Page 12 of The Mage on the Hill
In the meantime, Toby slept well and ate like an industrial vacuum, the hollows lightening around his eyes and his borrowed pants not in so much danger of sliding off. With some of the rough edges smoothed away, elfin waif beauty evolved into a more conventional handsome not at all hindered by that quick, mischievous smile or the sparkle returning to those gray-green eyes. Dangerous, to think about Toby that way or any way other thanstudent in dire straits, but also unavoidable.
With the weather improving, Darius had moved some of the exercises outside. The way Toby’s magic reacted to working out of doors, lapping over the blockade in little waves instead of trickling, made the next bit of the curriculum obvious. Darius didn’t want it to be, dammit. The more Toby mirrored Kara’s progress, the more he worried. Kara, though…. No, Toby wasn’t the same. It wouldn’t be the same.
He wouldn’t allow it.
But there were next steps—external stimuli to explore that Darius couldn’t provide in the safety of his little domain. He needed, gods help him, to take Toby off the property to different and possibly progressively larger points of magical confluence. The idea had been churning in Darius’s mind since the night before to visit places that not only offered powerful enough magic that might break through Toby’s barriers but also other… experiences. Possibly. Difficult to say what the final trigger might be.
The thought made his stomach knot and his hands tremble. Going out. Away from this small patch of world he’d made safe. Far too tempting to keep them bothsafeand stay put. Except they wouldn’t be. Toby needed more to survive this.
So far,Tobywas doing well, far better than he’d hoped. Darius was struggling. Convincing his jaws to open, his voice to speak every time he had something to say was ridiculous. Toby had even pointed out that Darius was fine when he sang, but it wasn’t as if he couldsinginstructions. Singing was using someone else’s words. Conversation involved deliberate choices of seemingly random sounds in order to convey thought. It felt alien after so long.
He managed a full sentence of greater than two words at dinner the third evening. Small steps. “We’ll be leaving the house.”
“Oh yeah?” Toby temporarily halted in his destruction of a second dinner roll. “Are we going on a field trip? Do I need a responsible adult to sign something?”
Darius snorted and tried for a smartass comeback. All that came out was “No.”
“No on the field trip, the permission slip, or the responsible adult?”
A growl got out before Darius could squelch it, his fists clenched in frustration.
“Hey… sorry. I’m sorry.” Toby put a hand on his arm. “Can we start over? We have to go somewhere. So where are we going?”
Not Pittsburgh. Anywhere but there. “Magical confluence points,” he managed slowly, confluence nearly sticking in his throat halfway through.
“Is that the next step? Or lesson or whatever?” The way Toby’s eyes widened betrayed his anxiety. He waited for Darius’s nod before he went on. “Is this really a next step, or is it more of a, you know, an escalation? Nothing’s working, so we have to do something else?”
“Progression,” Darius corrected and patted the hand still on his arm.Whywas that hand still on his arm?
Toby regarded him a moment, all traces of his smile banished. He let out a hard breath as he nodded. “Okay. I’ll take it. Are we going far?”
“Duncannon.”
A few moments passed as Toby returned to devouring dinner. “I don’t know where that is.”
“Not… far. North of Harrisburg.”
“So this’ll be a day trip, then? Not that I have packing to do if it’s not.”
It depends on how you react to the confluence. If we can get you stabilized, we can stop there. If not, we need to move on.Please let me be capable of moving on if Toby needs it. He needs me to not fall apart. No excuses. No crawling back into my nautilus shell and hiding, no matter how overwhelming this feels.His thoughts came out as “Probably not.”
“Packing it is, then.” Toby flourished his fork as if to sayTally ho!The mischief drained from his eyes almost immediately after. “Do you think they’ll be looking for me? The guild? I mean, since I’m a danger to myself and others and all that?”
Darius schooled his features so Toby wouldn’t mistake anger for being angry with him. “Possible.”
“Why haven’t they, you know, come knocking yet?”
“No idea.” Darius pointed at the tablet beside Toby’s elbow. “Disable any tracking.”
“Well, okay. I guess that’s just a good precaution. But they’re guildmaster mages. Why would they be tracking electronically when they can use, you know, magic?”
Darius tapped the table, glaring at the tablet. “Don’t need… to make it easy.”
Toby’s laugh sluiced over him like summer rain.
Chapter Five
“THAT’S ALand Rover.” Toby stood in the nearly empty garage, blinking. “My, aren’t we posh.”
