The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(29)

Fennel barked beside her—it seemed Lira’s trap, whatever it was, had caught him up as well.

She spied a narrow river of what looked like blood flowing between the wall and floor to her right, and she gasped. She had seen something like this room before, only it had been very small and had lain out on a metal table enchanted to stay cold. She had seen it after she had removed it from a dead frog.

This was Mg. Thane’s heart, and Ceony stood inside it.

PUM-Pom-poom. PUM-Pom-poom. Ceony couldn’t tell if she heard the throbbing walls or her own chest. She breathed hard and deep and spun around, examining the strange chamber, feeling as though her body couldn’t get enough air.

Something dark caught the corner of her eye and she turned to see Lira, who held the Tatham pistol in her hands like a child’s toy. She slipped the trigger guard over her index finger and spun the gun around her knuckle.

Fennel growled a soft, papery growl, and Ceony scooped him into her arms, trying not to look as terrified as she felt. The muscles in her legs had turned to icicles.

Lira smiled. “Emery surrounds himself with fools. The heart trap was only a backup. Someplace I could put you where you wouldn’t run away.”

She stilled the pistol and clasped it in her right hand, looking as if she could crush it. “Did you really think you could beat me with this?”

Ceony gaped. She trembled. She had to get away. She couldn’t face Lira, not like this. She wasn’t prepared. She knew nothing of the dark arts, what to expect or how to combat them. She hadn’t thought this through at all!

She took a step back, and Lira took two steps forward. Sweat beaded on Ceony’s back, gluing her shirt to her skin. Ceony stepped back once more—

—and the entire chamber shifted around her.

She nearly dropped Fennel as the red, fleshy walls morphed into a blue sky speckled with wispy clouds, the bloody streams transformed into carpets of lush, green grass. The distant beat of Mg. Thane’s heart dulled to a quiet echo. Ceony smelled clover and sun-heated leaves, felt a warm summer breeze on her face. A few thick-boughed, leafy trees sprang up some ways away from her, one dangling an umber birdhouse from its second-lowest branch. Numerous gray boxes occupied the space between the trees and herself. Each stood about four or five feet high and seemed to be made of shorter weathered boxes.

Ceony’s gaze shifted back and forth, fear and confusion coating each other in her thoughts. She wiped her hands on her skirt.

Laughter touched her ears.

She whirled around and saw four children before her, their heads donning broad-brimmed canvas hats with tightly woven nets draping over their faces and necks, and long gloves pulled up past their elbows. Their ages looked to range from three to twelve, or so Ceony guessed.

Fennel wriggled from under her arm and jumped down on the grass, running about to join the children. He ran quickly for having legs made of cardstock.

A round honeybee buzzed by her, and by instinct Ceony swatted it away. It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed the buzzing speckles surrounding each of the gray boxes, swarming and churning like humming clouds.

Ceony’s lip parted in surprise. Was this a honey farm?

In the middle of Thane’s heart?

A tall, thickly built man approached a buzzing box behind the children. He wore sturdy canvas over his entire body, tucked into his shoes and drawn with a string under his chin. Ceony had a difficult time seeing his face through the netted veil hanging from his hat, especially when honeybees began crawling over it.

Rubbing her eyes to ensure what she saw was real, Ceony stepped forward and called out to the canvas-clad man.

“Excuse me!” she shouted, but the man didn’t turn, even when she repeated herself. The eldest boy ran an uneven circle around her, but his eyes never saw her, only peered through her. He didn’t notice her presence at all. None of them did.

And Lira . . . where was Lira? Ceony moved around the bee boxes searching for her, the insects ignoring her as readily as the people did. She scanned beyond the trees to shallow, rolling hills, but saw no sign of the Excisioner.

She pulled a white sheet of paper from her bag and held it between both hands. It made her feel safer.

“You’re it!” shouted a girl of about eight, two auburn pigtails peeking out from beneath her face net. She ran away from the eldest boy, laughing even as bees swarmed from half a dozen boxes.

“Don’t touch the hives!” the adult shouted as he pawed at his bee box. He had a low, brawny voice, deep and rugged. He pulled a tray from the box’s top, and Ceony marveled at the thick, amber honeycomb clinging to it. The man brought it to a wheelbarrow, bees crawling all over his protected arms, and scraped honey into a tall bucket. Ceony’s mouth watered, but still she wondered, How did I get here?

More importantly: Where is here?

Surely Lira’s spell hadn’t whisked her away. Why would a practitioner of the forbidden arts ship Ceony to a remote—and rather jolly—honey farm?

Fennel stood on his hind legs as he tried to get a better look at a particularly fat bee flying about his head. Another bee buzzed about Ceony but never landed, never tried to sting her. At least, if it did, she didn’t feel it.

“Emery, get me that spoon, will you?” the man shouted, pointing to a long metal spoon in the grass.

The name made Ceony’s eyes dart to the second-youngest child, perhaps six years old, running between hives to the spoon. Still clutching the paper, Ceony ran to him and peered through the pale netting over his face. The child didn’t notice her at all, even as she crouched in front of him. She saw uneven patches of black hair sticking out from under his hat and bright, green eyes.