Rise of the Mage (Resurrecting Magic Book 1)

by Keary Taylor

  My heart beat hard in my chest. Blood raged in my ears.

  I looked up, though my eyes fixed on nothing but the books on the shelves.

  These felt like instructions.

  The handwritten story.

  The unnamed author.

  I stood up straight, looking down the aisle, back toward the study desks.

  My boots clicked on the wooden floor as I nearly ran down the aisle. And just as I stepped out into the study hall, I ran straight into Nathaniel, on his way to the help desk.

  “I think I found another,” I blurted in a harsh whisper. I grabbed his hand, yanking him down the aisle. With bewildered eyes, he looked down at the yellow book in my hands. “It’s written by hand and it tells this terrible story, but at the end…” I looked up at Nathaniel, knowing my expression must be wild and crazed. “There are instructions.”

  I knew I hadn’t really explained everything, but my mind was racing too fast to make a logical presentation. I was searching my room mentally for any coins. Pennies, quarters, nickels. I knew there wouldn’t be much, but I had to have some.

  “You’re sure?” Nathaniel asked. His voice was breathy. He indicated for the book and I handed it over without thought. “It’s…it’s not like the other one. No glamour.”

  “Why would they all be that way?” I challenged. “There could be hundreds of different authors, all of them teaching different things. Not every mage would have thought to hide their writing.”

  Nathaniel’s eyes rose and they searched the aisle behind me, though I knew he wasn’t really looking for anything. I saw wild excitement building in his own eyes. He seemed taller in that moment. His shoulders seemed to broaden.

  “Do you have to be anywhere this afternoon?” he asked, his eyes dropping back to me.

  “No,” I said, a smile starting to grow on my face.

  One mirrored on his. He handed the book back to me. “I’m going to tell Mrs. Walker I’m not feeling well. Meet me at my place in ten minutes?”

  I nodded once, smiling like a lunatic. He turned, heading for the desk. I turned for the exit, carefully slipping the yellow book into my bag.

  The clouds overhead were growing thicker and thicker. The wind started picking up, and I could tell a storm was on its way in. I picked up my pace and was running by the time I got to the fence that sectioned off the ruined north end of the University.

  The first few drops started to fall as I cut into the overgrown, abandoned garden. And by the time I saw the solarium, fat rain started pouring from overhead. I yanked the door open and stepped inside, shaking the rain off me.

  Glancing around, I saw that it looked exactly the same as the other day. It was still cozy and comfortable. It still smelled exactly like him.

  But it was darker today with the clouds overhead. It was kind of beautiful, seeing the rain hitting the sloped glass roof.

  I’d just slipped my bag off and set it on the empty desk, when the door opened again, and a drenched Nathaniel stepped inside.

  Rivers of rain ran down Nathaniel’s face, and his suit jacket was entirely soaked. He peeled it off and carefully hung it on the coat stand beside the door and started unbuttoning his shirt.

  There was a blush on Nathaniel’s cheeks as his eyes met mine. He turned away, stepping up to the dresser beside his bed.

  That didn’t mean I looked away as he peeled his shirt off and rummaged around for a new shirt.

  There were scars laced all over Nathaniel’s back. I didn’t know how they’d gotten there, but my imagination took off, coming up with stories of abusive foster parents and violent boys in group homes, of his biological drug addicted parents hurting him.

  It took everything I had not to cross the space and wrap my arms around him right then.

  Nathaniel pulled a simple long-sleeved gray shirt over his head and then ran his hands through his wet hair.

  It was longer than I realized, and there was a wave to it on the ends. I kind of liked it a little wild and disheveled like this.

  “Let’s take a look at that book, shall we?” Nathaniel said.

  I nodded and pulled it out of my bag. Together, we settled onto the couch. Nathaniel opened it to the title page.

  The Coins of Compulsion, the title read again, fitting and perfect, now that I knew its story’s content.

  “Is there an author listed in the book about telekinesis?” I asked as my eyes drifted down to where there should have been an author credited.

  “Yes,” Nathaniel responded without much thought. He was flipping the page and moving on to the next. “Alexander Wolfram.”

  “That sounds German,” I said, looking over at him.

  “Wolfram certainly is,” Nathaniel said. He was talking, but I saw his eyes reading. “But Alexander typically isn’t. I’m still working on figuring out his ancestry.”

  I smiled. Nathaniel’s dedication to family history and history in general was beautiful.

  He flipped the page again and this time I read along, trying to memorize the words on the page.

  When we got to the instruction pages, Nathaniel read them out loud. He stood as he did so and went to the shelves that lined the wall next to his bed, above his dresser and rack that held his suits. He grabbed a jar there and as he came back to the couch, I saw that it was filled with change.

  When he finished reading the instructions, he looked up at me.

  “What do you think?” I asked. My heart was racing. “Is it real?”

  “Only one way to find out,” he said, his words breathy with excitement.

  He reached into the jar and drew out two coins. He placed one in my hand and wrapped his long fingers around his own.

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting him before he could speak to the coin. “The only way we can test this, right now, is on each other.”

