The Glass Magician

There, on the table, sat a wooden vase full of red paper roses, so intricately Folded they looked real. Ceony approached them slowly and reached out a hand to touch their delicate petals, which had been Folded of the thinnest paper Emery had in stock. The flowers even had complex, fernlike leaves and a few rounded thorns.

Beside the vase rested an oval hair barrette made of paper beads and tightly wound spirals, heavily coated with a hard gloss to keep it from bending. Ceony picked up the barrette and thumbed its ornamentation. It would take her hours to craft something this intricate, let alone the roses.

The roses. Ceony pulled a small square of paper from the center of the bouquet. It read “Happy Birthday” in Emery’s perfect cursive script.

Her stomach fluttered.

Ceony fastened the barrette behind her ear and slid the note into a side pocket of her purse, where it wouldn’t wrinkle. She took the stairs to the second floor, pinching her cheeks and adjusting and tucking her blouse as she climbed. The electric light from the library drew a lopsided rectangle on the hardwood flooring of the hallway.

Emery sat at the table on the far side of the book-lined room, his back to Ceony. He leaned on one hand, fingers entangled with the dark, wavy locks of his hair. His other hand turned the page of an especially old-looking book, though Ceony couldn’t tell which one. A long, sage-green coat hung over the back of his chair. Emery owned a long coat in every color of the rainbow, and he wore them even in the middle of summer, save for July 24, when he had thrown the indigo coat out the window and spent the rest of the day Folding and cutting a blizzard’s worth of snowflakes. Ceony still found the snowflakes every now and then, wedged between the icebox and the counter or collected in crumpled piles beneath Fennel’s dog bed.

She knocked the knuckle of her right index finger against the doorframe. Emery started and turned around. Had he really not heard her come in?

He looked tired—he must have been traveling all day to be home by now—but his green eyes still burned with light. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. I’ve done nothing but sit in hard chairs and talk to stuffy Englishmen all week.” He frowned. “I also believe I’ve become something of a food snob, thanks to you.”

Ceony smiled and found herself wishing she hadn’t pinched her cheeks so adamantly. She turned her head to showcase the barrette. “What do you think?”

Emery’s expression softened. “I think it’s lovely. I did a good job on that.”

Ceony rolled her eyes. “How modest. But thank you, for this. And the flowers.”

Emery nodded. “But I’m afraid you’re now a week behind in your studies.”

“You told me I was two months ahead!” Ceony frowned.

“A week behind,” he repeated, as though not hearing her. And perhaps he didn’t. Emery Thane had a talent for selective hearing, she’d learned. “I’ve determined it’s best for you to study the roots of Folding.”

“Trees?” she asked, thumbing her barrette.

“More or less,” Emery replied. “There’s a paper mill a ways east of here, in Dartford. They even have a division for magic materials, not that it matters. Patrice requested your attendance for a tour of sorts, the day after tomorrow.”

Ceony nodded. She had gotten a telegram from Mg. Aviosky about that.

“We’ll start there. It’s quite exciting.” Emery chuckled.

Ceony sighed. That meant it wouldn’t be, but she wasn’t surprised. How exciting could a paper mill possibly be?

“We’ll take a buggy at eight that morning,” the paper magician continued, “so you’ll have to rise early. I can have Jonto—”

“No, no, I’ll be up,” Ceony insisted. She turned back for the hallway, but paused. “Did you eat? I don’t mind cooking something if you’re hungry.”

Emery smiled at her, the expression more in his eyes than his lips. She loved it when he smiled like that.

“I’m fine,” he said, “but thank you. Sleep well, Ceony.”

“You, too. Don’t stay up too late,” she said.

Emery turned back to his book. Ceony let her gaze linger on him for a second longer, then went to get ready for bed.

She set the roses on her nightstand before falling asleep.





CHAPTER 2



AFTER FRYING SOME CREPES with strawberries and cream for breakfast, Ceony returned upstairs and opened her bedroom door and window to keep the space from getting too hot. She played fetch with Fennel using a balled stocking for a few minutes, then returned to the spell Emery had assigned her before he left for the conference—a paper doll of herself.