Текст книги "Trammel "

Автор книги: Anah Crow

Соавторы: Dianne Fox
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

“And it didn’t occur to you to talk to me before putting a burden like that on Lindsay?” Dane had good reason to be offended.

“I hadn’t yet decided.” When Dane turned around, Cyrus was watching him closely. “If I had given him to you, you would have had to choose between them every moment of the day. Could you have done right by him?”

Dane couldn’t argue that point. Vivian had two already, but Dane had thought Cyrus would still give Noah to her as a first choice. Her apprentices were both well behaved by his reckoning, easy enough to manage. Kristan was canny and ambitious, with an enviable grasp on her magic. Ylli was shy and mostly harmless, all brown feathers and thin limbs. A minor feral, without even shapeshifting to complicate what he was.

“There’s no way I could have taken him.” Vivian stacked Cyrus’s papers on the desk in tidy rows.

“Putting him with a woman would have been too much to ask. Putting him in reach of Kristan would be insanity.”

“He hates women, so you gave him to Lindsay?” That almost made sense, but it seemed crude reasoning.

“He lost his wife.” Cyrus reached out for help and Dane took his hand, supporting him as he stood. “It seemed unnecessarily cruel to ask him to become attached to other women this soon.”

“Who’s to say he won’t become attached to Lindsay?” Dane had to work out whether or not that idea bothered him. It didn’t take until the next thought to decide that he didn’t mind at all. Lindsay could use all the affection he could take. Dane began to see the benefits of the arrangement, as long as Noah wasn’t completely off his rocker. Lindsay needed something of his own. It was time.

“Times have changed, Cyrus.” Vivian brought Cyrus’s cloak over and wrapped it around him. “I told you the young fall in love with anyone these days.” She fastened the cloak pin—a silver ring made to look like a moon with a bronze arrow threaded through it—with practiced motions. “The young and the foolish,”

she added, with a wink at Dane.

“The Quinns are an old family, with old ways.” Cyrus took Vivian’s arm once his cloak was done up.

“You have taught Lindsay well enough.” He looked up at Dane and there was a hint of approval on his lined, birdlike face. “But I need you more than he does now. Noah will teach him our ways and defend him from Moore. Lindsay knows what it is to have a power greater than most, and he knows what it is to be disowned. They will manage, until I have need of them.”

“I still don’t like it.” Dane knew—had known from the beginning—that he didn’t have a hope in hell of changing Cyrus’s mind. That wasn’t going to keep him from speaking out. Yes, it would be good for Lindsay to have something of his own, but did it have to be both damaged and volatile?

“I anticipated your displeasure. It’s good how some things never change.” Cyrus laughed quietly. “I need you to go collect some information for me. At least I won’t have to hear you sulking. Kristan has the map. Perhaps she can console you. I have work to do.” He patted Vivian’s hand on his arm and they started for the door. “I would tell you to behave yourself, but that only seems to make things worse.”

“Lindsay will be fine.” Vivian looked over her shoulder and gave Dane a warm smile. “It’s not as bad a choice as you think.”

“You can see the future now?” Cyrus chided her as she opened the door for him.

“Hardly.” Vivian kissed him on the cheek. “I wouldn’t want your job for the world.”

Dane was left to watch them go. Being human helped to keep his temper in check enough that he didn’t break anything in frustration. It wasn’t as though Cyrus had overstepped his bounds. Cyrus hadn’t taken Lindsay away from him, only given Lindsay something of his own.

Dane exhaled slowly. It would be good for Lindsay. That much, he knew to be true. It would make him feel more like part of the family, for one thing, and more like he was necessary. Dane knew how badly Lindsay needed to be more than an inconvenience. Every other danger and painful reminder Noah carried with him could only serve to make Lindsay stronger, even if Lindsay was angry about it after the fact.

When Dane put aside his ego and thought of Lindsay first, and only, the decision wasn’t as bad as it seemed, just as Vivian had suggested. Dane wasn’t going to admit that to Cyrus, though. Cyrus had all but given Lindsay the status of a clan-born mage, putting a Quinn under his care. A pyromancer, no less, and a strong one. Dane’s human mind turned that over and he decided he was pleased.

Dane was going to make sure Lindsay had everything necessary to succeed at this. And once Lindsay did... The idea of having a walking firebomb devoted to protecting Lindsay had a lot of appeal.

As long as it makes him happy . Happy and well. If Lindsay was happy, there wasn’t much that could go wrong in Dane’s world.

