The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Series, Book 1)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  The latches on the suitcase opened with two clicks. Her green student’s apron lay on top, a last-minute packing decision, just in case she needed it. She set it aside and pulled out her blouses and skirts, shaking each in an attempt to unwrinkle the fabric. Fortunately the paper magician had remembered hangers in the closet; Ceony took her time hanging up each item of clothing.

  She paused on the last skirt, her thoughts shifting from where on earth she would stow her under-things and pistol to the revelation about her scholarship. Fifteen thousand pounds. Where would she be today, if not for that money? Scrubbing some aristocrat’s floor, hoping she had saved enough to enroll in cooking classes?

  And why had Mg. Thane given the money to her in the first place? She had never met him before today—she would have remembered. The scholarship had no title, no recurrences. Ceony couldn’t believe she had merely been filtered through and selected due to good grades for a one-time donation, as he seemed to imply.

  Had she?

  What sort of man was Magician Emery Thane, to donate such a large sum to a complete stranger, and one he didn’t even request for apprenticeship?

  As Ceony returned to her suitcase, she began to wonder just how much a magician made. It must be a grand sum, unless Mg. Thane hoarded money the way he seemed to hoard all the other knickknacks in the house. Ceony hoped for the grand sum. She would feel terribly guilty otherwise. Perhaps it would be better not to pry, but he couldn’t stop her from thinking on it.

  For now, though, she’d put it aside and focus on the task at hand. She reached into her suitcase, filled now with her makeup, barrettes, journal, and a library card that would do her no good here, so far away from any library she knew, when again her thoughts took a turn. Her hand went to the turquoise dog collar wedged in the corner beneath her under-things. She held it up, running a thumb over its frayed ends, worn from too much chewing. She had taken Bizzy’s tag off yesterday and given it to her mother, who now looked after the Jack Russell terrier in Ceony’s stead.

  Ceony sighed. That dog had been her dearest friend through the last few years, especially at the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined. One couldn’t make much in the way of friends at that school if they wanted to graduate in the designated year. There was simply too much work to do. But Bizzy didn’t have homework, and she had always waited eagerly by the dorm-room door for Ceony to return after classes every day. That made her the best kind of friend.

  “You have a dog? Or a very large cat?”

  Ceony’s heart skipped a beat and she whirled around, slamming her suitcase shut to hide her under-things and gun. Mg. Thane stood in the doorway, not yet breaching the threshold into her bedroom, holding a rather large stack of books. She should have closed that door.

  Ceony clasped the collar. “Had one. He lived with me at the school, but Magician Aviosky told me I couldn’t bring him here. Because of your allergies.”

  Mg. Thane nodded slowly, his bright eyes thoughtful. “I never was good around animals, even as a boy,” he said in agreement. “I preferred bees.”

  “Bees?” Ceony asked.

  He looked at her as though the preference was entirely normal and she was strange for questioning it. And, as he seemed wont to do, he didn’t respond more than that.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  Ceony nodded.

  Kicking the door open with his toe, Mg. Thane stepped into the room and set the stack of books down on the desk. Ceony cringed—she had worried those would be for her.

  “Some reading for when Pip tires you,” Mg. Thane said, patting the top of the stack with his hand.

  Arching sideways, Ceony read the titles: Astrology for Youth, Anatomy of the Human Body Volume I, Marcus Waters’s Guide to Pyrotechnics, Theories on Aviation, and Calming the Spirits: An Essay on the Tao. Ceony’s lips parted a little wider with each title.

  “But these have nothing to do with paper,” she said.

  “Mmm, I can see why they accepted you at Tagis Praff,” he said with a chuckle. Ceony glared at him, but he went on, nonchalant. “Paper is more than just trees run through a chipper, Ceony. These will benefit you for future lessons.”

  He tapped his chin and glanced to the window. “Are you hungry?”

  She set Bizzy’s collar down. “Not especially. I ate in the buggy.”

