Page 53 of The Mage on the Hill
“Toby? It’s Darius. You’re with… me.” He slid his arms under Toby, letting their foreheads rest together for one precious moment. “But you need… to let go. You found me. Let it… go.”
He sent a prayer out to any god who might be listening and lifted Toby into his arms. A nod to Elias, who opened the door, and he stepped forward toward the wall of vines, willing them to part.
Nothing happened.
Possible that Toby was too far under sedation… if one disregarded the fact that he had ordered vines to make a building into a human trap and had sent a message halfway across the country, largely through the chemical interaction of trees. Darius shifted his grip so he could support Toby partially against the doorframe. He unwound one of Toby’s hands from the blankets and set it against the vines.
“Through here,” Darius murmured into his ear. “Ask them… let us through. Don’t….” He hesitated. It felt like emotional blackmail. “Don’t let me… die in here.” Still nothing. “Toby. Please. Take us home.”
Toby’s eyes shifted back and forth under his eyelids, his body twisting as he worked through whatever distressing dream had ensnared him. The leaves began to murmur and rustle again. The woody stems rattled against the building. Then slowly… slowly the vines moved away from the door, creating a bower over the front steps.
“Go,” Darius whispered. “Hurry.”
John ushered Toby’s parents out first, and give the man credit, he stayed to shepherd out the staff, one after another, before he made his own escape. Darius nodded to Elias to go, but Elias just wrapped his arms around them both with a grin.
“All together now, Professor.”
Darius resituated Toby, and with Elias providing extra propulsion, they raced through the opening and down the steps just in time for the vines to snap shut again. Cracking and snapping followed in their wake. Darius risked a glance over his shoulder and realized to his horror that the vines weretighteningtheir grip. Roof shingles popped. Siding broke in pieces. Glass shattered.
Bits of debris rained down on them as they ran for the dubious shelter of Elias’s truck, Darius trying to shield Toby as best he could and Elias trying to shield them both. Arden was there within a few steps of the porch to take some of Toby’s weight. Zubayr raced ahead to open the truck’s doors. With several sets of hands helping, they dragged Toby into the cab, Arden nearly tossing Darius after in an adrenaline-fueled bid to get him in despite his failing knee.
With Zubayr in the jump seat behind the driver and Arden still hanging half out of the cab, Elias hit reverse and roared off down the drive. The risky maneuver gave them an excellent view as the private hospice collapsed inward under the force of rage-filled plants, the walls crumpling as if they had been made of tissue paper.
Zubayr made an uncomfortable sound. “Remind me, someone, everyone, never to make Toby angry. Ever.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE SUNLIGHTon his face stroked his skin with kind fingers while a soft breeze barely stirred his hair. It had a familiar quality to it, this light. He’d been here before. Toby blinked his gummy eyes open. Everything was blurry, but he knew those lace curtains waving by the open window. He knew the texture of this quilted comforter.
Home. Darius’s home at least, the place he’d come to think of as his home too. Though probably a good idea to check with Darius on that.
There had been terrible dreams of searching, ones that had turned ugly and tinged with scarlet anger in the end. He shivered, trying to banish the last threads. Some dreams, he didn’t want to remember.
Toby gripped the covers on a sudden thought. His last waking memory had been failing to channel, of nurses grabbing him and injecting drugs meant to put him out.I’m alive. Holy freaking cake balls! I’m alive!
Suddenly it was vital that he find Darius and make sure he was all right. Sure, he’d beentoldhis griffin was okay, but someone Toby barely trusted saying it and seeing it for himself were two different things. Problem was, he couldn’t sit up. Dizziness assaulted him as soon as he tried to lift his head.
“I’ll just rest a second and try again in a minute,” he whispered to the ceramic owl on the bureau. He blinked some more, trying to unblur the figurine, which he knew was an owl from admiring it before.
A sound to the right startled him. Was that asnore? Carefully, he turned his head and, when the pillow blocked his view, found that he could turn over even if he couldn’t sit up yet. There beside him, curled into a ridiculously small space for such a large man, lay Darius, fast asleep with one hand reaching out toward Toby’s side of the bed.
A twinge of disappointment followed, even though Toby knew it was silly, that Darius wasn’t wrapped around him to sleep. Good enough that he was right there. No complaints. Toby reached over and took that outstretched hand, needing to feel Darius’s solidity. Dumb thing to do, of course. Dariussnrkedand woke up.
The one blue eye took a second to track, and then a slow smile spread across Darius’s face. “Hey.”
“Hey to you too.” Toby stretched a shaking arm far enough to run his finger down Darius’s nose. “I had the weirdest dreams, and I’m trying to forget them. But I just remembered something.”
“Oh?”
“I dreamt that you told me you loved me.”
The smile slipped a hair. “I did. You let… me in. After.”
Toby crinkled his forehead. “I let you in where? Into my dreams?”
“Not quite.” Darius shifted closer. “I’ll let… someone else tell.”
“Yeah? There’s someone here besides us?”
