“Hey, Riordan, do you have a minute to talk?”
Riordan looked up from his current textbook–Theoretical Magics: A Multidisciplinary Overview–to see Billy standing at the door into Frankie’s workshop lounge.
Fatigue lined the guard’s face, but the color had returned to his tanned skin finally. The nasty body-controlling blood curse that had nearly killed Billy had left him pale and drained, both magically and of blood, by the time Quinn purged it from the shifter’s system.
“Billy,” Riordan said by way of greeting. He set his book down. Honestly, he was grateful for the break. The text was more of Frankie’s assigned foundational work for fleshing out his paradigm, informative but dry.
Billy stepped inside, letting the screen door fall shut behind him. Riordan glimpsed Ellis, Billy’s brother, waiting on the porch.
“Ellis still not letting you out of his sight?” Riordan asked, mildly amused. “He might as well come in. It’s not like he can’t hear everything we say anyway.”
Plopping down in one of the overstuffed armchairs, Billy shrugged. “It’s a compromise. Me nearly dying has made him a mite protective. Frankly, I’m still tired enough to be grateful.”
Riordan gave Billy a more thorough once over, this time trying to get a sense of the man magically as well. Riordan’s ability to sense magic in others was still rudimentary at best, blocked by their own soul. Billy’s energy felt as tired as Billy looked, but not notably dark or tainted or anything.
He gave his guest a small smile. “You’re looking better, if exhausted. Has Quinn gotten the last of the spell out of your system?”
Billy held up a hand, tilting it side to side. “Yes and no. He said that spell was gone and that he’d cleaned up any traces of death-aligned mana or corruption, but also that it’s fucked up my mana pathways, making it easier for me to be affected by similar spells in the future. I’m not a mage. I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that.”
After all his recent reading, Riordan actually thought he did understand. He picked up his textbook, flipping towards the front for the relevant section, and then holding it out to Billy.
“From what I’ve read,” Riordan explained, “the mana pathways are kinda like veins for mana within the body. Or maybe more like rivers, since they carve out their shapes over time based on the magic that flows through us. Usually that’s the spells we cast ourselves, but strong magic cast on us can shape them as well.”
Billy groaned, “So I’ll be easier to hit with control spells now? That’s not a great trait in a pack enforcer.”
Riordan thought back to what Billy had looked like under the effect of the control spell, his blood black and thick with death magic. No, probably with blood magic. The life aspect of blood magic would have helped with controlling the body and the spell had anchored and grown in Billy’s blood stream.
“I’m not the expert,” Riordan said cautiously, “but I’d say that your mana pathways are more likely to have been brought closer in line with your physical veins. That spell clung to your actual blood as it flowed through your body. Intuitively, I’d guess that would make it easier to influence your blood with your magic, but also your magic with your blood, making you more susceptible to blood-borne spells and the Blood Affinity.”
It was just an educated guess on Riordan’s part, but it did make Billy stop and think. Hopefully he was comparing that to whatever Quinn told him. Riordan trusted Quinn far more on these subjects.
“That lines up with what Quinn was saying, roughly,” Billy replied. “I’ll have to check with him again. I assumed that ‘similar spells’ meant control spells in general.”
It was Riordan’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know enough about control spells to say one way or the other really. It would probably depend on the mechanism for the control. I don’t see how it would have changed the way a purely mental domination spell would affect you, for example, but maybe having your mana pathways match your bloodstream matters more than I think. Shifters already have a more distributed network of small mana pathways throughout the body as it is.”
“We do?” Billy asked, leaning forward to listen.
“Apparently. It made sense once I read about it. Mana pathways are grown and strengthened by running mana through them for an effect, right? Bigger effects help them grow thicker. Directed effects help them grow to more parts of your body. Shifters are constantly sending mana into our bodies everywhere to give ourselves strength and regeneration. It’s not such a big effect to give us large pathways, unless we really get hurt or actively boost ourselves, but it’s everywhere, so we end up with a pretty distributed pathway system.”
“Huh.” Billy sat back in his seat. He tapped one hand against the arm rest and lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Riordan gave him a minute before prompting, “What did you want to talk to me about?”
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Billy startled and then shook his head to clear it. “Right. Well, this stuff, partly, but mostly I wanted to check on you. You literally got stabbed and had your magical system rearranged to save my life. I’ve been recovering too much to help you in return and no one around me could tell me much about how you were doing.”
“Sorry,” Riordan said. “I should have come to visit.”
“Stabbed,” Billy said bluntly. “And your magical system rearranged. And then, apparently, already going out on missions with the Department mages that get you hurt again. I thought I was stubborn about insisting I was fine.”
“I am fine,” Riordan insisted. “Physically, anyway.”
