Marked for Magic. Daisy Banks

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СКАЧАТЬ the table. Even though she’d eaten a few of the carrot slices raw, her stomach clenched. She needed this meal.

      She toyed with the idea of calling up to him, but she’d promised not to disturb his work, and his temper certainly burned short. If she didn’t call him, she couldn’t cook, and he’d be angry. Yet chances were if she did call him, he’d be angry, too. By the end of her deliberations, she’d grown angry herself.

      She might as well get on with it. I’ve got to have a bigger cauldron!

      The door to the stairs creaked on its hinges as she opened it. About to call up, she stilled when his tread sounded at the top of the stone steps.

      “You have no need to yell up the stairs.” His voice echoed in the lofty darkness.

      “I didn’t.” Was this part of his magic? What else could he do as well as hear what she thought? Only Alicia had ever heard the mind singing, but neither she nor her friend thought the trick was anything but a game. Mind singing couldn’t be magic.

      “I distinctly heard you yell.” He hesitated, as though waiting for an explanation. When she offered none, he continued down the stairs. “The cooking pot is here.”

      She moved out of the way. He brushed past to reach up to the top of the cupboard where she couldn’t see, and handed her a much larger cauldron than the one on the table.

      He glanced toward the hearth and demanded. “Where is the small pot?”

      She froze. Was he angry?

      A spasm crossed his face and his lip twitched.

      “I emptied it in the stream. I meant to use the small pot for the soup.”

      “Gods, I am doomed!” His stare blazed green fire. “You have thrown away the finest batch of seeing mushrooms I have made in years.” He ran his hand over his hair. The blue coils around his wrist seemed to writhe like live, spring-woken snakes. “Foolish brat, did you not think to ask?”

      She shook her head, gritting her teeth to keep silent.

      He glowered. “Nin, a new rule. Here you touch nothing if it contains anything.”

      “That’s stupid. You can’t say I mustn’t touch anything. You should have said not to use the small cauldron. I didn’t know.” Ready to bolt, she edged to the door.

      “Well, you know now!” His yell almost lifted her feet. “Do you know what a seeing mushroom looks like?”

      “Yes,” she murmured. Aunt Jen had pointed them out, so both she and her cousin Lettie knew them. Her aunt had always warned they should never go in the pot, no matter how hungry they all were. The seeing mushrooms were small, sour, but most of all, dangerous. “I’ve seen them.”

      “Then go out and pick more. I’ll need twenty-four, at least. I want them before nightfall.”

      She backed around to the other side of the table. Safe with something solid between them, her heart hammered less. She quelled her fear. His green robe, it wasn’t so fine. A tear ran up to his knee on one side. It needed stitching. “I’ll make the soup first, shall I? I’ll need a collecting basket.”

      He opened the tall top cupboard and yanked down a wicker basket. One of his sleeves bore a patch at the elbow. For a Mage, he wasn’t so well off.

      “Here.” He shoved the basket toward her. “And don’t come back without them.”

      He stomped up the stairs. She could have spat after him. Several of the more unpleasant names the villagers screeched when she left raced through her mind. He deserved all of those names.

      “I heard that,” he called. “Don’t let me hear you cursing again!”

      Ice water ran through her veins. He was the Mage, yes, but no one had told her that he could hear thoughts. Agnes had said hundreds of vile things. Most of them she refused to think of, but the wise woman had never mentioned he would know what she was thinking.

      Desperate to get out of the room, she threw the vegetables in the big pot and sloshed in a jug of water with a quick prayer to the gods to look after the meal. She fumbled in her haste as she slung the heavy pot on the hook over the fire, but it stayed in place. Certain the soup would cook, she grabbed the basket to flee from his wrath.

      * * * *

      By early evening, she’d only found twelve small seeing mushrooms. They rolled around in the bottom of the collecting basket. Her feet ached, for in her search she’d walked farther and farther into the darkened shadowy spaces. Worse than sore feet, though, she stared to find her way through the trees until her eyes burned and stung. She had no clue how to get back to the tower. She recognized nothing here through the welter of close-knit leaves.

      Maybe he wanted the wolves to eat her. She’d be a nuisance to no one then. How could he be so mean?

      She huddled down at the base of a large ash tree where she ran her fingers over a blade of grass so it squeaked. How would she find his tower before dark? Her empty stomach rumbled.

      Anger that he’d sent her out here evaporated with the need to find him again. There was no one else who could help her. The twilight shadows grew deeper, wrapping the woods in their embrace. Tiredness blurred her vision. Even if she hadn’t been lost, she’d have been afraid to go back without all the mushrooms he wanted.

      The sun sank lower. The first white stars shone in the deepening night-shaded sky. She curled up, wrapped her arms around the basket, and waited for death.

      By moonrise, still the wolves hadn’t come, but her fear continued to grow. Her breath shallow, she darted her glance to the trees, to the dark shadows between them, and back again.

      If only he would come to find her, she would do anything, she’d be so grateful. A leaf brushed her cheek, so she looked up as she moved it away. If she climbed the ash tree, perhaps light from the tower might lead her back.

      Hope warmed her. She swung up onto the lowest branch of the tall tree, gave the next bough a tug to make sure it would take her weight, then clambered up where she clung tight.

      The morsel of hope grew as she searched in all directions, but it withered when she saw only more branches and leaves. She grasped the next branch above.

      “What, may I ask, are you doing?”

      Relief slid over her. Though he didn’t sound pleased, the Mage had come to find her. She swung down onto the first branch, but caught her lip at his frown. He reached up to yank her down into his arms.

      “If I discover you have done this to plague me”—his nose loomed tip-to-tip with hers—“I will renege on my promise, and I will beat you soundly before I turn you into a sparrow.”

      The sensation and safety of his arms took the spleen from his words. She didn’t care if he might beat her, as long as he took her back to the tower. “I got lost.”

      “Hmm, did you? And my mushrooms?” He still held her. His mouth twitched in a half smile.

      “I got some. They’re in the basket.”

      To her surprise, he didn’t СКАЧАТЬ