Page 8 of The Mage on the Hill
Darius pulled in a deep, shuddering breath. Against all odds and sense, he would be teaching again.
HOORAY! I’VEbeen here before!Toby snickered at his own elation when he woke up in the same bed. Things were looking up since he’d managed to wake up twice now without having to go through the wholewhere am I nowdance.
Cautiously, he sat up. The room stayed steady. Good start. He did feel better after resting for—holy cow, five o’clock—almost a whole day without anyone coming to badger him about another session in the guidance room or more rounds of questions he couldn’t answer.
The evening light poked careful fingers through the lace curtains, and a forgotten feeling swept over Toby. He could breathe again. Of course he’d been breathing, otherwise he’d be dead, but a full, unharried, safe breath? Not since he’d started having attacks of wild magic.
Safedidn’t make much sense since he was staying with a virtual stranger with a sketchy past and possibly a sketchier grip on reality from what Toby had seen, a man who hadn’t invited him here, who really hadn’t wanted him here….
“Maybe I should get up.” No need to be a complete slug and annoy his not-quite-consensual host more.Though Darius would’ve called them to come get me, right? If he really didn’t want me here?Grumpy was probably a default setting and grumpier probably the default dealing with people one.
Toby untangled his legs from his nest of covers and scooted out of the bed on the window side. Whistling drifted up from the garden, a familiar tune he couldn’t quite place.Gardener?He had a minor shock when he spotted Darius trundling around with a wheelbarrow carrying a variety of sacks. Still whistling, he gathered a double handful of something and tossed it into the pond, where glorious flashes of gold, black, and white illuminated a feeding frenzy of koi.
Leaning against the windowpane, Toby felt distinctly stalker-y, but he couldn’t look away as Darius took the handles of the wheelbarrow and shambled onward to the first cluster of bird feeders. The whistling shifted into humming as he filled the triple tube feeder with black seed. When Darius turned to lift the roof off one of the house-shaped feeders, Toby strained to catch the notes, unable to believe what he was hearing. Yes… yes, Darius was singing.
The murmured singing gained volume and confidence with each note, as if Darius had to remind himself that this was a possibility for the human voice. Toby snapped his mouth shut when he became aware of it hanging open. Not only was Darius singing, but also he was really freakinggoodat it. Baritone? Maybe? Not something Toby knew a lot about.
To you, I’ll give the world.
He realized why he hadn’t been able to place the song. He was used to hearing it sung by Christine McVie.Songbird. Sweet and beautiful, and shocking coming from the barely verbal exiled mage. Toby reached up to wipe at the equally unexpected moisture on his cheeks, completely taken off guard by the tender cradling of the words. He wanted to call down, say something like,I’m so sorry, but he couldn’t have explained why.
Instead he turned from the window, found some clean clothes set out for him, and struggled into sweatpants with legs that were too long and a waist that was too big on his bony frame. Not a tragedy. He pulled the drawstring tight and rolled up the legs. The T-shirt and sweater hung on him too, though there wasn’t anything he could do about those. Socks? Yes, and slippers, for which he was grateful. The house was warm, sure, but Toby chilled easily.
Stairs. I can do stairs. With the help of the sturdy carved railing, he was surprised at how easily he conquered them. Not that he wanted to push things, but he was feeling better, something he hadn’t been able to say in a while.
A stomach-hollowing scent reached him long before he’d shuffled into the kitchen—beef, potatoes, sage? Darius must have stuffed something into the oven before he’d ventured outside. When Toby reached the kitchen, he couldn’t help a smile. The reality was so much more domestic and touched a soft spot of nostalgia inside. Darius had a Crock-Pot going with a roast and potatoes, a far cry fromlet’s see if there’s anything still edible in the almost empty fridge.
Not to mention that Toby hadn’t expected this half-civilized, half-eagle, half-lion mage—wait, that’s a griffin—to have a softer side. Throwing stuff in a Crock-Pot wasn’t exactly complicated cuisine, but it sure showed more thought than tossing something prefab in the microwave.
Toby scuffed his slippers around the kitchen as he emptied the dishwasher and set the kitchen table for dinner. It felt like the right thing to do, not to mention sitting would’ve made him restless within seconds. He was just working on cleaning a bit of dried something off the counter when the door to the garden opened. Darius stood on the top step staring, or at least Toby had to assume he was with his wind-blown hair covering his single eye. The silent glare went on so long that Toby grew uncomfortable enough to put the center island between them.
“Um… hi.”Such witty conversation, guaranteed to make him want to talk to you.
A gusty rumble came from Darius, like a steam engine complaining about a long day. He pointed to one of the chairs at the kitchen table while he leaned against the doorframe to take off his work boots.
“Right. Sitting.” Toby perched on the indicated chair with his hands folded on the table. “Is it all right? That I’m down here with you?”
A shoulder movement might have been a shrug. That’s how he took it anyway since Darius wasn’t roaring and ordering him upstairs. After a slow scan of the kitchen, Darius moved to the counter and started dishing up dinner without comment. Not that Toby expected athankyoufor the little bit he’d done to help out, and when he thought about it, silence was better than being yelled at for doing stuff he hadn’t been asked to.
Or nonverbally growled at.
The silence continued through Darius setting full plates on the table and the first five minutes of the two of them eating. For Toby, that was more a consequence of dinner than respecting his new mentor’s silence. The roast had been cooked to a meltingly tender, falling-apart stage, seasoned with sage and rosemary under the cracked pepper. Skin-on red potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion made delicious companions, and Toby was more than happy to do the food justice.
Eventually, probably longer than usual, the quiet started to make him squirm. “So…. Professor….”
Darius shook his head and glowered across the table without halting the campaign against his food.
“Don’t call you that? But you are… were a professor?”
The one-shouldered shrug managed both noncommittal and weary.
“All right.” Toby chewed on a carrot for a moment. “You were an instructor at the Montchanin Guild, though.”
“No.” The word was barely more than a sharp whisper.
“No? You taught people. They said so.”
A soft rumble rolled across the table, possibly Darius growling or possibly indigestion. “Special cases.”
