CHAPTER 12
WHEN SHE AND EMERY arrived at the Parliament building the next day, Ceony protested less vehemently when she was told to sit outside the conference room and wait with Delilah.
“It won’t be as long this time,” Emery whispered as the others associated with Criminal Affairs filtered into the double-door conference room. His breath against her neck gave her shivers, but she hid them well enough. “For the love of all gods, I hope it’s not as long as last time.”
He sighed and turned to the conference room, where Mg. Aviosky lingered outside the doors with a frown. This time, however, the expression was directed at Emery. Ceony wondered at that.
The doors closed, and Delilah and Ceony took their seats.
Ceony waited as long as she could stand it—about five minutes—before turning to Delilah. “Let’s go. Hurry!”
They scrambled from the foyer to the women’s lavatory, passing tired-looking guards. Ceony checked the stalls to ensure the room’s vacancy, then secured the deadbolt on the door.
“Did you bring it?” Ceony asked Delilah.
Delilah, who had begun wringing a handkerchief in her small hands, nodded and hurried to the dresser. From behind it, she pulled out a medium-sized frameless oval mirror with only a thin plastic backing. The mirror shined brightly in the light from the chandelier, free of any cracks or tarnishing. Gaffer’s glass. It looked barely large enough for Ceony to fit through—just a few inches wider than her shoulders and hips.
Ceony held it carefully in her arms.
“Don’t break it, or I won’t be able to pull you back,” Delilah said. “I had to transport it here late last night after Magician Aviosky went to bed. I thought for sure one of the guards would catch me. Turn it around.”
Ceony turned the mirror toward Delilah, who traced it with her finger and synced it with the lavatory mirror. Ceony would take the glider from Emery’s cottage to the rendezvous point—she would be a little late—and warp back to Parliament through the oval mirror in her hands. A quick escape, should things get nasty. If all went as planned, she’d have Grath incapacitated and a dozen paper birds flying to alert local police.
Delilah re-enchanted the lavatory mirror, pulling up the image of the cottage’s lavatory. She then kissed both of Ceony’s cheeks.
“Be quick, and be careful,” she whispered. “I swear I’ll break my promise and get the magicians involved if you’re not back in an hour.”
“Give me two,” Ceony said. “Just to be safe.”
“One and a half, tops,” Delilah countered. She took a deep breath. “Go, you stupid girl. And don’t get yourself killed!”
Still gripping the oval mirror, Ceony climbed onto the dresser and stepped into the cottage bathroom—a bit of a squeeze, given the height of the bathroom mirror. She stepped down onto the porcelain sink, then leapt to the tiled floor. With everything she needed already prepared and in her bag, she darted from the bathroom, down the hall, and up the stairs to the third floor, where Emery’s “big” spells lay, including the glider, a giant paper bird, and some other strange contraption he hadn’t yet finished, which she only knew from snooping. No other furniture save for a stool occupied the large, bare-walled space, which was in need of a good sweeping.
After securing a shield chain around her torso, Ceony stood on the glider and pulled the cord that opened the door in the cottage’s roof, receiving an angry cry from a raven in the process. Then, situating herself on the glider and gripping its handholds, she said, “Breathe.”
The contraption bucked like a wild horse beneath her. Ceony jerked back on the handles, and the glider soared upward through the roof nose first, nearly tossing Ceony from its back. Only after Ceony had straightened it out in the sky, pointing it south, did she realize she would have to return to the cottage to shut the door in the roof. She could only hope it wouldn’t rain before then.
Ceony soared toward London far faster than any buggy could take her, freed from the limitations of roads and rivers, and she stayed as far as she could from the rivers. It all looked like one of the elaborate train sets toy stores sold at Christmastime, but with fewer hills and a duller track. She glided westward, preferring to circumvent the city instead of fly directly over it, for she wanted as few witnesses as possible. Wind thrashed her hair, lashing her braid about like a whip. Ceony pressed herself against the glider, urging it to go faster. She only had so much time before Delilah’s resolve broke, and she feared it would be less than the agreed-upon hour and a half. She held her breath when she flew over the gray-cast River Thames, but it couldn’t be avoided.
Adrenaline didn’t start streaming into her blood until she passed London and started searching the ground for Hangman’s Road. Her decision suddenly felt very real to her, and her heart beat even louder than the wind rushing by her ears. Her hands began to sweat on the handles of the glider, which she squeezed until her knuckles paled.
