The Seventh Stone: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  “Sorry I didn’t call for a while,” he told Stone. “Like I said, I’ve been taking care of a few boring things, and I needed a little break.”

  “That’s fine—this is a marathon, not a sprint. If you ever think I’m pushing you too hard, just say so and we’ll back off.”

  “Thanks. That’s good to know. But I really do want to get better at this, so I’m ready to work.” He ducked to pet Raider, who twined around his legs as soon as he entered the house.

  “Excellent. That’s what I like to hear. Come on—let’s go up to the workroom.” He led the way to the staircase and paused at the bottom. “How did your lunch with Verity go?”

  “Didn’t she tell you? I’d have thought you two would compare notes afterward.”

  Stone turned, frowning slightly. “That wasn’t what it was about. I wanted you to get to know her. All she told me was you had a good talk. And that she thinks I shouldn’t push you too hard—that we’re still getting to know each other, and it’s not fair to expect too much of you too early.”

  Ian pondered that, but didn’t answer.

  “I think she’s right,” Stone continued. “You’ve got to let me know if I’m doing that—I forget sometimes that this is all so new to you. That you’ve barely even learned the magical world exists, and I’m already trying to give you a crash course. As anyone who knows me—the real me—will tell you, I’m a bit passionate about magic, and I tend to forget that others might not share that passion. I hope it isn’t why you’ve been avoiding me, but if it is, I completely understand.”

  “It’s not.” Ian spoke slowly, thinking as he did, still wondering what else Verity had told his father that he wasn’t admitting to. “The speed is fine. Yeah, this is all new to me, but it’s exciting. Seriously, who wouldn’t be excited to find out they’ve got magic? But I promise I’ll say something if things start going too fast.”

  “Brilliant. Now, let’s get started. You said you’ve been practicing?”

  “Yeah. Let me show you.”

  Ian watched Stone’s reaction as he demonstrated a few minor skills, taking care to make mistakes, ‘lose’ his focus, and generally appear that he hadn’t made much more progress since their last lesson while acting proud of his accomplishments. It wasn’t hard to see his father was dismayed by his lack of skill, but to his credit the man did an excellent job of hiding it. Most people—even mages—would have missed it.

  “Well,” Stone said after Ian had spent five minutes carefully levitating a paperback book around the room with several starts, hiccups, and crashes to the floor, “that’s—excellent progress indeed. I think you’ve got the hang of the levitation spell now, and you just need more practice to get more confident. Does your head hurt?”

  “A little,” Ian lied, suppressing a smirk as he thought about how easy it would be for him to pick up his father and levitate him around the room.

  “That’s normal when you’re just starting out. It’s one of the side effects of white magic, since you’re pulling the energy from inside yourself. If it gets too bad it’s a good indicator you’re pushing yourself too hard, but a dull headache is expected at first.”

  Ian nodded. That was one of the things he had to be the most careful about: maintaining his disguise as a white mage, and not doing anything that would give him away. He’d topped up his power at the clubs the last couple of nights, taking a little from each of the guys he’d danced with, and more from the one he’d hooked up with. He’d definitely be glad when this whole thing was over and he could stop pretending. Acting was fun, but this was draining.

  Stone gestured, and several books flew off a nearby shelf and settled on the table. “I know I said I wasn’t going to weigh you down with a lot of reading, so I won’t make these a mandatory assignment. But if you find yourself with some free time, take a look at them.” He indicated a large, leatherbound tome. “Especially that one. A bit of theory might help you get your mind around what I’m trying to show you here. Were you good at maths in school?”

  “Yeah.” School seemed so long ago—he hadn’t been back since he ran away from home three years ago, so he’d never graduated high school. It was something he’d always regretted. “I was acing calculus and trigonometry before I—” He trailed off, looking down, and this time it wasn’t an act.

