Silence Read online

  “Burdens and joys shared are lessened and magnified, in turn. In other words, it’s good to have friends.”

  “It is.” Then, after another sip of coffee, she spoke again, with more conviction. “It really is.” She had learned so much about herself, more than she had even thought that she had before the assault on the Blackthorne Estate. And she knew that she couldn’t have done it without the help of the gang, and, at the end, without the help of Tim, whom she had almost written off as a coward. Yet, when she had been abandoned by the one person she thought that she could finally love, it was Tim who had come to help her. From what she had heard from the rest of the gang, he had single-handedly destroyed over a dozen dark elves and other creatures, all on his own. She had witnessed what he had done to Finn, whom she had feared for so long. It surprised her; not only what he was capable of, but that he had actually committed to a decision that she had thought he was opposed to entirely.

  “I guess the question is, what do you plan to do now? School should be starting up again pretty soon. Are you going to stay in Silence?”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I’m still in the same situation I was before. I’ve got nowhere else to go. But honestly, even if I did, I’d still rather be here. I’ve got real friends, not fake ones that only care about shopping and that shit. Even if my mom isn’t capable of finding a decent boyfriend with a map to the clue machine, as long as she stays sober enough to keep her job, we can probably keep getting by.” She grimaced. “Plus, there’s always blackmail power with Dad if we need something, and you know, I don’t think it’s wrong to use it. And there are still things I can do here. Things I can learn.”

  That earned her an arched eyebrow from Tim. “Oh?”

  She leveled a straight gaze at him. “You are going to teach me about magic. Right?”

  He regarded her for a moment, swirling his coffee around in his mug before setting it down on the table between them. “Yes. If that’s what you want, I will teach you about magic. Everything that I know. But, I’ll warn you now, Staci. It’s not an easy path. And it’s not safe, even discarding external threats. Magic is knowledge. Knowledge is power. And power is very dangerous, even in the right hands. Are you sure that that is what you want?”

  “So? Having it and not knowing how to use it didn’t work out all that well either,” she pointed out.

  “I think we’re in agreement on that point. Power without control isn’t effective. What I’ll be teaching you will take monumental control, intense concentration and indomitable willpower. I just want to make sure that you feel ready; once we get started, it’s not going to be so easy to turn back.” She could tell that there was something else behind Tim’s words. Expectation. Even a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

  “Just one thing,” Staci said. “Something I want out of you.”

  “I promise nothing, but will allow for damn near anything. Shoot.”

  She grinned. “If I’m gonna have all this stuff to learn, so should you. So, you have to join Seth’s game.”

  It was Tim’s turn to grin, wide enough to show his teeth. “Poor boy won’t know what hit him. My pen and paper, dice and rule table pedigree is quite good, I assure you. I accept, if you do, mageling.” He reached down for his mug of coffee, bringing it up for a toast.

  She clinked mugs with him. “It’s a deal.”

  “I’m going to warn you, we’ve got our hands full. Even besides dealing with your education. Not all of the Blackthornes were accounted for; a fair number escaped. Though they won’t be able to achieve the same level of power they had through their connection to the Gate, they’ll still be dangerous. There are other avenues of power, after all. Not to mention all of the…creatures they summoned to themselves. Red Caps and Hunters are but a fraction of what they drew to Silence, and many of those same things are lurking nearby. Without the Blackthorne clan to cow them into submission, things could be getting awfully interesting soon, and not in a good way. That’ll fall on us to deal with.”

  “So we deal with it,” she replied. “With the help of our friends. Right?”

  “I think—no, I know—that you’re right. I lost sight of it for a long time. Too long, in all honesty. But I think that you and I are of the same mind on this. Then it’s settled? I’ll teach you, you’ll learn, and we’ll fight the good fight with the help of our friends, against all challengers?”

  She nodded, and felt as if her life had suddenly settled into something she wanted it to be. Not drifting back and forth, without any true direction. This was something she felt to her bones. Something righteous, and not just that, but Right. “It’s a deal.”