Page 34 of The Mage on the Hill
“In…? Oh. My last wild magic explosion was yesterday. It wasn’t as bad, though, ’cause Darius was directing and I’ve been leaking.”
Zubayr gave him and odd look until Darius rasped out, “Toby doesn’t like…bleeding.”
“Of course. I was never fond of the term either. Though I’m not sureleakingis much better.” Zubayr waved a hand. “However we’re referring to a minimal, gradual wild magic dispersal, this is better than I’d hoped. Dar, do you have any channel pinpointed?”
“No.”
The need to leap to his defense overrode Toby’s desire to let Darius speak for himself. “He narrowed it down, though. Water, Life, Animus, Dark. That’s what’s left.”
Zubayr’s crooked half smile was fond and approving. “Old man’s still got it.”
“Helps to… have it first.”
“And now he has jokes.” Zubayr pointed a warning finger at Darius as he got up from his chair. “Just when I was feeling bad for you. Even though you’re a terrible guest, I can help with Water, at least.”
He gestured to Toby to join him at the counter while he pulled a pitcher of filtered water from the fridge. “Stand where you can reach me, but just watch for now.”
“Okay. Something even I can’t mess up.”
“Toby—”
The gently concerned warning in Darius’s voice was clear, but Zubayr cut him off with a wave. He tipped the pitcher carefully, spilling out water that should have splashed on the floor and Toby’s socks. Instead, the water formed an amoebic globule three inches below the spout. Zubayr didn’t touch it or gesture at it as Toby had seen some mages do, though his dark eyes shimmered in a way that had nothing to do with strong emotion. The water glob steadied, flattening into a strangely mesmerizing liquid disk.
“Hands palm up, a few inches under the water,” Zubayr instructed in a firm, soothing tone, a teacher’s voice. It was a damn shame he’d never be allowed to teach.
Toby lifted his hands, trying to keep them from trembling.
“Good. You’re fine, nothing alarming here unless you’re deathly afraid of clean water. Lift your hands slowly toward the water. Let the magic leaking from your fingers contact mine in the pool. That’s it. That’s it.”
When Toby’s fingers touched the water, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. “Does that, I mean, is this something?”
“Definitely. You haven’t the slightest scrap of an affinity for Water.”
“Oh.”
Zubayr chuckled as he tossed the water into the sink with a flick of his fingers. “One less possibility than when you got here. You’ll still get some connection with most Major Arcana not your own, usually. It’s rare to get nothing at all. Even rarer to be able to reach clear across the web with any control, though.”
A clatter of wood on tile came from behind him, and Toby turned in time to see Darius storm out of the kitchen and down the hall where a door slammed. Miserable retching followed within moments.
“Oh damn. Was it the Water thing, do you think?” Toby whispered.
Zubayr tugged on an earlobe as he frowned. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it would affect him so badly after all this time. No. I should’ve realized. Stupid, insensitive thing to say.” He grabbed up the iced tea and two glasses and gestured toward the back of the house. “Let’s leave the professor some dignity, at least.”
The back door opened onto a screen porch with a view of the mountains, complete with rocking chairs and a tortoiseshell cat curled up on a fleece cushion. Restful. Bucolic—that was the word for it, right?
He let Zubayr have a few minutes since his anger at himself was so obvious and raw, and then Toby started the questions to which he so desperately needed answers. “You were there, weren’t you?”
“I’m the only other person alive who was.” Zubayr gave him that wry twist of a smile. “That sounds horribly melodramatic. Call me Ishmael plus one.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Zubayr pulled his feet onto the chair, curling into nearly as tight a ball as the cat. “If he hasn’t changed at his core, Dar blames himself. Partly, it was his fault.”
“From what I’ve heard, he was trying his best to save Kara.” Toby snapped his mouth shut. Where had that heated tone come from?
“He was. All best intentions.” With a heavy sigh, Zubayr laid his head on his knees. “My fault too. I should’ve insisted that we bring more help. I knew it was dangerous and abdicated responsibility because he was so sure. About everything. Always. And almost always, he was also right.”
“Nobody can anticipate everything,” Toby said softly.
