The Master Magician (7 page)

“They did take their time, didn’t they?” Mg. Aviosky quipped, almost more to herself than to Ceony. “I wonder, once this is all over, if the need to dig information out of the man will have been worth it. I’d hate to think—”

Her voice cut short. After clearing her throat, she finished with, “Of the people who he’ll hurt.”

Ceony bit her lip. For a moment, the ghost of Delilah stood in the hallway outside the front room, laughing at some unheard joke. But she was gone, her laughter only heard in memory.

Another sigh passed from Mg. Aviosky’s lips, as if the same
thought had occurred to her. “He escaped en route to Portsmouth prison, where he was scheduled for execution.”

“From Haslar.”

“Mm,” Mg. Aviosky agreed. She shifted in her chair. “Somewhere near Gosport, I believe, between cities. I didn’t press Magician Hughes for details.”

“But how?” Ceony pleaded. “I researched the imprisonment of Excisioners. Straitjackets, constant guard, solitary confinement. They even put bits in their mouth to keep them from drawing blood from their own tongue and cheeks!”

Ceony felt her neck warm.

“No need to school me, Miss Twill,” the Gaffer said. “I’m quite aware. I believe he head-butted his guard and blew out his sinuses hard enough to give himself a nosebleed. I’ve heard Excision spells cast using the magician’s own blood are far weaker, but it was enough. He managed to collapse the side of the carriage and get away.”

Ceony thought of the spell Lira had once used to break down Emery’s front door. “No one pursued him?”

“I don’t know,” Mg. Aviosky said with a tilt of her chin and the faintest air of exasperation. “I imagine there was a chase. No sane person would think to transport Saraj Prendi without a great number of guards, especially of the magician type. But it’s not under my jurisdiction. I simply don’t know.”

But where?
Would Saraj try to flee England, as Emery suspected? Portsmouth and Haslar were on the southern coast, weren’t they? An easy escape. Saraj would be a fool not to take it.

Still, the contents of her stomach churned.

Ceony kept the thoughts to herself, shoving them down deep enough in her brain that they tickled the back of her neck. She cleared her throat, trying not to react noticeably to the news, and asked, “What did Saraj do prior to the paper mill?”

Mg. Aviosky tapped her chin, then readjusted her glasses once more. Instead of offering another excuse about how she wasn’t involved in Criminal Affairs, she managed to say, “I believe he was involved in some ordeal in Scotland, along with Grath Cobalt and Lira Hoppson. I’m not sure of the details. But Miss Twill,” she said, scooting forward on her chair, “you must believe that you and your kin will be safe. It’s not in Saraj Prendi’s criminal profile to pursue them any further.”

The words offered little comfort. “I thought you weren’t part of Criminal Affairs,” Ceony said. “How would you know?”

The Gaffer frowned. “Saraj Prendi has a reputation extending far beyond English law enforcement. That is a naïve question.”

Ceony sighed. “You are right, of course.”

She wrung her skirt in her hands but stopped short of wrinkling it. Her thoughts felt like muffin batter. Smoothing out her skirt, Ceony closed her eyes just long enough to gather her senses. Then she reached into her bag and grabbed a rectangular piece of gray paper. She tore it in half down the middle and instructed it, “Mimic.”

Mg. Aviosky raised an eyebrow.

Ceony handed half of the paper to her. “Think of it as mirror-to-mirror communication,” Ceony explained. Indeed, a mirror spell would be much more prudent than this Folder’s spell, but Mg. Aviosky didn’t know about Ceony’s exercises in bond breaking, and Ceony was not ready to share the information. Once a secret spread to too many minds and mouths, anyone could learn it—including an Excisioner.

Ceony continued. “Anything you write on your half will appear on mine. Please, if you hear any more news, or if you need to contact me for whatever reason, use this. It’s quicker and more . . . private . . . than a telegram.”

The glass magician glanced over the half sheet of paper. To Ceony’s relief, she nodded and folded it into quarters before slipping it inside her tailored jacket. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll keep it on hand.”