  “Ian…” Footsteps, and then Stone was next to him, gripping his shoulder. His voice was soft. “Listen to me. I know you’ve had a rough time of it, but I want to help you. Not just with magic, either. Once you’ve decided if you want to stay here—regardless of whether you want to study magic with me—whatever you want to do, I’ll help. If you want to get your GED and apply to universities, I’ll do what I can to make that happen. Hell, I’ll do that even if you don’t decide to stay here. I’ve got a lot of years to make up for, and I want to get started.”

  Ian took a deep breath, feeling his father’s firm, warm hand on him. He swallowed. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I really do. Truth is, I don’t know what I want to do yet. I think I need to settle down a little before I decide. Maybe get a little more magic training done before I add anything else.”

  “Perfectly understandable.” Stone pulled his hand back and indicated the book. “That should help you, I think. I need to take you home with me and show you my library back in England—there are a lot more things there I think you’ll find fascinating. And I need to introduce you to Aubrey.” He chuckled. “I’ll have to be careful there, though—I don’t want to give the old boy a stroke when he finds out I’ve got a son.”

  “Who’s Aubrey?” Apparently Blake had been right about his father having another place in England.

  “The caretaker of my home in the UK. He’s been with my family since before I was born, and he’s a bit of a surrogate father for me since my real one—your grandfather—died when I was about your age.” His cynical smile was amused. “I think he’d started thinking I’d never produce a proper heir, but if I ever did, I think he was expecting a baby, not a full-grown man.”

  “I…never thought about that.” Ian wondered how much there was to his new-found family, and how much he’d never find out once Blake killed Stone. “My…grandfather’s dead, then?”

  Stone nodded soberly. “Yes. His name was Orion—most of the men in our family don’t have common names—and he died in an accident when I was nineteen. In fact, it was his death that indirectly led to my relationship with your mum.”

  “How so?” Ian looked up, surprised.

  Stone didn’t meet his gaze. “I think I mentioned before that I was going through a bit of a rough patch when she and I were together. That was what happened: my father was killed, and it sort of took my legs out from under me for a while. I was at University, and I just stopped caring. My grades suffered, and I started doing…unwise things.”

  “Like going out with Mom?” Ian didn’t try to keep the edge from his voice.

  Now Stone did look at him, raising his hand in denial. “No, Ian. No. That’s not what I meant. Your mum wasn’t the typical sort of girl I fancied, but I cared for her. We had fun together, and she was good for me at the time. No, I’m talking about drinking too much, going to wild parties, even experimenting a bit with drugs. I just wanted my life to go away for a while. Surely you can understand that.”

  Ian nodded reluctantly. “Oh, yeah…I can definitely understand that.”

  “Anyway…I was terribly sorry to hear about your mum’s death. Please believe me about that.”

  “Yeah…I do.” He thought about what Blake had said again, and the words came out before he could stop them. “So…you never tried to find her again? You never went to Winthrop and looked her up?”

  “No, of course not.” Stone looked surprised. “Why would I? Surely if I wanted to reconnect with her, or she with me, we’d have done it a lot sooner than this. I didn’t even know where she was living anymore.” His gaze sharpened. “That’s the second time you’ve asked that. Why do you think I might have done it?”

>   Careful…Ian took a moment to make sure his aura was under control. He’d been watching Stone as he spoke, and his father’s own aura had shown no flicker, no sign that he’d been lying. He could be hiding it too, of course—Blake had said he was good at it—but Ian didn’t think so. “Somebody…told me once they’d seen my mom talking to somebody who might have looked like you, not long before she died. I just thought—”

  “You thought I had turned up and tried to rekindle our relationship, and your stepfather got wind of it and killed her?”

  Ian didn’t answer.

  Once again, Stone was next to him. “Ian…you’ve got to believe me. I give you my word: I never saw your mum again after she went back to the States. She never tried to contact me, and I never tried to contact her. It was a casual relationship—at least I thought it was, and I was fairly sure she did too—and it ran its course. If someone saw her talking to a man who looked like me, it must have been someone else. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to Jessamy. If I could change it, I would. But I had nothing to do with it.”

