Then she felt thick fingers ripping the shield chain from her torso. The barn spun harder as one of his hands circled her neck and the other gripped the front of her blouse, hoisting her up. He slammed her against the wall just beside the doors. Splinters dug into her back, and bits of dust sprinkled her shoulders.
Grath held Ceony a few inches above his crown. He squeezed her throat, and Ceony choked for air. He took a second to catch his breath before he said, “Do you know how an Excisioner bonds, Ceony?”
But Ceony couldn’t answer. Grath’s fingertips pressed into her windpipe. Her face grew hot and her cheek throbbed, drumming into her skull.
“I can’t do it yet,” he said, “but I can demonstrate well enough.”
He squeezed harder. Ceony’s feet flailed.
The loud clap of a gunshot rang through the barn, and Ceony fell.
She hit the ground on her knees and gasped, hot air filling her lungs. Grath grunted and staggered back, his huge hands flying to his ribs. Blood poured down the side of his shirt—a graze, but it bled a steady stream.
Ceony gaped at Delilah, who stood beside one of the empty stalls, Ceony’s pistol gripped in her hands.
“Run!” Delilah cried, and Ceony saw that one of her friend’s feet was still inside a rippling mirror. She had found the barn, and just in time.
Ceony jumped to her feet and slammed all her weight into Grath, elbowing his wounded side. The Gaffer staggered back, and Ceony bolted for Delilah.
Delilah slid back through the mirror until only one hand remained above the surface.
“Transport!” Grath shouted from behind her. All the mirrors began again to ripple at once. Grath appeared at the mirror closest to Delilah, still gripping his side, red-faced, breathing hard.
He charged for Ceony.
She wasn’t going to make it.
“Run, Delilah!” she cried, darting away from both her friend and Grath.
The mad Gaffer reached for her.
Digging her heel into the ground, Ceony shifted direction, receiving a painful pop from her ankle in the process.
She dived through another mirror.
CHAPTER 14
CEONY EXPECTED TO REEMERGE somewhere else in the barn, somewhere that would give her a good shot for the door, but when she tripped out of the mirror frame on the other side, she stumbled into near darkness, the smells of wood and rot assailing her.
This wasn’t the barn, but it didn’t matter.
Pushing herself up, Ceony grabbed the frame of the rippling mirror and threw it down with all her might, breaking it into several pieces. The rippling ceased, but Ceony jumped on the larger pieces anyway, splitting them beneath the heels of her shoes.
Wincing, she staggered backward, favoring her right leg. Her left ankle throbbed fiercely, almost as badly as her cheekbone did.
She breathed heavy breaths that echoed through the dark emptiness around her and wheezed like October wind. Ceony coughed, then coughed again, her hand flying to her sore throat. A third cough almost made her retch, but her desperation for air kept the contents of her stomach down. She swallowed twice, still watching the mirror. She had no paper for a blind box. She had nothing at all, not even her pistol. Just an empty bag.
“Oh, Delilah,” she whispered, hoarse. Surely her friend had gotten away in time.
Another swallow, and Ceony finally lifted her eyes, taking in the shadows around her. The stale air felt cool against her sweating skin. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she saw old, taupe-colored walls made of thin wooden boards, a flat ceiling, a wooden floor strewn with mouse droppings. A storage shed of sorts, perhaps. An empty one.
She turned around. Not empty.
Her quick-beating heart lodged into the base of her raw throat at the sight of Lira, still frozen, crouching with her hands pressed to her face, still locked into the agony into which Ceony had frozen her on the shores of Foulness Island. She looked like a phantom in the shadows of the shed. Ethereal, ghostly. Ceony shivered.
She circumvented Lira, giving her a wide berth, and stepped toward the door, limping on her left side. The floorboards creaked under her weight, setting off the skittering of tiny, clawed feet in the walls, or perhaps underfoot. Mice.
Ceony tested the doors. Locked, but closer inspection told her they hadn’t been locked from the outside. Someone—Ceony assumed Grath—had installed two locks on the inside. Both required a key. Ceony’s shoulders drooped.
