The Glass Magician

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Emery dropped his hand to Ceony’s shoulder and pulled her toward him. He embraced her, gently. He smelled like charcoal and brown sugar, as though bits of the cottage still clung to him. His shirt collar absorbed Ceony’s tears.

  “I promise I’ll do everything I can to protect your family,” he said. “We’ll pray it’s a bluff. But Grath and Saraj are my business now.”

  He released her, taking his warmth with him, and opened the door, vanishing back into the hallway.

  Ceony stood like a statue for a long moment, numb and broken, feeling cracks form over her heart. Then she shook her head and spun around, following in the wake of the paper magician.

  She saw Mg. Aviosky and Delilah first, coming down the stairs from the mirror room.

  “I’m putting you on parole, Miss Twill,” Mg. Aviosky said, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Beside her, Delilah stared at the floor, digging the toe of her shoe into an eyespot in the wooden boards. “Unfortunately I can’t initiate a house arrest, given the circumstances, but should you act out again I will have to consider a dismissal of your apprenticeship.”

  Ceony felt as though she had shrunk to a foot tall. She swallowed any argument in her throat and said, “That’s fair. I’m so sorry. Delilah, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  Delilah only shrugged. “We’re all chipper now, aren’t we?” she asked, but her tone was all melancholy.

  She pushed by the two Gaffers, but only made it one step down the stairs leading to the front door before Mg. Aviosky asked, “And where are you going?”

  “To find Emery,” she said, not caring that it was his first name that formed on her lips. Mg. Aviosky’s frown couldn’t deepen any further anyway.

  She took the stairs quickly, but thankfully her ankle held up well. She peered into the front room, then followed the hallway toward the dining room. She heard Emery’s voice and followed it to a small sitting room at the far end of the first floor, passing Mg. Hughes, who was still tapping away at the telegraph near the kitchen.

  She found Emery at an antique desk with a telephone piece pressed to his ear.

  She caught the end of his conversation. “—out front. Yes. Thank you.”

  He hung up.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked. “You can’t just tell me Grath and Saraj are your problem and expect me to be content with that.”

  “You have no say in the matter,” Emery said, keeping his voice low. “And the decision is not only mine.”

  He walked past her, heading for the front door.

  “I have no say in the matter?” Ceony repeated, catching up to him. “You’re just going to keep me in the dark, after all this?”

  Emery laughed, a mirthless sound. He stopped walking. “I wish I could keep you in the dark,” he said, cool and blunt. He kept his voice low to prevent Mg. Hughes from overhearing. “But you won’t stay there. I could plead with you on my hands and knees and you still wouldn’t stay there, Ceony. You’re a candle that won’t be snuffed, and now the darkest parts of this world can see you. And they don’t tolerate the light.”

  He shook his head and continued walking. Ceony followed him into the hallway.

  “I said I was sorry,” she said, the words shaking in her throat. “I’m so sorry, Emery. Please don’t be angry with me. If I could go back in time and change it, I would.”

  “It’s unfortunate that time is not a material,” he said, pausing just long enough to open the front door. He stepped out into the afternoon light, searching the street beyond the short front yard. He folded his arms. “And I am angry with you. I am so”—he paused—“so angry with you. But I will take care of you, Ceony. I swear my life on it. I will take care of you.”

  Ceony’s heart twisted in her chest. Gooseflesh prickled her arms, despite the heat. Her gaze dropped to her feet, and all she could think to say was, again, “I’m sorry.”

  Minutes later an automobile pulled up to the curb and Emery walked toward it. It had no passengers, but when the driver stepped out, Ceony recognized him immediately.

  “Langston,” she said.

  Emery said, “Thank you, for doing this.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Langston replied.

  Emery turned to Ceony. “You’re going to stay with Langston for a little while. He’ll see that you have everything you need.”

  Ceony’s jaw fell. “I . . . you’re transferring me?”

  Langston said, “It’s only temporary, until things clear up. I promise you’ll be safe. I keep a good watch.”

