CHAPTER 16
IT TOOK CEONY A moment to absorb her surroundings; then she realized she was in the small rectangular mirror room on the third floor of Mg. Aviosky’s house. Muted sunlight poured through the large, multipaned windows to her left, reflecting off dozens of mirrors made of pure Gaffer’s glass, all set along the walls in a carefully chosen order. The mirrors were in all different frames and sizes, and one even had notes written along its top corners in Delilah’s handwriting. An old book titled The Shaping of Enchanted Vases for Intermediate Blowing rested spine-up on the floor, one-third read.
A pair of hands seized Ceony’s shoulders, and Delilah’s voice snatched her from her daze.
“Oh, Ceony!” she cried, hauling her up with surprising strength. Tears rimmed Delilah’s eyes and her usually perfect hair looked a fright. The Gaffer apprentice embraced Ceony tightly. “I thought you were dead! I was so scared!”
“We all were,” Mg. Aviosky said from beside her, albeit with considerably less jubilation. Her hand remained affixed to a tall, upright mirror, which swirled beneath her touch.
Ceony turned in Delilah’s embrace. “Emery,” she whispered, but just as she spoke his name the paper magician emerged from the glimmering whirlpool, his hands clasped to one of Mg. Hughes’s forearms. The Siper looked dazed, but Ceony saw no injuries.
Mg. Hughes stumbled over the mirror frame and leaned on Emery to steady himself.
As soon as they were both across, Mg. Aviosky’s hand flew from the mirror, returning its surface to normal. She braced Mg. Hughes on the other side.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Mg. Hughes nodded. “Just fine, but he used a Flash spell on me, and I’m still seeing spots.”
Delilah whispered to Ceony, “That’s when you increase the amount of light reflected off a glass surface. It works especially well with mirrors, and with enough light it can be blinding.”
Mg. Aviosky overheard and frowned. “But not in this case,” she said, guiding Mg. Hughes to a chair in the back corner of the room. “It will wear off.”
“I’ve been on the receiving end of spells far worse than this one, Patrice.” Mg. Hughes laughed. “I’ll be fine after some good blinking.”
“A-And Grath?” Ceony asked. She glanced at Emery, but such fire burned in his green eyes that she quickly redirected her gaze to Mg. Hughes.
He rubbed his eyes. “He got away, unfortunately. But I couldn’t have expected otherwise. We have men headed to that barn outside London, but I haven’t heard from them, good or ill.”
Ceony’s stomach dropped.
Clearly sensing her change in mood, Delilah cried, “I had to tell them, Ceony! Please don’t be angry.”
“And it’s a good thing!” Mg. Aviosky added, somehow managing to purse her thin lips and scold at the same time. “Good heavens, Miss Twill. It took us all night and most of the day to find you. I’d hate to think what would have happened had luck not been on my side!”
“Indeed,” Emery said, almost coldly. He picked up his indigo coat from where it hung over another mirror and draped it over his arm.
“I’m sorry,” Ceony whispered, wishing she had a shell like a hermit crab that she could crawl into. She pulled the mirror shard from her waistband and handed it to Mg. Aviosky. “This is from the mirror I came through, in the shed where Grath is keeping Lira.”
Mg. Aviosky took the shard. “Perhaps it will be of some use.”
“Sounds like it to me,” Mg. Hughes said, leaning forward in his chair. He blinked a few more times. “You should join Criminal Affairs, Ceony. You went on a fool’s errand and sent us on a wild goose chase, but we got some excellent information from all of your meddling—”
Ceony’s eyes widened, and if not for Delilah’s arms, she would have staggered. “My family!” she cried. She pulled away from her friend’s grasp and turned her gaze to Emery. “Grath said he would target my family, that Saraj would! He knew all their names, Emery!”
Emery’s countenance fell. He looked at Mg. Hughes.
The Siper stood from his chair and straightened his vest. “I worried such a threat would arise. It always does, with these types.” He rubbed his half beard in thought. “We’ll have to see that arrangements are made for the Twills.”