Slowing down, Ceony pointed the glider closer to the earth. She veered west, following the line of shallow, green-spotted hills marking a long stretch of abandoned farmland. In the shadows of those hills she spied a rust-colored barn, large enough to house several animals. A spattering of weatherworn holes marked the west side of its seal-colored roof, and one of its white-streaked front doors rested crookedly on its hinges. A collapsed cowshed lay just a few yards to its right.
Coaxing the glider up, she circled the house and hills, searching for anything out of the ordinary, anything to indicate Grath had laid a trap for her. She saw nothing.
“Land gently, please,” she begged the glider. She guided it east of the barn. The glider circled three and a half times before skidding on its belly across the long grass.
Ceony flexed her sore hands and slid off the glider, glancing warily at the barn. No sign of Grath. Not yet, anyway.
Reaching into her bag, she unfurled her paper doll. “Stand,” she ordered.
The paper doll stiffened and stood. Aligning herself with it, Ceony said, “Copy.”
The doll colored itself to match her, wind-mussed hair and all. Ceony didn’t bother to smooth it down.
Clutching Delilah’s mirror to her chest and the paper doll under one arm, Ceony cautiously approached the barn, stepping as lightly as the untamed land would allow. She peeked in past the crooked door.
Streaks of sunlight filtered into the barn through the holes in the roof. Empty stables built of splintering wood lined two of the walls, which were studded with hooks and loops that had once held tools. A few pieces of old, dry hay lay scattered over a dirt floor. Bird droppings stained the rafters. But what really drew Ceony’s attention were all the mirrors.
Dozens of them occupied the wide space, some as small as Delilah’s compact, others as tall as the vanity mirror Ceony had shattered. They sat or hung all around the barn, against walls or on the floor, tilted up and down, left and right. Had Grath set these up solely for their meeting, or had he been hiding here the entire time?
Whispering to her paper doll, Ceony left it outside the doors and stepped into the barn, setting her oval mirror against the wall, pleased by how well it blended in with its reflective sisters. Ceony checked the links of her shield chain and reached into her bag, touching each of her spells. She rested her fingers on the barrel of her pistol.
“Grath!” she shouted. “Where—”
“I’m never late for an appointment, sweetheart,” his honey-slick voice said. Ceony whirled around, spying him first in a mirror, and then his true, solid-bodied self in the opposite corner, near an old worn-out saddle on the wall. This time he didn’t wear his false nose, or clothing common in London fashion—he had donned a black shirt with sleeves so short it was nearly sleeveless, and a black jeweled belt across his torso. No, not jeweled—tiny mirrors dotted the leather. He wore well-fitted black slacks, too, and black boots.
Grath folded his arms, which looked notably larger than Ceony remembered them being. She didn’t even think Langston could hold his own against the man. She hoped the bulk was just a trick of the sleeves.
Though Grath wasn’t an Excisioner, Ceony still wanted to avoid all physical contact with him. After all, shield chains would only protect her from spells, not a man’s hands.
She cleared her throat, hoping to banish the fear from her voice. “Where’s Lira?” she asked. She winced at the tremble in her words.
Grath strode forward, and despite Ceony’s desire to show bravery, she took several steps back. The Gaffer smiled at her, but made no comment about her cowardice.
He paused by a stall and gestured to one of the larger mirrors at the back of the barn. “See for yourself.”
Keeping Grath in her peripheral vision, Ceony sidestepped until she could see into the mirror. Instead of her own reflection, she saw Lira, just as she remembered her.
The dark-haired woman crouched, flakes of frost clinging to her limbs and black clothing. Her face was contorted in a half scream, and one red-stained hand was pressed to her left eye, desperately trying to stanch the blood that dripped down her cheek and forearm. Blood from where Ceony had used Lira’s own dagger to defend herself. Small branches of ice glittered off the frozen woman’s skin and clothing.
The one thing that didn’t match Ceony’s memory was Lira’s location. She crouched not on water-strewn rocks stained with ocean salt, but on dark, splintered floorboards dotted with mouse droppings. The mirror didn’t let in enough light for Ceony to see the rest of the space.
“You didn’t bring her here,” Ceony said, pulse quickening. She looked back at Grath. “How can I help her if she’s not here?”
“Don’t be daft,” Grath said, scratching the side of his thick neck with his middle finger. “She’s on the other side of that mirror. One word from me, and we can step through it. Like a portal. A few words from you, and she’ll be whole again, minus an eye.”