  “I’ll leave something on the stove for you, then,” he replied, walking back into the hallway. “Do get some rest,” he called, even as his voice faded away. “I have a busy day planned for you tomorrow. We don’t want to let that Tagis Praff work ethic go to waste!”

  Ceony glanced to the books on her desk, wondering just what sort of work the paper magician had in store for her. She had heard that many magicians forced their apprentices to do physical labor for their first year to humble them, or perhaps to break them. Ceony prayed that wouldn’t be the case here. Although, she wouldn’t be surprised if Mg. Thane planned to break her mentally first, what with the thickness of those volumes. At least she could be confident that weeding would not be one of her chores—she hadn’t seen a single real flower in the front gardens.

  Ceony unpacked the rest of her things, putting her makeup, barrettes, journal, and Bizzy’s collar on the shelves carved into the wall beside the bed. She decided to keep her under-things and pistol in her suitcase, which she shoved beneath the bed. Outside, the sun made its slow descent to the west. Ceony would have to see to getting a clock in her room, if Mg. Thane granted her any wages. She would have to ask about that in the morning.

  Sitting on her mattress, Ceony cracked open the well-worn bindings of Astrology for Youth and skimmed the first four chapters, then browsed through the figures in Anatomy of the Human Body, reading the captions beneath images of lungs, kidneys, hearts, and livers. Lying back on her pillow with Theories on Aviation on her stomach, Ceony pondered paper snow until she drifted into a hazy slumber, where she dreamed of enchanted cannons and the other spells she could have learned, had Mg. Aviosky only let her become a Smelter.

  Ceony woke with a start, though she could not remember why. Perhaps she had dreamed of falling, a nightmare she had at least once every other week since the age of eleven, when she had toppled off a dapple mare in her uncle’s cousin’s backyard. The sun had disappeared entirely from her window. If she pressed her face against the glass, she could spy the tip of the three-quarters moon above her. It was very late, indeed—perhaps an hour past midnight.

  Stomach growling, Ceony blinked sleep from her eyes, stood, and adjusted her skirt, which had turned about her sideways. She also rebraided her hair over her left ear, for it surely looked a mess, not that anyone would be up to see it. Not that anyone lived in the cottage but Mg. Thane and his animated skeleton-butler.

  After making her way down to the kitchen by candlelight—it felt strange to wander a place entirely dark, as Tagis Praff always had those new electric bulbs lighting the hallways, or a fire magician keeping lanterns lit—Ceony found a saucepan and bowl sitting atop the stove. The saucepan held half-stale rice, and the bowl had been filled with what looked like some form of preserved tuna. She shook her head. Was this what Mg. Thane ate normally, or was this what he served to guests? For if rice and tuna was his for-guests meal, Ceony couldn’t imagine what the man ate when he dined alone. Perhaps Mg. Aviosky had assigned her here merely to ensure England’s oddest paper magician got some decent nutrition and didn’t wither away, leaving the country with only eleven paper magicians instead of twelve. Ceony would have to inspect the cupboards tomorrow to see just what Mg. Thane had stocked.

  For now, however, she found a bowl and scooped up some cold rice, but left the tuna. She took two steps back toward her room when she heard something subtle—a drawer closing, perhaps. Curious, Ceony shoved a spoonful of rice into her mouth and tiptoed through the dining room and kitchen before spying a line of light coming from the hallway. The door on the left—he
r right—specifically. The study.

  Ceony fed herself another spoonful. What sorts of hobbies did this man keep to be awake so late? The idea of him meddling with the dark arts almost made her laugh, but a good swallow prevented that. Ceony had a hard time imagining Mg. Thane, regardless of his level of madness, dabbling in shadow work or Excision, the forbidden magic that used human flesh as a conduit.

  A shiver crept up her neck as she recalled what Mg. Phillips, her History of Magic Meddling teacher, had said about Excision:

  “Materials magic can only be performed through manmade materials, of course, but someone many, many years ago concluded that because humans begot humans, people were also manmade, and thus the dark arts began. Now, turn to page one twenty-six in your text—”

  Ceony ran a thumb over the shiver in her neck. Now such things were limited to campfire stories and history classes taught at Tagis Praff. Besides, Ceony had seen Mg. Thane work paper magic, which meant he couldn’t possibly be an Excisioner.

