The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(47)
Carefully placed clutter littered the desk everywhere except a perfect rectangle where Emery read those papers—a jar filled with writing utensils and a compass, a short calendar depicting a different species of tree for each day of the year, a bottle of blotting sand. More papers, folders, and small racks holding more papers and folders. Her inspection hesitated on a model of the Surrey Theatre entirely crafted from paper, from the columns standing guard at the front entrance to the English flag that flew from the spire protruding from the top of the theatre’s dome. Ceony marveled at it for a few long seconds, wondering how much time and precision must have gone into such a detailed piece. Phasing or no, she dared not touch it, though the front doors did look like they were meant to open via the mouselike hinges that held them to the building’s foremost wall.
She glanced to Emery. He created such beautiful things.
Emery flipped one of his pages over and began to write along the bottom of the next. Ceony finally settled her attention on the documents—thick legal jargon in small print crammed between one-inch margins on all sides. Each paragraph had its own number, and some sentences had been typed in all caps and separated with bold lines. Across the bottom Emery scrawled his signature—he had stunning handwriting, his lowercase letters all the same width and the capital E and T of his name drawn with minimal flourish. Part of Ceony wanted to trace those letters just so she could learn to scrawl half as well.
He turned that page and began to scour the next, his lips in a frown, his eyes set in concentration and wrinkled at the outside corners. Ceony read the header at the top of the page: “BERKSHIRE COUNTY CLERK | DECLARATION OF DIVORCE.”
The light in the office dimmed as the sun finally dropped behind the world. Ceony spied the date he penned alongside his second signature. Exactly two years and five months had passed since this memory. Had he been living alone all this time?
Something clacked elsewhere in the house. Ceony stiffened and reached into her bag for her fan. But Emery had stiffened as well. He had heard it, too, which meant it couldn’t be Lira. The images of Emery’s heart reacted to Lira’s presence just as they reacted to Ceony’s—not at all. Whatever had made the noise had a place in this vision, though a prickling sensation still churned beneath Ceony’s skin.
Emery stood from his chair, its legs scraping against the old wooden floorboards as it slid away from the desk. His jaw set above the high collar of his shirt. Stepping around the desk, he phased through Ceony as he approached the door.
A moment passed before he folded his arms and said, “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
Silence answered him.
A long sigh passed over Emery’s lips. Ceony reached for his hand, but stopped herself. He said, “I have wards set up.”
Another moment passed before the door opened past its crack. Ceony squeezed her fan as Lira appeared, to remind herself this wasn’t the real Lira, the present Lira. Her hair was too short, and the malice in her face was less . . . prominent. In fact, she looked at Emery with the eyes of a lost hound dog and chewed on her lip like a scolded child. She wore a slim dress with a slimmer belt accenting her waist. The dress’s collar had been unlaced halfway down, revealing the soft curves of her breasts.
Fennel barked and Ceony seethed inside, despite knowing all that she did. She forced her grip around the fan to relax, lest she wrinkle it and destroy its enchantment. Lira’s tormented disposition was an act—that much was plain. Ceony didn’t buy it for a second.
And neither did Emery. His expression remained perfectly schooled, like that of a frustrated parent.
“I need help,” Lira whispered.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t march to the telegraph right now and report you,” he said, his voice stony. Ceony made a guess that Lira had been in more than one skirmish with the law since the last vision in this office. Ceony wondered if she’d bonded flesh yet, then cringed as the thought of how crossed her mind. She had no idea how one became an Excisioner, and she didn’t want anyone to enlighten her.
Tears—real tears—brimmed on Lira’s dark eyelashes. The woman had some talent. “Just one night, please, Emery,” she pleaded. “I’ll be gone in the morning. I just need someplace to stay.”
“I know a few good prison cells that might do the trick.”
“I’m innocent!” she said, and Emery only responded with an incredulous raising of one eyebrow. Lira’s cheeks flushed and hard lines ridged her forehead. “Think of all I’ve given you, Emery! Don’t you know what they’ll do to me? I’m innocent!”
Emery scoffed and threw his hands out to his sides. Ceony winced at how the gesture exposed his heart. She pushed down the vivid memories of Lira’s sharp fingernails digging into his chest as he hung against the dining room wall, Ceony helpless to stop it.
“I know what you are, Lira!” he exclaimed. “Everyone does! You think you can play on your innocence now?”
“You weren’t there,” she cried. Ceony stepped closer to her, studying her face, trying to find her secrets. Ceony wanted to push Lira away from Emery, but her hand passed through the woman’s torso as if she were an illusion read from a storybook. No, Ceony wouldn’t be allowed to interrupt this memory.
“You don’t understand.” Lira wept.
“I’ve tried to,” Emery countered, sitting against the edge of his desk and grabbing it with stiff fingers. “Heaven knows I’ve tried to, Lira. Just . . . just go.”