The Master Magician

Ceony gasped and sat up in bed, her pillow toppling to the floor. She blinked several times, taking in her dry room, listening to the patter of rain against her window. The hail had stopped.

Dragging the back of her hand across her forehead, Ceony took a deep breath, listening to the thrumming of her pulse in her ears. Her neck pounded with blood.

Blood.

She threw back her blankets, searching beneath them for something, anything. She scanned the room, empty save for where Fennel slept on the desk chair.

Another deep breath, and another, but still her pulse hammered. She stood and paced to the other side of her room and back, running her hands over her messy braid.

She hadn’t had a nightmare like that for months. She hated it when they felt so . . . real.

Tears threatened her eyes, so Ceony looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly, urging them away.

She hadn’t made it to Delilah’s funeral, being unconscious in a hospital bed, but Clemson, the Pyre apprentice she’d met at the factory tour, later told her it had rained.

Light flashed outside her window, followed by thunder almost as loud as the beating of her heart. Ceony stared at the mess of her bed, then at Fennel.

She swallowed, stood. Waited. Stared.

She picked up her pillow and padded to her door, cracking it open. Peered down the dark hallway. The dimmest candlelight shone from behind the farthest door on the right. Emery never had invested in magicked lamps.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Ceony moved toward it. She adjusted her nightgown and knocked, as softly as her trembling fingers could manage. She didn’t want to wake him if he had already—

“Yes?” his voice said through the door. How late was it, for him to still be awake?

She cracked the door open. Emery lay in his bed, covers up to his hips, reading, but he reached over and set the book down on his nightstand. His candle only had a half inch of wax left to burn. She had caught him just in time.

His eyes met hers, and his forehead wrinkled. “Are you all right, Ceony?”

She flushed, feeling like a child. “I . . . I’m sorry. I just . . . Can I sleep on your floor?”

His expression didn’t change. He sat up. “Are you ill?” he asked, ready to stand.

“I just . . . I’m not sleeping well. Again,” she admitted. “I’ll be quiet. I just . . . I don’t want to sleep alone, not tonight. Please?”

His lips pressed together. He knew about her nightmares. They had been awful after Delilah died. After her . . . murder. Ceony had slept with a light on for three weeks. They came infrequently now, but when they did come, Ceony dreamed with a vengeance.

He gestured for her to come, and Ceony stepped into the room. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Ceony,” he said softly, “don’t apologize.”

He pulled back his covers and scooted over, making room for one more.

She hesitated—she had never slept in Emery’s bed before—but she yearned for company. Yearned for him. A paper chain she could neither see nor touch pulled her toward him, and the spell to stop it was the only one she didn’t know.

She plopped her pillow down beside his and crawled onto the mattress. Emery snuffed the candle with his thumb and lay down on his side, looping one arm around Ceony’s waist, holding her against his chest.

So warm. Ceony relaxed into the embrace, listened to Emery’s familiar heartbeat, his calm breathing. Matched her breaths to his.

Gradually the images of her nightmare faded from her mind, and Ceony fell into a safe and dreamless sleep.





CHAPTER 3




CEONY AWOKE WITH a sore right shoulder and a numb right ear, the right side of her face still burrowed into her pillow. She blinked at the steady sunlight streaming in through the uncovered window opposite the bed. It looked to be around seven thirty, perhaps eight. It took her a moment to identify that the cluttered nightstand and window were not her own. The blankets were definitely Emery’s.

She sat up, blood running back into her ear, and scanned the bed. Empty, and made up on one side. She rubbed her eyes and pulled the tie from her messy braid, running her fingers through the long, wavy locks.

Her chest flushed, just a little, more in temperature than in color. She wasn’t as embarrassed as perhaps she should be . . . She had requested the floor, after all. Not that she minded the invitation. Had Ceony been in a better state of mind, she might have taken advantage of it.

She smiled, picturing what Mg. Aviosky’s face would look like if the Gaffer ever got wind of last night’s arrangement. She’d be furious.

Mg. Aviosky knew about their special relationship, of course. At least, Ceony felt certain she knew. She’d confessed her feelings for Emery to her once mentor, but nothing more. Still, the way Mg. Aviosky’s eyes narrowed when she saw Ceony and Emery together, that distinct hum she made in her throat, told Ceony the Gaffer assumed more. Hopefully no one else did . . . at least not yet.