32. Guildford
Guildford
Igasped as I reappeared somewhere bathed in the last gasp of the day’s sunlight, with a dark blue sky decorated with pinkish-purple clouds. The sun had already sunk below the line of hills in the distance, and most of the valley below had been enveloped in shadow.
Red, orange and gold still colored the buildings below, and it took another handful of seconds for my eyes to understand what they were seeing.
Abruptly, it all clicked.
Fire.
A handful of the buildings below were eclipsed in flames.
I looked up as he released me, and saw who I expected to see by then.
Bones stood there, looking even more rough than he had the other night.
His black clothes were covered in soot, and his face looked bruised and I saw dried blood at his hairline, and a streak of it on his face where he’d obviously wiped it off with a gloved hand but hadn’t gotten all of it off his skin.
His face was smudged with soot on the opposite side, and he stared at me, his mouth hard as he looked me over.
“Are you all right?” he asked, gruff.
“I’m fine…” I began, then trailed off when it was clear he wasn’t listening to me.
He stared at me with a concentrated look on his face, his gold eyes visibly out of focus. I saw his lips purse as he assessed my magical aura with his.
It must have been at least a minute before his irises cleared.
“You look like shit,” he declared coldly, like he held me personally responsible.
“You’re way too fucking pale. Your heart is obviously exhausted.
They did a shit job of replenishing your magic after the attack…
it looks like no one replenished it at all.
Your nerves are still strained from the lightning spells.
Didn’t Blackstone give you something for any of these fucking things?
Or did they just heal your bones, pop your shoulder back in, and toss you back into library? ”
I fought annoyance, even as I used it to hide my relief at seeing him.
“He did,” I said, fingering a curl of my long hair out of my eyes. “…Give me things,” I added haughtily. “I drank and ate probably forty portions, elixirs, pastes, and codicils over the past three days. It’s just not the kind of thing that’s going to heal overnight.”
I folded my arms at his dissatisfied scoff, staring at the dark circles under his eyes, and the exhaustion I could clearly see on him.
“…And I wouldn’t be throwing stones on others’ appearances, if I were you,” I added tartly. “You look frightful yourself. Or has no one told you?”
Remembering the image of him in the papers that morning, I bit my lip.
Another thing occurred to me then, and I looked around at where we stood.
“Where are we?” I asked warily.
I didn’t really care about that, honestly. I wanted to know if we were alone. I wanted to know where the other Dark Cathedrals were.
I wanted to know where Malefic was.
Bones must have heard me, because he grunted.
“He’s in London,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Probably getting fellated and his balls hand-washed by a kneeling Magus Imperius and his entire cabinet by now.”
The dark humor in his expression faded as he glanced at the burning town.
“The others are down there,” he said, jerking his jaw in that direction. “Enjoying the spoils. They can’t see us up here. I’ve got a chimaera erected over this entire hill, with a perimeter of alarm spells that will let me know the instant anyone gets within a few dozen yards. We can speak freely.”
He folded his own arms over his uniformed chest, and now he looked uncomfortable.
“Did you see who it was?” he asked. “In the tower?”
It took another second for my mind to flip from everything he’d just said back to the stone stairs from which he’d just collected me.
“No,” I admitted. “You couldn’t see them with your magic?”
He shook his head. “I felt your alarm. I also tied my magic to the amulet Blackstone gave you.” He grunted a little. “At least he did that.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I didn’t.
“Should we try to find out who it was?” I asked instead. “In the tower?”
“Blackstone is looking into that now,” Bones said, his voice dismissive.
“He seems to think they’ve already gone, though.
He guesses they went out to find you on the staircase after you’d already left, and got out of the tower before Blackstone or Forsooth could get past their shields.
Whoever it is, they’re likely in one of the dining rooms now, blended in with everyone else.
Even with Forsooth’s help, it would’ve been a needle in a haystack once they got outside my chimaeras and into the general population of wizards and witches. ”
I frowned at that, but I understood.
Whoever had done it had expert-level shielding skills.
There’d be no way to follow them once they got out of the tower to see where they reappeared.
