CHAPTER 19
CEONY THANKED THE DRIVER when she disembarked at Mg. Aviosky’s home—a tall, gothic structure that rested on its own corner of the street, where the main city eased into a suburb. Charcoal-colored shingles covered both its gabled roof and a turret, behind which rested a narrow chimney free of smoke. It boasted a long porch behind a short, spindled fence, and the decorative columns holding up the second story looked as if they had been stolen from giant sitting-room chairs. Ceony had been to the house thrice before, once for the celebration for her graduation from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined—before Mg. Aviosky announced that Ceony had been assigned to Folding; once to visit Delilah; and once two days ago, when Mg. Aviosky had pulled her from that awful basement in Belgium.
Yet as Ceony trudged up the steps to the house—somewhat surprised that Mg. Aviosky hadn’t come outside to meet her—her heart and mind lingered at the train station. Emery had likely boarded his train by now. If only she could have followed him and found out its destination. Surely not far, unless Saraj had left town. And if the deadly Excisioner had left town, Ceony wished the Magicians’ Cabinet would leave it at that and let Emery stay.
She rubbed two fingers against her chest as she rang the bell, trying to soothe the pain between her lungs. She imagined a canyon much like the one she had seen in Emery’s heart forming there. If he didn’t make it back to her, she knew it would rip her in two. Criminal Affairs had protected her family, but why couldn’t they also have protected the man she loved?
She licked her lips and allowed herself a moment of gratitude for her good memory. Whatever happened, she would always remember that, down to the very last, minute detail. As she closed her eyes and relished the memory, her knees turned weak. Oh, Emery, please don’t get yourself killed.
No one answered the door, so Ceony knocked. She wondered if she’d be able to retrieve her things from the flat, but surely two Gaffers could manage to collect her belongings for her. And her stay would be temporary. Only a week, surely. Maybe two.
Stepping back from the door, Ceony peered in the direction of the train station, straining to hear one of its whistles over the sounds of the city. She heard nothing but silence and the melody of an unseen songbird in the crabapple tree shading the left half of Mg. Aviosky’s yard.
She sighed and tested the knob. Finding it unlocked, she let herself in.
The house opened onto stairs leading to the second floor and a hallway leading deeper into the first. Ceony peered into the front room lit with streaks of sunlight that pushed through the closed blinds.
“Magician Aviosky?” Ceony called. “Delilah?”
Odd that they weren’t home. Given the circumstances, Mg. Aviosky should have been awaiting Ceony’s arrival. She was too rigid not to be.
Her stomach suddenly felt drained. She slapped the back of her neck, thinking she felt a bug crawling over her skin, but it was only a wisp of hair.
Slipping off her shoes—Mg. Aviosky had particular rules concerning shoes on her carpet—Ceony pulled herself up the eleven stairs to the second floor, which held the library, the living room, and a long hallway filled with mirrors and bedroom doors. Delilah’s room was the third on the right, but Ceony found it empty, as was the bathroom and what she assumed to be Mg. Aviosky’s room, judging by the size and lack of décor.
She heard shuffling from the third floor. They had to be in the study or the mirror room, then. Perhaps Delilah was in the middle of a lesson.
Ceony wound around to the last set of stairs and climbed them, the boards creaking under her feet. Unlike in Emery’s cottage, the third floor of Mg. Aviosky’s home was the smallest, and it bore only three rooms—the large mirror room where Delilah practiced her craft, Mg. Aviosky’s study, and a tiny room for storage.
“Magician Aviosky?” Ceony called. She reached for the door to the mirror room, but it swung open before she could touch the knob. The man on the other side filled the entire doorway, and his sharp canines gleamed with a light all their own.
“Hello, pet.” Grath grinned.
Ceony sucked in air for a scream and stumbled backward, but Grath’s meaty hand shot out and grabbed her by the valley between her neck and shoulder, digging his nails into the muscle there. He yanked Ceony into the mirror room, which was bathed in sunlight from the uncovered windows. Misty clouds had begun to crawl across the sky.
