The Glass Magician

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  George mumbled something under his breath, but Ceony didn’t catch it. Likely for the best. She found herself disliking the man just a little bit more every time he opened his mouth.

  Miss Johnston scribbled something onto her clipboard. “This way, follow me,” she said as she led them into the first building, over a path of old stonework that had been repaired several times over with mismatching mortar. The single door into the factory was tucked under a faded brick arch, and Miss Johnston continued to chatter as the apprentices entered the building single file. “Sir John Spilman built the first paper mill in Dartford in 1588. The Dartford Paper Mill was initially founded and built by the London Paper Mills Company in 1862 after excise duty on paper was abolished. Then it was restructured in 1889. The paper mill helped industrialize Dartford, which was traditionally a hub for chalk mining, lime burning, the wool industry, and other forms of agriculture.”

  Delilah leaned close to Ceony and asked, “What’s lime burning?”

  Ceony shrugged.

  They walked into a large reception foyer with green and gray floor tiling and very sparse furniture. A great many potted plants, ranging from petunias to leafy ferns, occupied every corner and cranny. Ceony spied no electric wires—all the light emanated from the tall, age-stained windows over the door. To her surprise, the broccoli smell diminished somewhat in this foyer. That, or Ceony’s nose had grown accustomed to it.

  A secretary behind a high beige desk glanced up at the group as it entered, but the apprentices didn’t hold her interest for long.

  “Back here are meeting rooms for our employees,” Miss Johnston said, walking backward and gesturing to two unpainted doors on the far side of the room, half-hidden by a wild-looking fern. “As you follow me into this hallway, you’ll hear the water race beneath your feet. The mill pumps water from the river through a half dozen Smelted turbines beneath the factory, which power our newest machines, all of which were made right here in England. The Dartford Paper Mill prides itself on keeping all its affairs native.”

  As the tour continued, each ensuing room required more explanation than the last on how the different machines worked, what each employee did, and the history behind anything and everything in view. They walked through the large collection room that made up the entire back half of the first building, where logs that had been carried in by boat were ground in a wood chipper before being sent to the pulp room. Though Miss Johnston kept the tour group far away from the chipping itself, Ceony still had to cover her ears. She couldn’t hear Miss Johnston’s endless lecture on the workings of the mill until they reached the pulp room, where the smell of broccoli and unbrushed teeth grew so strong Ceony would have gagged had Delilah not handed her a spare handkerchief to cover her nose with.

  Unfortunately, most of the interesting parts of the mill, such as the forming and pressing sections, lingered far behind the yellow paint lines on the floor that dictated where tour groups were allowed to walk. Rows of boxes and half-empty shelves blocked the machinery, which Ceony would actually have enjoyed seeing.

  Miss Johnston led them through the machine room, of which Ceony saw only a corner; the warehouse, which stood nearly the size of the wood-chipping room, but with more shelves and less light; and a room called the “dynamo and engine,” which processed so much of that bitter paper smell that Ceony’s eyes watered. Miss Johnston had just begun discussing the agitators and stuff chests when another employee—a young man in a smock—approached her from the left and whispered in her ear. Ceony stepped forward and strained to listen, but all she heard was “just now” and “suspicious.” Still, the latter word piqued her interest.

  The man left and Ceony raised her hand to ask after him, but Miss Johnston waved the question away and said, “I apologize for the inconvenience, but it seems we’re experiencing some technical difficulties, which means this tour group will need to evacuate. If you’ll follow me back through the warehouse, I’ll have you exit out the west door. Hopefully this won’t take long, and we can continue your tour. Again, my apologies.”

  George smacked his palm against his forehead, but the group followed Miss Johnston in silence back through the warehouse, which of course bore yellow tourist lines clear to the rusted, windowless door.

  Ceony grabbed Delilah’s wrist and pulled her toward the back of the group. “Did you hear what he said?” she whispered.

  Delilah shook her head, tickling Ceony’s nose with her curls. “I didn’t. You?”

