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“Okay, fine. I’m sorry. But is it really my fault that I’m so bad at this? You don’t bear down on a student for being dumb. You help them.”
Carver watched me for a tense moment, then sighed. “Oh, Dustin. It isn’t that. You’re just – unpracticed. Inexperienced. This is all so new to you. Sometimes I forget that you’ve lived your whole life not knowing about the existence of true magic.” He clapped me on the shoulder, leveling me with ocher, cat-like eyes that smoldered with fatherly understanding. “You’re absolutely right, Dustin. It isn’t your fault that you’re so very stupid.”
“Hey now. Ouch.”
He laughed softly. “I only want for you to come into your full potential. It’s been so long since I’ve had anyone to apprentice.” He folded his hands behind his back, as if to tamp down his enthusiasm, like he didn’t want me seeing that he was getting excited. “I very much want for you to progress past being just a mage.”
“Just a mage?”
Carver waved his hand. “Sometimes it’s only a name, after all, but it’s so – generic. We, all of us who have access to the invisible energies of this earth, are mages in our own respect. But it all comes down to nomenclature, whether by power or tradition. Elementalists, shamans, brujas. All roads lead to Rome, yes? Everything has a name, and sometimes it is only a word. But how wonderful to hear the name of something and know it for what it is.”
His words lingered. I knew he wanted me to ask, and so I did, even knowing that he might not answer. “So what are you, then?”
He smiled. “I already told you that I might be considered a sorcerer, but I know you want something more specific. The word you are looking for is ‘lich.’ Undying, for as long as I have reason to live on this earth.”
I’d actually heard the word before, but only in a gaming context. Liches were wizards who refused to die, so driven by their hunger for occult power that they would do anything – and I mean anything – to lengthen their lives. I studied Carver’s face, wondering what he had done himself. But I had more questions.
“And Thea. What was she? No. What is she?”
“An affront to the discipline and study of the arts.” Carver grimaced. “Thea Morgana is no mage. She is a monster.”
“And what am I? Am I a monster because of what she did to me? What could I become?”
“No, that much we cannot say just yet. Your energies stem from the Eldest, yes, but as for whether you will become one of their abominable children? Unlikely.”
I shuddered. The Eldest were beings far older and far more powerful than the entities of earth, primal forces beyond our understanding. To the gods, demons, and creatures of myth, humans might be seen as pawns, playthings, and very rarely, as allies. But to the Eldest? We’re just insects. Specks of dust. And as little as they cared for humanity, there were still those mad enough to worship the Eldest, to risk attracting their corruption in exchange for power. Thea was one of them. Knowing that I wasn’t transforming into an abomination warped by the madness of the Eldest would have been a relief, if I didn’t already know I was going to die in a couple of days.
“But back on pace. As a mage? You are someone who uses the darkness, who employs forces that the unenlightened deem nefarious and unclean, perhaps even evil. You could be a warlock. Goodness. If you truly come to your power then the precious Lorica might even have to find new words to describe you and your unusual talents. An umbral sorcerer. A weaver of darkness.” His eyes widened and gleamed a bright amber, like young fire. “A shadowcrafter.”
“Badass,” I said, and I totally meant it. A shadowcrafter? I mean damn. I could live with that. But there was still that one thing we had to discuss. “But I don’t know if I’ll have the time.”
He nodded gravely, reaching for my wrist. “Yes. About that.”
“You – wait, you knew?”
“I thought we’d been through this.” Carver sucked air through his teeth, his eyes narrowing as he peered at the tattoo. “You are stupid, and I am not.”
“Be serious. I could die. I probably am dying.”
“Perhaps. It’s hard to tell with these entities sometimes. The time he gave you to live might be inaccurate. It might even be a ruse.”
I blinked, hope blooming like a flower in my chest. “You mean I might have more days than Dionysus mentioned?”
“I mean that you might have even less.”
And just as quickly, that flower wilted. “That sucks. That really, really sucks, Carver. And I haven’t even seen my – ”
“Your father, yes,” he finished. He looked up into my face. “Locating him has been more of a challenge than I initially thought. It is difficult to find someone who doesn’t want to be found. Even the Lorica and its Eyes would be hard-pressed. They can’t find our base because of our wards, and they can’t find me because one of these keeps me cloaked.”
He waggled his fingers, drawing attention to his rings. Much like Thea, Carver put a lot of stock in enchanted baubles. So mages could cloak their signals from scrying? Huh. Good to know. “Rest assured that I am attempting still, but now I have more to occupy my time.” He turn
ed back to my wrist. “I will have to study this. For now I need you to go about your life as normal. You won’t mind if I take a sample, do you?”
I stiffened. “Of what?”
Carver’s hands moved too quickly for me to react. I cried out at the sharpness that stuck into my wrist.
“Ow. Carver, what the fuck?”