“Please, and quickly,” Ceony pleaded. “Thank you so much for coming after me, but it’s them I’m worried about. Marshall and Margo, they’re just kids, and my parents don’t have anywhere to go—”
Mg. Hughes, addressing Mg. Aviosky, said, “I’ll use your telegraph if I may.”
The Gaffer nodded.
Emery stepped away from the others and took Ceony firmly by the upper arm. “Come,” he said, hushed.
But before he could pull her from the room, Mg. Aviosky said, “I’d like to speak with both Miss Twill and Delilah before you take her anywhere, Magician Thane. There is a severe matter of—”
“My apologies, Patrice,” Emery said, quiet but sharp, “but Ceony is my apprentice, and I will deal with her side of the situation.”
With that he tugged Ceony from the mirror room and down the stairs to the second floor, where he opened the lavatory door and pulled her inside, only then releasing her.
She backed up to the footed tub, heart hammering. Emery turned on the electric light and shut the door.
Wiping tears from her eyes, Ceony said, “Emery, I’m—”
“Sorry?” he asked, the word snapping from his mouth. “You’re sorry? Damn it, Ceony, you could have been killed!”
“You don’t think I know that?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think you know that,” he countered, “or you wouldn’t have undertaken such an idiotic endeavor! This is Grath Cobalt! Not some pickpocket off the street!”
Ceony started. Other than in the third chamber of his heart, Emery had never shouted at her before.
“What if Saraj had been there?” he asked, his green eyes blazing. “You would be on a meat hook right now, while the rest of us would still be wondering where the hell you disappeared to!”
“Delilah was—”
“And how dare you bring Delilah into this!” he interrupted. “Do you realize how mirror transportation works? He could have killed you, then her!”
“I know how it works, I’m not stupid!” Ceony shouted back. “I didn’t go into this blind! This is my responsibility—they’re after me—and yet I’m not even allowed to sit in on the meetings discussing it! I thought I should take care of it on my own.”
“You thought wrong,” Emery said. He ran a hand back through his hair, looking ready to tug it from his scalp. “You have a great deal of good fortune in your blood, Ceony, but you cannot continue to take these kinds of risks. You’re not immortal. Do you have any idea what it does to me when you put yourself in danger? And so willingly, no less!”
“If I didn’t take risks like this, you’d be dead!” she shot back. She swung her hand out, nearly knocking a seashell from the sink beside her. “I can’t sit idly by while the rest of the world goes on without me!”
“You do not hold up the world,” Emery replied, closer to his normal volume. “You are not God, and it’s time you stopped acting like you were.”
“You don’t even believe in God,” Ceony quipped, folding her arms. A sore lump formed in her throat, and tears threatened her eyes. She stared at a spot on the floor, trying to bury the sensations.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe, or what you believe, or what anyone in this damn country believes,” Emery said. He let out a long breath. “I don’t understand you, Ceony. I don’t understand why you would do something like this without even telling me. Do you not trust me?”
She lifted her eyes. Beneath the anger in his face, she saw genuine hurt in his eyes.
Her shoulders slumped. “I trust you. You know I trust you. But I don’t want to see you hurt, not again. Grath threatened you, too.”
“Threats are only threats,” Emery said. “If I had a pound for every threat someone has thrown my way, empty or not, I could retire.”
He reached up and touched Ceony’s cheek. She winced. The spot where Grath had struck her still felt swollen and tender.
“This is not a threat,” Emery said, much quieter now. “I know Grath far better than you do, and I know he keeps his promises. You saved my life; now you have to let me save yours. I couldn’t fight Lira, but I can fight Grath and Saraj. You have to understand that they’re nothing like Lira. She was a novice. You’re comparing a house pup to wolves.”
The tears finally broke through Ceony’s resolve and traced uneven lines down her face, wetting Emery’s thumb. “It’s my fault,” she whispered. “Because of me my family is in danger. Oh God, he’ll kill them . . .”
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.