  She crept along the hallway where floor met wall, grateful that the floorboards didn’t squeak and give her away. She heard a tune as she neared the study. Mg. Thane hummed to himself, though Ceony couldn’t name the melody. It sounded . . . foreign.

  He’d left the door open a crack. Ceony pushed on it lightly with her index finger, just enough to see inside.

  Mg. Thane worked with his back to the door on the narrow table right behind his desk. A stack of standard-sized white paper sat at his right elbow, and his long indigo coat draped over the back of his chair. He continued to hum as he took a piece of paper off the stack and Folded it out of Ceony’s sight. What was he creating, and at one o’clock in the morning?

  Careful to be silent, Ceony stepped away from the door and retreated back into the dining room. She didn’t like secrets, at least not ones she wasn’t in on. Perhaps she would confront Mg. Thane in the morning. Or, perhaps, she wouldn’t.

  Sometime in the early-morning hours, Mg. Thane went to bed, for he was not in his study when Ceony came downstairs to raid the cupboards precisely one minute after eight o’clock.

  She wore her apprentice’s apron and her hair in a braid, but again hadn’t bothered to line her eyes or rouge her cheeks, as had recently become popular in town. There was just no reason to do so—who did she have to impress? Dragging a chair from the dining room into the kitchen, Ceony stood on it and looked through all the cupboards, which she found to be surprisingly well stocked. Mg. Thane had all the ingredients needed to make a chocolate cake, for instance, though Ceony noticed most were unopened. He had an enormous bag of rice beneath the sink, a half-eaten loaf of bread in the bread box, and eggs and an assortment of meat in the icebox, which Ceony found behind the counter, near the back door. The icebox also held a few handfuls of paper confetti. She wondered how they had gotten in there, or if they were part of some spell, but she merely brushed them off the bacon and grabbed the carton of eggs, a wedge of cheddar, and a bundled stock of fennel.

  She had gotten down a frying pan and stoked the stove when she heard the strangest rasping sound coming down the stairs, along with the soft padding of paper on wood. Thinking it Jonto, she readied a spatula in her defense, but when the door to the stairs creaked open, something much shorter emerged from behind it.

  Ceony gaped in surprise. There, wagging its little paper tail, stood a paper dog.

  Dozens of pieces of paper formed its body, interlocking almost seamlessly from head to foot to tail. It had no eyes, being made of paper, but had two nostrils and a distinct mouth that opened and rasped at her in a strange sort of bark. It looked something like a Lab-terrier mix, its head only reaching Ceony’s knee.

  Barking once more, the dog sprinted up to Ceony and began sniffing her shoes.

  With parted lips and tingles running down her back, Ceony set the spatula down by the stove, knocking the fennel stock to the floor. She crouched and stroked the dog’s head. It felt surprisingly solid beneath her fingers, and its paper body made her fingertips buzz almost as though she were stroking real fur.

  “Why hello!” she said, and the dog jumped and pressed its front paws against her knees, then actually licked her with a dry, paper tongue. Ceony laughed and scratched behind its ears. It panted with excitement. “Wherever did you come from?”

  The door squeaked again, announcing Mg. Thane’s arrival. He looked a little tired, but no worse for wear, and still wore that long indigo coat. “This one won’t give me hives,” he said with a smile that beamed in his eyes. “It’s not the same, but I thought it would do, for now.”

  Wide-eyed, Ceony slowly stood, the paper dog yapping in its whispery voice and nudging her ankles with its muzzle. “You made this?” she asked, feeling her ribs knit over her lungs. “This . . . this is what you were doing last night?”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Were you up? I apologize—I’m not used to having others in the house again.”

  Again, she thought, wondering. Mg. Thane seemed old enough to have had, perhaps, one apprentice before her, if that’s what he meant. She had never bothered asking Mg. Aviosky about Mg. Thane’s previous pupils. And she didn’t ask, not now. Not with this wonderful pup sniffing at her ankles.

