The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy #2)(56)

She stared at Delilah, who looked little more than a paper doll.

She looked at the shards of glass surrounding her, speckling the floorboards like misshapen diamonds.

Speckling the floorboards.

The wooden floorboards.

Ceony had no paper, but she had this.

Pressing her bloodied palm to the floor, she murmured, barely audible even to her own ears, “Material made by earth, your handler summons you. Unlink to me as I link through you, unto this very day.”

She pressed the same hand to herself and whimpered, “Material made by man, I summon you. Link to me as I link to you, unto this very day.”

She pushed herself up on her elbow, her spirit somewhere distant, far away from the hot, searing pain of her injuries. She reached for a large shard of glass and clutched it in her hands, its edges cutting into her fingers.

Grath stopped before Aviosky and pulled apart her blouse, then used his knife to slice through her camisole, revealing her chest. Her heart.

“Material made by man,” Ceony said, almost more in her head than out loud, “your creator summons you. Link to me as I link to you through my years, until the day I die and become earth.”

The glass tingled in her fingers. Delilah’s glass. It had worked.

Grath pulled back his hand.

Ceony’s eyes darted between the mirrors. She saw her bloodied shoulder in a round one just beside Grath’s head, reflected from the antique mirror against the wall.

She remembered Delilah sitting across from her at the bistro, bubbly and alive, so alive, laughing at the prank she had pulled with the makeup compact. Remembered her explanation of the spell.

Turning to the antique mirror, which she had already touched, Ceony whispered “Reflect” and concentrated on Lira as she had first seen her, a beauty in Emery’s kitchen, black clothes hugging her perfect curves, the twisted ruby smile on her lips. She imagined Lira’s chocolate-colored curls and the way they’d framed her face and spilled over her shoulders. She remembered the dark glint to her eyes, the vials of blood hanging off her belt.

Sure enough, the antique mirror produced a perfect reflection of Lira, and the round mirror picked up the image of her face in turn.

Grath noticed. He hesitated, spying Lira’s reflection in the corner of his eye. He spun, perhaps expecting her to be standing right behind him. Perhaps expecting her to be cured.

Turning his back to Ceony.

Ceony pushed off the ground, growling through the pain. She collided into Grath and dug the shard of glass in her hand into his back, right below his rib cage.

“Shatter!” she cried.

The glass shattered in her hands, breaking into dozens of pieces beneath Grath’s skin.

Grath choked. He grabbed Ceony by the hair and threw her off him; she collided with the floor again and shrieked as spilled glass mangled her already bloodied arm.

Grath stumbled into Mg. Aviosky, grabbing at her for support, but his legs gave out from under him. He collapsed at Delilah’s feet. The glass in his body had cut him too deep, too quickly. He hadn’t prepared a Healing spell beforehand.

The shadows lacing Ceony’s vision expanded, sucking color from the room. Her own blood looked gray, as if melting clouds had smeared over her skin.

She crawled to the nearest mirror, which sat just beside the table covered in sand. Grunting, she touched her fingers to it, leaving prints of red against her reflection.

Help. She needed help . . . Her foggy mind pulled up the memory of the spell Delilah had used on the broken mirror in Ceony’s flat, and with a voice more air than sound, she said, “Reverse.”

Her reflection vanished, replaced by a bright room filled with white furniture and ornate vases. A gray cat sat on a sofa, licking one of its paws. A polished banister marked a staircase in the back. Someone’s sitting room.

The shadows filled Ceony’s vision, and she dropped her hand and head to the floor. She could have sworn she heard Mg. Hughes calling out her name.





CHAPTER 20



Emery

LONDON RUSHED BY EMERY’S window, the blocks and points of city architecture shrinking as the main city dwindled down into its residential branches. Flats gradually morphed into homes, which grew farther and farther apart as the train chugged its way south. Emery watched rolling farms, brush, and sparse trees, pass by in smears of green, stared at waterways so still they looked like Gaffer’s glass. He moved farther from home and closer to his enemy, yet he couldn’t comprehend the rush of colors and the drag of distance around him. In the back of his mind his thoughts pieced together illusions, chains, and careful Folds. In the front, it thought, Ceony.

How long had it been since he’d last kissed a woman? His mind calculated the math sluggishly. Three years? After the separation, before the divorce. Memories he would prefer not to entertain.

Emery leaned his elbow on the window of the train car. Ceony. One month ago he had played with the idea of courting her once she’d earned her magicianship and they’d both settled into their new lives, she as a budding Folder and he with the next sorry lout Patrice forced his way. He had no doubt that Ceony would pass her Folding tests at the end of the minimum two years’ apprenticeship. She had proved herself bright and eager to learn, and her remarkable memory still astounded him.

Yet in recent weeks that amount of time—two years—had begun to seem longer and longer. The squares of his calendar grew bigger, and the hands on clocks moved slower. Revealing so much of himself to one person, even if not by choice, had changed something between them. Created in a matter of days a deep, comfortable bond that often took years to achieve. Her cheer, her dedication, and her beauty made that bond that much harder to ignore, no matter how hard he tried to reason himself out of it.