  But Ceony shook her head. “I-I don’t want to be safe.” To Emery, she said, “I want to stay with you.”

  Emery avoided her gaze. “Take care of her. I’ll try not to take too long.”

  “Take too long?” Ceony repeated. She grabbed Emery’s shirtsleeve. “What exactly are you going to do?”

  “Please, Ceony,” he said, just a murmur. “Please do this for me. If nothing else, please just get into the auto.”

  Ceony retracted her hand, feeling as though Emery had slapped her. Her cheek throbbed anew. Unable to bring up words, she merely nodded, and Langston opened the passenger-side door.

  Emery turned back to the house without a good-bye. Ceony stared at its doors as Langston drove away, but he never reemerged.

  CHAPTER 17

  LANGSTON ASKED CEONY SIMPLE questions as they drove, just as he had after rescuing her from the city after the incident at the bistro. But Ceony only stared out the window, watching buildings as they passed, unable to find a drop of conversation in her. After a few blocks, Langston started chatting about the weather and the university library, which had recently accumulated a large collection of American newspapers, which he claimed to be “more honest” than the British ones.

  Ceony pressed up against the window as the automobile passed the street she would have turned onto to get to the Mill Squats in Whitechapel, where her family lived. Her father would be at work right now, her mother preparing dinner, her sister Zina out with friends, trying to use up as much free time as possible before the school year began. Marshall would likely be curled up on the couch with a book, and Margo would be outside playing in the dirt, searching for worms or building castles.

  Outside, where anyone could see her. Ceony had to warn them.

  “Could you take me to the Mill Squats, please?” Ceony pleaded as Langston stopped for a woman crossing the street.

  “I’m sorry,” Langston replied, and he really did look sorry. He also looked like he wanted to put a padlock on the passenger-side door. “Magician Thane asked me to take you straight home. Are you worried about your family?”

  Ceony sank into the seat. “Yes.”

  “They’ll be safe,” Langston said, guiding the automobile forward. “Magician Thane is thorough, and if Criminal Affairs is involved, they’re probably already at the house, getting things in order.”

  Ceony nodded, but the young Folder’s words could only comfort her so much. They were a threadbare blanket against a winter storm. No matter how tightly Ceony wrapped it around herself, she could do nothing about the holes.

  Langston drove down a street not too far from the Parliament building, one lined with town houses on one side and vanity stores on the other. The town houses—tan, white, gray, even salmon pink—all stood five stories tall, and all pressed up one against another so that not even an ant could wriggle its way between them. Langston parked in front of a coffee-brown town house trimmed with black and came around the automobile to let Ceony out. He offered his elbow, but she shook her head and followed him inside on her own.

  Langston lived on the second floor, and the interior of his home surprised Ceony, though she couldn’t explain why. He had a large living room that bled into a small dining room, all with a wooden floor coated in a shiny, walnut polish. Electric lights hung from the ceiling in single-tiered chandeliers, and wide windows framed by cream-colored curtains added more brightness. The living room had a fainting couch, a wicker chai
r, and an upright pianoforte. A simple, half-filled bookshelf occupied the wall where the dining room started, and the dining room was equipped with a well-crafted wooden table and six chairs. Around the corner one way was a small kitchen, and around the corner the other way stretched a winding set of stairs to the second floor.

  It all looked very clean, very tidy . . . and, compared to Emery’s crowded cottage, somewhat sparse. That had to be it, then. Ceony had grown so accustomed to Emery, who used every last inch of space in his home for knickknacks and pointless décor, that Langston’s town house felt empty. It felt temporary. And for her, it was, or so she hoped.

  Langston showed her upstairs to the guest bedroom, which measured twice the size of her room at the cottage. It had a large square window with a wide sill on the far wall, a closet cut into the closest wall, a short nightstand painted with purple lilies around the edges, and a bed wide enough for three people.

  “There’s a lavatory down the hall, and there are some clothes in the closet,” he said, gesturing to it. “My sister stayed with me a few weeks ago and left some things behind. She’s about your size, maybe a little bigger. You’re welcome to try them on.”

