The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy #2)(50)

Ceony glanced at the oatmeal—which looked overcooked—and said, “I could cook something, if you’d like. I don’t mind. What do you have?”

Langston stared at her dumbfounded for a moment. “Uh . . . well, there’s flour in the cupboard.”

Ceony managed a genuine smile. “I’ll do some exploring.”

She rummaged through the kitchen, pleased to see that Langston owned a full-sized stove. The man had mismatched ingredients, but Ceony whipped together some fried tomatoes, salted mushrooms, poached eggs, and some black pudding, albeit not her best batch of it. Langston didn’t seem to notice—he thought the tomatoes alone were a treat, and Ceony determined the man needed to get married right away. She wondered if Delilah could be coerced into dating him. She kept the thoughts to herself.

“So,” Ceony said when they had finished eating and silence had settled in. She pinched the fabric of her skirt in her fingers, trying to slide it down her legs—not that the Folder could see them, what with the table and all. “What have you been working on? That meeting you said got cancelled . . .”

He glanced up from the newspaper.

“When I first met you,” she finished.

He thought for a moment, then straightened. “Oh yes, I recall. It was a meeting with Sinad Mueller and the Praff Academic Board, actually. We rescheduled it for the following day.”

Ceony nodded, trying not to frown at the mention of Sinad Mueller. His name was attached to the most prestigious scholarship one could win for the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, the very scholarship Ceony had lost after dumping a pitcher of very expensive wine on the man’s lap. He’d deserved it, after trying to get a hand up her skirt. One of many reasons Ceony preferred her skirts long.

She tugged on the fabric again. “For the scholarship?”

Langston shook his head in the negative. “Oh no, just for the academic schedule. Tagis Praff is considering adding a Folding class to its second-semester courses to spur interest in paper-based magic. The shortage, and all.”

“A required class?” Ceony asked. The workload at Tagis Praff had been nearly suffocating during her year there. Surely they wouldn’t add more to the curriculum!

“Well,” Langston began, playing with the corner of his newspaper, “I think it would do better as an extracurricular course without a grading system—something for interested students to enroll in, should they choose. But Professor Mueller thinks they won’t attend unless it’s a required class, or for extra credit.”

“And you would teach it?”

“Supposedly,” Langston said. “Or perhaps we could make it an assembly of sorts, a career day, maybe. I’d only be showing basic craft, something to spike interest—animation, fortune charms, starlights, those sorts of things.”

Ceony released her skirt. “Starlights?”

“You don’t know them?” Langston asked. “Well, they’re small, almost plush-looking stars that light up. Quite nice for birthday parties or power outages. We get those a lot in the city.”

Ceony grinned. Margo would love something like that! “Could you show me, please?”

“Uh . . . well, certainly. I could use the practice.”

He looked at his newspaper for a moment, considering it, but ultimately stood from the table and moved to the desk in the living room, which held several stacks of paper. He selected some rectangular sheets in yellow and pink and a pair of scissors, and returned to the table.

“Well, you cut a strip,” he said, slicing off the long side of a yellow piece of paper.

“Does the size matter?”

“Uh . . . no, I don’t think so,” he said, finishing his strip. “And then you make a dog-ear Fold . . . Do you know a dog-ear Fold yet?”

“Just make them,” Ceony said, “and I’ll watch.”

Langston nodded, seeming relieved, and proceeded to Fold the star, his stubby fingers creasing the Folds well. He Folded part of the strip into a sort of knot, but didn’t give the Folds a hard crease. He formed a small pentagon, wrapping the remaining paper around it like a bandage and tucking in the end to leave the shape clean. He then, carefully, and with his smallest fingers, pressed in each side of the pentagon until it formed a star.

He held the starlight in his hand and said, “Glow.”

As though he had lit a match within the paper, the star began to softly glow from within. Ceony had to cup her hands around it to see, what with the bright morning light, but the soft light of the star remained steady until Langston said, “Cease.”

“Charming,” Ceony said. “I’d like to try, if you don’t mind.”

Ceony cut a strip and copied Langston’s movements from memory, though she had to pause twice to ask questions about the steps Langston’s large hands had obscured during the Folding process. When she had finished, she held a small, softly gleaming pink star in her hands. So simple, yet beautiful.

“This would make a wonderful necklace, were it not so fragile,” she commented. She wondered if the starlight would still glow if she glossed it the way Emery had glossed her barrette.

Thoughts of Emery dulled her cheer, and she ordered the star, “Cease.”

Langston shifted in his chair.

“Do you have any firearms?” Ceony asked, setting the star down. In secondary school, when she had been upset over something, sometimes her father would take her into the countryside to shoot off his shotgun. The pull and thunder always helped empty her mind.