath. Knowing Emery, he’d pick up on something if she didn’t act completely calm. She could play up her frustration at being excluded from the meeting if need be.
Pinning her gaze on Delilah again, Ceony said, “Promise me.”
Delilah wilted. “I promise,” she mumbled. “Oh, Ceony, had I known you better at Praff, I never would have passed my final exam!” She hiccupped. “Now I have heartburn.”
The right door to the meeting room opened from within, and a man Ceony only knew as a Polymaker—a plastics magician—stepped out, his attention still on the room within. Empty chairs now surrounded the oval table, but magicians and several uniformed policemen clustered about it in twos and threes, mumbling to one another.
Scooting closer to Delilah, Ceony whispered, “Don’t forget tomorrow.”
Delilah rubbed her palms up and down her arms. “But where will we do it?”
“The lavatory,” Ceony said, glancing at the conference room. The clusters of people were beginning to break up and inch toward the door. “There’s a lock on the door in the lavatory, from the inside.”
Magicians began to filter into the lobby. Ceony snapped back from Delilah and smoothed her hair, noting that her braid looked a little tousled. A person didn’t get a tousled braid from sitting idly in a chair all morning long.
Would Emery notice? Ceony couldn’t help but wonder how much Emery noticed about her at all. Their conversation in the flat’s living room still sat uneasily with her.
She kept her eyes on the conference room doors, watching as Mg. Hughes stepped out into the foyer and started talking with another man she didn’t know. Mg. Cantrell—the Smelter who had interrogated Emery after the buggy crashed into the river—followed behind.
Delilah popped up from her chair like a spring, clutching her bag as if she had stolen it as Mg. Aviosky and Emery made their way over. Ceony resisted reaction—she prayed Delilah wouldn’t give them away with her body language alone.
“I apologize for the delay,” Mg. Aviosky said, glancing behind her shoulder to Mg. Hughes. “Some of us are especially long-winded.”
Ceony faked a yawn and covered it with a hand. “It was long, and those books are tiresome. I assume I’ll hear nothing of what you decided without me?”
Emery frowned—it only showed in his eyes—but before he could respond, Mg. Aviosky answered, “Correct, Miss Twill. The less you know, the safer you are. I’ll be sure to have you debriefed once things have been settled.”
Emery picked up Ceony’s stack of books and cradled them in the crook of one arm, then rested his other hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go back. We have some things to review.”
Mg. Aviosky cleared her throat, and Ceony noticed that her spectacles-framed gaze rested solidly on Emery’s hand. It quickly moved up to Emery’s face.
“If you don’t mind, Magician Thane, I’d like to speak to Ceony privately for a moment,” she said. “Only a moment.”
Ceony’s stomach dropped about half an inch. She feared she knew what Mg. Aviosky wanted to discuss and took great effort not to make eye contact with Emery.
Delilah looked worried.
“Very well,” Emery said, removing his hand. To Ceony he said, “I’ll be outside.”
“Delilah, if you’ll wait here,” Mg. Aviosky said as Emery left. “Miss Twill, this way.”
Ceony, stomach dropping a little more, followed two paces behind Mg. Aviosky. Ironically enough, they ended up in the women’s lavatory where Delilah had worked her magic just moments before.
Ceony made a point of not looking at the mirror. Mg. Aviosky gestured to the chair they’d used to scramble up the dresser. Ceony sat without word.
“When I assigned you to be a Folder,” Mg. Aviosky began, her hands clasped behind her back as she paced back and forth, “I debriefed you on the proper apprenticely conduct and what was expected of you once you began your employment under Magician Thane.”
Trying to keep her brow smooth, Ceony nodded.
“Perhaps there are a few things I forgot to mention,” Mg. Aviosky said, taking a moment to push her round-framed spectacles up higher on her nose. “Such as referring to a magician by his first name.”
Ceony flushed. “I . . . I didn’t mean to do it, it’s just—”
“I’ll tell you now that I do not like mixed sexes in magician-apprentice relationships,” Mg. Aviosky went on, “and I do not assign them unless I deem it necessary, which in your case, it was. Eleven of our twelve Folders are male, and the only female already has an apprentice.”
Ceony touched a hand to her cheek in a feeble attempt to cool it. In all her daydreams regarding Emery, nothing quite this humiliating had ever happened.
“I believe you and Magician Thane are entirely too familiar with each other,” Mg. Aviosky continued, glancing at Ceony briefly before switching her focus to one of the lavatory’s ferns. “Which I do not credit entirely to you, Miss Twill. I’m not here to scold you, only to warn and protect you.”
Ceony slid forward on her chair. “Protect me? What exactly do you suspect Magician Thane would do?” She paled. “Mercy in heaven, have you spoken to him about this?”
“No, I have not,” the Gaffer clarified. “I wanted to speak with you first.”
