“I have. It’s a softer, silvery kind of metal.” And now she was actively leaning against my side, using me as a prop so she could turn, taking a quick look for the trolley car. The contact was so naturally done that if I wasn’t a hot blooded male I wouldn’t think a thing of it. Well, that and the fact that I’d barely known her a few days and contact like this between new friends was strange. I firmly informed my heart that it couldn’t get excited about this and to settle down. It didn’t give two figs about what I said and insisted on jumping all over the place.
“Exactly right.” She settled back and gave me a smile, tucking her hair behind an ear, thigh and shoulder still solidly against mine, making my heart zing again. “Well, the only thing you can really do with aluminum is to burn it down into what they call a salt cake. That condenses it, which helps, but the problem is you absolutely cannot let salt cake get wet. At all. If it does, there’s a chemical reaction that makes it become insanely hot. Even standing a mile away, you can feel the heat, it’s that intense.”
I tried to imagine that kind of heat and felt a chill race up my spine. “Wouldn’t that mean that if you touched it….”
“You wouldn’t be able to even touch it,” she denied factually. “It would kill you before you could reach it.”
“I admit it. You’ve now got me a little worried.” In more than one sense. I felt the need to ask someone the protocol here, as I really didn’t have a clue. Not one. Should I mention the fact that she basically sat in my lap? Not mention it? I absolutely wanted to avoid awkwardness in every sense, and if I said something, I just knew it was going to become awkward. All the awkwardness. ALL. Not that I felt awkward right now, more like I had trouble keeping my breathing even…okay, fine, so I felt a little awkward. Normally when a woman’s this close to me I have tacit permission to touch her and cuddle back, but clearly I couldn’t do anything normal in this situation.
Part of me really didn’t want to say a word, but right now it was just the two of us, it didn’t matter, but what if she started doing this later? In front of witnesses? Witnesses that knew her? “Tell me that this is the dry version we’re dealing with.”
She laughed, swinging her legs back and forth, and then hooked one of her ankles around mine. “It is. They don’t burn aluminum down most of the time, these days. Only sometimes, when they’re seriously out of room and I can’t immediately come. But most of the time, I come in once a week and clean all of the aluminum out for them. Takes me several hours.”
Okay, seriously, I had to do something about this. If Rena started playing footsie with me in front of people then there was going to be quite the reaction. I just had to be careful about it because I’d seen her sad face and it was pretty much the worst thing this side of a box of kittens abandoned in a thunderstorm. I did not want the sad face.
On second thought, I think I’d ignore this for now and try to find a way to talk to her about it later. I’m a coward, I won’t lie.
“But this is what you meant earlier, by people realizing that your magic is suited for this sort of thing?”
“That’s what I meant,” she agreed amiably, going back to swinging her leg back and forth, but her ankle was still hooked around mine, so that meant my leg swung along with hers. She was making this whole ‘ignore it for now’ thing very, very hard. I had to clench my hand into a fist to keep myself from reacting. This firm contact with her made the bond hum with pleasure, and while that felt marvelous, it also encouraged me to get closer still and I did NOT need that sort of encouragement, thankyouverymuch. Stupid bond. “No one else can do it, not like I can, so I can set my price. The city pays whatever I want, as long as it’s not outrageous, because the alternative is too dangerous in the long run. You have to pack the salt cakes in clay for a loooong time until it deteriorates on its own. And salt cakes also give off a little heat, so if you have a lot in the same area, it gets too hot for comfort.”
“You’ve got the perfect job set up for you, in other words.”
“A-yup. It’s helped pay for most of my schooling, and a few other things.” Her smile became wry and I had a sense that she meant covering unexpected expenses when she screwed up. Like me. “So, it’s not a dangerous job, and I probably won’t need you to really protect me today, but it’ll be good for you to see how I work. Might get boring for you eventually, though.”
I shrugged this off. “Such is the nature of guard duty. It’s either deadly dull or a little too exciting. There’s usually no middle ground.”
She nodded, agreeing with me.
If I continued to not do anything I might just crawl out of my skin. So I stretched out an arm behind her to rest on the back of the bench, curled around her shoulders without quite touching. No surprise to me, she leaned in, making the contact firm. It eased the tension and ratcheted it up at the same time.
I wondered, suddenly: what effect did the bond have on the mage? This touchy-feeliness had to be part of it because she truly didn’t look at all aware that she had been basically plastered to my side for the past ten minutes. Not a bit of a blush to be found on her skin, no hesitation in her movements, nothing. I knew the bond liked us close, so touching made it happy by default and that made us more comfortable in return, but…just how much of the bond was at play here? Already?
I was going to have to seriously dig into this later.
The trolley car arrived and Rena blithely hopped on. I grabbed one of the brass poles and swung up and into a wooden bench next to her. It felt rather strange to be this high off the ground. A few more passengers got on, the driver checked to see if we were all settled, and then the car started speeding along the street. Rena settled in next to me but this time not quite as close, and I was glad because I really didn’t know how to react to her just yet on that level. Our knees not quite brushing was an acceptable distance, I could work with that. I watched the buildings and people whizz by with mounting unease. Was it really wise to go quite this fast through crowded streets?