Ceony’s shoulders relaxed, which was how she realized they had tensed. “Thank you for your help. I’m just trying to . . . ease some concerns.”

Gosport
, she thought.
Haslar to Portsmouth. I need to know for certain that he fled, that he won’t come after us. I have to know there won’t be any more Delilahs, Anises.

Ceony stood, holding her bag to her. Mg. Aviosky stood as well.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked, lips twisting with what could have been worry. “Do you have a buggy waiting?”

“No, thank you, and I’ll get home fine,” Ceony said, punctuating her reassurances with a smile. “And I should be getting home. I have more studying to do before my test.”

Mg. Aviosky seemed pleased with that statement. “Agreed. Take care, Ceony.”

The Gaffer showed Ceony to the door. Ceony took up her bike and walked it across the yard and down the walk, watching Mg. Aviosky’s front door through the corner of her eye.

She turned the next corner and seated herself on the bike. She rode farther into the city, toward Parliament Square, where she heard Big Ben chime the second hour.

This time she didn’t cut through the square to return to Emery’s cottage. She parked her bicycle outside St. Alban’s Salmon Bistro, which was, ironically, the place where she had lost the last one.

Smoothing her skirt and fixing her hair, Ceony began to walk toward the Parliament building itself. It was more public than she would have liked given her purpose, but she knew the mirror was of good quality, ensuring a certain measure of safety. Besides, there wasn’t time to find anything better. The lavatory door locked, at least.

As she neared the building, a familiar laugh caught her attention. Passing Fine Seams, a tailoring shop, Ceony peered around a corner and searched the various shoppers and pedestrians filling the narrow road leading away from the square. She spied her sister
Zina leaning against the brick side of Fine Seams in a dress that was almost indecently short. She was with two men: one who was barely old enough to be called a man and another who looked to be Zina’s age. He held a cigar in one hand and leaned one elbow against the brick wall.

“Zina!” Ceony called, jogging down the street. A surprise to see her sister here—her family had moved to Poplar, which was too far away for a comfortable journey to Parliament Square.

Zina glanced over. She didn’t seem enthused by the chance meeting, which made Ceony slow down.

Ceony nodded to the two men before asking, “What are you doing here? Mom and Dad . . . are they here, too?”
Prancing around the heart of London, just waiting for a certain Excisioner to put them on the menu?

Zina rolled her eyes. “I’m nineteen, Ceony. I don’t need an escort.”

“I didn’t say you did. I was just wondering—”

“Can you ‘wonder’ over there?” Zina asked, gesturing down the road. “I’m a bit preoccupied.”

Ceony glanced to the older man. “Excuse me, just a moment,” she said. He did not so much as step back. To Zina, she said, “What’s wrong? Why are you acting like this? I haven’t seen you in two months and suddenly I’m a pest?”

Zina buzzed her lips to imitate a fly. The two men chuckled.

Ceony swallowed a grumble and straightened her shoulders. Leaning toward Zina, she said, “Listen, you should probably go home. There are . . . things afoot right now, and I’m worried about the family. Would you—”

“Ceony!” Zina snapped, “Are you deaf? You, of all people, have no right to tell me about propriety.”

A few passersby glanced over at Zina’s outburst.

“I’m not talking about propriety! I’m talking about your safety!” Ceony countered. Her mother had mentioned Zina’s new
habits—the late nights and unruly friends—but had her sister really grown so hard?

Zina pushed off of the brick wall and straightened, standing about an inch taller than Ceony did. “I know about you and Magician Thane, you know,” she said, a little too loudly for comfort.

Ceony flushed. “What about me and Magician Thane?”

“I heard our parents talking, that’s what,” she said. “Criminy, Ceony, it’s like shagging the principal. Isn’t he a divorcé, too?”

Scalding heat permeated Ceony’s skin, reddening her like a tomato. Voices muttering
What did she say?
and
That girl?
echoed around her. She could feel time slowing, and the passersby slowed along with it, clearly eager to overhear more gossip.

