The Master Magician (13 page)

Mg. Bailey narrowed his eyes. A few long seconds passed before he said, “You’re dismissed, Miss Twill.”

Gladly
, Ceony thought, but she dared not push her luck with more words. Rising from her chair, she smoothed her skirt and walked to the door with the paper list in hand, fighting her desire to run, stomp, and curse the bloody man’s name.

“Deluded,” she mumbled to herself. She pinched her lips together, hoping the word didn’t carry through the vast emptiness of the ridiculous house, if the man could hear
anyone
speak with that ego pressing against his eardrums. “No wonder this place is so empty,” she added with a scowl. “Who on earth would want to live with
him
?”

She fidgeted with her necklace and daydreamed of going back into the study and turning Pyre right then and there. How she would love to hurl a ball of flames right at Mg. Bailey’s head!

She found Fennel scratching at the door in her room, his rubber paw pads thumbing against the doorjamb. She picked the pup up in her arms and scratched his neck.

“Sorry, boy,” she said. “I’m sure Magician Bailey would love to de-spell you if you wandered into his line of sight.”

Fennel huffed and wagged his tail, jerking toward the window. Another butterfly rested on its pane, a brief letter from Emery
hidden in its Folds. He recounted the dullness of his day and an invitation to a ball being thrown for new Tagis Praff graduates. He had likely been invited since he might soon be free to take on a new apprentice. So they both hoped, anyway, at least if the position opened for the right reason, and not because Ceony was forced to relocate and live with a female mentor. Of course, he claimed he didn’t plan to attend.

Oh, how she missed Emery. And the thought of how Mg. Bailey had insulted him, not to mention
her
, set her bones blazing once more. She lowered Fennel to the floor and punched her mattress. That man was
trying
to be impossible.

Ceony pulled free her list of items to Fold for her test and set it on the breakfast table, which was slowly transforming into a desk. It would be best if she started now. The sooner she passed her test and left the Bailey prison, the better.

C
HAPTER
9

T
HAT NIGHT, HOVERING
over the breakfast table beside two thick candles, Ceony rubbed the sprout of a headache from her right temple. A ledger sat open under one wrist, while the list from Mg. Bailey was sprawled beneath the other.

#24. Something to cross a river
.

She chewed on the end of her pencil. Surely she wouldn’t have to physically cross a river! As far as she knew, the magician’s test wasn’t mobile . . . but then again, she knew never to expect the expected when it came to magicians, especially Folders. Emery had taught her that, and on her very first day as his apprentice, no less.

Something to cross a river. A shiver coursed up one arm, across her shoulders, and down the other. Would they make her demonstrate the device? Either way, she couldn’t let her hydrophobia thwart her chances of winning her certificate. She just couldn’t.

Sighing, Ceony scanned down the list to numbers thirty-two and thirty-three.
Something to cause a storm
and
Something to repel the rain
. All three items were water-related. The storm wasn’t specific, though. Perhaps she could create the illusion of a storm, or Fold dozens of water-droplet-shaped spells that could fall from the ceiling like paper snowflakes.

As for repelling the rain—
real
rain, she assumed—Ceony’s mind warped back to the night she and Emery had fallen into the
river in their buggy, and the “Conceal” spell Emery had used. It had taken a bowed shape, similar to an umbrella. Such a spell, modified, could potentially repel rain for a short time.

Saraj
.

Ceony shook her head. He, of course, had caused the accident, but she couldn’t worry about him now. She had a test to focus on—a test that Mg. Bailey apparently didn’t believe she could pass.

He’s still in England
, a voice in her head insisted.

Ceony set her pencil down and rubbed the base of her hands into her eyes.
Focus!

A knock sounded at her door.

Ceony lowered her hands as Fennel’s tail shot straight into the air in excitement. He yipped his whispery bark and hurried for the door.

Ceony almost stopped the paper dog, but surely Mg. Bailey wouldn’t come all this way to speak to her. And about what? Certainly not to apologize.

“Come in,” she said.

The door creaked open and Bennet poked his head in. His blue-eyed gaze jumped to Fennel almost instantly. “Oh my!” he said, crouching down and prodding the dog’s ears. When he realized they wouldn’t fall off or crumple under his touch, he let himself get a bit rougher. “This is the dog!”

“Fennel,” Ceony said with a smile. “He’s been aching for company.”

Fennel yipped and put his front paws on Bennet’s knees, licking his hands with that paper tongue. Ceony hoped it didn’t leave any paper cuts in its wake, as it had been known to do.

After a moment Bennet stood. “Do you mind?”

Ceony waved him forward.

Bennet shut the door to prevent Fennel’s escape, glanced around for a moment, then took the chair opposite Ceony, though there wasn’t an inch of free space on the breakfast table. “I wanted to come by and apologize for Magician Bailey.”

“He can’t apologize for himself?”

“He’s just got some chipped shoulders, if you know what I mean.”

Fennel sniffed about the newcomer’s shoes for a moment before occupying himself with something on the other side of the bed.

“I have a vague idea,” Ceony said. She knew the man had been picked on in school—Emery being one of his tormenters—but that had been years ago. Surely he hadn’t held on to such old grievances for so long! “But it gives him no excuse. If nothing else, I’m a lady.”

“He’s just . . . different, I guess,” Bennet said. “I had a hard time adjusting, too, but after a month or so I started to understand him. We get on well now.”