If Rena noticed my nervousness, she was kind enough to not say anything about it. We got off at the last possible stop, right at the edge of the city limits. I hopped off the car with mixed feelings. Now that I had arrived with no damage done, I felt a little more settled with the idea, but I had a feeling I’d have to ride another dozen times before I got truly comfortable. “From here, we have to walk a little further,” she informed me. “They tried to put the dump out as far as possible, ’cause of the smell.”
“Makes sense,” I agreed. I could already smell it.
We walked along, me keeping pace with her, as she didn’t walk as fast as I naturally did. It struck me that I would likely be working with her for at least a few weeks and yet didn’t really know much about her. “Rena, tell me a little about yourself. You have family?”
She seemed a little taken off guard that I had asked a personal question. “I do—my parents, three brothers, and more aunts and uncles and cousins than I can shake a stick at. Grandfather is the only one still with us. We lost Grandmother last year.”
Having experienced that loss, I was immediately sympathetic. “My heart aches for your loss.”
Softening into a smile, Rena gave me a quiet, “Thank you. It was she that introduced me to this job, actually, as she’s originally from this city.”
That last sentence didn’t quite make sense to me. “This isn’t your hometown?”
“Eh? Oh, no, no, it sure isn’t. I moved here several years ago, when my magic started up. Tarkington is an acquaintance of my grandmother’s and even though he wasn’t sure how to train me with my weird magic, he agreed to take me on. I’m originally from Elwood.”
I, of course, had no idea where that was, but nodded. “You just know the place so well, I assumed you a native.”
“Not at all, I came here when I was eight. I’ve just been here half my life.” She shrugged, silently stating that this knowledge was natural.
Now that we were on the topic, I felt like I could ask, “Isn�
�t it unusual for a mage to only have one apprentice? Every mage I ever met had two or three.”
“I’m too complicated,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “It takes all of his energy to keep track of me. But after I graduate, he likely will find two or three apprentices.”
Considering her very strange magic and failing health? I suppose it made sense that Tarkington didn’t choose to have more than one.
“Tell me a little about you,” Rena prompted. “Your parents called you by a different name.”
“One you can’t pronounce,” I said knowingly. She made a face, which had me grinning. “Hach Xian Liang is my birth name. When I first started working, my sister Ai had advised taking on a name that others could easily pronounce. She’d learned the hard way that people outside of our country struggle with our names. I chose one that I liked and have gone by it ever since.”
“Bannen,” she said knowingly. “Why that one?”
“I liked what it meant and it sounded strong.” Of course, it was a warrior’s name, that could be why. “I never understood why my parents named me Xian Liang anyway. It means ‘bright hope’ which doesn’t suit me at all.”
“Tell me about it,” Rena sighed in perfect agreement. “Mine doesn’t either suit me either. Siblings?”
“Five sisters and a brother. I’m the youngest out of all of them.”
“Six siblings?” Rena said, a little poleaxed. “Wow and I thought my family was large. I’m one of five. With that many children, wouldn’t your parents be more than willing for someone to leave home, leave them one less person to keep track of?”
“You’d think, right?” I agreed.
Rena waved a hand. “Well, we have arrived.”
I looked at the two stone pillars flanking the road, a metal gate standing open to let people in. There actually was a guard there, a clipboard in hand, taking names as people went in and out. My eyes lingered over the sturdy stone walls surrounding the place and scratched at the back of my head in confusion. Was this a fortress or a garbage dump? “Why the security?”
“Mostly for safety reasons, as there’s some dangerous chemicals they dispose of here,” she answered before turning to the guard. “Hello, Roger.”
“Hello, Miss Renata. Here for the usual today?” Roger was a plump fellow with shocking red hair and dark freckles along his cheeks and nose. He radiated good humor. “And who’s this?”
“I am, and this is Bannen,” she introduced. “He’s my friend, just coming along for the show.”
I suppose I was, in a sense.
Roger the Guard noted us both down and waved us through. “Go on.”
I kept sneaking peeks at Bannen, not sure how to take this whole thing. He’d surprised me by offering to be my ‘familiar’ until I could actually summon one properly. I knew that he wasn’t really interested in going home, but who attached themselves to a mage that isn’t registered? I wasn’t done with my schooling yet and I still had the Tests to pass. Who took being summoned into a different continent with this blasé attitude?
He hadn’t asked me any questions about my medicine packets or the cream Emily had given me either, but I had a feeling he more or less knew something was wrong with me. Master had probably told him a little. I tried very hard not to resent that because I didn’t like being the poor little ill girl with weird magic. I didn’t want Bannen to see me that way too. He didn’t treat me like an invalid though, which was the only reason why I didn’t press him or feel resentful. He treated me like his peer and a capable mage. It was the careful way his eyes followed me that gave him away.
Even here, as I worked, he didn’t really appear bored. He looked around in every direction, mild interest on his face, or sometimes peered at me intently as I worked my magic. He also seemed to realize when it was safe to ask questions and when I needed to focus, as he wasn’t intent on chattering.