  The odd thing was, Ian did believe him. He wasn’t sure why, since his aura reading wasn’t enough to confirm that Stone was telling the truth, but it was the same kind of feeling he’d gotten for most of his life: the rock-solid knowledge of when someone was lying, or hiding something. He’d learned to depend on it, and it had gotten him out of a lot of potentially dangerous situations. He’d still have to be careful, but he didn’t plan to start disregarding it now.

  Suddenly, his head hurt. It wasn’t the same kind of pain he’d experienced before when Blake had first begun teaching him magic, but more like a dull spike twisting its way into the center of his brain. It had started about the same time he’d decided he believed his father. Weird…stress, I guess. Still, he sensed changing the subject might be a good thing.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m sure you’re right—it had to be somebody else. So tell me about this Aubrey. When can I meet him?”

  Stone’s expression relaxed, and he smiled. “Aubrey will love you. As I said, he’s been after me to produce an heir practically since I was out of University—someone to carry on the family legacy. I know he’s disappointed that I’ve shown no interest in settling down with anyone. He thinks that’s what I need to be happy, and we’ve downed many a pint together over the years disagreeing about it. But at least now there’s another Stone, so if I go off and get myself killed on some adventure, there’ll be someone to carry on. And perhaps you’ll be better than I am about finding some nice girl and getting on with it before you’re forty. That will make him happy too.”

  Inside Ian, something clenched.

  He didn’t think Stone had noticed, but his father shot him a sharp, questioning glance.

  “Ian? Is something wrong?”

  “No.” He turned away, struggling to keep his aura under control.

  “Ian. Look at me.”

  “Look—I’m sorry. I’m…not feeling too great right now. Maybe we should call it for today, okay?”

  “Ian.”

  Reluctantly, he dragged his gaze around.

  His father was looking at him with a concerned, quizzical expression. “Please tell me what’s wrong. If we’re to get on, I’ve got to know you trust me. If I’ve said something to offend you—”

  Ian snorted. “Offend. Yeah. ‘Offend’ would be if you told me I have lousy taste in clothes, or I’m hopeless as a magic student.”

  Stone didn’t even try to hide the confusion in his aura. “Ian…” he said with care, “something just happened, and I’m sorry to say I’ve got no idea what it was. Please tell me. I want to help.”

  “Yeah. You want to help. Why don’t you just set me up with some ‘nice girl,’ then, so I can ‘get on with it.’” Ian didn’t want to say these things. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he could be getting himself into a lot of trouble by saying them—not only with his father, but with Blake. He could be putting their whole plan, two years’ worth of work, in jeopardy. But at that moment, he didn’t give a damn about the plan. He was sure now that Verity had not revealed his confidence to his father—he couldn’t be that good an actor.

  Stone’s eyes narrowed. “Why would that—”

  He paused.

  His gaze sharpened, but when he spoke, his voice was soft. “You don’t want a nice girl, do you? That’s what you’re trying to tell me. You’re gay.”

  Ian braced for him to say more, but he didn’t. “Yeah,” he said, and didn’t try to attenuate the belligerent, confrontational edge to his voice. “I’m gay. Surprise.”

  Once again, he waited. Every muscle in his body was tense, every nerve jangling. His heart pounded, and he felt as if he wasn’t quite present in his own head. Whatever his father did, or said to him, he was ready for it—even if he had to pull out magic he hadn’t revealed yet.

  He thought he was ready, anyway.

  Stone held his gaze for a few more seconds, then relaxed. “Right, then. Are you still feeling ill, or do want to get back to today’s lesson?”

  Ian blinked. He replayed his father’s words. He replayed them again. “You—that’s it?”

  Stone shrugged. “What else should there be? I probably should have caught on—I can be a bit thick about that sort of thing, honestly, but there you go.”

  “There I…go? That’s all you’re going to say?”

  “What else do you want me to say? ‘Congratulations’ hardly seems proper, and ‘Good for you’ is a bit condescending, don’t you think?”

