The Glass Magician

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Fennel coughed a faint bark and wagged his tail. Moments later, Ceony detected the smell of bacon wafting under her door. Had Emery decided to cook breakfast?

  She glanced at her clock—ten past nine. She had slept in late today.

  Quickly changing into a blouse, skirt, and a pair of stockings, Ceony went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, braid her hair, and apply her makeup. She hurried down the steep stairs that opened onto the dining room, where Emery had already loaded two plates with bacon and eggs.

  “You didn’t have to do this. I was up,” Ceony said, though it impressed her that the bacon wasn’t burned and the eggs looked perfectly sunny. Ever since being fed tuna and rice on her first day as an apprentice, Ceony had insisted on cooking every meal. After all, if not for Emery’s scholarship, she would have enrolled in culinary school.

  “I am capable of cooking,” Emery said, pulling out a chair for her, “else I would have starved long ago.”

  Ceony smiled and settled into the seat while Emery retrieved silverware. Perhaps he had needed to cook while married to Lira. The Excisioner didn’t seem like she’d be much of a cook, though Ceony wouldn’t dream of asking him about it. If any topic made Emery uncomfortable, it was his ex-wife.

  Ceony wondered if Lira was still as she’d left her—frozen and bleeding on the rocky beach of Foulness Island—but then Emery sat down beside her, and the memories flitted away.

  He handed her a telegram.

  “What’s this?” she asked, unfolding it.

  lets not change plans stop albans at noon stop

  “It came this morning,” Emery said between bites. He frowned at his eggs and reached for the pepper shaker. “I believe it’s from Delilah, unless you’ve taken to arranging social visits with Patrice Aviosky.”

  His eyes shined as he chuckled at his own joke.

  “I would like to meet her for lunch,” Ceony said, “unless you need me here.”

  Emery thought for a moment, chewing, and left the table without excuse. He returned with a 9" by 14" sheet of paper, which he tore in half.

  “Mimic,” he told it—a spell unfamiliar to Ceony. He then haphazardly folded one half into quarters and handed it to Ceony.

  “Anything you write on this will appear on my copy,” he explained in an unusually protective tone. “That way, if you need anything . . . Well, it’s self-explanatory.”

  Ceony turned the spell over in her hands. “You’ve never sent me out with one of these before.”

  “One can never be too irrational. Don’t be too long. There is plenty of homework to do!”

  After breakfast, Ceony headed back to her room. As she packed her purse with the Mimic spell and some spare paper, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy about her situation. Three months ago, she had confessed her love for Emery while quite literally trapped in the fourth chamber of his heart. He still had not directly addressed her confession. He avoided uncomfortable subjects as a general rule, so perhaps the confession had made him uncomfortable. Ceony’s cheeks burned at the thought; when she’d said the words, she hadn’t believed he would remember them upon waking. And Ceony still couldn’t forget Lira’s cruel laughter. “He doesn’t love you,” she’d said.

  Her gaze drifted again to the second drawer in her desk. What if the fortuity box had only shown her what she wanted to see, and not the truth? What if she had already done something to upset that possibility of future events, leaving her longing for something that was no longer an option?

  She sighed. She had only been in one previous relationship, in secondary school, and that had been much easier than this. Perhaps she should take that as a sign and give up.

  Yet she couldn’t give up on Emery. She knew that more surely than anything.

  She loved him.

  She loved his genuineness, his honesty, his cleverness, his humor and eccentricity. She loved the way his hands moved when he Folded, and the way he pursed his lips when concentrating. She loved his kindness—at least, he was always kind to her. She imagined a great number of people felt scorned by Emery Thane, or they would if they were sharp enough to notice when he mocked them. He had a very subtle way of insulting people.

  Still, she wished she hadn’t fallen for him as quickly as she had.

  She took her safety bicycle—complete with enchanted tires that wouldn’t wear—into town. She had purchased it one month into her apprenticeship after growing weary of waiting for buggies and spending large chunks of her stipend on transportation. It made for a much longer ride, but the road into the city was a peaceful one, so Ceony didn’t mind. She just made sure to stay on the far side of the street, away from the narrow river running alongside it.

