Iason shook his head and set the basket down. “All right,” he said. “Might as well.”
* * *
Despite Iason’s growing skill in drawing on Levi’s power to fuel his magic, they were making very little progress when it came to breaking their bond. The strange garden that was the result of Iason channeling his magic when it threatened to overwhelm him now extended both outsideandinside the house. The frequent changes had become commonplace enough that no one mentioned the new trees in the side yard or the vines that climbed up the walls, their flowers blooming and dying in seconds. Sophie often remarked on their beauty, even though everything Iason created seemed to be poisonous.
“Why is that, do you think?” Levi asked, leaning back on his hands on the grass as he waited for Iason to begin drawing on his power. There typically wasn’t grass this close to the beach—beyond the sparse seagrass, at any rate. This wouldn’t last; most of Iason’s botanicals faded over time. He’d gotten better at keeping some of the more practical plants alive, at least long enough to harvest them and create the tinctures and potions that he sold to pay for food and other necessities. Levi could have retrieved some of the treasure he’d squirreled away—he was a dragon, after all—but in this form, it would take him a long time to swim down and drag it back. Besides, Iason needed something to occupy his time in between their sessions together, and his work with the plants was a good focus for him. And if Levi had learned anything from Arwyn over the years, it was that humans with too much money often did very questionable things. Mislia had enough going on, so Levi would leave his treasure caches where they were and let Iason grind flowers and leaves to his heart’s content.
“Why is what?” Iason asked. He was seated across from Levi, but while Levi was sprawling in the warm grass wearing only a sarong around his waist, Iason was sitting up straight, looking as tense as ever, sweating in his traditional Mislian garb. “Why is everything my magic creates poisoned?” At Levi’s nod, Iason shrugged. “I guess that’s just me as a person.”
Levi flashed him a toothy grin. Iason was impossibly serious most of the time, but his sense of humor wasn’t as dreadful as Levi had once assumed. Then again, that remark might not have been meant as a joke—it wasn’t as if there wasn’t some truth to it. Iason was like one of those fish that puffed themselves up with an armor of needles, poison in each spiky quill.
Iason didn’t smile back, but Levi could feel the slight tug, the pull at his core, that meant Iason was starting to draw Levi’s power for his magic. They no longer had to touch to initiate the process, which made things simpler. Iason wasn’t taking as much as he’d needed to save Sophie, of course, and now that Levi knew what it was and when it would be happening, he found the sensation almost pleasant. He liked the way he could see flashes of what looked like lightning in Iason’s pale eyes, smell the ozone permeating the air, and feel the low hum of awareness that sparked between them. Iason’s eyes went bright and distant, and Levi tipped his head back, enjoying the sun on his skin as he sat in magic grass and let his wizard work.
Iason never seemed to enjoy using his magic, but then again, he didn’t often seem to enjoy much of anything at all.
A memory came to Levi through their bond, sudden and unbidden, blooming like one of Iason’s flowers. It showed Iason as a teenager, his face unscarred, huddled in the corner of a well-furnished room. A man a few years his senior dragged him to his feet and struck him, hard, and Iason instinctively pushed him back with a blast of magical wind. Three magelights hanging overhead shattered, raining glass in Iason’s hair, and a man’s low, musical voice called out, “No magic, boy. Use your hands.”
“Come on,” the other man said, grinning. “You can do it, kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” Iason snarled, hands fisted at his sides.
“You are if you can’t follow directions,” the other voice said. “No magic.”
Iason threw himself at Alistair, who grabbed his arm, twisted it at an unnatural angle, and forced Iason to his knees. “How far do I push him, Archmage Drakos?”
Iason made a pained sound, and Levi, observing from his remote, removed position, frowned. He didn’t like hearing that. He didn’t like watching this man hurt Iason.
“All the way,” the voice said. “We need to know if he has control.”
Alistair nodded and pressed down. Levi could tell the moment Iason’s arm broke, the sickening snap and the sight of bone pushing through skin. Iason clung to Alistair with his free hand as the magelights flickered and swayed. He was screaming, his face pale, but there was something angry beneath his pained expression. And in the vision, Levi could sense the power in him, a storm contained.
“Very good,” the Archmage said. “Perhaps you should break something else, Alistair, just to be sure.”
As far as Levi knew, the only way Iason had ever used magic before Sophie drowned was to hide his scars. Iason had told him that Alistair had provided the spell-net, though, until Alistair died and Iason had to learn how to do it himself. But why would this Archmage have wanted Iason to stifle his magic? Mislia was saturated with magic. Its entire social system was built upon mages binding with demons. It wouldn’t existwithoutmagic, so why would anyone be encouraged not to use their powers? A man who had a teenager’s arm broken as part of an experiment wouldn’t, Levi thought, hesitate to use a powerful wizard to his advantage, whether it meant Iason’s death or not.
Iason didn’t need Levi’s reminder to channel his magic, and as the memory fell away, new grass and flowers bloomed around Iason. It would have been a whimsical sight—charming, even—if not for the scowl on Iason’s face. “I’d forgotten about that.” He touched his arm, as if he were making sure it was whole and hale. “Or, no. The curse made me forget.”
“The curse?” Levi tilted his head, idly playing with a clutch of new flowers near his thigh. “Is that why you didn’t remember his name—the Archmage?”
“Yes. Whatever is happening, when I draw on your power for my magic… it’s bringing it all back. What I’d forgotten.”
Levi frowned. He didn’t like thinking about how Iason looked in the memory, and it was surprising just howmuchhe didn’t like it. “This Archmage. He’s dead?”
“I would imagine so. They wouldn’t let him live, not if the revolution took out the mages’ council.” Iason still looked troubled.
“Then you shouldn’t need to worry about him,” Levi said. “And the other man, that was your partner.”
“Alistair, yes. We were sent together to Staria, and I—I know it was to kill someone, but the memory isn’t quite there, yet.” Iason got to his feet, glancing around at the new flowers, which were already fading in the sun. “I don’t know that I want it to be. I knew I wasn’t a good man, before. But I think I must have been a very bad one. Worse than I realized.”
“It won’t change that,” Levi said. “If you remember it or if you don’t.” He, too, stood up. “You will face what you must to keep our bargain, wizard. If these memories are trying to tell you something important, look past your perceived moral failings and see what you’re meant to find.”
For a moment, Iason looked angry—and then some of the tension in his shoulders eased, and while he didn’t smile, exactly, he seemed closer to it than usual. “You don’t care, do you? What sort of man I was.”
“No,” Levi said. “The past matters very little to me. In any case, you’re a mortal. All of you live erratic, contradictory lives—probably because they’re so short. But,” he admitted, “I wouldn’t have minded if this Archmage and your Alistair were in my waters when my brother’s boat came for them.”
“He wasn’tmyanything,” Iason snapped, tense again. “That much I know. We tried, once. I didn’t— It wasn’t— We weren’t compatible that way. I need to think about whyI had that memory come back. It has to mean something.”
Levi remembered the way Iason had felt against him, when he’d pinned him to the wall. “He wasn’t a submissive?”