Ceony released a long breath of air, offering silent thanks that she had been saved that embarrassment, at least.
She slumped in her chair, gaze dropping to the floor.
“Why do you do all of this for me, Ceony?”
“You know why.”
She swallowed hard, feeling like a stroke of paint on a canvas far too large for her to comprehend.
Mg. Aviosky said, “I think it’s in your best interest—and Magician Thane’s—if I transfer you.”
Ceony’s stomach sunk to her ankles.
“I’ve seen to the arrangements,” Mg. Aviosky continued. “Magician Howard’s apprentice isn’t expected to advance until the end of the summer, but she’s agreed to take on a second apprentice in order to boost our Folder numbers. I think you’ll find her to be very amicable, and—”
“I don’t want to transfer,” Ceony interrupted, her brow thoroughly knit now. “I told you before that I want to continue learning from Magician Thane.”
Mg. Aviosky frowned. “And as I’ve said, you two are far too familiar with each other. I see things you don’t think I see—”
“Like what?” Ceony blurted, standing.
“And as the administrator of apprenticeships,” she continued, “I am making the decision to transfer you, once I finalize the arrangements and speak to—”
“Of course I’m familiar with him!” Ceony said, raising her voice and cutting off Mg. Aviosky’s words clean at the preposition. “I live with him! I learn from him! I’ve walked through his heart, Aviosky! You know that!”
“Yes,” Mg. Aviosky said, stiff. “I recall. I also recall you were both incredibly vague about just what you experienced there, which only fuels my concern.”
Ceony shook her head. She felt hot, as if her own pulse were steadily bringing her blood to a boil. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is—”
“I will decide what does and doesn’t matter, Miss Twill!” Mg. Aviosky shot back.
“No!” she shouted, loud enough that Mg. Aviosky retreated a step. “You don’t understand what it was like in there. You can’t understand what happened! I know his heart better than my own, don’t you see?”
Mg. Aviosky didn’t respond.
“I feel like I’ve known him all my life,” Ceony continued, quieter now. “Like he was always meant to be a part of it. And Folding . . . I love Folding because he taught it to me, because he showed me the beauty in simple things. The beauty I have within myself.”
“Miss Twill—”
“I love him,” Ceony said, and Mg. Aviosky’s eyes widened almost to the size of polo balls. “And it’s as though I’ve always loved him. As though that feeble paper heart I gave him were my own . . .”
She paused, realizing she had said too much. She had stunned Mg. Aviosky into silence.
Ceony stood straighter and forced herself to speak calmly. “I haven’t broken any rules,” she said. “I’m well versed on them. I could recite them to you verbatim, if necessary. Until I break a rule, it’s unnecessary for you to take any action, especially as drastic as this. I believe that’s something on which we both can agree.”
Mg. Aviosky pursed her lips.
“For now,” Ceony said, her tone as formal as she could make it, “I would like to continue studying under Magician Thane.”
Ceony walked to the door, but before opening it, she said, “If it makes a difference, I’m sure Magician Thane would not give you a similar speech. I can assure you my infatuation is entirely one-sided.”
Ceony hurried back into the hallway, which felt significantly cooler than the lavatory. She pressed both hands to her cheeks, then her neck, urging her skin to cool. She pinched the front of her blouse and shook it to get some air. Her heels clicked loudly against the hallway’s tiled floor.
She blinked rapidly to avoid crying. How dare Mg. Aviosky stick her nose where it didn’t belong!
She sucked in a deep breath and held it for several steps.
Her shoulders remembered the weight of Emery’s arm around them, and she could feel the warm press of his lips against her forehead as she shivered in the black waters of the river by the cottage. She thought of how he often wore an inscrutable expression to conceal his thoughts, of the late nights he spent in contemplation. What did he conceal behind those mindful expressions, those unreadable glances?
Entirely one-sided. But was it?
She banished the thoughts from her mind and swallowed the small lump forming in her throat. Now was not the time for girlish ponderings.
Glancing over her shoulder, Ceony saw no sign of Mg. Aviosky, but she did catch Delilah’s eye. Ceony must have looked a wreck judging from the way Delilah’s face scrunched. Ceony managed a nod—they were safe, as far as Grath went—and turned away, fanning herself with both hands. Giving herself a moment to calm down.
Emery was waiting just outside Parliament’s east doors, standing by a buggy, apparently having a conversation with the driver. When he saw Ceony, his eyes narrowed.
The driver hurried around to his side of the car. Emery met Ceony halfway and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Ceony shook her head and stepped past him. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just Magician Aviosky being herself.”
The concern didn’t leave his green eyes—if anything, it intensified—but he didn’t push for an answer. Reaching around Ceony, he opened the door to the buggy and helped her in.
It was a long, silent ride home.