  “Thank you,” Ceony managed. She tugged uneasily at her right index finger, receiving a quiet pop in return.

  Langston searched for something else to say, but seemed at a loss for words.

  “Could I at least get my dog?” Ceony asked. “I left him at the flat—”

  “I really am sorry,” Langston said, “but you need to stay here. It won’t be for long, I promise.”

  Ceony nodded, and Langston stepped out of the room.

  As soon as she was alone, Ceony walked over to the window, but despite the warmth of the room, she didn’t open it. She looked out onto the city, from the small trees planted along the road to the women in posh hats and men chatting over cigars. They all seemed so happy. So oblivious.

  Sighing, she slumped to her knees, resting her elbows and chin on the windowsill. Emery still harbored hard feelings toward her, and he had every right. Delilah did, too. And Mg. Aviosky. Only Mg. Hughes had commended her for her stupidity, and his compliments only rubbed salt into burns. Her mind spun, trying to sort out how to make amends, but she found no answers. Nothing better than apologies, which had done her no good so far.

  Langston knocked on the door. “Here, this will help with that bruise,” he said. He handed her a bag filled with confetti, much like the confetti Emery kept in his icebox. The bag felt cold beneath Ceony’s fingers.

  “Thank you,” she said. Langston departed with a nod, and Ceony pressed the bag to her cheek, wincing at the soreness beneath her skin. She must look dreadful.

  She thought about cooking something, if only to thank Langston for his patience, but she found herself without the motivation. Langston, being a sweet man, did bring her some biscuits and honey at a quarter past six. She ate slowly, and not much at all. Her stomach felt too tight, despite her long stint without food, though she did guzzle the glass of water he brought with the biscuits. She chewed almost mechanically, thinking of her family and Delilah. Thinking of Emery.

  She stayed up until midnight and slept only in fits, her mind cycling between Grath’s threats and her shadowy memories of Saraj from the paper mill, the night of the buggy crash, and the market.

  She thought about Grath’s words: “It’s all in the material . . . Those blasted sealing words . . .”

  But no one could break a bond, Ceony knew. That had been drilled into her at Tagis Praff, for choosing a material—those who had the option of choosing, at least—was a critical and final decision in the career of a magician. Somewhere in the timeline of his life, Grath had bonded to glass without proper authority—a felony in and of itself—and that bond couldn’t be revoked.

  When Ceony finally fell asleep, she dreamed of mirrors, of Emery, and of Grath, on and off, until the rising sun finally gave her an excuse to get out of bed.

  The next morning Ceony did find a pale-blue blouse that fit. Most of the skirts were both too wide and too long to sit comfortably on her, but she found a light-gray one in the back of the closet that fell to midcalf—shorter than what Ceony typically preferred. It must have been only knee-length on Langston’s sister, which made Ceony believe she had to belong to the Liberal Party, for no conservative woman would show so much leg, stockings or no. But Ceony’s own skirt had been terribly soiled, so she pulled on the new skirt and used a hairpin to tighten the waistband in the back. She combed out her hair, but without any spare pins or barrettes, she could only braid it over her shoulder.

  Downstairs she found Langston eating a bowl of plain oatmeal at the dining table and reading an article in the science section of the newspaper titled “Polymaker Invents Cake-like ‘Polystyrene’ Plastic, Unsure How to Enchant.” He glanced up when Ceony approached, and thoroughly wiped his mouth.

  “Have you heard from him?” Ceony asked.

  Langston shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Can I get you some breakfast?”

  Ceony glanced at the oatmeal—which looked overcooked—and said, “I could cook something, if you’d like. I don’t mind. What do you have?”

  Langston stared at her dumbfounded for a moment. “Uh . . . well, there’s flour in the cupboard.”

  Ceony managed a genuine smile. “I’ll do some exploring.”

