The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(15)

He stabbed his fork into two pieces of pasta and raised them to his lips. He tasted them, chewing, and his eyes brightened just a bit more. “I’d say, Ceony,” he said after swallowing, “had I not been present for the lessons, I’d think you’d found a way to enchant pasta.”

Ceony smiled. “You like it?”

He nodded, scooping up another bite. “It tastes just as good as it smells. That’s a sign of a well-rounded person. I should congratulate you.”

“On my person or my pasta?”

Light danced in his eyes. He didn’t answer.

Ceony tasted her chicken, relieved it wasn’t too dry. Three bites into her own dinner, Mg. Thane said, “Oldest of four.”

“Two sisters, one brother,” Ceony replied. “Do you have a large family? You seem like someone who suffered through a great deal of sisters.”

“I’ve suffered through a great many people, but none of them sisters. I’m an only child.”

That explains a few things, Ceony thought.

A few seconds of silence passed between chewing bites. Not wanting the time to grow long, Ceony asked, “When do you get groceries?”

He glanced at her. “When I run out, I suppose. Groceries are my most dreaded chore.”

“Why?”

He lowered his fork and leaned his chin onto his hand, elbow on the table edge.

“They require going to the city,” he stated. “And it’s hot out, besides.”

Ceony paused as she cut into the next morsel of chicken. “Do you freckle?”

He laughed. “Now there’s a conversation turn—”

“I mean,” Ceony began, “I could understand not going outside if you freckle.” She glanced to her hands, spotted with freckles of her own. They had a tendency to cover any bit of skin exposed to the sun between March and October.

“I don’t freckle,” he said. She must have been frowning at her hands, for he added, “And there’s nothing wrong with freckles, Ceony. Heaven forbid you look like everyone else in this place.”

Ceony smiled and shoved some pasta in her mouth to keep the grin contained.

“And since you have so much extra time,” Mg. Thane said, “your first quiz will be tomorrow morning.”





CHAPTER 4



MG. THANE KEPT HIS promise by giving Ceony her first quiz the next morning—six o’clock in the morning, to be precise, and with Jonto as his messenger. Ceony awoke to the skeleton’s Folded countenance grinning inches from her nose and shrieked loud enough to bring Fennel, who had been sniffing for mice in the living room downstairs. Ceony commanded the skeleton to “Cease” as Mg. Thane had earlier, and to her relief, the paper butler fell into a harmless heap of cardstock bones at the foot of her bed.

A small, almost thoughtless spell, but for the first moment since bonding to paper, Ceony felt like she might actually have some real power.

Mg. Thane quizzed her on the different paper types he had shown her in his office the day before. Thanks to her keen memory, Ceony got all of them right. The paper magician graded her with a content nod, then left her to her studies.

Her “studies” included reading the textbooks Mg. Thane had assigned her. She started with Marcus Waters’s Guide to Pyrotechnics, as it sounded the most interesting, but the print was tiny and the book was only sparsely populated with figures, making it somewhat difficult to understand. She read only half a chapter. After a trip to the kitchen for toast, she started on Anatomy of the Human Body Volume I, which proved a much more fascinating—if slightly grotesque—read.

Over the next few days Ceony helped herself freely to the paper stacks in the library to practice her basic Folds. Mg. Thane had a habit of quizzing her at random times and without warning, so she fought to learn quickly. Thursday he quizzed her twice. Friday she practiced so many Folds she developed a blister on the tip of her right index finger. As a result, on Saturday Mg. Thane taught her how to make snowflakes—the same that had fallen from the library ceiling her first day as an apprentice.

“Cuts follow the same rules as Folds, more or less,” he explained, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the library with his board across his lap. “You must make them precise if they’re going to work, unless they’re for decoration. Then it doesn’t matter.”

“Are these decoration?” Ceony asked, thinking of the small snowflake she had filched and hidden in her desk drawer. Last she checked, it had still felt cold.

Mg. Thane Folded a white square of paper into half-corner Folds, which turned it into a narrow triangle. “What do you think?”

She thought of the falling snow, the intricate snowflakes in all shapes and sizes scattered over the carpet. Each had been unique, just like real snow. “It’s decorative,” she answered.

“Very astute,” Mg. Thane said, lifting a pair of scissors. “There is one cut that the snowflakes must have in order to become cold. Observe.”

He held up the triangle and pressed his scissors into its thickest Fold, cutting just a centimeter below the highest point. He sliced out a small almond-shaped portion of paper and let it tumble onto his board.

“Chill,” he commanded. Nothing happened to the paper that Ceony could see, but when he handed it to her, it felt frosty. The coldness soothed her blister.