The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy #2)(47)

Ceony started. Other than in the third chamber of his heart, Emery had never shouted at her before.

“What if Saraj had been there?” he asked, his green eyes blazing. “You would be on a meat hook right now, while the rest of us would still be wondering where the hell you disappeared to!”

“Delilah was—”

“And how dare you bring Delilah into this!” he interrupted. “Do you realize how mirror transportation works? He could have killed you, then her!”

“I know how it works, I’m not stupid!” Ceony shouted back. “I didn’t go into this blind! This is my responsibility—they’re after me—and yet I’m not even allowed to sit in on the meetings discussing it! I thought I should take care of it on my own.”

“You thought wrong,” Emery said. He ran a hand back through his hair, looking ready to tug it from his scalp. “You have a great deal of good fortune in your blood, Ceony, but you cannot continue to take these kinds of risks. You’re not immortal. Do you have any idea what it does to me when you put yourself in danger? And so willingly, no less!”

“If I didn’t take risks like this, you’d be dead!” she shot back. She swung her hand out, nearly knocking a seashell from the sink beside her. “I can’t sit idly by while the rest of the world goes on without me!”

“You do not hold up the world,” Emery replied, closer to his normal volume. “You are not God, and it’s time you stopped acting like you were.”

“You don’t even believe in God,” Ceony quipped, folding her arms. A sore lump formed in her throat, and tears threatened her eyes. She stared at a spot on the floor, trying to bury the sensations.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe, or what you believe, or what anyone in this damn country believes,” Emery said. He let out a long breath. “I don’t understand you, Ceony. I don’t understand why you would do something like this without even telling me. Do you not trust me?”

She lifted her eyes. Beneath the anger in his face, she saw genuine hurt in his eyes.

Her shoulders slumped. “I trust you. You know I trust you. But I don’t want to see you hurt, not again. Grath threatened you, too.”

“Threats are only threats,” Emery said. “If I had a pound for every threat someone has thrown my way, empty or not, I could retire.”

He reached up and touched Ceony’s cheek. She winced. The spot where Grath had struck her still felt swollen and tender.

“This is not a threat,” Emery said, much quieter now. “I know Grath far better than you do, and I know he keeps his promises. You saved my life; now you have to let me save yours. I couldn’t fight Lira, but I can fight Grath and Saraj. You have to understand that they’re nothing like Lira. She was a novice. You’re comparing a house pup to wolves.”

The tears finally broke through Ceony’s resolve and traced uneven lines down her face, wetting Emery’s thumb. “It’s my fault,” she whispered. “Because of me my family is in danger. Oh God, he’ll kill them . . .”

Emery dropped his hand to Ceony’s shoulder and pulled her toward him. He embraced her, gently. He smelled like charcoal and brown sugar, as though bits of the cottage still clung to him. His shirt collar absorbed Ceony’s tears.

“I promise I’ll do everything I can to protect your family,” he said. “We’ll pray it’s a bluff. But Grath and Saraj are my business now.”

He released her, taking his warmth with him, and opened the door, vanishing back into the hallway.

Ceony stood like a statue for a long moment, numb and broken, feeling cracks form over her heart. Then she shook her head and spun around, following in the wake of the paper magician.

She saw Mg. Aviosky and Delilah first, coming down the stairs from the mirror room.

“I’m putting you on parole, Miss Twill,” Mg. Aviosky said, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Beside her, Delilah stared at the floor, digging the toe of her shoe into an eyespot in the wooden boards. “Unfortunately I can’t initiate a house arrest, given the circumstances, but should you act out again I will have to consider a dismissal of your apprenticeship.”

Ceony felt as though she had shrunk to a foot tall. She swallowed any argument in her throat and said, “That’s fair. I’m so sorry. Delilah, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Delilah only shrugged. “We’re all chipper now, aren’t we?” she asked, but her tone was all melancholy.

She pushed by the two Gaffers, but only made it one step down the stairs leading to the front door before Mg. Aviosky asked, “And where are you going?”

“To find Emery,” she said, not caring that it was his first name that formed on her lips. Mg. Aviosky’s frown couldn’t deepen any further anyway.

She took the stairs quickly, but thankfully her ankle held up well. She peered into the front room, then followed the hallway toward the dining room. She heard Emery’s voice and followed it to a small sitting room at the far end of the first floor, passing Mg. Hughes, who was still tapping away at the telegraph near the kitchen.

She found Emery at an antique desk with a telephone piece pressed to his ear.

She caught the end of his conversation. “—out front. Yes. Thank you.”

He hung up.