Ceony reeled back toward the remnants of the mirror, which she could barely see this close to the door, where the only light filtered through gaps between the wooden panels of the walls.
Grath. Grath knew where she had gone. He wouldn’t trust her here with Lira. He’d come for her, one way or another. Come for her and kill her.
“Oh God, help me,” she whispered, clutching both hands to her chest. Her body shivered.
She tested the locks, pulling at them, trying to wedge a fingernail into the screws that held them. They didn’t budge.
If only she had paper! A burst spell would blow the decrepit wood apart, surely.
She chewed on her lip, skin growing colder by the minute. She pushed against the doors, the splintering wood creaking with the force. Pushing her fingers through one of the larger gaps, she gripped the board and pushed, pulled, pushed, but she didn’t have the strength to break it.
“Think, think,” she whispered. No paper. What else did she have?
She glanced toward Lira, hobbled toward her.
The woman’s skin felt ice cold, and Ceony half-expected her to reanimate and strike her. The thought of being trapped in a shed with a vengeful Lira made her shudder. Still, she prodded the woman’s belt, her pants, her shirt, searching for anything that might be useful. She found a German train ticket that hadn’t been stamped and some sort of long nail or stake hooked through a belt loop.
Ceony drew a small switchblade from Lira’s right boot, about three inches long. She took that, the nail, a shard of glass, and the broken mirror’s frame and returned to the door.
First she tried wedging the nail between lock and wood and pounding it in with the handle of the switchblade, but the lock didn’t come loose and the tools slipped in her clammy hands. She wiped her palms on her skirt and tried dislodging the lock with the blade itself, but without success.
Tucking the switchblade into her camisole, Ceony grabbed hold of the mirror frame, careful not to cut her fingers on the remaining shards of glass. She winced as she placed her weight on her left ankle. Then, holding the frame at an angle, she brought her right foot down on it twice before the frame snapped on its long end. Ceony wrenched it back and forth until she had a good, long piece of painted wood in her hands. Heaving with the effort, Ceony shoved the frame end into the gap between the wood panels and worked it back and forth, leaning all her weight into the lever.
The wood creaked, then split at the bottom.
A surge of hope rushed through Ceony, and she dropped the frame and grabbed the wood, ignoring the splinters that dug into her palms and fingers. She pushed it out until it broke again three feet up. Placing her weight on her left foot once again, Ceony kicked at the rest of the board until it loosened and she could bend it out.
The tight fit scraped her shoulder blades and hips, but Ceony pushed out of the storage shed. An identical building stood next to it, both of them situated on a dirt clearing near an unpaved trail. A gray, overcast sky hovered above, and Ceony smelled the distant scents of salt and fish: the coast.
She stumbled away from the sheds, hurrying up the three-foot-wide trail and disappearing into the trees. No memory in her arsenal matched this place. Where was she?
Grath. Her cheek throbbed, neck burned.
It didn’t matter where the mirror had taken her. She had to run before he found her.
She took off down the trail at a lope, limping on her left leg. She didn’t appear to be on a mountainside, thankfully, just in a patch of untamed woodland filled with mossy fir trees and we
eds. After about a quarter mile, she stepped off the trail, scared that Grath would take that path first to find her.
She sprinted as best she could through knee-high foliage, eyes on the ground to avoid tree roots and dips. She ran a ways before stopping and ducking behind a yew tree, her lungs burning, her ankle throbbing. Blinking back tears, Ceony lowered herself to the ground and pulled off her shoe and stocking.
Her ankle certainly wasn’t broken, and had only swelled a small amount. A light sprain, perhaps, or just a twist. Nothing that wouldn’t cure itself, though she didn’t have the option of resting right now.
She pulled her stocking and shoe back on to keep the swelling down, then retrieved the mirror shard from the shed. She cradled it in her hands.
“Find me, Delilah,” she whispered. “Come on. You found me before, find me now.”
She stared at her own desperate reflection for a good minute, but nothing happened. She hadn’t expected anything different.
Ceony leaned back against the tree, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t even know where she was, so how would Delilah? If only Ceony were a Gaffer . . .