It would be sheer luck to see them when their magical signal popped back into existence, especially since wizards and witches shielded and unshielded in big and small ways for all kinds of reasons. Still, it struck me as odd.
“Even Forsooth couldn’t see them?” I asked.
Bones shook his head slowly, his eyes back on the burning town. “No. He thinks it wasn’t a student. Or that it was a Resurrected only pretending to be a student.”
I felt a shiver go through me at the thought.
It was easy to forget that some of the students at Malcroix may not be students at all.
I looked back at Bones to find him looking at the burning skyline again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
He turned to stare at me. For a few seconds, his face didn’t move, then he let out a hard scoff.
“No,” he said coldly.
I watched him look at me, his jaw hardening slowly.
Then, abruptly, he began walking towards me. He unfolded his arms as he walked, and motioned me closer as he closed the gap between us.
“Let me help,” he said, once stood right in front of me.
I stared up at him, bewildered, and a little startled as I remembered how different he was now.
He really was bigger than I remembered from before, when he was still at school.
His shoulders stretched broader and were noticably more muscular.
His chest, even his arms looked different.
He gazed down at me and I wondered if he’d even grown taller over those months.
Somewhere in my appraisal, his words clicked, and I met his eyes.
“Let me help with your magic,” he clarified, gruff. He reached up, and brushed the back of his glove-clad fingers over my cheek. “I can help you. Let me help.”
It didn’t come out like a question, but I felt the question there, anyway.
I nodded slowly, and he began pulling off his glove, finger by finger.
Nerves rose in me at the intense look in his eyes, almost like they had when he appeared in my closet that night. It was hard to believe that had only been few days ago.
“Don’t be rough,” I blurted.
I still felt fragile, I guess, from what happened outside Valarian.
As soon as I said it, my face grew hot. “Sorry. I only meant––”
“It’s fine.” He hesitated, meeting my eyes. “I won’t be.”
His fingers wrapped carefully around the base of my neck, just above the chain of the necklace I wore. Something else occurred to me, and I looked up at his face again.
“Why isn’t it burning?” I asked, puzzled. “The amulet?”
He paused, looking down again to meet my gaze. After a pause, he seemed to catch my meaning, and his lips pursed.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice frank.
“Maybe Blackstone cast the spell with some kind of exception so that it would exclude me. He likely wouldn’t have wanted you to get confused by signals from people you know wouldn’t hurt you.
” He swallowed, and his thumb lightly caressed my throat.
“Are you ready? Or was there something else?”
Thinking, I shook my head. “No. I’m ready.”
I was nervous. Why was I nervous?
I didn’t have a lot of time to think about the reasons why.
He closed his eyes, and slowly, gradually, I felt him let go of the hold he had on his magic.
I felt him consciously trying to be gentle with it, to not go to fast, to not throw himself into me like he did when he lost control.
It reminded me again that his normal state was holding it back, clamping it down, clenching some unseen muscle to make sure too much of it wouldn’t escape.
When it first started to slide into my magical aura, I let out a gasp of relief.
My hands wrapped around his arm as I leaned into him, opening my own magic as much as I could.
Just like I’d forgotten how much effort he used to keep his magic under control, I suddenly noticing how I’d been doing something similar since the attack.
I’d spent the last three days protecting my magic and myself the only way I knew how, by shielding constantly, flinching away from anything that got too close.
Now I found myself relaxing against his hand and arm, my breath gradually slowing.
I felt him suck in a breath, and then gradually increase the amount of magic he was putting into me, until my skin warmed, my muscles started unclenching for real.
“Is that better?” he asked.
His voice still sounded forced.
I could tangibly feel the control there.
I nodded. “You can let go,” I said, still gripping his arm in both hands. “It’s all right. I feel all right now. I can take a lot more than this.”
“I’m fine,” he said evenly. “Relax, Shadow. Stop worrying about me and breathe.”
I tried to do as he said.
It was difficult when I could feel the strain coming from him. I was starting to close up again, too, just from the proximity of our magics and minds. When feeling his strain turned into stress for me, and then anxiety, I stepped closer to him without thought.
He tensed.