Ceony’s feet lost the floor as Grath hefted her eye-level with him. Grinning wider, he shifted his weight and threw her onto the floorboards. The wood thudded under her kneecaps, and her joints screamed in retaliation. The skin over her left knee broke, and Ceony finally managed to get air over her vocal cords. The result sounded like a mix between a gasp and a whimper.
Shaking herself, Ceony pushed her body up. The first thing she saw was her own reflection in an antique mirror on the wall beside her. Two large, multipaned windows hovered over her, and the space between them was crowded with more mirrors and tables filled with blown glass, glass beads, and glass shards. Then she saw Delilah’s reflection in a tall mirror made of Gaffer’s glass—the same mirror she had stumbled out of on her return from Belgium.
Ceony scrambled to her feet. Delilah had been tied to a chair with coarse rope, her white handkerchief knotted and stuffed into her mouth. She tried to cry out, but the gag muted her words. Tears spilled from her wide, brown eyes.
Beside her stood—no, hung—Mg. Aviosky, her toes barely touching the ground, her arms stretched up over her head and tied with more rope, which had been slung over a hook in the ceiling, meant to hold a chandelier. Mg. Aviosky’s head lolled to one side, and her glasses sat crooked on her nose, the right lens cracked.
She was unconscious, and her hands had turned a ghostly white, her forearms purple.
“No!” Ceony shouted, running for the magicians, but Grath found her hair and yanked her back, pulling several orange strands from her scalp in the process. Ceony’s back collided with Grath’s wide chest, and he wrapped a thick arm around her neck.
“I’d hoped you would come, Ceony,” he said into her ear, low and snakelike. Delilah squirmed in her chair, screaming futilely against her gag. “I thought you should be the first to know that I figured out our little secret. Chasing you all over Europe gave me time to think about it, as did our chats about Lira.”
“Let them go!” Ceony pleaded. She dug her nails into Grath’s arm, but it didn’t seem to faze him. She kicked her legs, but couldn’t find a good angle to strike him. “Please, do whatever you want with me, but let them go. They’re not part of this!”
“Oh, but they are,” Grath said. He released Ceony and spun her around, then shoved her against the wall. A small, triangular mirror toppled onto the floor, cracking into thirds. Sharp pain radiated in her shoulder blades.
“They’re all part of this,” he continued. “I’ll make them part of this, and I’ll let you watch. Let you know how it feels to be able to do nothing while your loved ones die.”
“She’s not dead!” Ceony protested. “Lira, she’s just frozen—”
“I’ll take care of Lira,” Grath spat. He reached out and dug his knuckle into the bruise on Ceony’s cheek, making her cry out. “I’ll take care of her. I know it all; I just need the power first. But this time, I won’t let you get in the way.”
He pulled her off the wall, one hand under her armpit and the other around her neck, and slammed her into the window. Ceony struggled against the fingers pressing into her windpipe.
With the slightest smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, Grath said, “Shatter.”
The window shattered, and Ceony choked on a scream as the fragments of glass pushed their way into her skin, past her shirt and chemise, tearing her skirt and stockings. Glass embedded itself up and down her back and into her neck. It flew past her shoulders, slicing open fabric and skin. It stabbed like hundreds of tiny daggers into the back of her legs and knees. Fiery darts of pain pricked her body and dozens of small rivers of blood drizzled over her skin.
She gasped, a fish out of water, and Grath released her, letting her drop like a broken doll onto the floor. Bits of glass small as an infant’s fingernails were embedded in the skin of her hand, and star-shaped crisscrosses adorned her arms. Blood soaked her sleeves, and from what she could see in the mirrors, it soaked her back as well.
The blood may as well have been acid given the way her skin burned around the glass.
She tried to move, tried to push herself up, but the angry shards dug deeper into her skin, searing like hot coals. She wheezed and let herself go limp on the floor, cutting the side of her face on yet more broken gems of glass.