  Nathaniel looked over at me, and I could tell from his expression that he hadn’t even thought about that yet.

  “I…I’m okay with it,” I said. “I just want to make sure we’re both prepared for the consequences of the next twenty-four hours of absolute honesty. This might turn into more than we asked for.”

  Nathaniel looked at me for a long moment. I watched as his eyes fell from mine, down to my lips. A hunger woke up in my lower belly and I found myself leaning forward just a bit.

  “I still really want to kiss you right now, Margot,” he said. He had leaned in slightly closer too, and our lips were only inches apart. “But maybe it’s best we wait. What if things come to light because of this and one or both of us changes our minds about what we want?”

  His words made my stomach feel sick. I felt them sinking down in me with a heavy coldness. I shook my head. “Don’t say that.”

  I could nearly hear him saying the words, but they might, even though he didn’t say them out loud. But he simply gave a nod.

  We both looked down at the coins in our hands and a long moment passed while we both considered if it was worth it or not.

  I closed my hands around the coin and brought my fist up to my lips.

  “I always wanted to be a ballerina when I was a little girl,” I said the first simple truth that came to my mind.

  Nathaniel looked over at me, a surprised smile pulling at his lips. I shrugged in admission.

  He held his own fist up to his lips and whispered to his coin. “I always wanted to be a samurai when I was a boy, so I could protect myself.”

  Nathaniel’s confession broke my heart, especially considering the scars I’d just seen on his body.

  I opened my fist and the penny lay on my hand, looking absolutely normal and ordinary. Nathaniel lay his open, and it looked just the same.

  “Who wants to go first?” I asked, and even though I said I was okay with it, this did make me uncomfortable. People lie and keep secrets to protect themselves. I’d never thought of myself as a liar, but people twist things all the time to help themselves out.

  What wasn’t I being honest about, and hadn’t even given a secon
d thought to?

  “I will,” Nathaniel said. He lay his own supposedly enchanted coin on the coffee table, next to the jar of change. He set the book down next to them.

  He held his hand out and locked his eyes with mine.

  He wasn’t afraid.

  He wasn’t hesitating.

  But I did. I held the coin in my hand for three long seconds, hoping and praying that this wasn’t a terrible, horrible idea.

  Holding my breath, I laid the coin in the middle of Nathaniel’s palm and pulled my hands back to my chest. They shook as I clutched them together.

  “Ask me something and I will try to give an answer that is a lie,” he said.

  I wished I had his confidence.

  I racked my brain, trying to come up with something simple. Something that couldn’t possibly ruin anything.

  “Do you like broccoli?” I came up with, and instantly felt embarrassed about it.

  “No,” he said the words without hesitating.

  I blinked at him for two seconds, racking my brain, trying to come up with a way to definitively test this.

  “Is that the truth or is that the lie?” I asked.

  Nathaniel blinked and looked down at the penny in his hand. “That’s the truth. I really do hate broccoli. I tried to tell you I like it, but the words changed to the truth the second they hit my tongue.”

  His eyes flicked up to mine, and they filled with excitement. “Ask me something else. Something I could easily lie about.”

  I sat back on the couch, folding my legs up under me. I faced directly at him and he shifted toward me. Our knees touched.

  “Is your name Nathaniel Nightingale?” I asked, knowing it should be the easiest thing in the world to answer no.

  “Yes,” he responded. And looking at his mouth as he formed the word, I could see that it came out strange. Like he really was trying to say something else.

  “You are not a student at Alderidge University,” I said, trying a different method.

  “Yes, I am,” he corrected. His brows crept up a fraction of an inch.

  “You hate spending time at the library,” I said, pushing it a little further.

  “No, I do not,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Who gave you those scars?” I asked. And as soon as they left my mouth, I wished I could shove them back in and swallow them out of existence. They’d left my mouth without my permission, a true test to see if he could lie to me or not, or simply not answer the question. Because I knew, I knew, he wouldn’t want to answer the question.

  “My parents,” he said. Instantly, Nathaniel’s expression sobered. I saw distance creep into his eyes. He leaned back a little. One of his hands rose up to cover the place where I’d seen a scar on his lower stomach. “One of them threw something at me. I don’t remember what. They should have taken me to get stitches, but they didn’t.”

  His hand moved to another scar that laced across his back. “A boy from the group home, when I was fourteen. I was new. I thought no one had claimed a bed, so I took it. I was wrong. He had a knife.”

  A hand came to my mouth to cover it to hold in the cry that ripped through me. I shook my head. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes and welled. “I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I…I don’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t mean…”

  Nathaniel sat forward and pulled my hand away. His eyes were still dark, and he looked down in his lap. But I felt calm radiating off him. “It’s okay, Margot. I’ve never had someone who cared enough to talk about these things. But I don’t mind talking about them with you.”

  And I knew it, because I knew the sincerity in Nathaniel’s voice, and I knew because I had compelled him to tell the truth, that he meant what he said.

  I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around him, hugging him tightly to me. “I’m so sorry, Nathaniel,” I said as he wrapped his arms around me too, “that you had to go through all of that. It’s not fair. You were just a kid. You should have been able to feel safe and loved.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he ran a hand down the back of my head, over my hair.