Chapter Two

In that instant, Lindsay’s life was turned inside out. Dane disappeared with Kristan as quickly as Noah had arrived, and Lindsay wrestled with the sense that Cyrus had played a trick on him, whisking away the familiar and throwing him into the unknown. For four days, Lindsay did little but watch Noah brooding on the back porch, hoping for a clue as to where to start with this stranger he’d been given.

Lindsay didn’t need a case history to identify the most obvious traumatic event in Noah’s past. Much of the skin Lindsay could see was scarred from terrible burns. But the pain written in the curve of Noah’s spine and the hunch of his shoulders had been there a long time. Lindsay recognized that, on a gut level.

Shame.

Under the scars, Noah’s bones were that of a handsome man, and his eyes were deep blue. The skin that remained unmarked was bronze and smooth; he wasn’t much older than Lindsay. If he smiled at all, he might still have been attractive. Lindsay felt like a carrion bird, circling and watching and waiting for a chance to pick over what was left of him.

As near as Lindsay could tell, Noah didn’t sleep more than a few hours at a time, and those times were few and far between. His bed—the one time Lindsay had checked in before Noah had cleared away the evidence—was a nightmare-snarled knot of sheets stained by Noah’s healing burns. Lindsay could understand why he wouldn’t want to spend any more time there than necessary. What Noah did spend his time doing was drinking and smoking and staring off at the marsh like it held the answers to all his questions.

Every now and then, a cigarette would go up in flames in Noah’s fingers, and Noah would throw it aside, his movements jerky in a way that said he was barely in control of himself—if he had any control at all. Lindsay waited for something more, something that he could use as an excuse to step in, but no opening came.

Noah looked sick by the fifth day, and not in any human way. His skin was flushed, his eyes were bright like he was lit from within and, more and more, his body was wracked with tiny shivers he didn’t seem to notice. Lindsay noticed, though, and he’d had enough.

Stepping out onto the porch, he watched Noah for another minute before saying, “It’s time to go.”

Surprisingly, there was no argument. Noah tucked his flask away in a pocket of the leather jacket he always wore, and pushed himself to his feet. There weren’t any questions, either. Noah put his hands in his jeans pockets, barely masking a wince, and nodded toward the door as if to say Lindsay should lead on.

Lindsay knew where he wanted to go. It was a long walk, but he didn’t want to risk the bus system with Noah. Walking had hazards all its own; Atlantic Avenue was crowded with people looking to spend the money they’d won. Lindsay had worried he’d lose Noah in the thick of it, but Noah stayed one step behind him.

“You don’t seem surprised by any of this,” Lindsay said finally.

“Should I be?” Noah’s voice was thick and strained, scarred like the rest of him. Nothing around them seemed to catch his interest, not the lights, not the people, not the traffic.

“I was.” The magical world he now lived in had seemed completely unfamiliar at first. “This isn’t new to you, then? Cyrus isn’t exactly forthcoming with his information.”

Noah laughed at that, which made him cough. He took a drink from the flask to quiet the hacking, then shook his head.

“Not new, no. I never expected to be here, but none of this is surprising. It is what it is. Or it’s a shadow of what it should be. It’ll do. The days are late and things are falling apart.”

Cyrus probably thought it amusing to give Lindsay someone who spoke in the same sort of cryptic, poetic riddles that drove him mad coming from Cyrus and Ezqel. Perfect. It wasn’t as though Lindsay had expected to be rewarded for the events that had led to them fleeing New York and landing in Atlantic City—and it had felt like landing, despite Cyrus’s claim that he had come to this place to wait for someone, a young woman who would soon come into her magic—but this was starting to feel suspiciously like punishment.

“Throw me a bone, would you?” Lindsay muttered. “I’m trying not to completely fuck you up. Your magic is new. Is there anything else I need to know to keep from screwing up here?”

“You don’t need to worry about anything except making sure I don’t kill anyone. Not that it’s likely to happen.” He pulled his left hand from his pocket and held it out. The wound where his ring finger was missing was raw and ugly and new, barely held closed with half a dozen stitches. Stitches. Not magical healing.

When he shook his hand, a bracelet slid out from under his sleeve to rest at the base of it. The bracelet wasn’t ornamental, it was heavy and ancient, the dull metal hacked with deep runes like black gashes and set with raw gems that probably would have been priceless if they’d been cut. There was no opening to it, and it looked too small to have fit over his hand.

