The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy #2)(23)
Isn’t it? But Ceony knew when she couldn’t win an argument. Instead, she tried another tack.
“I’ll be left alone,” she said. A pregnant woman passed them, and Ceony held her tongue until the woman was out of earshot. “And I’m the one’s he’s after, right?”
Emery pressed his lips into a thin line. He glanced back around the corner of the bookstore—only a glance—and nodded. “All right. We’ll take a long route home, however. Find a place where we can telegraph his location to the police. I don’t want him spying any of my spells.”
Ceony nodded and forced herself to release her crab-claw grip on Emery’s forearm. She must have been squeezing harder than she realized, because Emery rubbed the spot when she released him.
They took a very, very long route home, so long that Ceony’s feet and hips hurt by the time they reached the complex.
Ceony couldn’t help but feel like they’d been walking on eggshells.
CHAPTER 7
CEONY MADE A SIMPLE stew for dinner that night, cooking and seasoning with care to make it taste as good as she could manage with their limited supplies. Mg. Aviosky had stopped by earlier to bring them some extra groceries, as well as some ledgers from Mg. Hughes for Emery. Emery had been absorbed in the books ever since.
He ate at the desk, and Ceony took her own supper into the bedroom, where Fennel yipped until she let him smell the bowl. Being made of paper, Fennel couldn’t eat the stew, but Emery had crafted him with the doglike mannerisms anyway. For a man allergic to canines, he certainly knew them well.
Ceony read to the thirteenth chapter in her origami textbook, storing the words to memory as she went, rereading important passages or anything Emery had highlighted to ensure the knowledge stuck. She fingered the barrette in her hair—the one Emery had made her—as she studied. She hoped they would return to the cottage soon. She had grown rather fond of the place, cluttered though it was. Nothing spectacular had happened after the trip to the market that morning, so perhaps they would head back soon. Ceony knew it wouldn’t happen, not until there was some resolution to this situation, but she could hope, at least.
She washed her clothes and Emery’s, using a Fan spell to help dry them, then bathed and got ready for bed. She peeked out the closed curtains over her bedroom window before settling in for the night. The city lights provided only scant illumination, however, and the night hid the street from her, save for the occasional passing of a buggy’s headlamps smearing over the cobblestones like butter over hot bread.
Ceony sighed. She hated being stuck like this, waiting for enemies to make their moves. At least with Lira she had been able to take matters into her own hands, more or less. Even trapped inside Emery’s heart, she could always move forward, make progress. Here, the tall buildings and clustered streets of the city had her trapped like a mouse in a maze, without even the possible reward of cheese. Perhaps that was why Emery hated the city so much.
She turned off her lamp, but noticed dim light streaming in from under her door. She went to the living room, where Emery sat on the end of the couch, reading over yet another ledger.
She watched him a moment, his focus, the slouch to his shoulders, the way the electric light gleamed off the waves of his hair. She had thought Magician Emery Thane very common looking, once. How silly she had been.
A minute passed before Emery sensed her and looked up from his work.
“You’ll turn to mush if you don’t get some rest,” Ceony warned, spying his dinner bowl on the desk. She crossed the room to fetch it; how unlike him to be untidy, even on this small a scale. Those ledgers had to be incredibly absorbing. And that worried her.
“I’ll turn in soon,” he said.
“Hmm,” Ceony hummed, doubting him. She’d have to start drugging him with poppy seeds and chamomile just to get him on a half-normal sleep schedule. What would the man do without an apprentice to look after him?
She headed for the kitchen, but Emery stopped her. “Ceony,” he said.
She glanced back. Emery remained on the couch, but he’d extended his left hand to her.
Ceony assumed he wanted his bowl back, for whatever reason, but when she held it out to him, he reached past the dish to her wrist and gently tugged her onto the couch beside him.
Shivers ran over her skin like hundreds of ants. Ceony opened her mouth in question, but Emery merely put his arm around her shoulders and continued to read his ledger, the pages of which had been crammed margin to margin with tiny, cramped handwriting not nearly as refined as his own.
The shivers fled, and just like they always did when he was near, her cheeks and chest blushed at his closeness. After a moment she permitted herself to relax. Sitting against him, and without the indigo coat between them, it surprised Ceony how warm Emery felt, like a campfire crackled beneath his skin. Not feverishly warm, just . . . comfortable.
She laid her head against him as she had in the car, and his fingers curled around her shoulder. Her pulse raced, and she could hear his heart through his shoulder. It was beating steadily, but perhaps a bit more quickly than normal. After all, she knew Emery’s heartbeat almost as well as her own.
He smelled like soap and brown sugar. She glanced up at the stubble beginning to grow on his face, heavier close to his long sideburns and finer as it neared his lips. She studied his lips for a moment, their shape, their smoothness. She dropped her gaze before she could flush too deeply.