The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(62)

Mg. Aviosky nodded, a fraction of skepticism marring her otherwise poised visage, but she said nothing. “Dr. Newbold,” she said, turning to the man who stood at eye level with her. “Thank you for your time. I’ll send your bill through the Cabinet. If you would excuse us.”

Ceony chewed on her lip as the doctor nodded and left. She had assumed Mg. Aviosky would go with him. What more was there to say?

Once Dr. Newbold had departed, Mg. Aviosky sat straight-backed on the edge of Ceony’s narrow bed and said, “Tell me precisely what happened.”

Ceony curled in on herself. “I’m rather hungry, Magician—”

“Is it so long a story?” Mg. Aviosky interrupted. “You fled the premises against instruction to pursue an Excisioner!” She gasped at the very idea. “And yet you not only survived, but rescued the heart of perhaps the most talented Folder in England. I deserve the details, Miss Twill.”

“You didn’t ‘instruct’ me to stay,” Ceony countered. “Just to leave the dining room. Which I did.”

Mg. Aviosky rubbed the bridge of her nose under her glasses. “This feels very much like detention again, Ceony.”

“It’s just . . . private, I guess,” she replied.

“Private?” the magician repeated, obviously surprised at Ceony’s choice of adjective. “How so? What is so private that you can’t tell me?” She paled. “You didn’t bargain—”

“No, no,” Ceony said, glancing down to her hands. To the blood underneath her nails. In her mind’s eye she saw Lira’s frozen form, hands clutching her bleeding eye. Blood magic, Ceony thought. Does that make me an Excisioner, too?

It was the thought Ceony hadn’t dared consider until now. What would Mg. Aviosky—and the Magicians’ Cabinet—do if they knew how Ceony had defeated Lira?

Looking away from Mg. Aviosky’s eyes, Ceony said, “I took Magician Thane’s glider—it’s in the attic—and used a bird scout—a paper bird, that is—to follow Lira. She must have seen the glider and gotten scared and fled. I chased her to the coast, where she had taken camp. I tracked her to the water. I think she escaped. I . . . I saw a boat in the water. It might have been for her.”

Mg. Aviosky raised one brow. “And she left the heart behind?”

Ceony nodded.

“Foolish to come all this way and leave the very objective of her attack in a camp,” Mg. Aviosky said. “I’ll trace your coordinates and send some detectives in.”

Ceony’s breath caught at that. She hoped Mg. Aviosky didn’t notice.

“I think I’d like to rest now,” Ceony managed. She was unsure of what anyone would find on that beach—had the men taken Lira or left her? “And eat. I can look at a map and guess where the camp was . . . telegram you the location tonight, perhaps.” Buy some time.

Mg. Aviosky appeared suspicious, but she receded. Ceony was, after all, one of her best students, detention or no. Another purse of the lips and Mg. Aviosky stood and said, “I want them by tonight, unless you want the Cabinet hounding you. Magician Hughes is a very impatient man and keen on details.” She adjusted her glasses. “I’ll leave the buggy running, just in case,” she said, and took her leave.

Leaning against the warm glass of the window, Ceony waited until Mg. Aviosky passed through the paper charms disguising the cottage’s appearance before she rose from bed and padded lightly to Emery’s room.

The door creaked loudly as she opened it. Emery lay still atop his bed, two blankets covering him. Curtains drawn.

She opened them halfway to give him some sunlight. He looked healthier, ruddier.

“I’m not sure what to do,” she admitted, watching his chest rise and fall with every steady breath. “I have to tell Magician Aviosky where. I don’t want to talk to the Cabinet. But . . . I left her there on the rocks. I didn’t know if writing it would work, but the blood made some sort of connection, and it did,” she said, rubbing her left arm absently. “But I’m not like her. Please don’t think I’m like her.”

Moving to his bedside, she squeezed his warm hand briefly before making her way to the lavatory to clean up. She never wanted to look at another’s blood again, if she could help it.

Before she went to bed she pulled an old-edition atlas from one of Mg. Thane’s many bookshelves and telegrammed a rough span of coordinates to Mg. Aviosky.

She had a hard time sleeping after that.





CHAPTER 17



THE NEXT DAY CEONY rose early, started a fire in the front room’s hearth, and rested her curling iron beside the coals.

Mg. Aviosky had apparently cleaned up the broken dishes and turned the dining room table upright, but Ceony, after hunting through cupboards for cleaning supplies—swept and mopped the floor and wiped down all the counters. She washed the dishes in the sink, dried them, and set them carefully onto their respective shelves. She browsed through the icebox to get ideas for lunch and dinner. She had milk and an apricot for breakfast.

Upstairs in the lavatory—which had the best mirror in the house—Ceony carefully curled her locks and pushed a headband into her hair. After examining herself, she took the headband out and instead pinned back the sides of her hair and set a simple olive barrette over them. Her mother had always said olive looked best with red hair, even if Ceony’s hair was far more orange than it was red.