“My father wouldn’t offend Cyrus by sending me here the way I am,” Noah said mildly. “I don’t know what Cyrus expects of you. I know what’s expected of me.”

It took a moment for Lindsay to realize what Noah was saying, and what, exactly, Noah had on his wrist. He could feel the blood draining from his face and he had to cut Noah off, shoving him and two strangers out of his way as he ran for the nearest alley. His stomach heaved and he barely managed to keep his shoes clear of the mess.

The velvet on his chest was warmer than anything he’d felt in this awful place, but the collar on his throat was like ice. It closed with a click and a tiny, silvery noise. A collar for his throat, a cuff for each wrist.

“Only very special mages got to wear this, you know.” The warmth of the velvet left him and clear, glassy eyes like marbles filled his vision. “Celare.”

“Start the experiment.”

Hands braced on the brick wall in front of him, Lindsay struggled to catch his breath and fight down the next wave of nausea. Why the fuck would Cyrus do that to him? Cyrus knew, Dane knew, and neither of them had warned him. Instinct had him touching his wrists, but he made himself turn to check on Noah.

“We’re going back to Cyrus. You’re getting that off.”

“Are you all right?”

The alley had been nearly pitch black, but now Noah held a soft yellow flame cupped in his right hand. He was rigid with tension and his hand shook, yet he managed to keep the flame steady.

Noah could still use his magic. That meant the bracelet wasn’t the same as what Moore had used on Lindsay. That was something.

“I’ll live. Cyrus and Dane might be a little worse for wear, but I’ll be all right.”

Lindsay was going to have a long talk with both of them. Binding him to a mage he knew nothing about was one thing, but not telling him about the artifact controlling Noah’s magic was something Lindsay couldn’t let go.

He pushed away from the wall and swallowed down the rush of nausea that spiked again. He took a deep breath and shook his hair back out of his face.

“Let me see it?”

“Do you want it off?” The light from Noah’s fire cast his features into sharp relief; he looked gaunt and aged, like a carving of a tribal mask.

“Yes.” The risk that Noah might kill them all the way he’d destroyed so many cigarettes in the last few days wasn’t enough to change Lindsay’s answer. “We’ll find another way. I don’t know what the hell it is, but I don’t want it on you.”

“You’ll have to take it off.” Noah held out his hand. “We call this magic barre salvetet. It’s a very old one, old enough that it doesn’t quite fit my magic. That’s why I could make fire, still, a little. The word to end it is finiri. To put it back on, oriri. My will won’t make it work, now that things are decided. It is not so old that it forgets the way of things.”

Lindsay didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to have anything to do with something like that, but he wanted it off Noah more. That he could simply speak a word and the bracelet would come off but that Noah couldn’t do the same... Noah really was his in a way that the magic understood.

When Lindsay touched his fingertips to the metal, it was hot like he’d imagined Noah’s skin would be.

“Finiri,” he whispered. The bracelet had been far too small to move past Noah’s hand, but somehow it landed in Lindsay’s palm with a faint ringing tone. He nearly dropped it in surprise and disgust, but managed to slip it into his pocket first. He’d decide what to do with it later.

The alley went dark as Noah let the fire go. “I’m sorry to have offended you,” he said, with a formality to his words that reminded Lindsay of when he’d spoken to Cyrus.

“It’s not you.” Lindsay didn’t want Noah to think it was anything he’d done. There was enough reason for tension and distance and confusion between them without that. “I can’t...” He took another slow breath and explained, “I wore something very much like it, under other circumstances, and Cyrus knew it when he gave you to me.”

“Cyrus couldn’t have accepted me without it.” Noah stepped back. “Nor could my father have given me over. It would have been wrong to do to all of us.” His tone was dull, like he was tired. “And it’s better than the alternative. For some things, even some terrible things, the necessity of them overrides all else.

Whether we like it or not.”

“If Cyrus believed in the necessity of it, he shouldn’t have given you to me.”

Now Lindsay realized the barre had been—like Noah himself—a wordless challenge from Cyrus and he had no intention of telling Cyrus, or Dane for that matter, that he’d panicked at the sight of it. Whether he succeeded or failed at the challenge set before him depended on Noah, but it also depended on Lindsay stepping up and doing what needed to be done.

He’d taken care of the barre. Now, he had to take care of Noah.

Lindsay stalked out of the alley and turned the corner. It was time to take Noah to the abandoned school. There was a huge gymnasium that had been stripped down after the school had been closed, and it would be perfect to work in.

