The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg Page B

window there. She counted the second one from the left and pulled it down, a tightly knit chain made of Folded rectangles. She also grabbed the second from the right, a looping chain of ovals.
    Rushing back into the dining room, she showed them to Thane. “Which one?” she asked.
    He weakly jerked his chin toward the tight-knit chain made of rectangles. “Around . . . chest,” he whispered.
    Pinching the end of the chain, Ceony leaned over Thane and pushed it under his back, then brought it forward over his chest so that the ends overlapped.
    “Ease,” Thane said weakly, and the chain tightened about him at the command. Thane sucked in a deep breath of air and coughed.
    Ceony lifted his head to help him. When he finished, he opened his eyes and looked at her.
    She gasped. His eyes . . .
    Their light had vanished.
    No brightness, no emotion. Just dead, glass eyes.
    Her tears started anew.
    “I telegrammed Magician Aviosky,” she said, every other word shuddering in her throat. “She’ll be here. Someone will be here to help you.”
    “That was wise,” he said, his weakened voice almost a monotone. “The closest doctor is . . . far.”
    “Oh heaven,” Ceony whispered, pushing locks of hair from Mg. Thane’s forehead. “What has she done to you?”
    “Lira . . . took my heart,” he said matter-of-factly. Like a talking textbook.
    “I know,” Ceony whispered. “Why?”
    “To stop me.”
    “From what?”
    But Mg. Thane didn’t answer. His glassy eyes shifted slowly about their sockets, taking in the room with no expression.
    Ceony kept brushing his forehead, even when she had pushed back all his black locks. “What is the chain?” she asked, wiping her cheek on her shoulder. If she could just keep him talking . . .
    “A vitality chain,” he said quietly, his dull eyes now focused on the ceiling above him. “It will keep this new heart beating, for a time.”
    “A time?”
    “A paper heart will not last long, especially one crafted poorly,” he said. “The chain will make it last a day, two at best.”
    “But you can’t die!” Ceony cried, and Mg. Thane didn’t so much as flinch at the volume, or at the tear that struck him on the bridge of his nose. He didn’t seem aware of her at all. “You have too much to teach me! And you’re too nice to die!”
    He made no response.
    Gently setting his head down, Ceony stood and retreated to the front room, stepping over debris and wiping away tears that refused to stop running from her eyes. She took a pillow from the couch and a blanket from a chest shoved behind it and tried to make Mg. Thane as comfortable as possible, for she dared not try to move him. Fennel sat by his side, still whining and wagging his tail anxiously behind him.
    Two hours after sunset, three people climbed their way over the rubble-filled hallway and into the dining room. Ceony knew all three, if two only from memory. Mg. John Katter, a Smelter, and Mg. Alfred Hughes, the Siper, both sat on the Magicians’ Cabinet—Katter for Agriculture and Hughes for Criminal Affairs. Mg. Aviosky stood among them.
    Ceony, who had cried herself sore and dry, retold the story with every detail she could muster, including her reading on Mg. Thane with the fortuity box. She wondered if, perhaps, she had mistakenly willed Lira’s appearance, and that this was all her fault.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mg. Aviosky assured her as Magicians Katter and Hughes studied Mg. Thane lying on the floor by the light of four candles. “The only one who can manipulate Emery Thane’s future is Emery Thane himself.”
    Mg. Hughes hovered over Mg. Thane for some time, prodding his neck and chest with rubber gloves. Ceony knew he was a Siper, and she wondered, briefly, if the gloves were enchanted, especially since he tucked the pair into his coat pocket instead of tossing them in the trash. “It’s Excision work all right,” he said in low tones, “and powerful at that. I thought the wards