  She found Delilah waiting outside St. Alban’s Salmon Bistro, a small, redbrick shop with chocolate-colored window molds and a worn, oval sign over the window that bore a weathered blue fish. Delilah looked like her normal, chipper self. She waved broadly as Ceony parked her bicycle.

  “How are you feeling?” Ceony asked once they had been seated at a small oak table near the center of the half-filled restaurant. A few couples and a family occupied the booths to their left and right. The scent of cooking fish wafted through the air; the sound of clinking dishes percussed from the kitchen. Ceony tucked her purse under the table, near her feet.

  “Oh, Ceony, wasn’t it just awful?” Delilah said as she glanced over the menu. Her eyes lingered for a moment before she set it down. “I kept waking up last night. Magician Aviosky cancelled all her appointments this morning and headed back to Dartford. She’s all wrung up, worse than usual. Says she can’t sit by while students are in danger.”

  “They’re not still in danger, are they?” Ceony asked, hair follicles prickling.

  Delilah shook her head. “Well, no, we’re all fine,” she said as the waiter brought their water. “The others went to a different station, is all. I don’t know more than that. But I was so embarrassed. I have a spinning head, you know. I wish I could stay calm, like you.”

  Ceony laughed. “I don’t think anyone’s described me as calm before.” She paused. “I don’t know. I suppose after you see so much, the extraordinary starts to become more ordinary.”

  “Have you seen so many extraordinary things?” Delilah asked, leaning forward. “Do tell! I hope they’re romantic.”

  Ceony blushed. “Not entirely. And perhaps I’ll tell you when we’re alone.” She didn’t think it wise to recount her Excisioner escapades in a crowded restaurant, especially since Mg. Aviosky knew very little of what had actually happened with Lira, short of what Emery had shared with Criminal Affairs.

  As for Emery . . . she’d keep that to herself.

  The waiter carried a small basket of bannock to their table and took their order. Delilah requested fish and chips, and Ceony asked for crab bisque. Afterward, Delilah stuck her head into the large cloth bag she had brought with her, muttered something, and then resurfaced with a compact makeup mirror. It was a beautiful object—a silver Celtic knot was welded to the top, and a seashell-shaped clasp kept it closed.

  “Extraordinary like this?” she asked.

  Raising her eyebrows, Ceony accepted the mirror and opened it. Only, instead of the reflection of her face, the dark eyes of a gorilla blinked back at her.

  Ceony shrieked and dropped the mirror. Delilah laughed and scooped it off the table.

  “How did you do that?” Ceony asked.

  “It’s a Choice Reflection spell,” she explained. “You can make the mirror reflect whatever you picture in your head.”

  “With just a command,” Ceony mumbled, thinking of Delilah’s covert whispering. She studied the compact in Delilah’s hands. There were very few spells Ceony could merely dictate to a piece of paper; Folding required just that: Folds. Preparation, foresight. Manipulation with creases and cuts. Gaffing, or glass magic, was the second quickest after fire magic. Smelting, or enchanting metal alloys, was the slowest.

  Ceony tapped her fingers on the table. “It’s like sto
ry illusion.”

  Delilah frowned. “Um, yes? I’m not sure what that is. But you face the mirror”—Delilah opened the compact and gazed into it—“and say ‘choice reflection,’ and think of exactly what you want—or don’t want—to see.”

  She repeated the spell, closed her eyes, and showed Ceony the mirror again. This time Ceony wasn’t even in the reflection. Instead she could see the broad-shouldered man who sat alone by the window behind her. Clearly interested in their conversation, he craned his head for a better look.

  Delilah cancelled the spell, snapped the mirror shut, and held it out to her. “A late birthday gift for you. Sorry I didn’t wrap it, but I thought the trick would be fun.”

  Ceony’s lips parted as she looked at the mirror. “Oh, Delilah, it’s so pretty. You didn’t have to—”

  “Take it, take it,” she laughed, shaking the compact at her.

  Ceony took it with a smile and traced the Celtic ornament with her fingers as she slipped it into her purse. “Thank you.”