“Besides, you have to learn to control it on your own. No artifact is going to hold your magic back if it wants out badly enough.” Lindsay knew that first-hand, and he knew how much damage the resulting fracture could cause.

“Don’t assume I didn’t want to wear it. Nor that my magic wants ‘out’.” Noah took out his flask and opened it, then offered it to Lindsay.

The sour taste of vomit was enough to push Lindsay into swishing something that tasted like fire through his mouth. Maybe he’d have been better off with the vomit. He forced himself to swallow and passed the flask back to Noah with a muffled cough.

“I don’t want to know what that is. Christ. But your magic must be new if you can’t tell it’s itching to get out. Look at you. You’re burning up, and I don’t know how many cigarettes I’ve seen burst into flames in the past few days.”

“It doesn’t want out,” Noah said flatly. “It wants me.”

Lindsay looked at Noah, charting the scars and burns that marked his face and hands. His eyebrows and eyelashes were intact, but the hair on his head was gone, as though it had refused to return after being burnt away. The way Noah radiated heat, the way his eyes burned, the way his fire seemed to slip out unprovoked, Lindsay...Lindsay believed him.

“Well, I suppose it’s my job to make sure it doesn’t get you.” Lindsay’s job was very different from what Dane’s had been with him. Lindsay wasn’t at all suited to teaching Noah how to use magic—he’d only mastered his own in the last few months, after all—but teaching Noah how to survive his magic was something Lindsay was, when he stopped to think about it, probably very well equipped to handle.

He pointed at a low, sprawling building across the street. “We’re going in there and then we’ll find out if Cyrus really screwed up or not.”

“As you will.” Noah took a drink and put the flask away to light a cigarette. His hands shook, but he lit the cigarette without catastrophe.

Lindsay made sure Noah stayed with him as they crossed the street. He’d been just as reluctant to use his own magic, maybe more so, and he was beginning to understand Dane’s frustration at the time. It hadn’t been safe for him, and it wasn’t safe for Noah, either.

Past the blue double doors, Lindsay stopped to orient himself. The corridors of the school were an inefficient maze of dust and forgotten posters that said things like Reading ROCKS! and Don’t make excuses, make improvements. Lindsay’s grammar school hadn’t looked anything like this—it had more in common with Princeton than with Sesame Street.

“The gym is that way.” He pointed down the corridor to the left. “They took the wood floor out after the school closed, so you should be safe.”

Lindsay knew by now that Noah expected him to lead, and he started walking. Noah would follow. It was strange, being the one to go first.

They found the gymnasium past chained double doors where Noah broke the chains with an overzealous flame that left puddles of steel. Inside, the floor was gone. The wall at the far end was out and the abandoned pool could be seen beyond. The level below the gym floor was exposed, but support beams and flexible subfloor strapping crisscrossed the open space. Plenty of places to walk. The bleachers were still there, held up by braces from below. Plenty of seating.

“What now? You want a show?” Noah went to hang his jacket on a broken bracket away from the door, then slipped off the shirt he wore underneath—probably so he wouldn’t set fire to either. The shirt clung to some healing burns, but he peeled it away without hesitation and hung it up as well. When he brought up a handful of fire, Lindsay could see that he was all muscle and bone, lean but solid, brassy with copper-red gleams. He stepped out onto one of the beams, walking like it was a sidewalk. Like there wasn’t empty space between him and pipes and vents and a distant concrete floor.

“No.” Lindsay was careful, weaving the illusion in layers. This way, he wouldn’t have to bring it down all at once. He built a fire in the center of what was left of the room, large enough and hot enough that Noah would feel the sunshine warmth on his skin like a burn. “I want you to put out the fire.”

Noah needed to learn to get along with his magic, and working backward seemed the safest way to start doing that.

Noah hesitated, wavering as though he knew the fire wasn’t real but was fighting the illusion for the knowledge, and he looked over his shoulder at Lindsay. He didn’t speak, though. He turned back to the fire and, just as a boy might spit on his fingers and pinch out a candle, his will cut off the flame—not smothered or extinguished as by water—the act of burning simply ceased to be.

“Like that?” Noah didn’t look back again.

That wasn’t at all what Lindsay had expected. Maybe he was coming at this from the wrong direction.

Maybe Noah had to push the fire out, rather than pulling it in. But he didn’t like the idea of letting Noah’s magic out without some kind of barrier to keep it from getting out of hand. “Come here.”