Grath brushed off his hands and grinned. “You see, Ceony,” he said, pacing the room back toward Delilah and Aviosky, “it is about the words, and it is about the material.” He patted Delilah on the cheek; she had gone still in her binds. “I kept thinking of Lira, my dear Lira, and how to cure this obnoxious hex you placed on her. I knew I had to reverse it. And I thought, Reverse. Yes, that makes sense, doesn’t it? Reverse the spell.
“Binding is a spell, too, you know,” he continued, tapping one hand against the other behind his back. “But all spells have counters, a ‘Cease’ command or the like. So why shouldn’t the Binding spell have one, too?”
Ceony held her breath and tried to move, groaning against the sensation of the glass shards shifting in her skin. Her hand slipped in blood, and she collapsed back onto the floorboards.
Grath smirked and paced, this time closer to her. “So I studied, I tested, I practiced like a good apprentice. But I was still missing something. I had to step outside the frame, so to speak, and really analyze what I wanted to achieve. And last night I figured it out while I was staring into the very mirror you left me at that restaurant. Do you want to know what I learned?”
Ceony’s fingers slid across the floor, catching on a bloodied pyramid of glass.
“Me!” Grath announced, lifting his hands in a grand gesture. “The missing piece is me. Clever, isn’t it?”
“Deli . . . lah,” Ceony groaned, trying to slide across the floorboards. She felt hot liquid bubble up from her back and winced.
“Don’t you see?” Grath asked, strolling back toward Delilah and Mg. Aviosky. “I am the key! I must rebond to myself.”
Ceony blinked, his words taking a moment to register. “P-Please . . .”
Grath talked over her. “Let me show you, explain it real slow. First, you must have the raw original, as I like to call it.”
He pulled a small satchel off his belt and dumped its contents onto the table. Fine, tan sand poured over the surface. Blower’s sand, used for forming glass. The raw original . . . The natural elements castable materials were made of?
“Second,” he continued, “is to reverse the process, the words. Do you remember what the words are?”
Hair fell into Ceony’s eyes.
“Come now,” Grath said, sliding a glass dagger from his belt. He held it to Delilah’s collar, and she whimpered beneath her gag as he lightly drew the blade across her skin. “Tell me the words.”
Ceony began to tremble, a motion that felt entirely involuntary.
“M-Material . . . made by man,” Ceony whispered, “I summon you. L-Link t-to me . . .”
“Yes, that’s it,” Grath interrupted, cutting her short. He stuck his right hand into the sand and said, “This is the tricky part. Material made by earth, your handler summons you. Unlink to me as I link through you, unto this very day.”
Warm blood streaked over the side of Ceony’s neck. She could feel her pulse radiating in every single cut and gouge, could hear it drumming Delilah’s name in her ears.
“Next, bond to myself,” Grath continued. He pressed the same hand into his chest and said, “Material made by man, I summon you. Link to me as I link to you, unto this very day.”
He pulled his hand back and crouched, ensuring Ceony could meet his gaze.
“And then,” he said, low and slow, “you bond to the new material. I promised I’d show you, didn’t I?”
He stood and shoved Delilah’s chair against the wall, then wrapped his fingers around her neck.
“No!” Ceony cried, pushing against the floor. Her knees slid in blood, and electric pain soared up her legs and into her shoulder blades, stealing her breath away.
“Are you watching?” Grath asked, his eyes locked on to Delilah. “Material made by man, your creator summons you.
“Do you know how an Excisioner bonds, Ceony?”
“Grath, no!” Ceony cried, pushing herself up. Her arms turned to fire. New rivers of blood burst from the skin on her back, ringing around her ribs and torso.
“Link to me as I link to you through my years, until the day I die—”
Ceony grabbed the antique mirror and pulled herself to her feet.
“And become earth,” Grath finished.
A choking sound emanated from Delilah’s throat. Her eyes widened, and blood began to pour from her nostrils. She stared at Grath, fright emanating from her gaze, until her eyes rolled back into her head.
Grath released her, and she went limp in the chair.
“No!” Ceony screamed, running for her. “Delilah, no! No!”