“Mhm. And mentally, magically, or emotionally?”
“Magically, my system has settled into its new pattern quickly, but there’s a definite learning curve in me being able to use it and some concern about potential issues down the road, like imbalance between my split wells. Mentally, I’m keeping myself distracted so I can process in chunks.” And having PTSD symptoms that weren’t entirely maladaptive if people were still out to get him. “Emotionally, I’m fine.”
“Bullshit on that last one,” Billy said, clearly not letting Riordan get away with that. “I’m strong enough to admit that I’m not fine and you went through worse, or at least more. I don’t believe you are that superhuman as to be immune to trauma.”
Riordan played with his textbook, opening it halfway through and then letting it fall slowly shut again in a soft papery thump. He didn’t look at Billy when he said, “I’m not superhuman at all. Well, no more than any other shifter.”
Billy threw his head back and laughed in Riordan’s face. Riordan tightened his grip on the book and growled, “What?”
“Dude, you can’t mean that,” Billy said, still chuckling.
“Can’t mean what?” Riordan asked, anger easing into exasperation. He tossed his textbook back onto the coffee table before he damaged it.
“You aren’t ordinary,” Billy pointed out. “You do impossible things regularly. It intimidates the hell out of most of the pack frankly.”
Riordan glanced away, trying not to growl again. Or feel hurt by that. “Yeah,” he said, “I noticed that none of them are particularly keen on me being here. I’ve been trying to stay out of their way, so if anyone is complaining, they can go suck it.”
So much for not feeling hurt. Riordan could recognize his own defensiveness in his answer, even if it hadn’t stopped him from saying that shit in the first place.
Billy wasn’t laughing now. He looked rather concerned in fact. He leaned forward again, this time resting his elbows on his knees and studying Riordan. Riordan studied the wall. His emotional hackles were raised and he was trying really hard not to take that out on Billy.
“Hell,” Billy breathed out, “You really think that the pack doesn’t like you?”
“I know they don’t,” Riordan grumbled bitterly. “They avoid me. I make them uncomfortable. I’m a dangerous death mage and a former exile, after all. Who wants that around?”
Nodding slowly, Billy kept his blue eyes pinned on Riordan. “I forget that you were an exile. You haven’t been around a pack in a while?”
“That is what exile means,” Riordan snapped. He heard Ellis take a few steps out on the porch and winced. Riordan forced himself to take a deep breath and then apologized, “Sorry. Can we talk about something else?”
“No, I think we as a whole have been avoiding this subject and not realizing how it looked. We need to talk about it, even if it’s a sore point. No, because it’s a sore point,” Billy said. “These feelings can fester quickly.”
“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” Riordan objected. “It’s fine. I get it.”
“No, you don’t,” Billy countered, “and that’s clearly hurting you.”
Riordan flopped back against his seat, closing his eyes. “Fuck. I’m fine.”
“I hate the word ‘fine.’ It is supposed to mean that you are feeling good and healthy, but it’s used to mean ‘I’m not necessarily doing well, but I’m socially absolving you of the need to care about that.’”
“You talk like a lawyer,” Riordan accused.
Billy grinned. “Too much time around my sister-in-law. She’s a big shot lawyer. No stop dodging the question.”
Riordan was way too side-tracked. “Ellis is married?”
“I have more than one sibling. I’ll tell you all about them if you answer a few simple questions. Has it been a long time since you were in a pack?”
Seeing that Billy was going to be stubborn about this, Riordan tried for nonchalant as he answered, “A bit less than twenty years.”
Billy jolted forward, mouth dropping open. “How are you still alive?!”
Riordan shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about it.
Billy gentled his tone. “Please,” he asked softly, “help me understand. I was told that being packless is a slow death. So how…”
“Being packless, especially not by choice,” Riordan said flatly, “feels like ripping your heart out. There’s a wound there, bleeding out bit by bit. Everything is harder. Your senses are duller, strength lower, healing slower. Shifting forms takes more energy. You can get stuck in one shape or the other, just… stuck. A shifter, unable to shift. You take far longer to regenerate mana. You are lonely constantly. You feel a call towards other shifters, towards the territories, and know you aren’t allowed to answer it. Know you are supposed to be bleeding, that this your penance for–”
Riordan realized his voice had been rising and that he’d stood up, fists clenched, one hand tight over his heart as he remembered that feeling. Ellis was in the doorway now, watching him and his brother alertly rather than pretending to wait outside.
He collapsed back into his seat and looked away. “You get used to it. If it doesn’t kill you, that pain can be your new normal. My animal side is solitary and I have a fairly strong well, so the physical and magical side effects were tolerable. I also thought I deserved to suffer, so that made it easier to live like that.”