Noah stepped across a wide gap to walk a steel I-beam over to where he’d left Lindsay. He stopped only inches away, seeming patient while the twitch of muscles in his chest and belly put a lie to that. No words, but the way that he stood, arms loose at his side with his palms facing forward, was clear enough for Lindsay to read: As you will.

That kind of subservience made Lindsay’s skin crawl. He hoped there was something beneath it beyond more of the same.

Lindsay closed the distance between them with a hand on Noah’s bare chest, careful of where his flesh was still raw. Noah’s skin felt like the fire of his magic, and his heart was pounding under Lindsay’s palm. Fear? Anticipation? Lindsay couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t think Noah would tell him if he asked.

He knew what Noah’s magic was and, after watching him these last few days, had a good idea how it was triggered inside him. Even so, casting the net of his illusion wasn’t an easy task. He had to be certain Noah’s magic would go untouched as Noah drew on it—that the magic answering Noah’s call would be merely an illusion responding exactly as Noah’s own magic would.

Noah’s magic would kill them both if Lindsay wasn’t careful.

Somehow, and Lindsay didn’t know how, Noah let him in. It was as though he opened all the doors and let Lindsay walk in and out of his magic and his mind. This didn’t feel like submission. More like... practice. As though Noah knew someone else who could do mind magic. And Lindsay thought that, maybe, if Noah wanted, he could have tried to keep Lindsay out.

As Lindsay worked, Noah’s heart slowed and grew steady. It was still quick, but not so desperate and roaring and faltering all at once. Lindsay could focus on the magic without distraction.

Finally, his magic was as solid as Lindsay could make it, and he hoped it would be enough. He let his hand fall to his side and stepped back to give Noah some space.

“You can let it out,” Lindsay said. If he had done his magic well, Noah would grasp the illusory magic Lindsay had woven over the real thing. Noah’s mind and body would believe that the magic it wielded was real, not Lindsay’s carefully conjured virtual reality. Better still, Lindsay would be able to watch the process from within.

Noah backed away, walking the narrow beam without looking behind him. Then he stopped and stood there, eyes closed. A glow crept over his skin, a thin shimmering veil of white heat. Fire. Thinner than paper, softer than silk.

Lindsay could feel what Noah felt—pure, destructive power draped over him like a cloak. Tendrils dripped down to splash on the steel beam, sinking into the metal like a hot needle drawing shapes in butter.

Under the cloak lay anger, like the fire trapped it against Noah’s skin. A rage so great it made the fire seem as plain as old cotton sheets.

“Let it go, Noah.”

The force of it knocked Lindsay back a step—the anger, not the illusion of the fire. The anger was real. The fire ripped outward and upward, through the roof of the school. Talons and tentacles of it plunged down into the earth, through concrete and steel.

There was no end to it. The fire grew higher and wide, fifty feet and a hundred and more. A maelstrom grew as the fire fed on the air. It was ravenous. Noah spread his arms and let his head fall back—the fire unfurled red wings, opened up a ragged beak that screamed and snapped at the clouds, and it wasn’t done.

Noah wasn’t tired. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t beginning to try. A lash of fire flailed through the gym and smashed down across the empty pool, filling the air there with the shrapnel of broken tile.

The power was incredible, but the rage burned so deep in Noah that Lindsay couldn’t begin to see the bottom. Noah’s magic was dangerous, and Lindsay could see why someone would send him to Cyrus for safety, but the magic wasn’t Noah’s problem. Noah had complete control over the magic. What he wasn’t in control of was himself.

The anger inside him held all the heat the illusory fire lacked. It was hot and white and ready to rip him wide open with the slightest provocation. Lindsay could feel it pressing at Noah’s seams and aching to tear Noah apart. The magic, Lindsay could handle, but he had no idea what to do with all that self-hatred eating Noah from the inside out, except to let it burn itself out with the fire that was filling the pool and creeping up the walls.

Noah looked at him, through the fire and the distance, and his eyes were like blue stars lit with fire from within. For a moment, Lindsay could see into them and he saw what was behind them. It was too much information, too many images at once for him to put them in order or assign them significance, and then Noah closed his eyes again. He pushed his hands out to ward something off and Lindsay heard as much as felt the word, “No.”

The rush of power that followed was like a nuclear warhead hitting ground zero where Noah stood.

Utter devastation rolled outward, devouring and furious fire. Instead of losing strength, Noah simply became stronger, like the fire. He could see through the fire, see what the fire saw, feel what the fire felt.