  “I want everything to be different for you now,” I confessed, even though I hadn’t been compelled. “I want you to know that you are wanted and appreciated and admired. And I think you’re incredible, for walking through all that fire and coming out the way you did.”

  We both sat back, and Nathaniel looked into both of my eyes. He held onto one of my hands and brought it up to his cheek, laying my palm flat against the side of his jaw.

  “You’re the most incredible creature I’ve ever met, Margot Bell,” he said as his eyes slid closed for a moment. “I feel as if you’ve become a drug I’ve formed an addiction to. I want you around, all the time. Every morning and every afternoon. The nights are incredibly long.” His eyes slid back open. I saw then there was something more he wanted to say, but he held them back.

  And I wondered how it scientifically worked. If I asked him directly what he was just going to say, he would have to tell me? But because I hadn’t directly asked, could he withhold the information?

  I didn’t push it further.

  “I’m not sure how this works,” I said. “If you have to give that coin to me, or if I pick it up, will it just work?”

  So, I decided to test it. I picked it up off of the coffee table and held it in my hand.

  “Ask me something,” I said.

  Nathaniel squared off with me. “Is your name Margot Bell?”

  “No,” I blurted instantly.

  Nathaniel’s eyebrows rose half an inch instantly. “Interesting,” he said.

  I handed the penny back to Nathaniel. “So, you have to directly give it to me, then?”

  “I suppose,” he said. Easy and simple, he handed me the coin. I wrapped my fingers around it.

  “Is your name Margot Bell?” he asked me once more.

  “Yes,” I said. And as I said them, something on my tongue felt bitter and sharp. I was going to say no, but the word literally transformed on my tongue, coming out as the truth.

  “Is your father Professor Arthur Bell?” he asked, a smile forming.

  “Yes,” I answered, even though it wasn’t the word I was sending down to my lips.

  “And you’re absolutely bored with your school load this semester, because you could have passed all of these classes as a high school sophomore,” he said as a statement.

  “Yes,” I said, sounding ridiculously arrogant. I brought my hands up and covered my mouth as my eyes grew wide.

  Nathaniel laughed, shaking his head. With wonder, he grabbed the yellow book from the coffee table once more. “It works,” he said, smiling a full smile. “It’s going to be agony for me, not knowing who the author of this was.”

  “There has to be others here,” I said, shifting forward. “If we’ve found two books in the span of a few months, there has to be more. And dozens, maybe hundreds of others in this region. We aren’t even in an area where there were witch trials. What might we find in Salem? Or the Boston Public Library?”

  “It might take us our entire lives to find them, though,” Nathaniel said, coming to the same realization I had. “At least with the glamour it was a quick way to tell. If they aren’t all that way…” he shook his head. “We could spend our entire lifetime reading every single book in the world trying to divulge if the book contains magical instructions, and we’d only ever get through a tiny fraction.”

  I reached out and took Nathaniel’s hand. “We’ve already found two books. And it’s a good thing you and I both like to read.”

  He consented a smile, his eyes drifting back to his bookcases filled with all the books he’d read.

  A thought rang in the back of my mind, and that bitter taste in my mouth that I just realized tasted like pennies, tried to immediately push the words out. “I…” I stuttered, trying to find the best way to say them. “Nathaniel, I’m thinking about telling my dad. About all of this. What you and I can do. The books.”

&
nbsp; His brows furrowed as he looked up at me.

  “There’s a chance he might be one of us,” I said. “I know you think it came through my mother, and you’re probably right. But there’s a chance. And I feel like he deserves to know. Because after everything we’ve learned, which is nearly nothing, I have to think my mother’s disappearance was because of magic.”

  The air grew heavy between us as it came to life. The thought had been there, in the back of my mind for a while. The circumstances leading up to my mother’s disappearance had always been impossible. It made no sense. There had been no clues.

  So, maybe magic had something to do with it.

  “If she disappeared because of magic, he has a right to know. A right to some tiny shred of peace,” I said. I started to feel desperate, hoping and praying Nathaniel would understand. I reached out and grabbed one of his hands, holding it in my lap. “And he might be able to help us. My father has read thousands of books in his life. What if he read a book, or books, and they were more than just that? He might know something without realizing it.”

  Nathaniel didn’t react right away. He held my eyes and I could feel the thoughts turning over and over in his head. He considered all the options, all the outcomes.

  “We need to be careful, Margot,” he finally said. “I think we were hunted to extinction because of what we can do. Maybe they weren’t careful enough before. I couldn’t stand it if what we are puts you in danger.”

  His words sank down into my heart. “My father is the same way,” I said. “He would never do anything to put me in danger. Or you. It’s a little ridiculous how much he likes you.”

  He chucked once again, and I could tell from his eyes that he knew it was true.

  “Alright,” he said. “We’ll bring your father into the loop and hope and pray he can help us.”

  I smiled, hugging Nathaniel in gratitude, even though I knew I didn’t need his permission. If I wanted to tell my father, I would tell him. Only about me. But still. I was grateful to have Nathaniel’s support.