I stood on a small block wall that segregated the aluminum from the other ores being melted down. Shields barricaded each section to keep heat and any dangerous gases contained in it, but as they weren’t designed to keep people out, we could pass through easily. Bannen apparently found this entertaining, as he wove in and out of the shield, sometimes moving just his torso, like a doll with a broken spine. I made sure to stay on this side of it to avoid the heat.
Proving that he actually was paying attention to his surroundings and not just messing around, Bannen asked, “I thought you said that they normally don’t burn the aluminum?”
“Unless they’re running out of space,” I reminded him. “I haven’t been here in over a week because I was preparing for…er…”
“Familiar summoning spell?” he guessed.
I gave him points for not laughing or rubbing that in. “Right. That. So they obviously had to condense a little. It’s fine, it doesn’t make the job harder. I just have to do it before any storms hit, so I’ll likely be at it for a few hours.”
“How much can you do at a time?”
“What I can see,” I answered, indicating the front row several feet from me. “I have to be able to see it to unravel the base…er…” I fumbled, not sure how to put this in layman’s terms. Even with other mages I struggled to explain what I could do.
He held up a hand to stop me. “As far as you can see is all I need.”
Huffing out a breath, I gave him a nod of thanks. “I estimate six hours?”
“Go ahead,” he encouraged me. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. My usual workday is twenty-four hours.”
He might have been exaggerating a little—surely he rested while on the job at some point—but I took his meaning and tried to focus more on the job at hand.
I’m sure when other people look at a block of ore, all they see is a shiny surface of solid metal. I no longer see ‘just’ anything. To me, the world is overlaid with a schematic of how it is formed. I see its physical structure, its chemical bases, the temperatures and magical energy inherent in its form. I see it all, layered in a neat diagram that fills every inch of every cell. When I was a child, it had been terribly confusing, seeing all of these patterns overlaying on top of things, and I had often just shut my eyes to give my mind some relief from them. Tarkington had been very patient with me, understanding what it was that I saw, even though he couldn’t see the same without the aid of spells. As I grew, I became accustomed to them, and now I filtered them out unless I felt the need to focus on something.
Now was such a time that I needed to see those schematics. I focused solely on the salt cakes, unraveling the base so that they disintegrated into a fine dust. After all of the blocks here had been turned into dust, another mage-in-training would come through and wash the area clear, readying it for the next disposal of aluminum. But that wasn’t my job. My job was just to turn it all into a fine dust that wouldn’t react to anything.
Such was my concentration that I didn’t hear anyone approach, just felt a bump from behind as someone brushed hard against me. My balance tipped forward, sending me head first into the aluminum area. I didn’t go more than five inches when Bannen’s arm shot out and caught me around the shoulders. Instinctively, my hands wrapped around his arm, trying to regain my balance.
“Hey,” Bannen snapped, bristling. “You could have knocked her over. Apologize.”
I glanced up and groaned. Of course it was Derek. As a promising young mage-in-training, Derek had praise coming toward him from every direction. Derek had been blessed with good looks as well, the tall, well-built frame and even features girls adored. The combination had swelled his head to such epic proportions that it was a miracle he could fit through doorways. But that meant he thought he was ‘above’ certain tasks—like working at the dump. It was routine for every mage-in-training to be here at least once a month as part of their training (and keeping the city’s costs down). He hated every second of it and took it out on anyone that he could.
So it wasn’t like he hated me personally. He just took it out on me.
“
So what if I had?” Derek sneered, head tilting back, making his dark hair fall in a rakish way over his forehead that he likely thought looked charming.
A strange expression crossed Bannen’s face. “I don’t think you appreciate how dangerous this is. Let me explain.”
Honestly, I didn’t really see him move. One second he was standing beside me, the next, he had spun about so that he was nearly nose to nose with Derek. He grabbed both of Derek’s wrists, put a foot behind one of his legs, and pushed him out so that Derek was leaning backwards over the wall, through the shield, literally the only thing keeping him from falling Bannen’s grip on his wrists.
Derek screamed like a little girl. Or perhaps it was more like a dying mouse. I was impressed his voice could go that high. He tried flailing a little, then quickly stopped, realizing that doing so would likely send him straight into the burning aluminum. The air was so hot that it instantly made sweat dew on his skin.
“How is it?” Bannen asked him kindly, the very picture of patience. “Do you understand my explanation?”
“Don’t let go of me,” Derek pleaded. “Bring me back up.”
“I would love to, but you have to assure me you understand the danger. It won’t be safe to bring you back up oth—”
“I understand, I understand! Just bring me up!”
Smoothly, Bannen brought him in so that he was nose to nose again with Derek. He still had hold of his wrists, and I could tell the grip was tight enough to leave bruises. “This won’t happen again, right? Because you now understand. Of course you won’t let a girl face such danger.”
Derek wanted to snarl and rage right there. He didn’t dare. Bannen was still in the perfect position to send him right back in. “Let go of me.”
Bannen released him with flair, throwing his hands out, fingers splayed, to either side. Derek glared at him a full second before quickly side stepping him and stomping off. It was only after he was gone that I remembered to breathe. “Thanks, Bannen.”
The Human Familiar (Familiar and the Mage Book 1) Page 7
