Page 9 of The Mage on the Hill
“Got it.” Toby polished off his last bite and just stopped himself from licking his plate clean. “Like a special consultant.”
Darius nodded and held out a hand for Toby’s empty plate, the eyebrow over his good eye arched up.
Do you want more?Toby’s interpretation, at least. “Yes, please. I’d love seconds.”
That seemed to please Darius. He didn’t smile, ohhellno, but his features relaxed into something less grim. Another full plate slid in front of Toby and he let out an appreciative sigh. For the second course, Toby chattered—family, food, books—instead of continuing to poke at Darius. That worked well with the exiled mage nodding and making noises, disapproving or otherwise, in places. Yes, Toby craved actual conversation, but Darius seemed so worn, so drained from the little bits of engagement Toby had managed, shoulders hunched, head down.
After dinner, Darius sent him to bed in his terse fashion rather than allow Toby to help clean up. For his part, Toby couldn’t protest too much. It was all he could do to drag himself up the stairs and get mostly undressed before crawling into bed.
Tomorrow. I’ll try for full sentences tomorrow.
Chapter Four
IT’S SOmuch more bearable when he’s sleeping.
Darius stood in the bedroom doorway sipping his tea while he checked on his new pupil. The young man was a magpie, a chatterbox. It grated on Darius’s last threadbare nerve.
Mostly.
None of it was right. Toby was so young, sociable, good-looking—yes, despite his deterioration, he was still handsome. He should’ve been going to college, going out with the friends who would have no doubt flocked to him, tasting and enjoying all the delights and experiencing the pitfalls of a new adult’s life.
Instead he was here with a foot across death’s door. Darius snorted softly as he turned away. Life wasn’t about things beingright. It happened to you or around you and you dealt with it as best you could or you folded your hand and walked away from the table. Right and fair had nothing to do with it.
Still, Darius was determined to do the best he could. If Toby could be yanked back from the brink, he would do it.
The top of his head brushed against a low-hanging light fixture on the way down the hall and he realized he’d been standing straighter.When the hell did that happen?
THE NEXTmorning, Toby woke up at a decent hour and crept downstairs for breakfast, half-sure he’d be chased back up again to rest. Instead, Darius simply pointed to the kitchen table and they ate fluffy pancakes and bacon together. Toby let his host have his silence, comfortable in the warm cocoon of breakfast, coffee, and sunbeams angling through the windows, until birds started showing up at the feeders outside.
“Cardinals,” Toby murmured as flashes of bright red resolved into fiercely serious songbirds with their pointy hats.
Darius lifted his head, one bright eye tracking the movement.He really likes the birds.
A larger bird with a pointed hat landed atop the house-shaped feeder. “Blue jay,” Toby managed before it chose a sunflower seed and launched again.
“Mm-hmm.” Darius had turned in his chair, coffee mug in hand, to watch the show.
A smaller bird with a hat—blue-gray?—twitched from one perch to another at the cardinals’ feeder. Toby realized he’d exhausted the birds he knew. “Baby blue jay?”
“Titmouse.”
Toby turned and blinked at him. “What?”
With a little lift of his mug, Darius indicated the twitchy bird. “Titmouse.”
“Oh. That’s a weird thing to call, well, anything.” Toby crammed another bite of pancakes into his mouth, then into his cheek so he could ask, “And that tiny guy? With the black head?”
“Chickadee.”
Toby forced himself to swallow. “Likemy little chickadee? Also weird.”
“Sound they make.”
That was almost a whole sentence.
“And that one?”
“Finch.”
