Stone and a Hard Place Read Online Free PDF Page A

stuff that might get messy yet. Did you read that book I gave you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And?” Stone asked, glancing back over his shoulder as he mounted the stairs.
    “Kinda dry, but interesting, I guess. I didn’t know mages had been around for so long.”
    Stone chuckled. “ Dry is a good way to put it. Bloody boring is even better. I’ll be honest with you—the whole history end of the magic thing was never one of my favorite topics. I’m much more interested in the here and now—magical artifacts, rituals, spellcasting— using magic.” He pushed the door open. “Have a seat there on the couch.”
    Ethan did as he was told, glancing with interest at the large, old-fashioned wheeled blackboard wedged between an ancient leather chair and one of the walls of books. Nothing was currently written on it.
    “So,” Stone said, leaning against the edge of his desk. “Before we get into anything too deeply, a few questions. How’s your mum, by the way?”
    “Not so good.” Ethan sighed. “She almost had to go to the hospital this weekend, but Mrs. Hooper—that’s her nurse—was able to get her settled down.” He looked up at Stone, an odd light in his eyes. “Dr. Stone, can magic...heal people?”
    “Ethan—” Pause, then softly: “No. Not the way you think. There are mages who can heal injuries, if they catch them soon enough. But we can’t do anything about disease.”
    “So there’s no—like—alchemy? Magic potions?” It was clear he’d had this on his mind for some time. His tone clutched at anything he could grab.
    Stone shook his head. “No, not really. Not the way you’re thinking, anyway. There are some of us who dabble in that sort of thing, but I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head who has anything approaching expertise nowadays. And even then, most magical concoctions are more for dealing with things like increased concentration and minor injuries. They wouldn’t work on something as serious as whatever your mum’s got.” He regarded the slump-shouldered boy for a moment, then added, “I’m sorry, Ethan.”
    “No, it’s okay. I just—” He looked up, steeling his expression. “Let’s just get started, okay?”
    “All right, let’s. I need to set you up with some more books to take home, so—” Glancing around the room, he directed one hand at one shelf and the other at another, gesturing as if conducting an unseen orchestra. One by one, three books sailed from their places, glided across the room, and settled neatly on the couch next to the wide-eyed Ethan. “There you go. The first one is an intro text—I’ll give you a bit of the intro today, but that’s more in depth. The second is theory. It won’t make much sense to you now, but just start familiarizing yourself with the concepts and terminology. And that third one there, the small one, is sort of an exercise book. Formulae and such. Lots of math. That one’s a stretch—if you’re feeling ambitious, read the theory book and the formulae in the exercises and see what you can come up with. I don’t expect much from you yet, but it’ll be nice to see what you do with it.”
    Ethan seemed to only have heard about a third of what Stone had said. “I still can’t quite believe I’m…gonna learn to do that,” he said in a hushed tone, waving his hand around to indicate the path the books had taken.
    Stone grinned. “That and a lot more, if you listen to me and keep up with your studies. But I’ll reiterate: we aren’t going too fast in the beginning. I want you to have a good grounding in theory before you start doing the more interesting bits. It’s sort of like learning to play sport: you have to build up your muscles before you get started, or you’ll hurt yourself and set back your progress. You might learn faster from another teacher—a lot of them are rather slapdash nowadays, sad to say—but you won’t learn more thoroughly. So be patient. This is a journey, not a destination. Got