Creaking from the second floor placed Arden upstairs somewhere, so Darius went through the kitchen as quietly as he could until he found pen and scratch paper. Since his ability to put spoken words together worked about as well as a clogged water pump, he would write. He took a seat at the kitchen table and began, slowly at first, to write a factual account of that trip to Pittsburgh. The magical confluence there, both intense and far-reaching, came largely from the meeting of three rivers—Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela. Darius hadn’t considered it a last resort, but he had thought it the best chance for Kara within easy reach.

  He kept his own reactions out of the tale—the confidence he now recognized as arrogance, the rising uncertainty, the abject terror of those final moments. Only what happened, though twice he had to retrace his steps since the order of events wouldn’t stay in a neat line in his brain.

  “Dar? What in the world?” Arden had come downstairs when Darius reached his third sheet of scribbling.

  He handed off the first and kept on while Arden lowered himself into a chair and began to read. The end of the story came hard, and Darius’s hands shook already from unaccustomed writing, but he shoved his heart and his more visceral memories in a lead-lined box and went on, fact following fact.

  “You don’t—”

  Darius thrust the second page at Arden without even stopping for a glare. Three pages. Three and a half. He shoved them all across the table and walked to the counter to stare out the window over the sink, unwilling to watch Arden’s reactions. Maybe he was afraid to. Arden had always read swiftly, taking in information at a blinding rate that often left onlookers incredulous, disbelieving. Darius knew better. He turned back to the table when he heard the last page set down.

  “You self-centered bastard.”

  Not the response Darius had anticipated. “What?”

  “Always so sure of yourself. Never asked for advice. Never asked for help. No, the great Darius Valstad knows better.” Arden slapped the pages onto the table and rose, stalking toward him. “Someone should’ve been there with you.”

  “But there—”

  “Someone besides a student of yours.”

  “I—”

  “Someone who could’ve helped you control the blast. Put things back afterward. Maybe saved Kara, but from what you’ve written, probably not. Or not for long. Someone at least could’ve been there afterward.” Arden had reached him and poked Darius’s chest hard with one bony finger. “For you, you idiot! You shouldn’t have been alone!”

  Darius squeezed past him and returned to the table to write, Arden, still bristling, peering over his shoulder.

  Zubayr was there. Water for water. And I barely saved him. What could you have done?

  In his irritation he may have underlined you a few too many times, which wasn’t kind or fair.

  Arden’s whisper was an ice-tipped serrated knife. “He was too young. I could’ve done something. And you could’ve told me you weren’t dead.” He paced in a ragged circle around the kitchen, arms flapping. “I mourned for you, you son of a bitch. The guild told me nothing, and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t even acknowledge your death. I’ve spent these years constructing strange conspiracies in my head, and all this time you’ve just been sulking?”

  “I… wasn’t well.” Darius’s own anger deflated in the face of such anguish. He hadn’t thought anyone would even wonder. He’d been resigned to being dead to the community.

  “No shit, Dar.”

  The break in Arden’s voice took his feet across the room, and Darius enclosed him in a hard embrace before either of them could think too much about it. Part of him recoiled from the raw emotion as Arden struggled with tears and clung to him. Part of him resented having to comfort someone else when his life had been nothing but pain for so long. Both of those dishonorable thoughts died well-deserved deaths in the face of Arden’s immediate need.

  “I’m sorry,” Darius murmured, rocking them both. “I am.” He pulled in a shuddering breath. “Hospital. Then rehab. Wasn’t….”

  Arden’s voice was steadier when he asked. “How long were you in rehab?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Do you remember anything? From then?”

  “Bits. Spots. It’s jumbled.”

  “And then?”

  Darius lifted the shoulder Arden wasn’t clinging to quite so hard in an awkward shrug. “Home.”

  “Not your home, though. Your house.” Arden pulled back, holding him at arm’s length. “I kept checking.”

  “Aunt Eva’s. It is mine.”

  Arden stared at him. “You said you’d never live in that old pile. You were going to sell it. I would never have thought of looking there. That’s where you’ve been?”

