The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(65)

A lump formed in Ceony’s throat, forcing her voice to grow quiet. She tried to swallow it down, but doing so only made it ache. “And it worked,” she whispered. “She’d still be there if they hadn’t come for her. I wrote it in blood and it worked . . .”

Tears clustered in the corners of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to clear them. “I’m not like her,” she squeaked. “I’m not an Excisioner . . .”

Emery’s hand on her shoulder brought her gaze back to him. How silly she must have looked, must have sounded.

“No, you’re not,” he said, sounding much surer than she felt. “You’ve bonded to paper; you can’t be. It’s impossible.”

She stared at him, gaze moving from one green eye to the other. “But Lira—”

“Lira was not a magician when I met her,” he answered, pulling his hand away. “She was a nursing assistant, which explains why things like blood didn’t bother her. Don’t bother her.”

Ceony nodded slowly, feeling somewhat numb. “Then I’m not . . . I didn’t do the forbidden magic?”

“I don’t know what you did,” Emery replied, running a hand back through his hair. His eyes glanced out the window behind her for a moment. “But nothing illegal. Nothing that would ever hold in a court, if that’s what you’re worried about. You saved my life, Ceony, unless I’m dead and I greatly misjudged what the afterlife would look like.”

Ceony looked at her feet, hiding relief and a smile. “I’d be greatly upset if this were the afterlife and you were dead, Em—Magician Thane,” she said. “Because that would mean I flew clear to the ocean and back for nothing.”

Fennel barked and sniffed about Ceony’s shoes. Emery smiled.

“Well,” he said after a moment almost long enough to be awkward. He picked up the slices of cucumber and put them on the bread himself, then pulled a plate from the cupboard. Walking back to the table, he said, “Now we can finally have this meal, hm?”

“This meal?” Ceony asked, glancing at his bland sandwich. He took a bite of it without even bothering with mayonnaise. “Any meal I put thought into is levels above a cucumber sandwich. I could have been a chef, if you recall.”

“Is that so?” he asked, taking another bite.

Ceony began to cut two slices of bread for herself, but paused halfway through the first. “Would you humor me for a moment?”

“I believe I’ve been humoring you since you walked through my front door,” he replied.

She smiled. “Just for a moment.”

She abandoned the bread and cucumber and hurried to the study, selecting a sky-blue piece of square-cut paper from the shelf behind the desk. Resting it against the desktop, she carefully Folded a half-point Fold and a full-point Fold, pulling from memory the creation of the fortuity box that had promised her “adventure” before she had even known Lira’s name. With a pen she scrawled down the fortune symbols, pausing after drawing five.

She brought the box back into the dining room and showed it to Emery. “Which ones go here?”

Amusement touched his eyes—that seemed to be their preferred emotion—and he took the pen and paper from her, finishing the last three symbols himself as he chewed. Ceony committed them to memory before pinching the box in her fingers and presenting it to Emery.

“What is your mother’s maiden name?” she asked.

He leaned his chin into his palm, elbow propped on the table. “You don’t remember?”

“I do,” she retorted, “but I don’t want to jinx it. Just answer.”

“Vladara. One r.” His eyes glimmered.

She opened and closed the box seven times and asked, “What is your date of birth?”

“July fourteenth, 1871.”

She moved the box back and forth. “Pick a number.”

Emery remained silent for a moment, studying Ceony’s face. His thoughts didn’t reflect in his eyes. Before her flush could return, however, he said, “One.”

She opened the flap scrawled with a square divided into three, one of the symbols Emery had drawn. She opened it, seeing blank paper for a half second before an image flooded her mind with far more strength than it had the first time she’d read his fortune.

The vision was familiar—a setting sun, a plum tree, a hill covered with wildflowers and crabgrass. A soft breeze carried on it the scents of earth, clover, and honey.

Emery sat up on a patchwork quilt beneath the tree, his hair shorter than it was now, an indigo coat folded neatly beside him. He watched the sunset wordlessly, and in his bright eyes Ceony saw contentment.

Beside him a woman lay on her side, tracing the veins on the back of his hand with her finger, spotted with three freckles. Her orange hair fell in a neat braid over one shoulder. On the other side of the tree two young boys with raven hair played on a swing, pushing each other back and forth, grabbing the ropes and laughing.

Ceony closed the flap, blinking away the colors of the sunset. The lump in her throat had vanished, and her heart beat steadily right where it should be.

“Well?” Emery asked.

“It’s bad luck to know your own fortune,” she said.

“I believe it’s only bad luck to read your own,” he countered.