  She rummaged through the kitchen, pleased to see that Langston owned a full-sized stove. The man had mismatched ingredients, but Ceony whipped together some fried tomatoes, salted mushrooms, poached eggs, and some black pudding, albeit not her best batch of it. Langston didn’t seem to notice—he thought the tomatoes alone were a treat, and Ceony determined the man needed to get married right away. She wondered if Delilah could be coerced into dating him. She kept the thoughts to herself.

  “So,” Ceony said when they had finished eating and silence had settled in. She pinched the fabric of her skirt in her fingers, trying to slide it down her legs—not that the Folder could see them, what with the table and all. “What have you been working on? That meeting you said got cancelled . . .”

  He glanced up from the newspaper.

  “When I first met you,” she finished.

  He thought for a moment, then straightened. “Oh yes, I recall. It was a meeting with Sinad Mueller and the Praff Academic Board, actually. We rescheduled it for the following day.”

  Ceony nodded, trying not to frown at the mention of Sinad Mueller. His name was attached to the most prestigious scholarship one could win for the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, the very scholarship Ceony had lost after dumping a pitcher of very expensive wine on the man’s lap. He’d deserved it, after trying to get a hand up her skirt. One of many reasons Ceony preferred her skirts long.

  She tugged on the fabric again. “For the scholarship?”

  Langston shook his head in the negative. “Oh no, just for the academic schedule. Tagis Praff is considering adding a Folding class to its second-semester courses to spur interest in paper-based magic. The shortage, and all.”

  “A required class?” Ceony asked. The workload at Tagis Praff had been nearly suffocating during her year there. Surely they wouldn’t add more to the curriculum!

  “Well,” Langston began, playing with the corner of his newspaper, “I think it would do better as an extracurricular course without a grading system—something for interested students to enroll in, should they choose. But Professor Mueller thinks they won’t attend unless it’s a required class, or for extra credit.”

  “And you would teach it?”

  “Supposedly,” Langston said. “Or perhaps we could make it an assembly of sorts, a career day, maybe. I’d only be showing basic craft, something to spike interest—animation, fortune charms, starlights, those sorts of things.”

  Ceony released her skirt. “Starlights?”

  “You don’t know them?” Langston asked. “Well, they’re small, almost plush-looking stars that light up. Quite nice for birthday part
ies or power outages. We get those a lot in the city.”

  Ceony grinned. Margo would love something like that! “Could you show me, please?”

  “Uh . . . well, certainly. I could use the practice.”

  He looked at his newspaper for a moment, considering it, but ultimately stood from the table and moved to the desk in the living room, which held several stacks of paper. He selected some rectangular sheets in yellow and pink and a pair of scissors, and returned to the table.

  “Well, you cut a strip,” he said, slicing off the long side of a yellow piece of paper.

  “Does the size matter?”

  “Uh . . . no, I don’t think so,” he said, finishing his strip. “And then you make a dog-ear Fold . . . Do you know a dog-ear Fold yet?”

  “Just make them,” Ceony said, “and I’ll watch.”

  Langston nodded, seeming relieved, and proceeded to Fold the star, his stubby fingers creasing the Folds well. He Folded part of the strip into a sort of knot, but didn’t give the Folds a hard crease. He formed a small pentagon, wrapping the remaining paper around it like a bandage and tucking in the end to leave the shape clean. He then, carefully, and with his smallest fingers, pressed in each side of the pentagon until it formed a star.

  He held the starlight in his hand and said, “Glow.”

  As though he had lit a match within the paper, the star began to softly glow from within. Ceony had to cup her hands around it to see, what with the bright morning light, but the soft light of the star remained steady until Langston said, “Cease.”

  “Charming,” Ceony said. “I’d like to try, if you don’t mind.”

  Ceony cut a strip and copied Langston’s movements from memory, though she had to pause twice to ask questions about the steps Langston’s large hands had obscured during the Folding process. When she had finished, she held a small, softly gleaming pink star in her hands. So simple, yet beautiful.

  “This would make a wonderful necklace, were it not so fragile,” she commented. She wondered if the starlight would still glow if she glossed it the way Emery had glossed her barrette.