  “Something suspicious. I mean, he said ‘suspicious.’ And something about ‘just now.’ What could go wrong in a paper mill that would cause them to stop the tour? Bad pulp?”

  Delilah shrugged. “Big businesses always have certain protocols for things like tour groups and emergency preparation. My pa works for Stanton Automobile, and there are all sorts of weird rules about what to do when something goes wrong. It usually just results in a lot of overtime.”

  Ceony cringed at the idea of working overtime in a paper mill, but said nothing more on the subject.

  Miss Johnston left the group outside on a stretch of trampled grass not far from the river and disappeared back through the door. Clemson tested the handle but found it locked.

  “Curious,” he said. It was the first word Ceony had heard him speak. The lanky man released the handle and said nothing more.

  Letting out a sigh, Ceony took in her surroundings. She could hear the river churning at the back of the mill, and a gravel road wound around the side of the building to its front. A little farther out grew clusters of aspen trees and uncut crabgrass; she headed toward them with Delilah, the afternoon sun peeking out from behind wispy clouds. The others followed at a slow pace, George grumbling as he went.

  “I think we should do lunch sometime soon, Ceony,” Delilah said with a grin. She handled inconvenience so well. Ceony envied that about her.

  “I agree,” Ceony said, “but it’s on your schedule. Em—Magician Thane is fairly lenient about my time off.”

  “Oh, I think tomorrow would suit just right,” Delilah said, clapping her hands together. “Magician Aviosky has a full day booked at the school, what with the new year starting soon, so I’ll only have personal study to complete. Where shall we go?”

  Ceony paused under a tree some fifty feet from the paper mill and leaned against its white, scarred trunk. “Do you like fish? St. Alban’s Salmon Bistro at Parliament Square has really good bisque. I’ve tried to copy it before, but I can never get it right.”

  “Oh, I love St. Alban’s,” Delilah said with a wave of her hand. “Their bread is heavenly. Tomorrow at noon, then? I can meet you outside the statue of—”

  Delilah’s lips kept moving, but a loud boom! from behind her completely enveloped her words. Ceony felt the explosion through the ground, up her legs, and in her very heart. The leaves overhead rattled, and two starlings took to the sky.

  Then Ceony saw the fire.

  Flames soared upward from the first and second buildings of the paper mill like an erupting volcano, spitting chunks of debris and ash higher than the smokestacks’ steam. They engulfed half the building; the heat hit in a wall-like wave a moment later, pulling beads of sweat from her skin.

  “Run!” she shouted, barely able to hear her own voice. She grabbed Delilah and pulled her in the opposite direction of the mill. Clemson was nowhere in sight, but George and Dover had already taken off, and she raced after them. A piece of debris slammed into a tree not ten feet to her left, splitting it in two.

  Something whistled, and a second, smaller explosion sang through the air. Ceony turned just in time to see a massive chunk of factory wall hurtling toward her.

  Clemson appeared out of nowhere and ran toward it, rubbing his hands together. Ceony screamed, but the man shouted “Deflect!” and shot a giant fireball into the debris, knocking it away. Instead of smashing into Ceony, it soared over the trees and landed in the river with a giant splash.

  Delilah started to cry.

  “Thank
you!” Ceony shouted, but Clemson just shoved them forward, dropping a spent match in the process. Ceony didn’t need any reminder of the danger they were in. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, which turned out to be much faster than what Delilah could manage. Ceony refused to let go of the Gaffer apprentice’s hand, and half-dragged her over a small hill toward the street the shuttle had used to get to the factory. Dover and George had already reached it by the time they got there, and were standing with a small collection of awestruck bystanders. When Ceony finally stopped, chest heaving with each breath, Delilah buried herself into Ceony’s collar and continued to sob. Clemson approached cautiously, but a shake of Ceony’s head suggested he stay away, and he did. Ceony patted Delilah’s back in a meager attempt to console her and stared at the pillar of dark-gray smoke churning up from the paper mill. What had happened? What had gone wrong?

  She tensed as another thought occurred to her: Of all the employees Miss Johnston had pointed out to them on the tour, how many had escaped in time?

