Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2), Aaron Schneider [accelerated reader books .txt] 📗

Now with the thaw mostly done and spring in full bloom, they still waited, though Milo had not been idle.

The magus skirted the left fork of the bridge, knowing a sentry would be keeping watch over the bridges on the approach to the fortress. The sentry wouldn’t challenge him, of course, but he’d report back to Lokkemand, and that was a complication Milo wanted to avoid if at all possible.

A little farther along the bank was an outthrust of rock that stretched a few meters over the Argun, and here Milo made his crossing. Leaping into the air and trusting his coat’s transmogrification to handle the rest, he swooped over the rolling gray river and came down in a series of short hops. Milo imagined he was the most ungainly of birds, but needs must, and right now, he needed to get to his study.

Typically, he would creep along and come in through a postern gate he could lock and unlock using a si’lat servant he kept in his coat pocket, but there was no time.

Impatiently checking to see that no sentry was prowling the walkway near his appointed wing of the complex, he scuttled to the rough-edged balcony that adjoined his study. It was no small distance, and even with climbing gear, it would have been difficult to scale it without at least raising a lot of ruckus.

Which was exactly why he wasn’t going to climb.

In the back of his head, he knew this was a bad idea. The wings he’d fashioned into the complex fetish that was his black surcoat were meant more for gliding than flying, but another sharp stab drove the concern from his mind in a crackling wave of pain. He was confident that if he pushed them and drew deep on essence worked into the garment, he could reach the balcony. He had to.

Milo took a steadying breath and looked at the balcony, which seemed to be farther up the longer he stood there. For the first time in days, his limbs felt heavier, the fatigue beginning to seep through the insulating nightwatch like a cold, dragging tide. He had to go now or never.

“RISE,” he commanded as he leaped upward with all his strength, the verbalization giving potency to his focus.

The black wings beat the air and he jerked upward, rising in fits and starts. Like an overfed vulture trying to take to the air, his progress was an uncertain thing, but by the time Milo opened eyes squeezed shut in concentration, he saw he was within arm's reach of the balcony’s ledge. Drilling deeper into the latticework of essence until he felt it threatening to fray, Milo pushed the wings to propel him upward the final meter.

His arms were up over the ledge and one foot was planted against the stones below when his focus gave out and the wings collapsed into the coat. He tried not to think about how vacant the space beneath his other foot was as he hauled with his arms and pushed with the planted foot. Grunting and swearing, fresh sweat prickling across his brow, he dragged himself up and over onto the balcony. He collapsed on the stones with a groan and lay there panting and muttering incoherent promises to never do something so stupid again.

He might have stayed there for hours, except the stab in his skull told him time was running dangerously short.

Moaning half-formed curses, he dragged himself to his hands and knees to crawl into his study. The full light of the new day hadn’t reached mountain-shaded Shatili yet but Milo’s nightsight elixir let him spot the small bottle on his desk easily enough. Just a few drops of the nightwatch would stave off the oncoming unconsciousness long enough for him to take stock of things.

Without knowing how long he’d been awake, he couldn’t let himself fall asleep since that could be fatal. However, he didn’t have time to make the restorative sleepbalm he normally took to protect him from the worst of his insomniac excesses. He hoped he could take enough of the nightwatch to give him time to make the sleepbalm and not so much that his stimulated mind forgot what he was doing and went back to his research experiments. The fact that this had been his goal the last several mornings did not escape him as a point of concern, but it shrank in significance as he inched across the floor to the desk.

Arm feeling like it was laced with lead, he flopped it onto the desk and groped a clumsy hand over to the bottle. His blind fingers nearly knocked the container over, but mercifully his fatigue-softened grip was just strong enough to arrest its fall. He dragged the bottle off the desk and down to where he knelt, trembling, on the floor, his limbs threatening to abandon him altogether.

With agonizing slowness, he tugged the cork stopper out and threw the bottle's contents into his yawning mouth.

There was less in the bottle than he expected, but the taste of sweet onions in the back of his throat was soon accompanied by a rush of that pale, quivering energy he’d become fearfully accustomed to.

Milo sighed as he rose to his feet, his burdensome limbs quickening to his command. ‘Well, that almost ended poorly.”

Reflexively, he cast about the desk, looking for more nightwatch.

After all, the dose he’d taken had been very small, and he would need more if he was going to get the sleepbalm made. That and he had to sort his gathered materials from the night, and maybe do a little more review of The Fluids Flow codex, and it might not be a bad idea to get breakfast, and then check in to see if Lokkemand had anything for him, and—

“Where the hell is it?” he growled as his eyes swept over his desk and the shelves behind his desk and his thoughts raced. “I know I made more than this!”

“Which is exactly the problem.” growled a