He growled those last three words, making him seem much more canine than feline.
Ceony glanced back to Lira. Could she break the spell even if she wanted to? Her words at the gulf had been so absolute, and while she had told Grath the magic wasn’t anything special, she feared that wasn’t true. No Folding spells used blood in their casting, and Ceony had used blood to freeze Lira. Though both logic and Emery had assured her that that didn’t make her an Excisioner, she wondered what it meant. Did she actually have some useful information about switching one’s designated casting material?
“I may not have been entirely honest with you at the bistro,” Ceony said carefully. Knowledge was a powerful thing, and she didn’t want to give too much away. “The spell was accidental, but it may have had some crossover possibilities.”
Grath’s grin widened. “I knew it,” he said, stepping forward. Ceony stepped back, keeping space between them. Surprisingly, Grath halted. He wanted Ceony’s information as much as she wanted his, if not more. Hopefully he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.
“Tell me,” he urged.
“It’s a spell only I can unravel, since I’m the caster,” Ceony said. A lie, though it could be true. She could cease animation on spells Emery had activated, so it was possible that another Folder could manipulate this spell as well. But Grath wasn’t a Folder.
“The spell is in her body, obviously,” Ceony said, pushing her voice to keep it firm. “Have you not asked Saraj to break it? Excisioners have powers over the body. Powers you don’t have.”
“Saraj greatly disliked Lira,” she remembered Emery saying. Perhaps the Excisioner hadn’t tried, then.
Grath ground his teeth together. “We have a spell that can stiffen the body, yes, but the reversal didn’t help Lira. This is a different spell.”
Ceony picked apart his words. “Not we. Saraj.”
Grath’s expression darkened. “Yes, Saraj. For now. But I know Excision like the back of my hand, Ceony Twill. If you can’t break the curse, I will, once blood is my domain. You haven’t let my secret slip, have you?”
He stepped forward.
Ceony held her ground, but she fisted her hand in her bag. “I’m not stupid. I know how to keep things to myself,” she lied. All of Criminal Affairs now knew Grath’s hidden identity as a Gaffer.
Grath paused again, about seven paces from Ceony. He lifted his hands. “It’s all in the material,” he murmured, studying his own palms. “I’ve researched for years, and I know that much. A magician’s magic is all in the material. Those blasted sealing words are so easily spoken, yet so final.”
He hesitated, then scowled, perhaps realizing Ceony was wasting his time. “Tell me what you did!” he barked. “Fix her!”
Ceony jumped at the volume of his voice, which boomed against the rafters and empty walls of the barn. Mirrors quivered under its strength. Swallowing hard, she took a step toward Lira’s mirror.
She stared at Lira, the thorny beauty whose hand and hair concealed most of her face as she crouched in unending agony. Emery had loved her, once. Three years he’d been married to her. Even when Lira had turned away from him, even when Grath had pulled her to darkness, Emery had still loved her. Not until the very end—when all hope had been lost—had he severed the bond between them. Ceony knew. She had seen it for herself.
Lira had been a nurse, Emery had said. A healer. Nurses helped people. Perhaps that was what had drawn Emery to her, besides her beauty. Lira had worked to cure the sick.
Ceony’s memory swirled to the rocky cave on Foulness Island, where Emery’s heart had sat beating in a pool of enchanted blood. Ceony had shot Lira in the chest with her pistol. But the Excisioner had used dark magic to pull the bullet free, healing herself. For a brief moment, under Grath’s scrutiny, Ceony wondered if that could have been what drew Lira to Excision. Had Grath offered her a way to heal people to which modern medicine couldn’t compare? Had Lira initially wanted to be the kind of person who could heal someone with just a single touch, a single spell?
Ceony peered into the mirror. Lira had been a good person, once. To win Emery’s love, she must have been. But Excision had darkened her, stolen her soul away.
“Grath was our neighbor when we lived in Berkshire . . .”
Grath. She turned toward him. Grath had planted the evil in Lira’s heart, nourished it like a gardener would his plot. No, Ceony wouldn’t free Lira; Emery had given her chance after chance, and she had proved she had no redemption left in her.
But Ceony couldn’t free Grath, either. She couldn’t let him go back to the city and hurt more people, draw more innocents into the dark arts. Possibly become an Excisioner himself. She had to stop it.
Reaching down to the very base of her bag, Ceony gripped her Tatham percussion-lock pistol and pulled it free from its bed of Folded spells.
She leveled it at Grath.