The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)(9)

Swallowing, Ceony shut her eyes and tried to take herself back to her neighbor’s house, with the little boy on her knee and his beloved book in her hands. Like you’re reading it to him, she thought. Make it “mean” something. Then perhaps the paper magician would leave her be. She had already thrice reformed her assessment of his sanity.

“?‘One morning Pip the mouse came outside to get some exercise,’?” she said, reading it with the same inflections she had used seven years ago in attempts to calm her babysitting charge, “?‘only to discover a golden wedge of cheese sitting just outside his stump!’?”

“There you have it. Take a look.”

Ceony opened her eyes and nearly dropped the book.

There, like a ghost in the air, sat a little gray mouse with a fidgeting nose. His tail trailed behind him like a tired worm. Beside him stood a stump with a broad leaf and a golden wedge of cheese just like the one illustrated in the book. The image as a whole hovered nose level with her, and she could see through the apparition to the bookshelf on its other side.

Ceony’s throat choked with words. “Wh-What? I did that?”

“Mm-hm,” Mg. Thane hummed. “It helps when you can see an image, such as with picture books, but eventually you’ll be able to read novels and have those scenes play out for yourself, if you wish. I admit I’m impressed—I thought I’d have to demonstrate first. You seem familiar with the story already.”

Once again she flushed, both over the praise and over being called out for having read what, in her mind, was a childish thing. The ghostly images lasted only a moment longer before fading away, as all unread stories were wont to do.

Ceony shut the book and glanced to her new teacher. “It’s . . . amazing, but I admit it’s also superficial. Aesthetic.”

“But entertaining,” he combated. “Never dismiss the value of entertainment, Ceony. Good-quality entertainment is never free, and it’s something everyone wants.

“One more trick, then.” Mg. Thane pulled a square piece of pale gray paper from the table and began Folding it in his hands, without a board to press against. The Folds seemed relatively simple, but by the time he finished he held what looked like a strange sort of egg carton, one that could only hold four eggs and bore no lid.

He pulled a pen out from somewhere inside his coat and began writing on it. Ceony noted that he was left-handed.

“What is that?” she asked, setting Pip’s Daring Escape down on the cushion of the chair as she stood.

The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “A fortuity box,” he answered, flipping the contraption around and lifting its triangular flaps. Standing on her toes, Ceony peeked around his arm to see him scrawling symbols, one in each Folded triangle. She recognized the shapes as fortune symbols, the ones drawn on cards at fortune-tellers’ booths during carnivals.

“I’m no fortune-teller,” she said.

“You are now,” he replied, pinching the fortuity box in his fingers. He tilted it back and forth to show Ceony the placement. “Remember that you are much different now than you were an hour ago, Ceony. Before you merely read about magic; now you have it. Denying it won’t make you return to ordinary.”

Ceony nodded, wondering at that.

“Now,” he said, leaning back against the table. “Tell me your mother’s maiden name.”

Ceony knit and reknit her fingers, for telling Mg. Thane her mother’s maiden name could be a very bad thing, should he actually be mad. She had heard of a great many ancient curses that involved names during her studies, and she had been cautioned often about the power of names.

Mg. Thane lifted his eyes from the fortuity box. “You can trust me, Ceony. If you’re worried, be assured I could look up the information and more by requesting your permanent records from Praff.”

“How comforting,” she mumbled, but it tempted a smile from her. “It’s Philinger.”

Mg. Thane opened the fortuity box like a mouth, then split it the other way, moving it once for every letter in Philinger. It was a fairly common last name, so he got the spelling right. “Now, your date of birth.”

She told him, and again he swished the panels of the box back and forth.

“Pick a number.”

“Thirteen.”

“No higher than eight.”

She sighed. “Eight.”

Freeing one hand, Mg. Thane lifted a panel to reveal a symbol Ceony couldn’t see. He waited a moment, his eyes a little unfocused, before saying, “Interesting.”

“What?” Ceony asked, trying to spy around him, but he simply shifted the fortuity box from her line of sight.

“Bad luck to see your own fortune. What are they teaching new apprentices these days?” he asked with a click of his tongue, and Ceony could not tell if he jested, for his eyes were downcast to the box and therefore revealed none of their secrets. “It seems you have a bit of an adventure ahead of you.”

Yes. Living with you ought to be quite an “adventure,” she thought. Enough adventure for anyone. Still, part of her regretted the thought the moment it formed in her brain. Surely this man hadn’t personally offended her in any way . . . yet.

“That’s all it says?” she asked.

“That’s all I saw, at least,” he said, handing her the fortuity box. It made her fingers buzz, her body once again registering the new bond it had made.