Abaddon's Gift

Chapter Twelve

Maeno just walked out of a row of books, his choices for the night in his arms, when he spotted Naena. After his day, he knew he could use a friendly face. He went to her table and sat down as she frowned at the book sitting open before her.

"What's a path born of crosswise influence?" she asked him.

He shook his head and set out his books, glancing across the table at the one she had. A Hell's language sprawled over the page, one of the phonetic codes mages taught each other to keep their recipes secret. He frowned at Naena.

"You can read that?" he asked.

"Magic," she said. "It's a temporary spell."

"No spell I've ever heard of," he muttered.

"That's how magic works," she said with a shrug.

"Pretty sure it's not..."

"It is now," Naena said, looking at her book. "Why are you limping?"

"Graydon broke my leg."

Naena's head snapped up, her eyes narrowing as Maeno felt a flush of embarrassment. He had wanted to vent, but he hadn't expected Naena's razer sharp focus over Graydon Pan, of all things.

When Naena decided something needed her attention, that thing disappeared or rendered itself solved. Maeno sucked in a breath and decided he'd best explain in case Naena decided Graydon was pretty enough to climb up on.

"The clubs tried to have a meeting in the dining hall," Maeno explained. "Since I'm trying to keep my position in Hellfire, I had to go. I didn't move fast enough when he came in, he tossed me, and I fell over a chair, broke my leg. The healers at the infirmary fixed me up, but it'll hurt for a few days."

"Why did Graydon break up a club meeting?" Naena asked.

"It wasn't a Hellfire meeting," Maeno said. "It was a meeting of the clubs. All of them. I guess they don't get together often, and when they do, they tend to sling magic at one another. Graydon was just doing his job by stepping in."

"Fair enough, but why were the clubs meeting in the dining hall at lunch?"

"Because meeting at dinner would mean no dessert?"

Naena scowled when Maeno tried to laugh it off. He cleared his throat awkwardly as he opened the first book from his pile, flipping through the pages.

"The topic of conversation was, uh," Maeno hesitated and looked at Naena.

"When did they ask you to research how to summon a demon?" she asked.

"Yesterday afternoon," he murmured.

She nodded and turned the page of her book. Her eyes remained on her page, but her finger held her place on the page.

"I like you, Maeno, so maybe it's best if you walk away and find your own table," she said. "Before someone sees you here."

He shrugged, glancing around them.

While he understood her concern, he knew it wasn't necessary for him to leave her table right away. The year before he had spent many hours in the library and rarely saw another student, even when they were looking for him.

"Do you see any other students here?" he asked.

"No," she said. Then she frowned at her book and looked up at him. "Why is that?"

"Few students come to the library unless they have an assignment," he said. "Spell mages will wander the library, but they tend not to have a lot of magic. We need allies wherever we can, so we tend to band together. We're not about to tell others who we see or what they're reading."