Page 5 of The Mage on the Hill
Darius rubbed above his eyebrows, where a headache threatened, with two fingers. “Oreos.”
To his horror, the package was half-empty when he wandered over to check. The boy had been so hungry that he’d been devouring expired cookies. He shook his head and checked the fridge. Eggs, yes, still good. Bacon passed the sniff test. Cheese? No. That needed to get tossed. He felt Jones watching as he shuffled to the counter with his finds and pulled a frying pan down from the rack. Even though he knew it would lead to revulsion, he pulled a band from the junk drawer and tied his hair back. Wordlessly, he used the spatula to point to the coffee maker.
“Do I drink coffee? Yeah.” Jones came around where he could face Darius and sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy fuck. Your eye. I mean, shit, of course you know your eye’s gone, but what happened?”
Darius gave an emphatic stab with the spatula at the coffee maker as the bacon began to sizzle.
“Oh, got it! You want me to make the coffee. I can do that.” Jones was quiet for precisely five seconds as he searched out the filters and coffee grinds. “Look, I’m sorry. It must’ve happened a long time ago and I don’t mean to pry.” Another five-second pause accompanied a trip to the sink to fill the carafe. “And my reaction was out of line. Sorry about that too. Just was unexpected. See, I found an old picture of you online. Aaaand I’m not going down that line of thought because if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s foot in mouth. Should make me really flexible by now, right?”
Jones had the temerity to wink at him.Thathadn’t happened in longer than Darius could recall, not that he had any idea what the boy meant. Was he being friendly? Simply flirting in a humorous way? Trying to bribe Darius with the promise of sex? Did heknowor was he guessing?
Dangerous game. Guessing.
Darius turned back to making breakfast, giving the boy a good view of his ruined, scarred-over eye socket. It was enough to turn even the most determined stomach and would provide sufficient disincentive. As he had hoped, the boy shut up and went about his assigned task quietly.
The blessed quiet remained as they sat down at the breakfast bar with their respective plates and mugs and lasted through exactly three bites of eggs.
“I’m from out West. Spokane. Ever been there?”
Darius shook his head, gaze on his plate as he kept eating. Jones seemed to take it as a sign to keep talking.
“My family’s always been there. Well, not always, of course. But a bunch of generations back from the first mages to come out there. Mostly Light and Air mages. Runs in the family. I was some weird throwback, I guess. I dunno. No one can really tell me how wild mages happen, and my aunties, they make it seem like my mom and dad were bad parents or something, like it was their fault. That’s just stupid, of cou—”
Jones had stopped so abruptly that Darius jerked his head up and met his guest’s horrified eyes.
“Hands?” Darius slid off his stool carefully.
“Yeah. They’re, um, they’re tingling.” Jones swallowed hard, his gaze pleading. “It shouldn’t happen again this soon. Right? Itcan’t.”
“Outside,” Darius growled as he pointed to the sliding glass door to the terrace.
“It can’t,” Jones whispered, frozen in place.
Darius kicked off his slippers and grabbed the boy’s arm, roaring in his ear, “Out! Now! To the grass!Move!”
That did it. Jones raced for the door, whimpering as he fumbled with the latch, but he had it open before Darius caught up to him. Out onto the terrace, down the steps and to the middle of the lawn he ran while Darius shuffled after him, trying to get stiff joints tomove, dammit. Tendrils of magic already spat and heaved from the boy, lightning strokes heralding a storm the likes of which Darius hadn’t seen in fifteen years. He had to get this contained before Jones’s wild magic blew a hole in the surrounding countryside.
Jones reached the middle of the lawn, tears streaming down his face, hands held out to his sides as his fingers began to throw magic sparks in silver and green. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up. Lie down,” Darius snarled as he flung himself to his knees on the lawn and pressed his palms flat against grass. “Lie down!”
Chest heaving, Jones did as he was told. It wasn’t necessary, but it might save the boy from some injuries. What Darius was about to do wasn’t pretty or sanctioned by any guild. It was a technique born of desperation. He reached out for his Earth channels and through them for his Metals, pouring energy into them at a dangerous rate. It could kill him. It nearly had once.
A circular wall of metal and stone ripped through the ground, heaving up to surround Jones and closing over him like an igloo. Underground, the wall would echo the shape above to form an enclosing sphere. A larger structure would have been better, safer, but Darius couldn’t risk the displacement of too much material without putting the foundations of the house at risk and possibly the foundations of the hillside.
Even now, he couldn’t let go as he held the stones, pressing them close, throwing all his power into keeping them together. He felt rather than heard the terrible upswell and crash of wild magic inside his improvised containment cell, a horrible jolt against him that slammed into his heart and rattled his bones. Just the one. Then it was done.
Panting, sweat dripping off his nose, Darius pulled his power back from the channels slowly, sliding the granite, iron, and feldspar into the earth from which he had ripped them so precipitously. He would repair the damage later. Help the earth to settle, the grass to regrow. He gave himself a moment to gather his courage. The boy would be dead now. Those hidebound idiots at the guilds hadn’t helped him and now he was dead.
Darius struggled to his feet, each step leaden and defeated. If only…. But no, those thoughts went nowhere but in sorrowful, keening circles. He would call the guild. Let them collect the body and contact the family. He knelt down next to Jones—Toby, the boy’s name was Toby—intending to straighten his limbs and lay him flat. When he touched Toby’s hand, he gasped and jerked back.
Life. There waslifein that failing body still.
“Poor boy,” Darius whispered, stroking the sweat-soaked hair from Toby’s eyes.
He gathered Toby into his arms for the second time in less than a day, his jaw clenched against his rising fury. The guild could go to hell. Maybe he couldn’t teach the boy without breaking the law, maybe he wouldn’t be able to teach him at all, but Darius wasn’t going to stand aside and let the guild destroy one more beautiful thing they didn’t understand.
Chapter Three
