The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(8)

“Jonto,” Mg. Thane said, now Folding a sheet of white parchment, “was particularly tricky. He took me months to get right, especially with the spinal column and the jaw. Human anatomy is a mite bit complicated, especially when it comes to figuring out what sort of Folds something like a shoulder joint prefers. But though he is made of one thousand, six hundred and nine pieces of paper, he animates as a whole. Make it whole, and it will rise whole. That’s your first lesson of the day.”

His hands stilled, revealing a stout fish between them, puffed out in the middle to form a three-dimensional body. Folds similar to the orange bird’s wings formed its pectoral fins. Mg. Thane picked it up, whispered to it, and released it. The fish soared upward through the air as a real fish would in water, its tail fin paddling back and forth until it hit the ceiling—which Ceony noticed had been covered with long pieces of white paper tied together with a simple string. The white fish used its puckering mouth to bite down on the string and untie its looping knot.

To her amazement, snow began to fall. Paper snowflakes cascaded through the air, some as small as Ceony’s thumbnail, some as large as her hand. Hundreds of them poured down as the paper ceiling gave way, all somehow timed just right so that they fell like real snow. Ceony stood from her chair, laughing, and held out her hand to catch one. To her astonishment it felt cold, but didn’t melt against her palm. Only tingled.

“When did you do this?” she asked, her breath fogging in the library’s air as more snowflakes fell like crisp confetti from the ceiling. “This would take . . . ages to make.”

“Not ages,” Mg. Thane said. “You’ll get quicker as you learn.” He still sat on the floor, completely unfazed by the magic around him. But of course he would be—it was his creation. “Magician Aviosky mentioned you hadn’t exactly jumped at the news of your assignment, and I can’t blame you. But casting through paper has its own whimsy.”

Ceony let her captured snowflake fall from her hand and turned to Mg. Thane, wondering at him. He did all of this for me?

Perhaps the man wasn’t so mad after all. Or maybe it’s a madness that I can learn to appreciate.

As the last snowflakes fell, Mg. Thane rose and pulled a thin hardcover book from the shelf behind him. He gestured for Ceony to once again sit in the chair. She complied.

He handed her the volume. The cover had a silver-embossed mouse on it and the words Pip’s Daring Escape. Her mind quietly registered that subtle prickling beneath her skin as she accepted the book; she wondered if she would ever get used to it.

“A children’s book?” she asked. At least the snowflakes had had some majesty to them.

“I’m not one to waste time, Ceony,” he said. As though reading her thoughts, he eyed the scattered snowflakes with a frown, one that showed more in the tilt of his eyes than the curve of his lips. Ceony imagined he would have preferred them to fall in neat rows all perfectly aligned with one another, but real snow never fell that way. “I’m going to teach you something. Consider it homework.”

Ceony slumped in the chair. “Homework? But I’m not even settled—”

“Read the first page,” he said with a jab of his chin.

Rolling her lips together, Ceony opened the book to its first page, which showed a small gray mouse sitting atop a leaf. Her memory sprang to life, whispering that Ceony had seen this picture before, and her mind spun until it settled on a rainy afternoon some seven years ago when she’d been babysitting her neighbor’s son. He’d been sobbing at the door for half an hour, mourning the departure of his mother. That family had owned this book, albeit a very worn edition. Ceony remembered reading it to him. The boy had stopped sobbing by page four.

She didn’t mention the memory to Mg. Thane.

“?‘One morning Pip the mouse came outside to get some exercise, only to discover a golden wedge of cheese sitting just outside his stump,’?” she read. As she moved to turn the page, Mg. Thane stopped her.

“Good,” he said. “Now read it again.”

Ceony paused. “Again?”

He pointed to the book.

Suppressing another sigh, Ceony read, “?‘One morning Pip the mouse came outside to get some—’?”

“Put some effort into it, Ceony!” Mg. Thane said with a laugh. “Did they not cover story illusion at Praff?”

“I . . . no.” In fact, Ceony had no idea what the man referred to, and she could already feel herself getting frustrated, despite her best attempts not to. She wasn’t used to doing something wrong twice, especially when she didn’t understand what she had done wrong the first time.

Folding his arms, Mg. Thane leaned against the table and asked, “What is the story written on?”

“What sort of question is that?”

“The kind you should answer.”

Ceony’s eyes narrowed. His tone carried an air of chastisement, but his expression seemed lax enough. “It’s obviously written on paper.”

Mg. Thane snapped his fingers. “There we are! And paper is your domain now. So make it mean something. And calm down,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

Ceony flushed, and she cursed her light skin for making it so obvious. Clearing her throat, she reread the passage slowly, letting herself cool down.

Mg. Thane motioned with his hand for a third repetition.