  The air soured with the smell of ashes and soot. More and more people collected on the street to ogle the catastrophe until the police arrived and started pushing everyone back. The first group of policemen ran straight up to the mill; the second worked on crowd control.

  Her skin prickled again with that feeling of being watched. She searched the crowd as best she could with Delilah clinging to her, but so many people surrounded them . . .

  Across the street, however, one person did stand out. He wore normal clothes, but his dark skin contrasted with the rest of the bystanders. He was a tall man—Indian, or perhaps Arab. His dark eyes met hers, and then the crowd filled in and he vanished from sight.

  Ceony sucked in a deep breath. What decent person would look askance at a foreigner, even if he had been looking her way? Plenty of foreigners lived in England. Delilah was a foreigner, for heaven’s sake. Ceony’s mother would be appalled if she knew Ceony suspected a man merely because he was different.

  Ceony looked around once more for the others, but Clemson, Dover, and George had either left or gotten lost in the throng. She handed Delilah a handkerchief to dry her eyes and, heart buzzing, approached the closest policeman.

  “Excuse me,” she said. The man glanced her way before returning his gaze to the burning paper mill.

  Ceony removed her hat and waved it back and forth, demanding his attention. “My friend and I are magicians’ apprentices; we were on tour when the building exploded.”

  His eyes narrowed. “We’ll need to question you.”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Ceony said, raising her voice to be heard over the people, “but we need to return to Town Centre and find our teachers. They’ll be worried, and we’re not from around here. Please.”

  The policeman rolled his lips together for a long moment before nodding. “One moment,” he said. He stepped over to his comrade and muttered something to him. The other policeman nodded and retrieved a pre-animated paper messenger bird from the trunk of his automobile. After scribbling a missive on it, he released it into the wind, but it flew away from Town Centre. Perhaps it was a call for reinforcements.

  More police arrived on the scene about a quarter of an hour later, many on horseback, and one of them offered Ceony and Delilah a ride back to Town Centre. Ceony thanked him profusely, and Delilah even offered him money, which he didn’t accept. Trying to calm herself, Ceony led the way into the square, searching for Emery, praying he would be nearby. If all had gone as planned, the shuttle wouldn’t have dropped them off here for another hour, but it seemed inevitable that Emery and Mg. Aviosky would have noticed the commotion.

  Even more people had congregated in Town Centre than at the mill, and all were gossiping about the explosion. Ceony could see the pillars of smoke from the square, dancing into the sky like poisoned clouds. She stopped and stared for a moment, holding her breath. Would they be able to put out the flames? What in the world had created a disaster of this magnitude?

  She pushed through a crowd of women and a collection of schoolchildren, standing on her toes in a poor attempt to get a better view. She reached into her bag and pulled free a piece of paper to send a signal over the square—a wide-winged crane would work well for revealing her location. She searched for a decent place to Fold it, eyes scanning past the clusters of onlookers and the shop owners who stood outside their doors, pointing and chatting.

  Ceony spied a flash of indigo between two newspaper boys and shoved the paper back into her bag. She motioned for Delilah to follow her and pushed forward in that direction.

  She found Emery and Mg. Aviosky talking to two disgruntled police officers. Or rather, Mg. Aviosky stood by silently while Emery yelled at them.

  “Then take me!” Emery shouted, a vein on the side of his forehead looking especially rigid. The skin around his eyes was flushed, and he waved his hands in the air like cleavers. “Don’t you understand? She might be in there! They all might be in there. We have to go!”

  “Sir,” said the taller officer, “as I’ve already explained, we can only—”

  “Emery!” Ceony shouted as she pushed past the last of the crowd. Emery whirled around at his name. “It’s okay, we got out before—”

  The rest of her words were cut off when Emery threw his arms around her and embraced her, sending her top hat—and her stomach—tumbling to the ground.

  “Thank God,” he said into her hair, squeezing her to his chest. Her blood raced through her veins faster than when the giant piece of rubble had been hurtling toward her. “Oh, Ceony, I thought . . .”