Grath swung his arm out, colliding with Ceony’s chest. She fell backward, shoving the shards of glass in her back even deeper into her skin. She cried out and sputtered, tasting iron on her lips. Shadows bordered her vision.
“Oh, I’m not done yet,” Grath said, flexing and unflexing his hand. He smiled and turned to Mg. Aviosky.
Ceony’s body pulsed with pain. She struggled to stand as Grath neared Mg. Aviosky, but her limbs went limp. Too much. Never had she been so torn and tattered; never had she hurt like this, inside and out.
She stared at Delilah, who looked little more than a paper doll.
She looked at the shards of glass surrounding her, speckling the floorboards like misshapen diamonds.
Speckling the floorboards.
The wooden floorboards.
Ceony had no paper, but she had this.
Pressing her bloodied palm to the floor, she murmured, barely audible even to her own ears, “Material made by earth, your handler summons you. Unlink to me as I link through you, unto this very day.”
She pressed the same hand to herself and whimpered, “Material made by man, I summon you. Link to me as I link to you, unto this very day.”
She pushed herself up on her elbow, her spirit somewhere distant, far away from the hot, searing pain of her injuries. She reached for a large shard of glass and clutched it in her hands, its edges cutting into her fingers.
Grath stopped before Aviosky and pulled apart her blouse, then used his knife to slice through her camisole, revealing her chest. Her heart.
“Material made by man,” Ceony said, almost more in her head than out loud, “your creator summons you. Link to me as I link to you through my years, until the day I die and become earth.”
The glass tingled in her fingers. Delilah’s glass. It had worked.
Grath pulled back his hand.
Ceony’s eyes darted between the mirrors. She saw her bloodied shoulder in a round one just beside Grath’s head, reflected from the antique mirror against the wall.
She remembered Delilah sitting across from her at the bistro, bubbly and alive, so alive, laughing at the prank she had pulled with the makeup compact. Remembered her explanation of the spell.
Turning to the antique mirror, which she had already touched, Ceony whispered “Reflect” and concentrated on Lira as she had first seen her, a beauty in Emery’s kitchen, black clothes hugging her perfect curves, the twisted ruby smile on her lips. She imagined Lira’s chocolate-colored curls and the way they’d framed her face and spilled over her shoulders. She remembered the dark glint to her eyes, the vials of blood hanging off her belt.
Sure enough, the antique mirror produced a perfect reflection of Lira, and the round mirror picked up the image of her face in turn.
Grath noticed. He hesitated, spying Lira’s reflection in the corner of his eye. He spun, perhaps expecting her to be standing right behind him. Perhaps expecting her to be cured.
Turning his back to Ceony.
Ceony pushed off the ground, growling through the pain. She collided into Grath and dug the shard of glass in her hand into his back, right below his rib cage.
“Shatter!” she cried.
The glass shattered in her hands, breaking into dozens of pieces beneath Grath’s skin.
Grath choked. He grabbed Ceony by the hair and threw her off him; she collided with the floor again and shrieked as spilled glass mangled her already bloodied arm.
Grath stumbled into Mg. Aviosky, grabbing at her for support, but his legs gave out from under him. He collapsed at Delilah’s feet. The glass in his body had cut him too deep, too quickly. He hadn’t prepared a Healing spell beforehand.
The shadows lacing Ceony’s vision expanded, sucking color from the room. Her own blood looked gray, as if melting clouds had smeared over her skin.
She crawled to the nearest mirror, which sat just beside the table covered in sand. Grunting, she touched her fingers to it, leaving prints of red against her reflection.
Help. She needed help . . . Her foggy mind pulled up the memory of the spell Delilah had used on the broken mirror in Ceony’s flat, and with a voice more air than sound, she said, “Reverse.”
Her reflection vanished, replaced by a bright room filled with white furniture and ornate vases. A gray cat sat on a sofa, licking one of its paws. A polished banister marked a staircase in the back. Someone’s sitting room.
The shadows filled Ceony’s vision, and she dropped her hand and head to the floor. She could have sworn she heard Mg. Hughes calling out her name.