toward the glider. It had a thin coat of dust on the top, and two handholds near the nose. No seat to sit in, no belt to strap in.
Surely Mg. Thane hadn’t flown in this. No one could fly! It must have been a prototype. Surely a man couldn’t find groceries a bothersome chore if he could retrieve them in this!
She marveled at it, and the handholds near its nose. So it did fly, or was supposed to. Only something like this would enable her to catch up to Lira. Mg. Thane depended on her.
For the first time since her assignment, Ceony found herself wishing for a more boring solution.
Straightening her shoulders and balling her hands into fists, she said, “Let’s go, Fennel,” and walked around the glider’s long wing. One hand on the green bird and the other on her bag, she stepped over the glider’s nose and straddled it. The thick paper had been greatly reinforced and didn’t bow under her weight.
Thank the heavens.
Ceony pulled the cord to the door in the ceiling. A few dead leaves fell down on top of her, carrying the scent of dew and the sound of birdsong.
Taking a deep breath, Ceony lay on her stomach and grabbed the handholds of the glider. She could only pray it worked like an animation, or else she’d never find the right spell in time.
She commanded the bird, “Take me to Lira.”
The little bird flapped its wings and flew out the door.
“Breathe,” Ceony told the glider.
It bucked beneath her like a wild bull. Ceony shrieked. Fennel jumped onto the glider and growled.
Ceony gripped the handholds and pulled them toward her.
The glider arched its pointed nose upward and took off through the gap in the roof.
C HAPTER 7
C EONY FLEW UP FROM the yellow cottage disguised by spells and into the sky itself, gaze locking onto the little green bird that banked hard to the west.
Ceony, her knuckles white from gripping the handholds on the glider and her right elbow latched securely around Fennel’s neck, attempted to follow. She leaned in with the glider and pulled the right handhold harder than the left, but she oversteered and went veering hard to the south, then hard to the north, then hard to the southwest. Trying to force herself to remain calm, even as the glider rose higher and higher into the sky, Ceony guided the massive spell back and forth until its nose pointed toward the distant speck of green that was her guide. Then she lay low—wind blowing strand after strand of orange hair from her braid—and zoomed toward it.
With the help of currents and updrafts, the glider flew faster than the bird, so Ceony had to reel it in with care every few minutes. Pulling too hard on the handholds made the glider climb, and pushing made it descend, but switching between the two and lifting her body higher off the paper seemed to slow it down fairly well.
When she finally took a moment to look around her, she gasped with surprise. One would think a girl who attended the top-ranking magic school in the country would have had some spell or another take her high enough for the view she saw now, but that was not the case. She had never seen London in such great expanse.
The city, in which Mg. Thane lived on the far, far south side, stretched before her in a motley assortment of colors that grew less and less sharp the farther she flew. It took on the shape of a triangle, and Ceony swore she could see the Masters’ Tower of the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined beyond a line of trees that must have been Dulwich Park. Streets like slick eels wound through the city, none of them quite straight, and many of them looking quite lost. She saw the Mill Squats where she had grown up, mostly brown buildings too close together for her to discern her house, as well as Steelworks Avenue, which led to the catering house that had employed her before her accident with one of its most prestigious customers—something that Ceony didn’t regret, but didn’t like to ponder.
Homes, shops, trees, even the
Surely Mg. Thane hadn’t flown in this. No one could fly! It must have been a prototype. Surely a man couldn’t find groceries a bothersome chore if he could retrieve them in this!
She marveled at it, and the handholds near its nose. So it did fly, or was supposed to. Only something like this would enable her to catch up to Lira. Mg. Thane depended on her.
For the first time since her assignment, Ceony found herself wishing for a more boring solution.
Straightening her shoulders and balling her hands into fists, she said, “Let’s go, Fennel,” and walked around the glider’s long wing. One hand on the green bird and the other on her bag, she stepped over the glider’s nose and straddled it. The thick paper had been greatly reinforced and didn’t bow under her weight.
Thank the heavens.
Ceony pulled the cord to the door in the ceiling. A few dead leaves fell down on top of her, carrying the scent of dew and the sound of birdsong.
Taking a deep breath, Ceony lay on her stomach and grabbed the handholds of the glider. She could only pray it worked like an animation, or else she’d never find the right spell in time.
She commanded the bird, “Take me to Lira.”
The little bird flapped its wings and flew out the door.
“Breathe,” Ceony told the glider.
It bucked beneath her like a wild bull. Ceony shrieked. Fennel jumped onto the glider and growled.
Ceony gripped the handholds and pulled them toward her.
The glider arched its pointed nose upward and took off through the gap in the roof.
C HAPTER 7
C EONY FLEW UP FROM the yellow cottage disguised by spells and into the sky itself, gaze locking onto the little green bird that banked hard to the west.
Ceony, her knuckles white from gripping the handholds on the glider and her right elbow latched securely around Fennel’s neck, attempted to follow. She leaned in with the glider and pulled the right handhold harder than the left, but she oversteered and went veering hard to the south, then hard to the north, then hard to the southwest. Trying to force herself to remain calm, even as the glider rose higher and higher into the sky, Ceony guided the massive spell back and forth until its nose pointed toward the distant speck of green that was her guide. Then she lay low—wind blowing strand after strand of orange hair from her braid—and zoomed toward it.
With the help of currents and updrafts, the glider flew faster than the bird, so Ceony had to reel it in with care every few minutes. Pulling too hard on the handholds made the glider climb, and pushing made it descend, but switching between the two and lifting her body higher off the paper seemed to slow it down fairly well.
When she finally took a moment to look around her, she gasped with surprise. One would think a girl who attended the top-ranking magic school in the country would have had some spell or another take her high enough for the view she saw now, but that was not the case. She had never seen London in such great expanse.
The city, in which Mg. Thane lived on the far, far south side, stretched before her in a motley assortment of colors that grew less and less sharp the farther she flew. It took on the shape of a triangle, and Ceony swore she could see the Masters’ Tower of the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined beyond a line of trees that must have been Dulwich Park. Streets like slick eels wound through the city, none of them quite straight, and many of them looking quite lost. She saw the Mill Squats where she had grown up, mostly brown buildings too close together for her to discern her house, as well as Steelworks Avenue, which led to the catering house that had employed her before her accident with one of its most prestigious customers—something that Ceony didn’t regret, but didn’t like to ponder.
Homes, shops, trees, even the
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