Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (classic books for 11 year olds .txt) 📗

“Good thing for us winter is coming, eh?”

Milo only nodded and turned back to the street.

It was well and truly night when they finally came to a stop in a part of the city where the scorched facades of what had once been homes stood side by side. They were in various states of ruin, some little more than a few bricks leaning against blackened spars, while others had one or two walls still standing.

“Here we are,” Roland said and opened his door.

“What are we doing here?” Milo asked, narrowed eyes darting between the houses and Roland.

“Finishing that conversation,” Roland said as he clambered down and walked into the light cast by Rolls Royce’s headlights.

Milo saw that their escort had parked behind them and the soldiers were disembarking to maintain a perimeter.

Swearing quietly to himself, Milo got out of the vehicle and walked toward Roland, their shadows stretching long under the headlights’ glare. Roland looked up and down the street, his breath rolling out in plumes of white that glittered in the electric light.

“Do you recognize it?” Roland asked, nodding at the street, a small smile playing on his lips.

Milo looked around and shook his head. He’d already decided one stretch of ruin looked much the same as any other, and his mind was on more important questions than what wrecked street they were on.

“This is the street where you were almost run down,” Roland said, hands sweeping in a wide gesture at the road in front of them. “This is where I saved your life, the first time anyway.”

Milo looked down at the indicated ground and then around them. It could have been, but so could a dozen other streets he’d seen in the city. He looked at Roland, who was waiting for a reaction, but Milo felt certain their time was growing short. If something was going to happen, he was certain it would happen soon.

“Okay.” Milo shrugged, the sable fur of his borrowed coat tickling his jaw.

Roland’s smile faltered for a second, then he pointed to a gap between two buildings where shattered bricks and a few charred beams lay in a pile.

“That’s the alley where we first met.” He nodded eagerly. “That’s where you took my hand and trusted me to take care of you.”

Milo stared at the alley, which could hardly be called that, given the state of the buildings around it. Roland was expecting a great surge of emotion at the revelation, but Milo found he couldn’t even pretend he was moved. Anxiety about the coming escape and gnawing dread at what he’d discovered had eaten up whatever emotional capital he had left.

“Why are we here, Roland?” he asked, having to raise his voice as the wind picked up. It smelled of ash, sulfur, and old earth.

Roland’s face fell, and for a second, beneath the tattoos, scars, and roguish good looks, Milo saw the friend and protector he remembered: fierce and strong and dangerous, but still so young and so afraid. Milo pressed a finger into the stinging wound on his hand to try to shake off the enchantment of the moment. Being drawn in now could have dire consequences, and not just for him.

“I wanted to make my offer to you here,” Roland said, stepping closer and lowering his voice. Milo resisted the urge to recoil. “Here, where I saved you, I wanted to ask you to save me.”

Milo, who’d been avoiding Roland’s gaze by looking at the alley, whipped his head around to stare at him. That wasn’t the offer he’d been expecting.

“I know Zlydzen is using me, and it is only a matter of time before I’m not useful,” Roland continued. “It could be tomorrow or five years from now, but the reality is that inevitably I’m going to join them.”

His thumb hooked over his shoulder at the soldiers fanned out across the street. Milo felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold as he glimpsed their cold, flat eyes.

“I can’t walk away either because he’ll hunt me down,” Roland added quickly as though trying to preempt the suggestion from Milo. “Those things he’s struck a bargain with have tracked targets across oceans when properly motivated, and if I run, I won’t know a moment’s peace until one of them rips my throat out one night.”

Milo could only nod as another shiver wracked his body. He imagined Borjikhan’s eyes watching him from a dark alley, Tsar’Vodyanoy’s smile inside a sewer drain, or Lempo’s shadow passing overhead. He’d only faced the Hiisi one on one, and with all his magic, it had always been a near thing. Someone like Roland wouldn’t stand a chance against a host of them.

“So then, what’s the plan?” Milo asked, hoping against hope that things weren’t going to go as he feared.

Roland moved half a step closer and was so near that even whispering, Milo could hear him over the wind and rumbling engines.

“Help me while you work with us,” Roland said, the white gusts of his breath breaking on the side of Milo’s face. “You’re powerful, and Zlydzen, even with how much he hates you, will see you could be useful. That will give you a chance and an opportunity to figure out what magic he uses. Once you’ve puzzled it out, we can turn the tables and dispose of that warped monster.”

For a second Milo imagined it, his mind racing as he thought about Rihyani and Ambrose creeping through the rubble even as he stood there. What if this was another way? What if Roland was offering him a better way to take down Zlydzen, a way that didn’t involve destroying the oldest friend and only family he’d ever had?

There was one nagging detail that caught in Milo’s mind like a barbed hook.

“And then what?” he asked, the words coming out almost before he’d had time to formulate the thought.

Roland blinked several times and raked a hand through his hair.

“What do