  “My birthday is in December,” Delilah said matter-of-factly. “Don’t forget.”

  “December eleventh,” Ceony said. “I won’t.”

  Seeming content, Delilah relaxed into her chair, took a sip of water, and said, “Ceony, are you in love?”

  Ceony, who had also taken a sip of water, sputtered as she struggled to swallow it. “Wh-What?”

  “You just have this faraway, airy look lately. Like on the shuttle. And on your bike.”

  “You mean the way you look when you’re around Dover?” Ceony teased.

  Delilah stuck out her tongue. “I think he likes me. At least, he went out of his way to send me a paper dove after the dreadful thing with the mill. He’s two years younger, but he doesn’t look younger. That’s all that really matters.”

  Their meals arrived, and between bites the two of them chatted about the paper mill, Ceony’s paper doll, and the new feather fashion in women’s hats. When Big Ben, north of Parliament Square, chimed one thirty, Delilah snatched up her paper napkin and dabbed her lips.

  “I’m so sorry, Ceony,” she said, “but I told Magician Aviosky I’d attend a glassblowing appointment on her behalf at two, since she’s in Dartford. You’ll forgive me?”

  Ceony waved a hand. “It’s fine. I need to head back, too.”

  Delilah circled the table and kissed both of Ceony’s cheeks. “Let’s do it again sometime.” She dropped a few shillings on the table and hurried out the front door.

  Tilting her bowl, Ceony scraped out the last of her bisque, but the chair across from her rattled before she could bring the spoon to her lips.

  A broad-shouldered man sat down in the seat Delilah had just vacated. Ceony recognized him as the person she’d seen in the mirror.

  She lowered her bowl.

  Something about the man seemed familiar, but Ceony had a hard time pinpointing what. He looked to be in his early forties, with a well-built form and light, almost ginger-colored hair. Narrow, expressionless gray eyes watched her beneath thick eyebrows and a creased forehead.

  “Can I help you?” Ceony asked.

  The faintest grin spread just above his broad chin.

  Ceony’s breath caught as her memory settled. She knew that chin. The nose looked wrong—a fake—but she remembered that chin, those eyes. She had seen them on a wanted poster at the post office. She had watched them lurk behind bars in the second chamber of Emery’s heart.

  She had seen this man in the distance as she stood on the shore of Foulness Island.

  Her mouth went dry, and her tongue hardened to a brick in her mouth. She gripped her napkin—her paper napkin.

  Mind spinning, she managed to say, “You’re Grath Cobalt.”

  The most renowned Excisioner in England, if not all of Europe.

  She tried to slide her chair back—she couldn’t let him touch her!—but Grath hooked his foot around its front left leg.

  No one in the restaurant noticed anything out of the ordinary. Not as far as Ceony could tell. She dared to glance at the main entrance to the restaurant, then to the back door behind her and to the left. What would he do if she screamed? He sat so close, and it would only take one touch for a spell . . .

  She smoothed the napkin in her lap, keeping her eyes on Grath as she formed a half-point Fold.

  “I’m impressed you recognize me,” Grath said with a lopsided smirk. His long canines made him look like a cat. “Smart girl.”

  “Posters of you are everywhere,” Ceony replied, trying to sound nonchalant. She glanced at the waiter three tables over.

  Grath yanked her chair forward. “Eyes on me, sweetheart. Let’s get this chat out of the way. I have places to go.”

  Ceony drew in a shaky breath and carefully maneuvered her clammy fingers over her lap. Full-point Fold, duck Fold.

  “It took a while to track you down,” Grath said, playing with Delilah’s fork. It looked so tiny in his giant hands. “All I knew to look for was a redheaded girl with strange magic. And you turned out to be Emery Thane’s apprentice, of all people. How is the bugger? Still kicking, I hear.”

  Ceony said nothing. She kept her gaze fixed on Grath’s cool stare.

  Grath chuckled, but his smile vanished too soon. He leaned forward, dangerously close. “I want you to tell me what you did to Lira.”

  Adrenaline made Ceony’s skin prickle. “I-I didn’t do anything.”

