Page 10 of The Mage on the Hill
“What about that one with the kind of pinky-purple?”
“Different finch.”
It felt like a miracle, but Toby kept him talking, or at least answering questions, through the rest of breakfast. It was a start. Breakfast over, he tried again to help clean up, only to be met with Darius’s imperious pointing.
“Dining room.”
“Okay?”
Darius made shooing motions with one hand as he put the butter back in the fridge. Reasoning that it was time for lessons or observations or something, Toby wandered through one of the doors off the kitchen and found himself in an obvious old-fashioned dining room. An actual crystal chandelier sparkled to life when he hit the light switch. Fine, it was dusty—really dusty—but it still managed sparkly. Brooding on the far side of the room, a huge china cabinet took up an entire wall, dark and imposing like that one surly uncle no one wanted to invite to dinner, but Grandma made you even though he never had anything nice to say to anyone.
Could be that not everyone has that uncle, of course. Just me.
The table was big enough to seat ten, its surface covered in sheets instead of tablecloths, and at the head of the table sat another board, this one with the outline of the web of arcana clearly marked, and… modeling clay?
Yep. Clay. The kind that didn’t get all dry and crumbly when it sat out. The message was clear. Toby’s task, if he chose to accept it, was to make another web using school art supplies. A little bizarre, but it wasn’t like he had appointments to keep or anything better to do.Mini-sculptures it is, then.
“Happy little tree for Life.” Toby put the crooked, barely recognizable tree in the correct spot. “Happy little helium balloon for Nobles. Happy little fishy for Water.”
An hour later, Darius shuffled in to peer at the completed web of clay sadness, tipping his head this way and that.
“Yeah, yeah, not a good career choice for me, I know.” Toby waited, certain what was coming.
After a few moments of Darius’s eye flicking from one point of the web to another, he pointed to the little sculpture at the Alkaline spot on the web, forehead creased in obvious confusion.
“Oh, um. That’s supposed to be a tooth. Calcium. I know, lame.”
But Darius only nodded and indicated the one at the point for Dark.
“It’s a cave.” Toby sighed. “Even if it looks like a squashed bowl that fell over.” Another puzzled, eyebrow-raised inquiry, this time at the thing that looked like a weary, diseased tornado. “Animus. It’s supposed to be a… soul, I guess. Spirit. I mean, who knows what that looks like?”
Darius tilted his head a bit but appeared to accept this. After he questioned a few more of the less recognizable items, he gave a final nod and stepped back.
“Good. Go rest.”
Three not-yelled words together and a full, if incredibly short, sentence. Toby took the order as good advice and, instead of struggling back upstairs, found a nice spot in what had probably been the den when more people lived in the house. The old squishy sofa had plenty of cushions and a blanket that wasn’t too dusty. The quiet house sounds and the surety that he was safe because—not in spite of—Darius watching out for him let him drop off quickly.
Get better sleep with our griffin security system—slightly damaged chassis discount makes it a steal!
Noon had him waking to the unmistakable scent of pizza, a quiet lunch with Darius, and afterward, another web puzzle. This one was a little more challenging, since Toby had to construct it entirely from items he found around the house, andnotitems Darius had used previously. Good thing there was cleanser with bleach under the kitchen sink or he’d have been out of luck for the Halogen stand-in.
Again, Darius approved his work, this time with a little twitch that on anyone else might have blossomed into a smile. Toby was watching for it. It didn’t. When he’d given his okay, though, he didn’t walk away this time. He took both of Toby’s hands and closed his eyes. Then nodded and let him go.And that wasn’t at all weird.
He was tired enough that he didn’t figure it out until he’d sunk into one of the dining room chairs and plopped his head atop his arms, turned to keep Darius in sight.Of course. “Do you think I’m gonna have another explosion soon?”
Darius shook his head. Shrugged. “Bleeding.”
“I’mbleeding?”
“Magic.”
Waving a hand in irritated negation, Darius stalked from the room.Good going. You’ve pissed off your new teacher already. But no. He returned within a few seconds and smacked a folder down on the table next to Toby, the kind that had a clear plastic front and opaque back like he used to use for science reports. With a grunt that could’ve been anything from “this will explain everything” to “fuck you,” Darius stomped out again.
“Here, Toby, you should read this,” Toby muttered as he pulled the folder over. “This will explain all the things. And some extra things you hadn’t thought of. And why they still use those stupid plastic thingies on packages of rolls that refuse to stay on right.”
Not surprisingly, the folder had nothing to do with packaging rolls.Lecture Transcript: Wild Magic Theory and Uncontrolled Discharge Anomaly Disaster Prevention.
The date put it during the time that Darius had been a geology professor. The name at the bottom of the title page left no doubt as to whose lecture this had been. What had it cost Darius to dig this out and toss it on the table? His pain was so obvious that Toby didn’t know why he wasn’t curled up and screaming all the time. From someone who had been outgoing, maybe ambitious, hitting his stride in his field—both his fields—to this barely verbal hermit who looked so much older than he was.What happened, Professor Valstad? What the hell happened?