  He pulled back and looked her up and down. His green eyes shined with worry and relief. This time, she had no trouble reading his mood. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, her pulse beating in her throat. “I-I’m fine, I promise. And Delilah, and the others. We left the building before . . . I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where Clemson and Dover and George are, but they got out, too. They were with us.”

  Emery heaved a long breath and closed his eyes, then tugged Ceony close again. She returned the embrace, letting her arms snake under his coat, hoping that if Emery could feel the hammering in her chest, he would attribute it to the disaster at the paper mill and not their closeness. “If it makes you feel any better,” she murmured, “it really was boring, up until the end.”

  Emery laughed, though it was more of a nervous sound than a mirthful one. He stepped back, but kept his hands on her shoulders. “I am so sorry.”

  “It wasn’t . . . ,” she began. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Mg. Aviosky, who was standing with Delilah. The Gaffer wore a sour expression—a frown that could mean nothing but disapproval.

  Ceony flushed and pulled away from Emery. “It wasn’t your fault, but there were people inside. And I don’t know what happened . . .”

  Her voice shook a little on those last words. She coughed to steady it.

  One of the officers Emery had been arguing with stepped forward. “You were a witness?” he asked.

  Ceony nodded.

  “Please come with us,” he said. “I’d like to ask you some questions about what you saw and where. Her, too.” He gestured toward Delilah.

  “Of course,” Ceony said, and she felt Emery’s hand clasp hers behind the shield of his coat. “Whatever is necessary.”

  “I’ll accompany them,” Emery said.

  “As will I,” said Mg. Aviosky. “I’m these girls’ director; any involvement they have in this incident is my responsibility.”

  The officers nodded. “My automobile is out this way. Please.”

  Ceony, Emery, Delilah, and Mg. Aviosky followed the officers to their cars, and rode with them to the police station, where Ceony filed her report in the utmost detail she could muster, including the two words she had overheard whispered to Miss Johnston. Dear God, let her be safe.

  Ceony and Emery stayed at the station until late into the night, but it seemed no one had an
y solid evidence as to what could have caused the explosion, short of sabotage.

  But as Ceony rode in a hired buggy back through the dark roads to London, she couldn’t help but wonder, Who would want to sabotage a paper mill?

  CHAPTER 4

  CEONY LAY AWAKE IN her bed, her arm splayed across her forehead to keep the morning sunlight from her eyes. Fennel whined at her from the floor, his paper tail beating a rapid rhythm against the carpet. She reached a hand toward him and stroked the top of his paper head.

  In her mind she stood in front of the paper mill’s three buildings, the shuttle driving away down the pebbled road behind her. Miss Johnston mumbled ahead of her. Ceony strained her memory for any forgotten details that might explain what had happened. She wished she’d paid more attention. But the police had said the explosion happened in the drying room, of all places, and Ceony’s tour never reached that part of the mill. That’s why the police suspected sabotage—there was nothing in the drying room that could have malfunctioned on such a large scale.

  Ceony recalled the intense heat on her face as the fire soared toward the sky. She could only imagine how much hotter it must have been inside. By the time she and Emery had left the police station, fourteen casualties had already been reported. Ceony had read the list—no one with the surname “Johnston” had been on it.

  Closing her eyes, Ceony replayed the explosion, the fire, the falling rubble. Thank goodness for Clemson, whose Pyre magic had saved her life. No paper spell could have rescued her from being crushed. But she hadn’t included the falling rubble in her police report. Emery had been listening, and she hadn’t wanted to distress him. He had been so . . . quiet. Worried about her. Ceony had been too shaken to relish the way he’d held her, but . . .

  Ceony sat up and straightened the bodice of her nightgown, then moved to her desk, which sat on the opposite side of the small bedroom. In the back of the second drawer rested the fortuity box that had offered her such pleasant promises for the future. She held it for a long moment before returning it to its hiding spot. It was bad luck to read one’s own fortune, and Ceony had experienced her fill of bad luck for the week.