Abaddon's Gift

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Bo slipped into the workroom, key in hand. He closed the door, looked around the room and sighed out. He felt a strange relief. An easing of his mind, the tension draining from his shoulders.

A tension that Bo hadn't realized he had been carrying.

He set the pile of notes he had on the little work desk, the only item the library provided to students in their workrooms, and then let out another sigh. A little more tension drained from his shoulders.

After going over the papers, he stacked them on the desk in an order that made sense to him. His fingers drifted over the notes as he wondered if he really wanted to do this.

Help Maeno.

Of course he wanted to help.

Maeno had gotten him in to see Wyver, starting the process of getting him into the magehood. The pair of them would work closely together throughout their lives. Maeno was the sort that Bo wanted on his side, working with him, not against him.

Maeno and Naena both.

And what Maeno needed to do, to protect himself, would—as Nillion stated—revolutionize the spell mage field. They would go down in history as the creators of a spell that all mages would one day use.

That's what Bo told himself as he left the workroom in search of Maeno.

But the reality of the matter was that he wanted to help them because he liked them. They were his friends, and he trusted them. The excuses were secondary. Things he told himself in preparation for the questions he knew would come from Hellfire.

They had been serious so far, but their first batch of alcohol was almost made, and the party invites would go out within days.

Bo hoped to obtain one of those coveted invites.

He found Maeno easy enough, sitting in the pattern area of the library. The place that contained books on patterns. Those found in the world, in human behaviour, in the way magic flowed across the land. Many referred to that area as the Magi rows, but few used the area.

And it was where he had seen Maeno a time or two in the previous year.

"Hey," Bo said, feeling a flush of embarrassment.

Maeno had a book about net patterns. He looked bored to tears as he jerked himself up and sucked in a little breath, blinking blearily at Bo.

"Did you know there's a debate on whether a square holed net or a diamond holed net catches fish better?" Maeno asked. "It's all squares!"

"Sort of," Bo said. "But fish don't know that, right?"

Maeno frowned at Bo for a long moment.

"I suppose," he said. "They can't tell it's all squares, is what you mean. So a square turned on its corner might catch them up, but a flat square doesn't."

"Right," Bo responded.

Maeno looked away, then back to Bo.

"Had something, but I lost it," Maeno grumbled.

"Come on," Bo said. "I want to show you something."

Bo took Maeno to the workroom and closed the door firmly behind them. The lock slipped into place, which made a sound and caused Maeno to turn toward him.

"It's a workroom," Bo said at the flash of panic that flickered through Maeno's eyes. "Calm down. It's just a place where we can work."

"Right, but why am I working in here?" Maeno asked.