Everywhere the fire was, he was, raging from that endless wellspring of pain and fury that was somehow contained under his skin.

Finally, he found something of a limit. The fire became too immense and broke off into non-sentient, mundane infernos. If they hadn’t been illusions, the destruction would have continued unabated.

Noah began to withdraw. Lindsay could feel him pulling back the power, extinguishing those seedling fires, reining all of it in until only the room they stood in roared like a furnace. Then that was gone, between one breath and the next. The fire was out. Almost out.

Everywhere that Lindsay could see, the ruined space had become a garden. A garden of molten gold climbing roses, with rustling leaves and delicate tendrils that clung to the remains of the walls and ceiling and floor. From the shadows, sparks fell like tiny stars, a light rain of fire, and each star burst against the ground before it faded away. When a tentative breeze sighed through the building, the entire garden breathed with it, and roses—in every color of fire—began to bloom.

All that rage and power and still Noah had this inside him. He was scarred and burned and broken, incredibly fragile, but beautiful, too. Lindsay wanted to call him back, to draw him in and soothe away the burns until this took the place of the anger running wild under Noah’s skin.

“They’re almost a weed.” Noah walked toward Lindsay, his steps slow and lazy. He looked more at peace than Lindsay had seen before. “They grow everywhere. But they have magic of their own. If you have the sight, you can see it at the right hour, though you might think it was a trick of the light.” He opened up his ruined hand and a rose unfolded there. The petals spread, growing into delicate wings, and it flew away. All the fires faded into nothing as it soared into the dark. “Have I done well?”

The fire might not have been real, but making it had left Noah sleek with sweat. Rivulets tracked down his bare chest, skirting his wounds and skating along his scars to soak the waist of his pants. It wasn’t just his magic that was beautiful. But Lindsay couldn’t touch him. He was too fragile.

Lindsay held out his hand. “Time to come back now, Noah.”

“You should put the barre on me.” Noah took Lindsay’s hand tentatively; his fingers sliding against Lindsay’s palm made him shudder convulsively and he swallowed hard, as though he were nauseated. Fire sputtered along the sweat lines on his chest. “There are times...” He closed his eyes. “I forget. And then I remember again. All the time.”

“I can’t.” Lindsay wouldn’t apologize for it. The thought of it made him want to scrape his own scars raw. He had to give Noah something, though, some way to hold the fire at bay. “But I can do this. I can keep you from touching the magic, if that’s what you need. For the night, at least. You need to sleep.”

Noah nodded and Lindsay couldn’t tell if there was real agreement there or just acquiescence. “Thank you.” Noah’s shoulders slumped, and Lindsay could feel his shame clearly—like a mirror, it was so familiar.

“I’ll keep you safe.” That assurance had been one of the most important things Dane had given Lindsay, in the beginning. For Noah, the danger came not from people hunting him but from his own magic and, maybe, Cyrus had been right to give him to Lindsay. None of the others—none but Cyrus himself—

could keep him safe from that.

“As you will.” Noah exhaled slowly. “Was there anything more?” He looked at Lindsay from under his lashes. His eyes were an almost unearthly shade of blue.

“Nothing.” Lindsay let his hand go to reach for the shirt hanging from the wall. “I think we should stop and buy you a lighter on the way home, though.”

“And here I just threw all mine out.” Noah shrugged into his shirt, tugging it down as it resisted sliding over his damp skin.

“You can’t go around lighting cigarettes with your fingertip in front of humans, anyway,” Lindsay pointed out. He passed over Noah’s jacket next, and headed for the door.

“I know what humans are like.” Noah pulled the jacket on as he followed. “I used to be one. I just...wasn’t expecting to end up back here. Out in the world. Without my magic.”

“Well, I’m sure you couldn’t have anticipated this. Not every mage gets their very own illusionist to cut them off from their magic.” Lindsay pushed through the double doors and out into the corridor. Maybe teasing would make this easier for Noah. Maybe.

“I wondered if this was part of some fancy new charity program. Home for Wayward Fire Starters.

Donate now, because every year, Fire Starters all over the world are left homeless.” Noah sighed and shook his head. “When I was twelve, I could hardly wait for this.”

Noah had grown up knowing what magic was. Lindsay wondered what that would have been like.

“When I was twelve, I had no idea any of this existed.”

“Cyrus thinks he’s clever, I see.” Noah pulled out the flask and took a drink, a long one. Lindsay watched Noah as they stepped out into the night.