Memories of Grath’s threats filled her mind, and her heart sped with a renewed vigor. Her family. He’s going to hurt my family. Kill them. I have to get back!
Ceony cursed herself again and again as she stood, leaning against the tree for support. She had to find help. If she could only find some paper, perhaps she could send out a bird to search for Emery—
Emery’s going to kill me himself, she thought, hurrying through the scrubby woodland. I’m going to be expelled from my apprenticeship for sure.
But that didn’t matter, not right now. She had to find help. She had to warn her family. And more pressingly, she had to get away from Grath!
On she ran, more of a lopsided jog, through the woodland. The trees thinned and a few raindrops hit her nose, but the sky remained mostly dry. After a while, the earth slanted down a bit, and the trail turned east. She followed it for several miles until her muscles ached and her throat cried for water.
It ended at a wide, dirt road that went straight in both directions, no houses or signs of life along it save for a weathered sign carved in French.
French. So, she had left England. But where was she? France? Belgium? Certainly Grath wouldn’t have carried Lira clear to Canada!
Coughing, Ceony followed the road at little more than a walk. The thick clouds hid the sun, but she could tell the day had stretched into evening.
She looked over her shoulder, thinking she heard movement, but saw nothing.
She searched the sides of the road as she went, hoping to find some discarded trash made of paper, but the grounds were clean. She couldn’t even find a stick large enough to use as a cane. The ruts in the road were shallow, barely there. Wherever she had materialized, few people went.
She continued on, a cool breeze chilling her skin, her limp nearly a drag now. Her ankle had swelled more, but she couldn’t stop. She had to find someone. She had to get away. If only she could find a telegraph somewhere, but she didn’t see any wires. She didn’t even find any more signs, not that she could have read them anyway.
As the sun began to set, tinting the overcast clouds orange, she clutched the glass shard in her hands, murmuring Delilah’s name, Mg. Aviosky’s, Emery’s. No one heard her.
She followed the road until night settled too heavily for her to see, and the clouds hid the moon and stars. Panting, Ceony stepped off the road and back into the sparse trees. She sat between the roots of one, pulled her knees to her chest, and wept.
CHAPTER 15
A LIGHT SPRINKLING OF rain and soft gray light woke Ceony early in the morning, just as the cry of some wild bird and the skittering of an unseen animal had twice during the night. Her right leg tingled below the knee, and her sore back creaked as she straightened against the tree trunk. A large brown spider crept down her shoulder; Ceony shrieked, slapped it off, and jumped to her feet, stumbling on her dead leg. Her left ankle, at least, seemed much better, and the swelling had gone down while she slept.
She looked about the tree, trying to organize her scattered thoughts. Mist clung to her clothes and dripped from heavy leaves overhead.
Pulling out Lira’s switchblade, Ceony scanned the forest, searching for a flash of ginger hair, or for any sign of human life. She saw none. Still, if Grath had transported to wherever Ceony was and tracked back to the shed yesterday, it wouldn’t take him long to find her.
She put the switchblade back into her camisole and examined her mirror shard, but the glass remained smooth and unenchanted. Hopefully carrying it with her wouldn’t be a two-edged sword, but even if Grath’s image appeared in the glass, he wouldn’t know how to find her. At least Ceony hoped he wouldn’t. This was a shard from his mirror, after all.
She climbed back to the road, thinking that if she could find another inhabitant, she could get help. Or at least a piece of paper. Though in this rain, a paper bird wouldn’t make it very far.
And Ceony had no idea just how many miles stretched between her and London, or how many bodies of water. Still, she could only go onward.
She followed the road.
The gray sky brightened as she walked, yet the sun refused to break its cloud cover. It rained long enough to make Ceony’s clothes feel uncomfortable, then stopped, leaving the world awfully cold for late summer. She unbraided her hair and combed her fingers through it, rebraided it. Checked the mirror. Glanced over her shoulder.
