The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(64)

She went outside, the warm summer sun shining between clouds at the cottage. Beneath the eave in the backyard rested an actual garden of actual plants, not just the paper imitations. It looked well tended, though a few baby weeds had grown between mint, parsley, and what looked like radishes. Ceony picked them out by the root one by one and set the pile aside to mulch. She stuck her index finger into the soil—it needed to be watered.

When she returned to the kitchen for a pitcher, however, she heard a faint but familiar sound in the dining room—an airy sort of clap, meant to be a bark.

She felt her insides break apart into puzzle pieces and slowly set themselves together again, but with her heart wedged into the base of her throat.

Fennel ran into the kitchen yapping wildly, his paper paws skidding along the smooth wooden floorboards. He fell over once, picked himself up, and ran for Ceony’s feet. Ceony, mouth in a wide O, knelt down to intercept him. Fennel licked her sleeves with his paper tongue and wagged his tail so fiercely she feared it would fly off his rump and land in the icebox.

“There we are!” she exclaimed, scratching Fennel behind his ears and under his chin. “That wasn’t so long, was it?”

But she knew Fennel hadn’t magically reanimated himself. Her pulse thudded loudly enough in her ears for her to distinctly make out its quiet third beat.

Two breaths later, the door to the stairwell swung open and Emery stepped out, wearing his same indigo coat but a clean shirt and pants—the gray slacks Ceony had washed just yesterday.

She stood slowly, feeling her face turn pink. He walked with a slight hunch that whispered of mild discomfort, but otherwise seemed perfectly healthy.

His eyes found hers—his beautiful green eyes—and they smiled.

“I have a distinct feeling I’ve missed something rather spectacular,” he said. His voice was a little rough, and he cleared it before adding, “That, and I’m incredibly hungry.”

“Oh!” Ceony said, pushing past Fennel to the bread box. “I can make you something. Sit down. Do you like cucumbers? But of course you do . . . They’re your cucumbers.”

He quirked an eyebrow, but his eyes still grinned, and the sentiment even reflected in the tilt of his lips. “I believe I’m well enough to make my own sandwich, Ceony.”

But she shook her head and pulled out the cutting board and the last of the cucumber from the icebox. Emery paused for a moment between dining room and kitchen before giving up and taking a chair.

“How do you feel?” Ceony asked, her pulse still thundering in her ears. It made her hands shake as she peeled and cut the cucumber. She forced herself to slow down so she wouldn’t slice open a finger.

“Like someone has been tromping around in my chest, looking at things they shouldn’t be looking at.”

Her knife froze mid-slice. She met his eyes and saw knowledge behind their amusement.

Her neck and ears burned. “Y-You know what happened, don’t you?”

He twisted a piece of hair around his finger. “It’s my heart, Ceony. Of course I would know what’s in it. Most of it, at least.”

Most of it? she thought, opening a cupboard door to block Emery’s view of her blushing face. She tried to focus on cutting the cucumber. How much is “most of it”?

She thought of their brief conversation from the fourth chamber and worried her clothes would ignite, her skin felt so hot.

The cupboard door shut, and Ceony jumped to see Emery beside her, taking the knife from her hand and setting it down on the countertop. “But I don’t know what happened before, or after,” he said. His eyes dropped to her neck. Reaching out a hand, he tilted her chin up with a knuckle. Ceony realized he was studying the faded bruises there, left by the fingers of one of Lira’s undead hands.

She pulled back and pushed her hair over her shoulders to mask them. “I stole your glider,” she said.

“Did you now?”

She nodded. “I sent out paper birds to scout and followed them. I think she—Lira—intended to escape on a boat—”

“But she didn’t.” It wasn’t a question. His eyes seemed determined, wondering.

Words spilled from her mouth. “I met her at the coast, in a cave. She put some sort of spell on you—on your heart—and that’s how I got stuck inside. I didn’t mean to ‘tromp.’ I had no choice.”

She found herself speaking faster with every sentence, unable to look away from those penetrating eyes. “And I thought if I could just make my way to the end I could get out. She was in there, too, somehow, but not always. I tried to go quickly. I didn’t want you to die.

“And then I got out,” she blurted, and he nodded. So he did remember that part. Ceony’s feet had gone cold for all the blood rushing to her face. “And she was there, and all the spells got wet and she grabbed me and said she’d take my heart, too, and—”

She stepped farther away from him, the small of her back hitting the rim of the sink. “I’m not like her, Emery. I didn’t mean . . . but it happened.”

His forehead wrinkled. “Didn’t mean what, Ceony? What happened?”

“We both ran for the dagger at the same time,” she explained, as though Emery would understand her story despite its lack of context. “I grabbed it first. I hurt her.” She touched her face where the blade had cut into Lira’s skin. “She bled everywhere. The paper . . . there was paper all over the rocks because of the spell you gave me. The bursting spell. And I wrote on them that she’d be frozen forever . . .”