  He had made this for her. Because of Bizzy.

  She looked from him to the dog, then back at him. She pinched the back of her arm to keep herself from crying, for her eyes had already made the decision without her consent.

  “Thank you,” she said, perhaps too quietly. “This . . . this means a lot to me. You didn’t have to . . . thank you.” She grasped the spatula. “Do you want some breakfast? I was about to make some—”

  “I have good timing, then,” Mg. Thane said, momentarily distracted by something up the stairs. “If you don’t mind.”

  She shook her head no. Mg. Thane’s eyes smiled and he vanished back up the stairs.

  Ceony retreated back to the icebox for more eggs, the paper dog trailing behind her, sniffing the floor as it went. She watched its paper joints move together as a whole—so that’s what Mg. Thane had meant.

  She scooped the fennel off the floor.

  “I think I’ll name you Fennel,” she said to it, slipping eggs into the pockets of her apron. “It may be a better cat name, but since you’re not quite a real dog . . . well, it suits you.”

  Fennel merely cocked his head to the side, not quite understanding.

  Mg. Thane ate his breakfast in the study, where he laid out several books and ledgers across his tidy-cluttered desk. Ceony practiced her reading illusion until just after lunch—she could get three of the fourteen pages to form in the air around her now, and Fennel tried to chase the mouse every time it appeared. The dog provided quite the distraction, but Ceony didn’t mind one bit. She even fastened Bizzy’s old collar around Fennel’s neck. It fit perfectly.

  Just after noon Mg. Thane called her into the library to show her the variety of papers kept on the table there, explaining the importance behind their thickness and grain. He seemed somewhat distracted and repeated himself here and there, but Ceony didn’t point it out to him. She was merely relieved that the man hadn’t assigned her physical labor. And, while the thought of such chores didn’t irk her quite the way it had yesterday, she found herself almost grateful for the lesson. What Mg. Thane was teaching her had started to weasel its way into that part of her that wanted to know. She found herself paying rapt attention to Mg. Thane’s lecture, and when she recited the details of the paper back to him at the end of the lesson, she beamed under his compliment, simple as it was.

  “That’s quite accurate,” he said. He peered out the window, seeing something Ceony didn’t beyond its glass.

  “Are you stuck on something?” she finally asked as he put the sheets of paper into the wrong piles on the desk. She took them from his hands and placed them correctly, being sure to keep all the stacks straight.

  “Hm?”


  “Stuck on something,” she repeated. “You’re somewhere else today.”

  Unless he was always like that in the afternoon. Ceony had known him not quite a full day, so she had nothing to compare him to. She felt sure it wasn’t madness, though.

  “I suppose I am,” he said after some thought, blinking and returning to the present. “I’ve a lot on my mind, what with a new apprentice and all.”

  “Am I your first?”

  “Second and a half,” he answered.

  “Half?” Ceony asked. “How do you have half of an apprentice?”

  “The last one didn’t stay his full term,” he explained without really explaining at all.

  Full term? Ceony thought as a bead of fright washed down her throat. Was he in an accident? Quit? Laid off? Did magicians often lay off their apprentices?

  Ceony bit the inside of her cheek. Surely Mg. Thane wouldn’t fire her. The country was too desperate for paper magicians to lose any aspiring Folders, and she’d already bonded paper.

  She hadn’t considered the security of her position until now, and it made her stomach curdle. She’d worked so hard to get where she was now—even if it was on the path to becoming a Folder, not a Smelter—and she had still required the luck of receiving a scholarship.

  For a moment she saw stars as she remembered the car crash, smelled burning onion as Mrs. Appleton had screamed at her after spilling that wine—

  She blinked the memories away. This apprenticeship wasn’t just another job; there would be no going back were she to be laid off. She’d be bound to paper and only paper, yet not legally authorized to do anything with it. She’d be a spent magician.

  “You look like you’ve eaten something sour,” Mg. Thane said, pulling a thick sheet of slate-colored paper from the upper-right pile on the desk, just beside the telegraph.