The Glass Magician

“It’s easiest to disguise what you’re doing when you’re shuffling or dealing,” Emery explained, “or when your opponent is distracted by something that’s cooking in the kitchen.”


Ceony opened her mouth to protest, but instead closed it and shot him a disapproving look. He had won the game last Tuesday when Ceony had cinnamon rolls in the oven. She had been worried they would burn. Perhaps that’s why Emery never kept the money she lost, regardless of the amount. The cheater.

“And how do I tamper with the deck?” she asked.

That amusement rekindled in his eyes. “A lesson for another day. I can’t give away all my secrets at once,” he said. He handed the deck to her, and Ceony tried the spell herself, only with the Queen of Spades. To her relief, a quick tug on her braid summoned the card on her first try.

“Now we shall see who wins at cards,” Emery said, chuckling to himself. He gathered the deck and returned it to the recesses of his coat. For the next spell, he stood and retrieved two white, 8?" by 11" sheets of medium-thickness paper and set them down on the Folding board. His eyes met Ceony’s for a long moment as he settled back into his seat, but Ceony couldn’t read his thoughts. Emery had gotten better at hiding them these days.

“I’m going to teach you the Ripple spell, but this is one that can’t be rushed,” he explained, dropping his gaze to the rectangular paper in his hands. “The thickness of the paper does affect the spell—the thicker the parchment, the stronger the ripple.”

“What ripple?” Ceony asked, brows drawn together. “I haven’t read anything about Ripple spells.”

Emery smirked and did a square Fold—a triangular Fold that formed a square when opened, after cutting off the excess paper. He sheared the excess strip off with a rotary cutter and performed a full-point Fold to turn the Folded triangle into a smaller, symmetrical triangle.

“Cutting off the excess is necessary,” he explained. “Don’t start with a square piece of paper. Would you hand me the ruler?”

Ceony snatched the ruler from the top drawer of the table. She heard a few pencils roll around inside the drawer as she closed it, and Emery frowned. He would probably reorganize that drawer before he left the library today. For a man who was more or less a pack rat, Emery preferred his belongings to be in perfect order. Perfect to him, at least.

Emery set the ruler down on the paper to measure the width, then laid it out across the length. “Five-eighths of an inch is the magic number. Remember that,” he said. He dragged the rotary cutter across the line, but stopped short of shearing off the base of the triangle entirely. He then flipped the paper over and measured again, cutting from the other side, five-eighths of an inch up.

“Like in sewing,” Ceony said, watching his hands work. Even though she would remember all the cuts, this spell would take her far longer to prepare. How did he make his measurements so quickly?

“Is it?” he asked, glancing up at her before making a third cut, flipping the triangle once more. Two more cuts, and he had an evenly sliced triangle in his hands.

He carefully unfolded it until it became a single-layered flayed square. Pinching its center, he lifted the paper up. Ceony ogled—it looked like a multi-tiered, geometric jellyfish. She didn’t know any other way to describe it.

Emery stood, and Ceony followed suit.

“This is something I kept in my back pocket when I . . . aided law enforcement,” he said. Ceony, of course, knew about his work hunting Excisioners, the practitioners of forbidden blood magic, but there were some things Emery just didn’t like to discuss. “It’s good for a distraction, or to give someone you don’t like a headache.”

Emery extended his arm in front of him and commanded, “Ripple,” then bobbed the paper creation up and down, making it look even more like a jellyfish.

The spell blurred, but so did the rest of the library. Ceony blinked, trying to clear her vision, but the very air seemed to undulate out from the paper jellyfish, like a rock thrown into the center of a pond. The floor rolled; the bookshelves waved. The ceiling twisted and the furniture appeared to be swimming. Even Ceony’s own body rippled back and forth, back and forth—

Her mind spun as vertigo assaulted her. She reached for the chair, for the table, but her hand missed and she teetered.

Emery sidestepped and caught her, one arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders. He dropped the spell, and the library reoriented itself, straight and sturdy once again.

“I should have insisted you stay seated,” he said apologetically.

She shook her head, finding her feet. “No . . . it’s very, uh, useful.”

As her vision returned to normal, she became hyperaware of Emery’s hand on her shoulder, and despite her every urge for it not to happen, her cheeks burned with a flush.