The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(37)

“Ah,” she said, her hand pausing on a short, fawn-colored volume where the orange covers shifted to the yellow spectrum: Basic Chain Spells. To her relief, the book felt solid beneath her fingers. Perhaps in a heart, knowledge was more stable than memory or thought. Judging by the window in his office, it was clear Thane knew paper chains well.

She opened Basic Chain Spells to the table of contents, the constant PUM-Pom-poom in the distance reminding her of the need for swiftness. Lira could have warped out of Thane’s heart and be throwing it into the ocean right now for all Ceony knew, and Thane’s time was ticking away besides.

Skipping the table of contents, Ceony began thumbing through pages illustrated with black-and-white diagrams of different chains from basic to complex. She spied the vitality chain Thane had used on both the birthing woman and himself, but kept turning the pages.

The word shield popped out at her, and she paused just past the book’s midway point. She read quickly.

The three-fold shield chain is the most basic of the defense chains. The breadth of its links does not matter, so long as their length is enough to circumvent the item one wishes to protect.

A link is created by taking a standard 8" x 11" sheet and slicing it in half longways, as seen in Figure 1—

Ceony’s eyes scanned the figures and their captions, then she turned the page and scanned them again, committing them to memory. Setting the book down, she pulled sheets of paper out of her bag until she found pieces already cut as the diagram showed.

She began Folding, her hands unsteady, but not shaking quite as badly as they had when she formed Thane’s pathetic heart. She prayed it still beat. If he died . . .

Ceony didn’t want to think too hard on the idea.

She matched up the edges and creased them. Another flash of Thane appeared behind her with his Folding board, this one in the correct shade of indigo. He phased in and out, Folding different things with his hands, his voice pealing and cutting short. Ceony could barely make out a word he said, but she thought she heard her name.

She saw a flash of herself in her apprentice’s uniform before both apparitions vanished.

Ceony refocused on her chain. “Do you want to keep teaching me?” she asked as she started her second link, working a little faster now that her fingers knew the Folds. The faint tingling sensation she felt when Folding now had almost become natural to her. “I don’t mind, if you do.”

Ceony listened to the steady, distant beats of Thane’s heart as her fingers pressed paper and her nails set the Folds’ creases. When her chain reached just long enough, she hooked its ends together diagonally over her breast and pulled out another sheet of square paper, Folding something Thane had given her several days to practice—a paper fan.

“Made well, it can give gusts that would embarrass a thunderstorm,” Thane had said. She had yet to test the spell’s true power, but she hoped the paper magician hadn’t been exaggerating.

The library began to waver about her as she finished—her small sanctuary had begun to collapse. She’d change scenes any moment now.

Stuffing her untested fan into her bag, she ran for the library door. Fennel loped behind her.

Ceony passed through the library door and, for the second time since meeting Mg. Thane, stepped into a room thundering with applause.

The Royal Albert Hall. She recognized the auditorium and the chandeliers, only these boasted electric bulbs. A spotlight blinded her, forcing her to shield her eyes with one hand. Unlike last time, she didn’t stand in the aisle, but on the stage.

Fennel panted at the sight of so many people. Ceony felt faint.

The glare of the spotlight diminished enough for her to take in her surroundings, the pale stain of the wooden stage, an older Tagis Praff standing at the podium stage left. Looking down, she saw herself dressed in a magician’s uniform, all its seams perfectly pressed. The white fabric fit her better than any clothes she had ever worn, and she noted she wore slacks, not a skirt. Didn’t all female magicians wear skirts with their uniforms?

“Ceony Twill,” Tagis Praff said, and the audience continued to clap. Ceony spied Thane in the front row, donning his own uniform. Watching her with smiling, proud eyes. She drank that expression in, storing it in the deep wells of her memory.

Tagis Praff waved for her. Fennel trotted up to the podium, and Ceony, hesitantly, followed suit. She reached out to accept the magician’s hand.

The applause died and the spotlight vanished. Her sticky dress replaced the crisp white uniform of her dreams. The temperature dropped and Tagis Praff’s hand vanished, replaced by a long, stone hallway.

Ceony blinked twice and realized she was in a prison.

She gasped, having not expected a place so dreary to be within Thane’s heart. She stood at the end of the hallway, which was lined on either side by broad metal doors that bore the sheen of enchantment. Ceony had never been inside a real prison, but she had read books concerning them. And just like in those books, all the doors had locks, and the hallway had a gray, prestorm cast to it, made by thin trickles of sunlight that came through narrow windows between each cell. Windows that even a toddler could barely fit a hand through.

Ceony snapped her fingers to beckon Fennel to follow her, as her voice had been startled from her throat and floated somewhere between her lungs and her stomach. She took a step forward, her skirt swishing about her calves, the fabric cold after its dampening in the tight, suffocating passageway that had led her to this chamber. She hoped she wouldn’t have to pass through another. The thought gave her goose bumps, but the prison gave her chills.