  Darius had to look away.

  “Tell me you haven’t been alone all this time. That someone was checking in with you.”

  A memory of nursing aides flitted in and out. It might have been an actual memory from the first month. There’d been visits from the guild every six weeks those first couple of years, too, to make certain he was behaving like a good outcast and not doing anything stupid. Eventually, all contact stopped. He couldn’t have said when, which made the back of his brain itch. Aggravating, losing time like that, potentially years’ worth. He shook his head in irritation, unable to explain all of that, especially to someone who had known him so well in his old life and had no understanding of the new.

  “Fifteen years. My gods, how did you—” Arden twitched toward the front of the house, raced to the kitchen window, and opened it. He thrust his hands outside, palms outward. “Dar, you have to go. They’re coming.”

  No need to ask who they were. Darius spun and flung himself toward the back door, bellowing as he built up to a limping run. “Toby! Let’s go! Now!”

  Give the boy credit, he moved despite his what the fuck expression. They hadn’t unpacked anything from the car, so Darius just needed to grab his shoes and jacket, while Toby snagged his backpack. On their way back through the kitchen, Arden had the papers with Toby’s webs and Darius’s account burning in the sink.

  Darius stopped for a quick one-armed hug. “I’m sorry.”

  “Doesn’t help anything now. Go, go.” Arden waved an impatient hand toward the front door. “I’ll cover traces of you best I can. And I haven’t seen you.”

  Toby clutched his backpack to his chest. “Will you be all right?”

  Smart kid. Figured it out.

  “Please. I’ve been handling guildmasters longer than you’ve been alive. Get.”

  Darius hooked an arm through Toby’s and pulled, hustling them out the front door. When things had settled again, he’d check in. For now, the question pummeling at his brain was—how had the guild found them so quickly? He went to one knee and put a palm to the ground while Toby scrambled into the truck. They were maybe a half mile out and coming in fast. In a vehicle, then, so the situation hadn’t reached such a dire point that they were closing a circle on foot.

  He headed up the side streets, zigzagging in a roughly southwest direction before turning them north again. Anything to throw them off. They could track his outline in the web at this range. Every mage left a signature as they moved through the world, and Toby’s, unchanneled, uncontrolled, would shine like an uncapped oil well on fire. But that was at close range….

  “Toby.”

  His student still clutched his backpack in both arms, eyes far too wide, complexion far too pale.

  “Toby!”

  “What? Don’t yell. I’m right here.”

  “Guild.” Darius choked on the words as he took a left turn.

  Toby let out a hiccoughing sound. “Yeah, I know.”

  Darius held up a hand for patience, took a deep breath, and tried again. “In your pack. Anything from them?”

  “Oh. Um.” Toby’s hands shook as he held his pack away from his body. “I don’t think—”

  “Check.” Darius did his best to smooth out his growl as he added, “Please.”

  Pocket by pocket, Toby searched through his sparse belongings. “Pens, no. Tissues, no. Really old pack of gum, no. Oh, there’s a mint from… gods only know. Not guild, though. Sunglasses. Some receipts. Should really clean this thing out. Tablet. Notebook. Oh….”

  Darius risked a glance over, dangerous with only one eye, as Toby pulled a folder out of the largest pocket of his pack. “What is it?”

  Breaths coming short, Toby pulled out the folder and set it in his lap, smoothing the edges fretfully. “It’s the brochures. For the hospice centers. They… they wouldn’t have tracking on that? Would they? Not on something so, you know….”

  Toby trailed off, and Darius pulled over next to a roadside trash can. He held out his hand, waiting for Toby to finish processing this newest betrayal. They were far enough out of reach. Darius could give him the time he needed. With a loud sniff, Toby finally held the folder out, watching with glistening eyes as Darius took it and threw it in the trash.

  He let Toby have his privacy all the way out of town. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. No.” Toby’s voice was a dull, faded-poster version of its usual bright clarity. “How could they do that? The whole hospice thing was so personal. I mean, I kept them just in case. So I’d be able to pick if you’d said no or… I feel….”