  Ian glared at him. “Come on, Dad. Don’t give me that. You were just telling me about how you’re excited because now you’ve got an heir who can settle down and start producing little magic babies. You know that’s not gonna happen, right?”

  Stone refused to be baited. “In the first place, that’s up to you, but it’s certainly not out of the question. I know several same-sex couples who have children. And at any rate, it doesn’t matter. I apologize for not catching on sooner, but I get it now.”

  “You get it. So, you’re okay with it.” Ian made no effort to hide his disbelief.

  “Ian…” Stone sighed. “I’m very sad that you even thought it would be an issue. Were you afraid to tell me? Did you think I’d reject you or something?” He paused. “You told Verity, didn’t you?”

  He snorted. “I didn’t tell her. She figured it out.”

  “Yes, well, she’s quite a bit more perceptive about that sort of thing than I am. And I suppose you asked her not to tell me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because you thought I’d react badly. She didn’t tell you otherwise?”

  “She did. She said you wouldn’t care.”

  “But you didn’t believe her.”

  Ian shook his head, turning away to examine the books on a nearby shelf. “No. You’re my dad, and let’s just say in my experience fathers don’t deal too well with finding out their sons are queer.”

  “Ian, look at me.”

  He didn’t turn.

  “Ian…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this. I’m not a therapist, and this isn’t one of those maudlin films where everyone ends up having a good cry and eating a lot of chocolate together. But I want you to believe me—I don’t care who you’re attracted to. You’re my son. I haven’t known you very long, but I’m glad you’re here. I want you to be happy. I hope, in time, I can prove I’m worthy of your trust. But can you at least start by giving me the benefit of the doubt and trust I’m being honest with you until I do something to prove otherwise?”

  Ian took several deep breaths, remembering what Blake had told him. He’s tricky. He’ll lie to you, manipulate you, tell you anything to get what he wants.

  But he didn’t feel like that was the case this time. Slowly, he turned around. His father stood a short distance away, watching him with an expression of concern. He switched to magical sight and studied Stone’s blazing, tri-colored aur
a for signs of deception or agitation. He saw nothing, beyond a few faint red patches that could easily be explained by his general tension. He remembered the way Bobby’s aura had flowered with ugly red when he’d returned to Winthrop for the final time. He couldn’t see auras all the other times, of course, but he didn’t doubt Bobby’s hatred would have made it look the same way every time.

  He looked down. “So what do we do now?” he muttered.

  “That’s up to you.” Stone’s tone was brisk. Casual. “I’ve still got about an hour’s more material to show you today, if you’re feeling up to it. Or you can go if you’re not, and we’ll pick up at our next session. Your choice.”

  Your choice. Ian paused, then brought his gaze back up to his father. “My choice,” he said. He snorted. “This isn’t where we have a big hug, is it?”

  “Not much of a hugger,” Stone admitted with a tiny, arch smile. “But if that’s what it takes—”

  “No—that’s okay. We’re good. For now, at least.” Ian returned the smile—he couldn’t help it. It was infectious. But as he headed back to the table and picked up the book they’d been studying, other thoughts crept into his mind.

  Blake had been wrong about his father’s response. He was sure of it.

  Could she have been wrong—or even worse, lying—about other things as well?

  46

  As soon as Ian appeared at her door, Blake knew something was wrong. Razakal’s warning rumble in her head confirmed it.

  She stepped aside to let the boy in. “So,” she said casually, “how are things going? Did you get back with Stone?”

  “Yeah. It’s all good.” Ian seemed tense, preoccupied as he made himself a drink and dropped down on the sofa.

  “Is he still frustrated at having to spoon-feed you magic?”

  “Yeah, but he’s patient. He really wants to bond with me.”

  “And what about you, Ian?” Blake paced in front of the window. Outside a drizzly, intermittent rain fell; she watched the bright, hazy glows of headlights crawling by on the streets below. The tattoos on her forearms writhed and shifted, and she pulled her sleeves down to cover them.