Magic's Price

He couldn't avoid it, so he'd learned to cope with it. He could distance himself from it when it was someone he didn't know, and wouldn't have to spend any amount of time with.

I can't leave it like this, he decided, feeling his guts knot a little. I'II be working with him constantly, seeing him in Court - I can't allow him to go on thinking I'm some kind of godling.

“So,” he said lightly, as he put the boy's hand down. “According to my nephew, you're the best thing to come out of Bardic in an age.” He raised an eyebrow and half-smiled. “Though if you don't show a little more sense, you'll play the ends of your fingers off next time, and then where will you be?”

“I suppose I could-uh-learn to play with my feet,” the boy ventured. “Then I could always get a job at Fair-time, in the freak tent.”

Van laughed, as much from surprise that the boy had managed a retort as at the joke. There's more to this lad than I thought! “Well, that's true enough - but I'd rather you just learned to pace yourself a bit better. I'll wager you haven't eaten yet, either.”

Stefen looked guilty enough to convince him even before the boy shook his head.

Vanyel snorted. “Gods. Why is it that anyone under twenty seems convinced he can live on air and sunshine?”

“Maybe because anyone under fifteen is convinced he has to eat his weight twice a day,” Stefen retorted, his eyes starting to sparkle. “So once you hit sixteen you realize you've stored up enough to live on your fat until you're thirty.”

“Fat?” Vanyel widened his eyes in mock dismay. “You'd fade away to nothing overnight! Well, rank does have its privileges, and I'm going to invoke one of mine -” He reached for the bell-rope to summon a servant, then stopped with his hand around it. “- unless you'd rather go back to Bardic and get a meal there?”

“Me?” Stefen shook his head the awe-struck look back on his face. “Havens, no! But why would you want to - I mean, I'm just -”

“You're the first person I've had to talk music with in an age,” Vanyel replied, stretching the truth just a trifle. “And for one thing, I'd like to know where you got that odd fingering for the D-minor diminished chord -”

He rang the bell as he spoke; a page answered so quickly Vanyel was startled. He sent the child off after provisions as Stefen attempted to demonstrate with his bandaged hand.

When the page returned a few moments later, laden with food and wine, they were deep in a discussion of whether or not the tradition was true that the “Tandere Cycle” had been created by the same Bard as “Blood Bound.” Once into the heated argument (Vanyel arguing “for,” based on some eccentricities in the lyrics, Stefen just as vehemently “against” because of the patterns of the melodies) the boy settled and began treating him as he would anyone else. Vanyel relaxed, and began to enjoy himself. Stefen was certainly good company - in some ways, very much older than his chronological age, and certainly able to hold his own in an argument. This was the first chance he'd had in weeks to simply sit back and talk with someone about something that had nothing whatsoever to do with politics, Randale, or a crisis.

The page had brought two bottles of wine with the meal; it was only when Vanyel was pouring the last of the second bottle into both their glasses that he realized how late it was -

And how strong that wine had been.

He blinked, and the candle flames blurred and wavered, and not from a draft.

I think maybe I've had a little too much - Vanyel forced his eyes to focus, and licked his lips. Stefen had curled up in the corner of the overstuffed couch with his legs tucked under him; his eyes had the soft, slightly dazed stare of someone who is drunk, knows it, and is trying very hard to keep everyone else from noticing.

Vanyel glanced up at the time-candle; well past midnight, and both of them probably too drunk to stand, much less walk.

Certainly Stefen couldn't. Even as Vanyel looked back at him, he set his goblet down with exaggerated care - on the thin air beside the table.

In no way is he going to be able to walk back to his room, Vanyel thought, nobly choking down the laugh that threatened to burst from his throat, and fumbling for a handful of napkins, as Stefen swore in language that was quite enough to take the varnish off the table, and snatched at the fallen goblet. Even if he got as far as the Collegium building, he'd probably fall down the stairs and break his neck.

He mopped at the wine before it could soak into the wood of the floor, Stefen on his knees beside him, alternately swearing and begging Van's pardon.