Ceony shut her ledger. “He treats you like a butler.”

“No,” Bennet said, “not really. I mean . . .
please
and
thank you
aren’t foremost in his vocabulary, but he means them. Implies them. If he asks you to do a small task, there’s no harm in doing it, and he’ll be more pleasant afterward. That’s one rule I’ve learned.”

Despite being a “lady,” Ceony snorted and leaned back in her chair. “
Rule?
What other
rules
should I be aware of?”

“Well . . .” Bennet paused, thinking. “It’s best not to bother him in the morning if you need something . . . and requests are best made through paper mail. You know, sending a crane to his office.”

“But we’re in the
same house
!”

“A big house, but it takes the edge off,” Bennet explained. “You know, lets him mull it over before answering. He doesn’t like to be surprised, and he’s more positive when given a chance to mull.”

Ceony resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“Really, though”—Bennet clasped his hands in his lap—“it takes him a long time to get used to people, and he just likes to keep to himself. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to report every little thing, you know? As long as I keep up with my lessons and get my homework done on time, we get along. And he doesn’t care what I do with my free time. There’s lots of space to stretch out.”

A long sigh passed through Ceony’s lips. “I suppose he and I are just very different,” she said.

Bennet straightened, eyes wide and hopeful.

“And,” Ceony continued, “it’s only for a few weeks. I can follow these . . . rules . . . for a few weeks.”

Bennet grinned. “I’m happy to help, always. If you need anything. I know you’re more advanced and all—”

“You’ll be testing soon, won’t you?” she asked.

Bennet shrugged. “Maybe in a year. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready.”

Ceony frowned. “With a different teacher, you might be.”

He smiled. “I appreciate your confidence. And when you need a break . . . there’s a really lovely park not far from here. Magician Bailey has his own Mercedes, and sometimes he lets me take it out. There’s a duck pond, and it’s a nice place for a picnic.”

Ceony, who had taken to bending the corner of her test list back and forth, slowed her fingers. She kept her shoulders lax, but her chest began to warm. Surely Bennet wasn’t insinuating a date . . . Was he?

“Oh?” she asked. Prodded.

“Just say the word.”

Ceony glanced to one of the paper butterflies beside her window.
I guess I just won’t give the word
, she thought.
No harm done.

“Thank you for the offer,” she said. “Hopefully I won’t
need
a break.” She sighed and lifted the list from the table. “I have so much to do. I’ll have to get to Folding tomorrow.”

“Well, I won’t keep you,” Bennet said, rising from the table. Fennel ran over to meet him, perhaps hoping the visitor would play. Bennet laughed and rubbed the top of the paper dog’s head. “So expertly made,” he said. “I’m really impressed. Would you consider letting me take him apart to see how he works? I don’t recognize some of these Folds.”

Ceony stiffened. Her extra enchantments on Fennel aside, she couldn’t bear the thought of someone taking him apart. Not when Emery’s hands had so expertly crafted him, twice.

“I’d . . . prefer to keep him intact,” she said.

Fortunately, Bennet didn’t push the matter. “All right, but I wouldn’t mind getting a lesson from you in advanced animation,” he said, apparently assuming Ceony the pup’s creator. “Have a good night.”

She smiled. “You, too. And thank you.”

Bennet left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Ignoring her work, Ceony penned Emery a note and Folded it into a crane.

She didn’t mention Bennet’s invitation.

Mg. Pritwin Bailey paced back and forth in the apprentices’ study, turning just before reaching either curtain covering the large window. Morning sunlight gleamed off his spectacles whenever he passed in front of a certain ray of light, and he clasped his hands behind his back.

“Recite the steps for a ‘Stiffen’ spell,” he commanded Bennet, who sat dutifully in a chair at the table.

Ceony, as before, had taken up residence in the corner of the room. She held her ledger on her lap, though the writing on the current page grew more lax and sloppy with each passing line. The words morphed from thoughts on her magician’s test to unsorted notes regarding Saraj Prendi.

He wouldn’t be in that community
, Ceony thought, thinking of her personal investigation in Gosport.
But could I send in spies? No, if there were anything to find there, Criminal Affairs would have found it. They’d catch me, and besides, paper spells aren’t complex enough to hold the orders I would need to give them. It’s a dead end.

Criminal Affairs had more information than she did. Mg. Hughes had been impressed with her before; perhaps he’d share something with her.

But Emery had already spoken with him. If he didn’t relay any information to Emery, he certainly wouldn’t let Ceony know his secrets. She frowned.

“—doesn’t work with complex Folds,” Bennet said from his seat. The “Stiffen” spell—a spell that would temporarily harden paper—was one Ceony had learned on her 211th day as an apprentice. It sounded like Bennet had learned it recently, written an essay about it, and was now being given a verbal quiz.

If I’ve heard nothing new about Saraj,
he’s probably not a threat
, she chided herself. A moment passed before a speculative thought arrived:
But that also means he hasn’t been caught.

She adjusted herself on the chair.
I haven’t been in contact with Magician Aviosky. And Emery . . . If Magician Hughes
did
update him, would he be willing to share bad news?

She turned back one page in her ledger, where a creased magenta paper poked out from the ledger’s binding, having once held the form of a butterfly.

Thinking of you. Study hard, and don’t let them get to you.