  Grath slammed his fist on the table, rattling the dishes and earning a few curious looks from the other patrons. It took all Ceony’s willpower not to jump. “You’re not in any position to lie to me, Ceony Maya Twill. What strange sorcery did you cast on her?”

  “I did nothing strange,” she lied. Four-corners Fold, and she flipped the napkin over. “I’m a Folder, that’s all.”

  “What spell?”

  Ceony sucked in a long breath, fingers prodding the napkin to check its alignment. “I won’t tell you,” she whispered. “The world is better off without her. The sooner—”

  Grath jerked her chair to the left. Ceony winced, but made her last Fold without flinching.

  “You think I care about the people here?” he growled, barely above a whisper. “You think I care if they have to watch me slice the skin from your bones? They’re cowards, Ceony. They’ll run the minute blood spills. And I will spill all of it, drop by drop, until you tell me what I want to know.

  “Or maybe I’ll start with them,” he said, cocking his head toward a family of four in the corner. They had an adolescent girl and a young boy with them. “Do you know how strong a child’s heart is, Ceony? The sort of spells I could cast with one?”

  Ceony shut her eyes for a moment. Too many memories, things she wished she could unsee, came flooding up at those words—the gaping hole in Emery’s chest as he collapsed to the floor, his heart clutched in Lira’s hands; the pressure of the bloody, sweltering walls of Emery’s heart pressing against her on all sides; the sight of harvested corpses strewn across the floor of a warehouse storage room. She coaxed them down, burying them deep within her mind. Hadn’t Delilah just called her calm? Be calm, she pleaded to herself.

  “All right,” she said, careful. “You want to know how I froze Lira?”

  Grath knit his fingers under his chin, waiting.

  Ceony drew another deep breath. “It started with this.”

  She dropped the rhombus-shaped napkin on the middle of the table and whispered, “Burst.”

  The napkin began to vibrate rapidly. First Grath looked confused. Then his eyes widened.

  In one movement, Ceony twisted her chair away from the Excisioner’s foot and leapt from the table, bolting for the back door.

  The Burst spell exploded.

  The explosion wasn’t as strong as when Ceony had used the spell against Lira, since this one had been made with thin napkin paper, but it was large enough to send dishes flying and chunks of table scattering. Large enough to burn anyone who came too close, even an Excisioner like Grath.


  Ceony didn’t survey the damage. She slammed her body into the back door and bolted into the sunlit street.

  She sprinted across the road, earning an angry yell from a driver, and took a sharp corner around a bank and out of Parliament Square. Her heart raced with her legs as she rushed down one street and dodged between a hotel and a rug shop, jumping over a busted curb. Distance. She needed to get as far away from Grath as she could, put as many things between them as possible.

  Emery! She reached for the Mimic spell only to realize she’d left it at the restaurant, along with her purse, mirror, and bike. She had no way to contact him.

  Delilah! But which glassblower had she gone to? She could be anywhere by now.

  Ceony paused at an intersection between a single-story pet-supply store and a two-story antique shop, panting, peering through the mass of people who were blissfully unaware of the danger in their midst. Grath didn’t care about people—he had said as much. She needed to get away from the crowd.

  She heard shouts behind her and ran to the right, nearly knocking over a man laden with groceries. Her lungs began to burn as she pushed past him and kept running. Aviosky. Magician Aviosky lives in the city. If Ceony could round the next block and make it over the bridge, perhaps she could reach—

  She took another sharp right and collided into something solid—a huge man in a brown vest and brown trousers. The impact sent her toppling backward. She landed flat on her rump.

  Stars filled her eyes.

  “Miss!” the man exclaimed. “Are you all right? I’m terribly sorry! Here, let me help you up.”

  He extended his thick hand, which was even bigger than Grath’s. Ceony clasped it, and the man pulled her up so swiftly her vision swam.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled between breaths as the world settled back into place. She blinked at the man before her. He appeared to be in his late twenties and would have looked rather portly if not for his height. His mousy-brown hair had been well oiled and slicked to one side, and his brown eyes—