After some time, perhaps two hours, she heard the rattling of carriage wheels on the dirt road ahead of her. A stout, unpainted carriage pulled by two spotted horses came into view. Relieved, Ceony ran toward it, waving her arms to stop the driver, but he ignored her and continued on, quickening the horses’ trot as he passed. The carriage windows had their shutters drawn.
Ceony paused in the road, staring after them. A young woman in distress, and they hadn’t even slowed? Curse the French! Who did they think she was, and what errand could they possibly have in the middle of nowhere that they couldn’t so much as stop to give her directions?
Shoulders slumping, Ceony turned back to the road. She didn’t need directions, and wouldn’t understand them anyhow. She had only two options: go forward, or return to the shed.
Ceony moved forward at a quicker clip, rubbing a hunger cramp from her stomach as she went. The carriage must have come from somewhere, and the horses didn’t look too exhausted. Only a few more hours, she thought, hopeful.
The trees thinned even more, and the rain picked up again, sprinkling on and off, defying the warmth of the hidden sun. Ceony rubbed a chill from her fingers as she walked, searching for any hint of life. She spied a wild rabbit and for a moment wished she knew how to hunt the animal, not just how to cook it.
She tried holding her mouth open to the rain for a drink, but the droplets were so fine and temperamental that it did nothing to quench her thirst. She continued walking, her muscles sore, clutching the mirror in her hands. Find me Delilah, Magician Aviosky. Find me before Grath does.
She tried not to think of her family, but walking in silence down the never-ending road, the feat proved difficult. She imagined Marshall on the floor in the storage room of the meatpacking warehouse, imagined Zina hanging by one of the hooks, Emery and the constable standing over them. Only this time, all the blame lay on Ceony’s shoulders.
Shaking the thoughts away, Ceony peered behind her, thinking for a moment that she heard heavy footsteps, or saw a flash of ginger hair, paler than her own. But no—she was alone. She didn’t feel that same uneasy, hair-raising feeling that came upon her whenever Saraj was close.
More time passed and she found another sign, this one reading, “Zuydcoote un kilometre au sud-est.” She imagined “kilometre” meant kilometer, but she couldn’t piece together the rest. Still, a sign meant civilization had to be nearby. She hoped.
She picked up her pace, her stomach growling audibly now, and to her relief, she
saw a cultivated hill covered in trimmed crabgrass and a small redbrick house atop it, off the road a ways. Finding a new ball of energy inside her, Ceony ran across the road and up the hill, not bothering to look for a pathway. She reached the narrow porch, breathless, and knocked on the door that bore a faded sign reading “Claes.”
She heard creaking footsteps beyond the door, and then a balding man who looked to be in his late forties answered the door.
“Hello, I’m so sorry,” Ceony blurted, “but I’m lost and I need help. Do you have a telegraph?”
The man crossed his brows. “Et, qui êtes-vous? Je ne parle pas l’anglais.”
Oh, how she wished Delilah were here to translate! Ceony’s grip tightened on the mirror, but with her free hand she pointed to herself and said, “Ceony. Lost. From England.”
She pointed in what she assumed was the direction of England. Then an idea struck her.
She tucked the mirror shard into her waistband and pretended to write on her hand. “Paper?” she asked. “Uh . . . papel? Papier? See-voo play?”
She thought that sounded French.
He paused, then nodded and opened the door, motioning with one hand for Ceony to enter. A slightly older man who resembled the first sat on a short, apricot-colored couch with a newspaper on his lap. He eyed Ceony with curiosity.
The first man moved to a desk in the corner of the room and pulled out a small pad of paper and a pencil. “Papier?” he asked, holding out the supplies.
“Yes, yes! Uh, oui,” Ceony said, grasping the pad. The familiar tingle of the paper beneath her fingers gave her some comfort. She quickly scribbled a sentence on the first page, receiving strange looks from both men. When she had finished, she read, with strong inflection, “After losing her way through mirror transportation, Ceony found herself in an unfamiliar place and unsure of how to get home.”
She pictured what images would best illustrate her point, and they danced before her in the air—ghostly, translucent pictures of what happened to get her to this house. The two men jumped a little when the images first appeared, but then they watched in fascination.
The Glass Magician Page 13