  Darius reached across the center console and groped for Toby’s hand, grateful when those slender fingers closed around his without hesitation. “Violated?”

  “Sort of?” Toby’s grip tightened. “Growing up, everyone always told me the guilds were the good guys. The ones who made sure magic wasn’t misused. The people who helped when you needed it. The places where good little magelets learned how to be the best thems they can be.”

  “They try,” Darius said softly, though it rankled to say it. “They do.”

  “But they’re not always right.”

  “No.”

  Toby patted the hand he held in an absent way as he stared out the window until he looked down and flushed. “Oh. Sorry. You need that to drive.” With gentle deliberation he placed Darius’s hand back on the wheel. “I guess you scare them, huh?”

  With a nod, Darius pulled back into traffic, such as it was on 849. “Change scares them.” He turned words over as he drove. “Radical change… probably harmful.”

  “They kept saying that to me, over and over.” Toby sighed and reached in the glove box for his package of Oreos. “Well, not that exactly, but that they were trying to protect me, to keep everybody safe.”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess dead is pretty safe.” The bitter note in Toby’s voice stabbed at Darius.

  “Rules, because they worked.” Darius gripped the wheel tight, determined to get out enough words for once. “Procedures, because they worked. But also walls… against new ideas.” He stopped and swallowed hard as his words started to rasp. “Kovar? Twenty years… to approve.”

  Toby leaned forward far enough to look him in his eye. “That was a lot of wording. Go you. But are you serious? It took twenty years for them to start using the whole Kovar thing they’re so sure’s the only way now? Twenty freaking years?”

  An asshole in a Jeep was riding his bumper, so Darius eased into the shoulder to let him pass before he answered, “Yes. Adrian Kovar had passed.”

  “Huh. Poor guy. Didn’t even get to see his ideas used. Not that it was fun. At all. It was kinda awful, actually. But not for everyone, they said. When it worked, it worked. Maybe it wasn’t so bad then.” Toby twisted in his seat to look behind them. “Are they still coming?”

  Good question. Darius opened his door and put his foot out on the ground. This wasn’t his familiar home patch of earth, but it still spoke to him. Quiet. The rumblings of something powerful approaching had quieted. “No.”

  “Cool. Okay. I guess they’d check Arden’s house first, and dammit, I hope they don’t give him a hard time. Then I guess they’ll be checking out a trash can on whatever street that was back there.” Toby stuffed an Oreo in his mouth, obviously feeling better, and spoke around it. “Can they still follow us, you think?”

  “Possibly. Slower, though. Don’t spray crumbs.”

  “Sorry.”

  West, Darius decided. They would head toward higher ground and less populated country. Maybe meeting Elias would help. It was possible that Toby was like him. As he drove, he tried not to think about how empty his hand felt without Toby’s.

  Chapter Seven

  THE WINDY two-lane back roads had put Toby to sleep, and when he woke, groggy and stupid from a dream about sorting rose petals, it took a moment to register that they were traveling a lot faster and a lot straighter, and it was getting dark.

  “How are we on an interstate?”

  Darius’s snort was definitely an amused one. “PA has them.”

  “I know, but… never mind.” Toby sat up, rubbing at his stiff neck. “Are you okay still? How long have you driven today?”

  “Had a nap.”

  If Darius still had both eyes, Toby had the feeling he would’ve been side-eyed hard enough to knock him into the next county. “I could help out, you know. It’s not like I don’t know how to drive.”

  Without taking his eye off the road Darius reached over and patted his knee, which might have been condescending from anyone else, but his voice only held soft concern when he followed the touch with, “Too dangerous.”

  “Right. Right.” Toby slumped in his seat again. “Like driving with an uncontrolled seizure disorder.”

  Darius gave him that little sideways head tilt that was more agreement than a simple nod. “Food back there. Sandwich.”

  “Not sure I’m really hungry.”

  “Something besides… cookies.”

  Toby let out a dramatic sigh. “All riiight, Dad. Geeze.” He twisted around and dug a ham sandwich out of the cooler behind Darius’s seat. “You want one?”

