“So it won’t be written here until I figure out how to use my magic?” Leon said. “That’s bullshit. Unless...Maybe, if that guy used fire, so can-”
“Doesn’t work like that,” Daniel said, allowing himself a low laugh. “That’d...That’d be too easy. I’ve browsed a little. They’re...They’re all different.” Every book. Every mage. There were patterns—he wouldn’t be shocked to learn that there were other fire mages among the pipe’s previous owners—but those patterns were nowhere near strong enough to make a guess off. “We’ll just have to figure it out on our own,” he whispered.
Leon’s fingers became iron bars, tugging him back. “Sit down, will you?” he said. “You look like you’re going to fall over.”
“I’m fine,” Daniel mumbled, brushing him off. “I’ll be okay. We need to…” He licked his lips, forcing some moisture back into his mouth. “We need to keep moving.”
“How, though?” Leon said. His voice was tiny and thin, worn-through. “I’m...I’m a mage. Okay. But...What does that mean? What do I do now?”
What do I do now? The question hung in Daniel’s ears. That was the question, wasn’t it?
What now?
Daniel pulled away from Leon, his limbs moving on their own. He drifted down the aisle, his eyes settling on a familiar desk at the end of the hidden Library.
“U-Uh,” Leon said behind him. “Daniel?”
He didn’t stop. They couldn’t stop. They had to keep moving, or they’d both be pulled under the waves—all of them, really. James, and Maya, and even Olivia. They couldn’t afford to throw in the towel here.
Finally, his steps slowed. The wooden desktop pressed into Daniel’s thighs. He looked down.
A book stared up at him, right where he’d left it. The Basics was emblazoned across its front.
It hadn’t seemed right to leave it lying around in the Library, where anyone could find it. No, he’d returned it to its underground home—and here it was, ready and waiting.
Thanks, Alex. He smiled. I’ll do my best to keep everything on the rails.
The pressure inside the room changed, just a little, as though the Library had settled around them. As though she’d sighed. Daniel chuckled.
Leon crept up behind him. “Um. What’s-”
“You’re going to take this,” Daniel said, turning, and he pressed the book to Leon’s chest until his friend took it. “You’re going to follow me, and you’re going to read it. I’m going to get to work on my medical degree.”
Leon’s fingers clutched at the book, squeezing it like a life vest. “And then?”
Daniel turned away, starting the long trudge back toward the staircase. A ghost of a smile hung on his lips.
“And then we’re going to fix this.”
- Chapter Twenty -
“And you’re sure about this.”
Daniel leaned back heavily. The bench beneath him was comfortably padded, enough so for him to stretch his aching legs out. Alex wasn’t totally sadistic. “I’m sure,” he said, and lifted his arm. “Give it here.”
Getting back up the stairs, they’d soon discovered, was an utterly futile goal. He’d made it all of three steps before his leg looked at the next stair and said hell, no. His choices were to stay in the basement or try climb and wind up falling back down.
So here he was, stuck sitting on his ass, which irked him to no end.
Leon hesitated another moment, glancing down to the stack of books in his arms. Medical texts, all of them—ones he’d run back up to fetch. And now, the work began. “Only...We could just take you to a hospital,” he whispered. “What if we screw it up? What if it gets infected? I- I like you, y’know.”
Daniel smiled faintly. “Yeah. I like you too. But-”
“So I’d feel kind of like a dick if your leg started rotting and fell off. I’d kind of like to keep liking you.”
“Leon, it’s fine,” Daniel said. “I’ve been teaching myself how to do things for centuries.”
Leon’s shoulders slumped—but Daniel saw his eyes roll. “You always have to pull out the age card, don’t you?”
“True is true.”
With a final sigh and a grumble, Leon dropped the stack of books alongside the bench. “Fine. There they are. Are you happy now?”
Daniel snorted, reaching for the one on top. “Sure. Now...you should get reading, too.”
He hadn’t missed the book Leon had shoved into his pocket, and he didn’t mistake the look that passed across his face. “I guess,” Leon mumbled. “I just...yeah.”
More than anything, Daniel wished there was a way to take it all back. To take the book away, and the magical gift he’d unwittingly shoved on him, and to just...walk away from it. To leave Leon in peace.
He couldn’t, though. And so he forced himself to open the first book—a field guide on treating open wounds—and look away from Leon. He’d find a way to make it up to him, but...later.
The chapters stretched out before him. Daniel buried himself in the words, taking in the sutures and splints and the proper way to pack a wound. Within moments, he might as well have been in a different world.
Even if his eyes were occupied, dragging most of his thoughts along for the ride, a constant storm of deeper worries whirled in the black of his mind. Leon was right—he did need a hospital. Even if he could learn all of this, it wasn’t like he’d be in a place to act on it. The moment he opened his eyes, he’d be right back in Maya’s car, bouncing down the road at eighty miles an hour.
Going to a hospital would require having a story to tell them and the time to heal, neither of which he had. He couldn’t afford to lay down somewhere quiet and open for Indira and her goons to find him again. The hospital was out.
The idea of stitches, he dismissed just as quickly. There were too many problems for that to be viable. They’d be difficult to administer to himself, and there’d be too much risk of getting it wrong. He had no way to clean the wound, and even
