The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(32)

She added the fish to her arsenal and followed Thane’s footsteps through the door.

She found herself on a knoll covered in golden grass and wildflowers—the same blossoms Ceony had found pressed in Thane’s room. A warm wind rustled through them, carrying in it the taste of honeysuckle and sweet pea. The smells of summer. A large, molten sun sunk slowly into its bed in the west over a horizon speckled with dark trees. It cast a magenta and violet light through the sky and over a woodland canopy at the base of a ridge ahead of her—the North Downs, almost a day’s journey south of London. She had hiked the area with her father a few years ago, but had never seen this hill before. She would have remembered a place so . . . reverent. So beautiful.

She turned, taking the view in, and found Thane just above her. He rested beneath an old plum tree with wide boughs and deep-maroon leaves. He lay on his side on a blue and yellow patchwork quilt, talking quietly to a woman beside him.

Ceony yelped at the sight of Lira, but something looked different about her. She was younger—they both were—and her hair looked lighter, not as long. She wore part of it pinned back in a silver clip, and the rest curled freely about her shoulders. Instead of black pants, she wore a modest white sundress that fell to her ankles and had no sleeves. A long golden locket hung about her neck. Its chain appeared so delicate Ceony feared the very breeze would snap its links.

Like Thane before, this Lira didn’t seem to notice her.

Ceony stared at them, something cold and itchy pricking her heart. She reminded herself that this was another memory, another piece of goodness nestled in the first chamber of Thane’s heart.

“Lira,” she whispered. She treaded up the hill until she could get a clear shot of Thane’s face, his bright eyes that looked almost hazel in the plum tree’s shade. Those eyes—Ceony saw love in those eyes. Adoration. Bliss. Serenity.

He loved her.

Fennel pawed at Ceony’s leg, but Ceony didn’t move.

Mg. Thane . . . in love with Lira?

Her stomach soured, and she rubbed it with the palm of her hand. Visions or no, it was too stuffy between this heart’s walls. She was starting to feel ill.

Ceony studied the magician, trying to guess his age. Perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five. Several years ago, at least. That made her feel somewhat better, but the longer she watched the happy couple, the sicker she felt. Like her body wilted on her bones.

Shaking her head, Ceony tore her eyes away and rubbed her temples, trying to get some sense into her brain. She needed to focus. Be objective.

She let out a long breath. “All right. Why would a woman Thane loves leave him to die?” she wondered aloud. “If she already has Thane’s heart, why would she need to steal it?”

As she stepped away from the happy couple, her footsteps turned from grass-muted to hollow. Backtracking, she spied hinges among the wildflowers, as well as an old brass handle tarnished in the middle. Reaching for the handle, Ceony pulled the small door open.

The colors of the sunset, the wildflowers, and the plum tree swirled around her as the old office had, making her woozy. The sensation subsided quickly, and Ceony found herself looking straight up into Thane’s eyes. They bore that same, adoring expression, and he wore his white magician’s uniform, newly pressed, with a pink rose pinned to his left breast.

Ceony flushed deeply enough that her cheeks stung. She blinked and found herself standing elsewhere in the same vision, to the side of the chairs set up near a stream and a bridge in a park filled with cherry trees, their ruddy blossoms catching on the wind and filling the air like blushing snow. Crickets chirped softly in patches of long grass the groundskeeper had missed shearing. Swathes of white and yellow gossamer lined the aisles between chairs and a broad, wooden arch shading Mg. Thane, a man in a tawny robe, and Lira.

Lira now stood where Ceony had been, garbed in a white beaded dress with a long train, a short veil pinned into her lovely hair with a golden comb studded with pearls. The wedding dress had short, sheer sleeves and a neckline that revealed an ample chest—much larger than Ceony’s own, she noted with some chagrin.

Ceony’s heart thudded almost painfully against her ribs as a minister read from a leather-bound text to perform the ceremony. So Lira had been his wife.

Had been. That hymnal in his room made sense now.

Ceony rubbed the back of her neck, trying to stifle the heat creeping along it. The way Thane had looked at her in that moment before the switch . . .

Ceony’s pulse drummed in her ears.

But it hadn’t been her. It had been Lira. A younger Lira. A different Lira.

Ceony whirled around, half-expecting the Excisioner—Thane’s wife—to appear behind her at any moment, but she saw only happy wedding guests, including that same beekeeper and his wife. Men and women Ceony didn’t know. The memories moved so quickly—perhaps Lira wasn’t able to keep up. Perhaps she didn’t want to be here. Ceony didn’t, either.

Ceony pinched herself. She needed to stay alert. Mg. Hughes had said an Excisioner could pull magic through another’s body with just one touch, which meant it wouldn’t take much time for Lira to destroy her, should the crazed woman catch up to Ceony. Touch was one advantage Ceony didn’t want to give the psychotic woman chasing her through a stolen heart.

She had to find the next chamber.

She ran from the wedding with Fennel at her side, not bothering to give the ceremony a second glance. Something about it . . . bothered her. Pink cherry blossoms blew across her path, lacing the air with their subtle, lustful scent. The song of crickets muted to her ears.