Page 17 of The Mage on the Hill
“You’re… I see why he likes you.” Arden’s expression lost the mean again as he chuckled.
“He does?”
“Not naïve, exactly. But you definitely have some sheltered spots.” Arden flipped a hand toward him. “That’s not always a bad thing. You’re openly curious and don’t bring a lot of baggage to the table.”
Toby puzzled over that last statement, but there didn’t seem to be intentional innuendo in it. “So what did you do?”
“Persistent too. No, it’s all right. It’s something you could ask any guildmaster.” Arden pulled over one of Toby’s web drawings, the one where he’d used numbers corresponding to each letter of the alphabet to indicate the web’s symbols. “What’s here?”
Elbows on the table, Toby leaned over to see where Arden pointed, directly at the center of the web where the connections of the Minor Arcana all crossed. He shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just the middle.”
“You don’t seem quite certain. Neither was I. It always struck me as odd that at every other line drawn between two points on the web, there’s a connection. The lines between are the whole basis of the web—what connects to what. Why would there benothingat the center, the very heart, where everything comes together?”
The bit of crazed academic in Arden’s voice pulled Toby in. “What was it? What was at the center? Did it do something horrible?”
“I have no idea.”
Toby sat, blinking.Didn’t see that coming. “So there wasn’t anything?”
“Again, no idea. They told me the research was forbidden. I responded that research within safe parameters could never beforbiddenand continued on. They tossed me out and barred me from the community.” Arden’s hand fluttered in a way that suggested both being tossed out and flying away.
“And from the guild hall,” Toby ventured. “Where your research was.”
“Not just a pretty face.” Arden shrugged. “The research, the facilities to conduct said research safely. Relatively. The support of other mages of different channels. All of it.”
“I’m sorry.”
The smile returned, not a happy one, but not the angry, scary one either. “All long past. Or it was… I thought it all was. You have no idea what happened in Pittsburgh.”
It wasn’t a question. Toby answered anyway. “No. Just the tiny bits I’ve heard. Unplaceable student Darius was teaching. Something went wrong. He got hurt. She died. And he blames himself.”
“Well, you knew more than I did.” Arden ran both hands back through hair so thick it was a wonder his fingers didn’t get stuck. “How did youfindhim?”
“Google fu.”
“Keep your secrets, then, young Jedi.”
“Mixed universes there.”
Arden squinted at him. “Don’t be that guy. Go rest. He said you should. Guest room has plenty of space.”
Toby wandered down the indicated hallway, also lined with cabinets and shelves, to the door that opened into a cozy, not entirely cluttered bedroom where the most prominent feature was a queen bed with a massive oak headboard carved with woodland scenes. Darius’s shoes sat by the door, perfectly aligned and perpendicular to the wall. His jeans and sweater lay on the perfectly placed chair at the midpoint of the wall opposite the bed, both articles of clothing folded neatly enough for a window display.
The only messy part of the room was the Darius lump under the covers, curled on his side. His unbound hair looked like it was trying to flee in every direction from his snoring, and he’d kicked enough of the covers sideways that one foot stuck out.
Toby’s heart turned in his chest and flopped over to settle as a spreading ache. That foot, naked and pale, toenails badly clipped, looked sovulnerable, and Darius wasn’t supposed to look….
Except sometimes he did. When he hunched in on himself as if the world might be caving in, when his single eye lost focus and remembered pain etched spiderwebs on his face, when he flinched at certain words—those windows into despair were always there. Then they weren’t and Darius as an immoveable stubborn object returned, powerful enough to contain a magical explosion without a containment room, strong enough to carry an unconscious person up a flight and a half of stairs.
With a shuddering sigh, Toby flipped the blankets back over the exposed foot and glanced around the room. One bed, though it was a big one. Not that Toby minded. He’d shared with cousins, roommates, and the occasional friend too drunk to go home. He just hoped Darius didn’t mind or wouldn’t freak out.
He toed off his shoes and eased onto the bed atop the covers. The room was warm and Darius’s heat had already soaked into the bed. A little nap sounded good. Toby wasn’t going to say it to Arden, but he was starting to feel shaky.
“I wish I could help,” Toby whispered as he lay down slowly so he wouldn’t shake the mattress too much. “I wish I could, you know, take the pain away. I know it doesn’t work like that…. I’ll shut up now.”
Darius grunted and curled into a tighter ball. He didn’t seem to have woken, but at least the snoring had stopped. Nothing of him stuck out of the blanket now beyond his hair, not that Toby wanted to watch him sleep. Much. That would’ve been creepy.
The warmth wrapped around Toby and dragged him under fast. Tired—yeah, maybe he wasn’t up to traveling yet—butsecureandsafewith Darius sleeping next to him didn’t hurt one bit.
