Onyx #2
Too long, and even those conversations hadn’t gone anywhere.
Dominic nodded, releasing Onyx’s shoulder. “I’ll observe from here.” He took a seat across from where Cecile had been sitting.
She nodded, tucking a few stray strands of hair behind her ear.
“Okay.” She turned to Onyx. “Come sit.” She gestured at the chair near where she’d been sitting before returning to her own seat.
“Mr. Bancroft said you had only the very basics because of the Takeover. Why don’t we start with what you know, and then I can help build from there. ”
Onyx was so used to sitting on the floor by then that he almost went to do that, only to scowl when he realized what he was doing. How had he become so conditioned that that had become a habit? He needed to… stop. Somehow.
He was keenly aware of the plug shifting in his ass as he joined her and sat gingerly in the chair. His eyes flitted to Dominic, as he debated giving away what he did know. But what was the point in hiding it, especially when this whole exercise was for him to learn more?
“Fire,” Onyx said, like that wasn’t already a given. “Wards, some illusion magic to hide areas from easy detection.”
He wasn’t going to admit that he actually had training in any of it; he didn’t want to out the sympathizer who had taught him what he did know of the basics of magic over one short visit after another.
Cecile nodded. “Okay, good. That’s a solid base to work from.
Gifts, especially elemental gifts, can feel very different to the witch who’s using them.
My element is air,” she said with an air of confidentiality, though she didn’t lower her voice at all.
“It’s much weaker than yours, though. What do you know about magic flows?
When you were using your fire, what does it feel like when the magic moves through you?
Do you feel like it’s flowing like water?
Like you’re throwing it like a ball or projectile? Like you’re summoning it?”
Onyx frowned at the questions. Part of him wanted to get defensive and refuse to answer, but he’d wanted these lessons. He didn’t need to be especially rude to her, especially when she was willing to do this.
Maybe more than this, too. She might be willing to go into a warehouse with him with all of his magic available to him and teach him more.
He needed to be nice.
“It appears,” Onyx said after a pause. “I just imagine it, and it’s there.” Archie had told him that because he hadn’t been trained to think in absolutes, because he hadn’t been told what magic couldn’t do, it meant he could do more. He eyed Dominic. “I would show you if I could.”
Dominic smiled faintly but didn’t respond, even as Onyx’s eyes lingered on him.
Cecile followed the gaze. “You’re… That is, you are sometimes allowed to use your magic, right?” she asked Onyx, the words careful.
“Sometimes,” Onyx said just as cautiously, wondering what he was allowed to say.
“But not out here. Only where I can’t burn anything down around me.
” He looked back at the Thorne witch. “Since I can’t promise not to burn him to a crisp, he’ll never let me have my magic anywhere he doesn’t control. He’s kinda a control freak.”
Understatement.
“Okay." If Cecile had opinions on that, she didn’t show it.
“Next time you can use your magic, think about doing it in slow motion. Walk the process through step by step and see if you can identify each part of it. When you cast the fire, does the magic start inside you or out? Where inside you — or outside of you — does it feel the strongest? Can you open that pathway up slowly? Or is it an on-off switch? When you cast a ward, the same thing. You cast the spell and the ward appears, but where is the magic itself coming from? Does that make sense?”
Onyx turned his focus completely onto Cecile, ignoring Domnic’s presence as he thought it over. “I’ll pay attention next time. I didn’t…” He gnawed on his lip. He hadn’t realized there were so many ways to approach magic. “If you tell me how to do something, I can probably mimic it.”
At least, he thought he could.
After a while, Dominic quietly got up from his chair and left the sitting room, something Onyx barely paid attention to as he listened intently to Cecile and her explanations of what should be possible. He forgot, just for a little while, to be jagged and difficult.
He was eager to get back out to the warehouse and try out a few of the things they’d discussed, and by the time the magic lesson was ready to draw to a close, he was slightly disappointed that he’d have to go back to a normal day instead of getting to go test it out.
It, quite frankly, put him in a pissy mood.
He was disappointed when the servant showed her out, and he sulked when Dominic came to fetch him at the end of the lesson. “Maybe I could be like that pet and go without a collar,” he suggested, without any hope whatsoever.
Dominic arched an eyebrow. “You couldn’t promise not to try to kill me the first moment you were able to, nor bring the house down around us both, and I wouldn’t believe you even if you tried,” he pointed out.
“To be fair,” Onyx retorted, “I could also try to kill you without using magic, but I haven’t done that, either.” But he didn’t argue. What would be the point? They both knew that no matter what happened, Onyx was too dangerous to be allowed to have his magic around Dominic fucking Bancroft.
Dominic reached out his hand to beckon him close. “But I’ve arranged for us to go to the warehouse the day after tomorrow.”
He went to Dominic when he gestured, standing just within range, though he took another step closer so he was pressed flush against Dominic’s chest when he gave the news. “Yeah?” He leaned in and brushed his lips lightly against Dominic’s. “Thank you.”
Dominic hummed an affirmative and deepened the kiss, his hands going to Onyx’s hips and squeezing lightly. “You’re welcome,” he murmured after breaking the kiss. “Keep the plug in for the rest of the day for me, please?”
Onyx took a step back and scowled at Dominic, betrayal surging inside of him at the demand. Request? Whatever.
Either way, Onyx didn’t want to do it.
“You told me I could take it out after the lesson,” Onyx snapped.
And one way or another, it was coming out, even if he had to do it himself.