Zina folded her arms.

Ceony’s pulse drummed in her ears. She felt sick in her chest. “I’m not,” she whispered, “doing that, Zina. With anyone.”

She thought her ears would light with fire, her cheeks burn to ash, but the moment passed, as even the worst moments do.

“Whatever you say, sis.” Zina waved a hand carelessly and walked away without a backward glance. The man with the cigar grinned at Ceony and even dared to waggle his eyebrows at her before following.

Feeling stark naked and an inch tall, Ceony spun back for the main road, walking briskly on marionette legs. To her horror, she spied none other than Mrs. Holloway, who leaned toward an older companion as she stage-whispered, “I know him. Magician Thane, that is. The girl so young, and him without a wife. All alone . . . It’s a wonder what they get up to.”

God save me
, Ceony prayed, clutching her bag to her body.
I’ve done nothing wrong.

She continued walking, the exercise moving her blood away from her face, and with it any outward show of humiliation. Her mind whirled. True, she and her sister had grown apart in recent
years, but they had been the best of friends before Ceony started secondary school.
What’s wrong with you, Zina?

The Parliament building loomed ahead. Ceony’s memory flashed back to her conversation with Mg. Aviosky, and she clung to it with all ten nails. Saraj. She needed to focus on Saraj, not on Zina. Not even on Emery.

She let herself inside.

Two guards glanced at her as she passed, but just about anyone was allowed to traverse the first floor of the building so long as they didn’t look suspicious. And a young woman of Ceony’s stature never
looked
suspicious. Not with her skin more or less returned to its normal hue.

She walked with her eyes straight ahead, smiling at anyone who passed, nodding at a businessman who first nodded to her. When she reached the women’s lavatory on the left, she kept her pace and stepped inside, listening for the sounds of others before locking the door.

She took a moment to gather her wits and catch her breath.
Saraj. Focus on him.

In the powdering space between the door and the toilets hung a large mirror against a wallpapered wall, just over a polished dresser beside a cushioned chair. Ceony remembered this mirror well; Delilah had used it to take her to and from her temporary flat.

Ceony squared her shoulders and pulled the chair around to the front of the dresser so she could stand on it and reach the mirror. Ceony slipped her hand under the collar of her blouse, pulled free her charm necklace, and pinched the wood charm in her fingers, muttering the words that would break her bond to paper.

She resealed herself to glass, then touched the edges of the mirror the way her friend had done so long ago.

And she searched.

She pushed her consciousness into the mirror, probing for an unknown signature, feeling her spirit pull like taffy as she explored farther and farther from the lavatory, past the mirrors in Parliament and its square, past the mirrors in London and Croydon and Farnborough. She stretched, her consciousness spinning into threads. It drained her—she had never tried this spell at so great a distance. But it would work. She had tried the spell before, in the confines of her bedroom, albeit with a much smaller mirror.

There
, she thought,
this feels close enough.

Holding on to her search spell, Ceony traced her hand around the mirror clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again. She murmured, “Transport, pass through.”

The mirror rippled into silvery liquid, waiting to swallow her.

Holding her breath, Ceony stepped through it.

C
HAPTER
6

T
HE LIQUID GLASS
draped over Ceony like a curtain of ice water, seeping through clothes and skin without leaving a trace of wetness. Her mind flashed to the memory of her buggy hitting the surface of a dark river, cold water creeping up her body as Saraj watched from the bank. That very sensation was one of three reasons Ceony didn’t mirror-transport often; it reminded her of drowning.

The second reason was the fear of getting caught.

The third was the danger of getting stuck within a damaged mirror . . .

Which was exactly what happened. Despite stepping into a clean mirror, Ceony found herself in a limbo filled with gray matter—sharp stalagmites and stalactites jutting below and above her, charcoal gems hanging midair, silvery webs floating like clouds or crawling as fog.