  After a silence long enough to make Toby feel silly about hanging nearly upside-down over the plastic tubs and packaged food, Darius muttered, “Could eat.”

  “Good. You’re doing all the work, so you should be eating too. Fainting while driving isn’t really recommended.”

  Toby unwrapped a roast beef sandwich for Darius and set it on the console between them before he realized that was a dick move. Darius probably couldn’t see it. Instead, he retrieved a couple of napkins from the glove compartment, the logos indicating ones left over from fast food visits, draped those on Darius’s nearer thigh—because brushing against that hard thigh was awkward enough to make reaching across his lap out of the question—and set the sandwich on top. He most definitely did not look at Darius’s crotch. Nope. ’Cause that would’ve been wrong, even if it was impossible to miss that Darius tucked left.

  Dammit. This is stupid. He’s my mentor, and I’ve imprinted on him like an orphaned baby ducky. Toby crammed his mouth full of sandwich to ensure no ridiculous words made it out. Except it’s not that, is it? He’s grumpy and stubborn and awkward—and I like him. And he’s hot, which really isn’t fair because I still can’t since he’s all kinds of screwed up, probably, even though he’s super smart and probably knows just how he’s screwed up and how badly and it would look bad if I screamed right now, wouldn’t it?

  He took another bite of sandwich instead and concentrated on how good the stupid sandwich was. Darius didn’t buy the cheap ham, and the mustard was the good brown kind with the little seedy bits in there. Sandwich, good. Mooning over teacher, bad. He’d just keep repeating that to himself until he managed a restart for his glitching brain.

  “Penfield,” Darius said after half a sandwich.

  That took a few bites to puzzle out, telling Toby just how overloaded his brain was. “That’s where we’re going? Not that I asked, but good to know. Another magical confluence point?”

  Darius nodded. “Bigger one.”

  “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you know someone there too?”

  “Yes.”

  Toby chewed for a while before he had another thought. “Is this a thing? Knowing people who live near concentrations of magic?”

  “A thing?” Darius rolled his hands around the steering wheel. Either he was trying hard to word or he just hadn’t considered the question before. “Outcasts…. Isolation draws them. To those places.”

  “So is your place near a magical confluence point?”

  “Small one.”

  “Darius?” Toby leaned his head against the dash so he could see Darius’s eye. “How many outcasts do you know?”

  A deep rumble preceded the next answer, which could’ve been a ruminating sound or a growl. “A handful.”

  “All mages the Montchanin Guild tossed out?”

  “They…. Outcasts are those the guilds failed.” Each word clawed its way out separately and carefully, full of an anger so bitter Toby could taste it.

  “I guess, yeah, if you keep tossing the people out who think differently, nothing changes. And I guess if it’s just a handful of people, just sometimes, nobody questions it.” He finished his sandwich and contorted his spine again to get out waters for both of them. “Most people, the guild teaches their kids and they do fine. When they have disputes, the guild’s there. When they need help, there’s someone to go to.”

  A huge sigh lifted Darius’s shoulders. “Serve a purpose. Yes. Necessary. But outdated.”

  “There’s a slogan for you. A modern guild for modern times. Why didn’t you start your own? I mean, it sounds like you probably got pushback way before anything, um, bad happened.”

  “Regional approval.”

  “Well that sucks. I guess there’s politics in everything. And I guess if you tried to have, like, an outsider guild, they’d come and shut it down, right? Which makes sense since you can’t just have guilds popping up just wherever ’cause of exposure issues and keeping guildmasters from running their own little kingdoms. Still.”

  Darius gave him another little head tilt and lapsed into silence as they turned off the interstate and the road grew darker. Considerably darker as they turned off the two-lane state road and onto something that might’ve been called a road by someone who didn’t want to hurt its feelings. In some places, the pavement appeared to simply drop off into darkness on either side, and in others, two cars would’ve met at their own peril as it wound ever upward through larger and larger trees. Toby snuggled down in his seat and tried not to see things lurking beyond the headlights as the drive started to resemble a David Lynch scene.