The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(52)

“I’m trying to save you!” she shouted.

Shadow-Emery laughed—cackled—a noise like broken organ pipes that sent cold chills up Ceony’s arms. “No one can save me. You’ve swum into dangerous waters, Miss Twill.”

Fennel hunched on his legs and barked wildly, but Shadow-Emery didn’t see him, didn’t hear him. His molten eyes fixated on Ceony, an owl watching the desperate run of a mouse before swooping down and nabbing it in thin-tipped talons.

Ceony tried to steady her voice, but it quivered in her throat. “Please, just let me go. I can help you if you let me go.”

“Help me?” Shadow-Emery repeated with a sneer, as if the words on his tongue were laced with vinegar. “And who will help them?”

The vision faded by half, leaving the dark wooden walls of the office in place, but the furniture, shelves, and floor disappeared, replaced with the floor of the warehouse storage room and the ripped and torn bodies strewn across it.

Ceony averted her eyes and pressed a hand to her mouth, willing her stomach to stay calm. “I don’t need to see it again!” she shouted between fingers.

“Don’t you?” Shadow-Emery asked with a raised voice. “How good is your memory, Ceony Twill? You seem to have forgotten about them already. I killed them.”

“No!” Ceony yelled, tears wetting her eyelashes. Still, she did not look. “The Excisioners killed them, not you!”

“But I didn’t stop them.”

“You tried to, didn’t you?” Ceony asked, almost more to herself than to him. “I saw you try. I saw you try to save them.”

“Not save them,” Shadow-Emery said as the vision of death faded back into the office, to the silhouette of a littered desk and the dark splotches of literary debris across the floor. “Save myself. I was only after the Excisioners.”

She looked up at him, the spilled boxes and books still hugging her. “You didn’t know about them, did you? Not personally. They were victims, but not yours. Did you even know their names?”

Shadow-Emery looked away.

“That’s why, don’t you see?” she pleaded. “You hunt the Excisioners because they hurt people, even people you don’t know. How is that evil?”

Shadow-Emery laughed. “I’m just like her. Just like Lira.”

Ceony flew to her feet. “She manipulated you, Emery Thane. You loved her once. I saw that you loved her.” She folded her arms and rubbed their skin, fighting off a chill creeping into the vision. “I’ve never loved like you have, so I know I don’t understand completely, but if I were in love and there was a chance I could save it, I would take it.”

Just like I’m trying to save you . . .

Shadow-Emery faded and reappeared behind her, grabbing a fistful of her hair. Ceony gasped as he wrenched her head to one side.

“There is no love here,” Shadow-Emery growled.

“Maybe not here,” Ceony whispered, “not in this room, but this is only one part of you, isn’t it? Just one piece of the whole—”

Shadow-Emery released her, vanishing and reappearing again several paces away. Fennel yapped loudly, jumping on all four legs. Scowling, Shadow-Emery snatched Fennel up, crushed the dog’s paper skull in his hands, and tore the creature in half.

Ceony screamed and lunged for Fennel, but the spell on the dog’s carefully crafted body had already been destroyed. The paper pieces that had comprised her companion pattered softly against the floorboards as Emery released them.

Ceony stared in shock. She dropped to her knees. Tears streamed down her face.

Emery had made Fennel for her. Because she missed Bizzy. Because he cared. Fennel, her only real tie to the world outside Emery’s heart. Her one companion in this dark place, her one constant in a world that wouldn’t stop changing.

She touched the broken paper pieces, feeling as crumpled as Fennel’s lifeless, misshapen head.

“This isn’t you,” Ceony whispered, pulling a cold finger back from her dog’s lifeless form. “This isn’t who you are!”

“Ha!” Shadow-Emery barked. “Do you even know who I am?”

His fingers seized her hair once more and hauled her to her feet. “Dark and dangerous waters . . . ,” he repeated.

A new laughter—Lira’s laughter—filled the room, and Ceony felt herself crack like a hot glass pan set in snow. She didn’t see the woman, however, and Shadow-Emery didn’t seem to hear her. At least, he didn’t react.

“Didn’t you know, little girl?” Lira’s distant voice echoed through the dark office, as if her larynx had been embedded into the very walls. “The rules of Excision are very clear cut, especially for the heart.”

“I d-don’t understand,” Ceony said with a dry tongue, her eyes locked on Shadow-Emery’s, her fingers clutching his to keep him from pulling her hair from her scalp.

Lira laughed again, the sound somewhat fainter. “No man can harm his true love within his own heart. Don’t you see what that means?

“He doesn’t love you, you beef-witted girl.”

She laughed again, thinking the situation truly wholesome and fun, and then the noise faded. Where she went, Ceony didn’t know—the laughter died out like a fire caught in the rain. With Ceony so thoroughly trapped, Lira must have abandoned the heart to finish whatever it was she had planned. Another gruesome spell. Escape across the ocean, with Emery’s heart in tow.