The Unmage Read Online Free PDF Page B

gaze. “Does she speak for you, Rorik? Even in this?”
    The older man held his gaze for a few seconds. “She does. It’s for your own good.”
    “An Apprentice should be able to respect his Master,” Timo said. “But I can’t respect you, not when all you do is follow my mother’s directions.”
    Rorik’s face paled slightly, but that was his only response. His mother’s lips tightened, and she stood up and turned to leave.
    “You’re too late, you know,” Timo said. “I read all about my father, the great Valerio Valendi. He was not a man to be proud of.”
    Arabella whirled and leaned over the desk, her face inches from his.
    “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snarled. “He was brilliant.”
    “Maybe so,” Timo said. His mother’s mage mist swirled violently around her upper body. “But he had no morals. He used everyone around him, even those who meant him no harm.”
    His mother’s smile chilled him.
    “Then you are truly your father’s son,” Arabella said. “Because you used Barra and Hestor though all they wanted to do was help. Poor Barra. With this type of indiscretion it will be hard for her to find anyone willing to take her on as Journeyman, when the time comes. And it certainly won’t be me.” She glanced over her shoulder at Rorik. “Hestor could find himself placed in a small villa somewhere. Perhaps in the dung heap that I was born in.” Arabella swept out of the room, followed by Rorik.
    Timo stared after them. With a wave of his hand, he sent mage mist flying towards the door. It slammed shut with a satisfyingly loud thud, and he flicked his hand again, letting the spell trace the door and lock it from the inside.
    Let his mother and Rorik try to get through that spell, he thought. He was much more powerful than either of them even suspected. Then his fury drained away, and he had to place his hands flat on the desk to stop them from shaking.
    Less than two years. That was all he had to wait before he could make his own decisions. Not even the Primus and Secundus of Mage Guild could circumvent the Guild Law that said that at sixteen, with talent, he was an adult. Let Rorik claim he wasn’t ready to be a Journeyman. That would only matter if he stayed here. He would have to trust that his sister—the only person who’d told him the truth about the death of his father—meant it when she’d said he was welcome. And he would have to trust that Santos really did want to teach him.
    He sighed. He hadn’t meant to get Barra into trouble but he hadn’t worried about it either. Did that make him like his father, as his mother suggested? He didn’t think so. He was stupid and Barra had paid a high price, might even pay a high price for the rest of her life, but he hadn’t done it on purpose. He’d try to explain it to her. He doubted she’d give him a chance, but he would try. He doubted anyone would speak to him now. But it wasn’t as though any of the other Apprentices had been particularly friendly before this.
    Timo leaned over his desk and flipped to the last page in his notebook. Ever since he’d met her , his sister, he’d been trying to work with his unmagic. When she’d described her talent, she’d said that she could tell if spells were benign or malevolent—and he’d seen her remove the curses from Rorik. Ever since, he’d been trying to teach himself how to do the same. Most of the time, he could remove small spells, and he’d had a few successes distinguishing between harmless and malevolent spells. But now he needed to be able to use his unmagic.
    Barra wouldn’t be a threat, but Hestor? If he lost standing with Inigo, he would retaliate. Some Journeymen liked to humiliate Apprentices. They would set magical traps—pranks—that had no true ill will and caused no real harm. In order to keep his unmagic a secret, Timo had to walk into these traps. But Hestor might try to really hurt him. Would he try to kill him? At least if he could