Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (namjoon book recommendations txt) 📗

they were drawn back down across the surface of the hide, where they hovered like fog. Beneath this layer of mystic vapors, the hide seemed to thin, becoming insubstantial. A few seconds later, the entire hide looked like it was made of glass, and Milo could see the table through the hide.

“Incredible,” Imrah whispered, suddenly at Milo’s shoulder.

Milo wanted to feel smug, but the rapt look on her face was so intent that he felt a tremble of unease.

“Did something go wrong?” Milo asked, more concerned about her than his oddly behaving project. “Is it damaged?”

Imrah shook her head, not answering, then reaching for the accordion file resting against the leg of the table. She drew out the first collection of sheets held together with a paperclip.

“Here,” she said, shoving the papers into Milo’s hand.

A photo of a dark and surly-looking fellow with a weak chin was stuck under the paperclip. The papers were the medical records for a soldier in the missing patrols, an unfortunate named Klaus Schuster.

“So, this is supposed to happen?” Milo said, looking up from the paper and nodding at the glassy hide. “It’s supposed to look like that?”

Imrah gave an impatient snort, but checked herself, and then bobbed her head in confirmation.

“Yes, that is exactly what it is supposed to look like. In fact, even though I’ve made dozens of these in my life, I’ve only had this happen a handful of times. The cloudier it is during this stage, the more imperfect it will be on completion.”

Milo gave a grunt and looked at the picture of Klaus again. He felt a slight tug at the back of his mind, where the magic binding the proto skin-coat to his blood sang. Not sure how the process worked, he stared at Klaus and let his mind drag every feature over that thrumming chord at the back of his mind. It was something like sending puzzle pieces down a chute, knowing that they will reach their proper place. As long as he kept feeding the information, it would find its proper place.

Imrah gasped, and Milo was just about to look up when she stopped him.

“Don’t stop,” she said quickly. “It’s working perfectly.”

Milo finished with the photograph and then began to read the papers, overlaying numbers and descriptors on the image he’d formed of Klaus from the picture. Height, weight, a slight stoop here, a birthmark there. Within a few minutes of reading, Klaus Schuster was a whole creation in Milo’s mind. Somehow, he knew the skin-coat on the table was complying as well.

As the mental image thickened into a three-dimensional creation, the words on the paper swam in front of his eyes, and Milo’s head began to spin. He felt that gravity was disproportionately affecting parts of his body, his head and hand were suddenly so much heavier. He was certain he was going to need to lie down very soon.

“Finish it!” Imrah cried at his side, and her shoulder braced him under one arm.

He couldn’t remember when his legs had decided to stop working.

“Finish it and break the connection!” Imrah ordered.

Milo struggling to come to grips with soft and slippery thoughts, remembered that chord at the back of his mind. With fumbling awareness, he tugged on that clinging sensation and realized it wasn’t just a feeling. It was the anchor of a magical umbilical cord, and it was pumping more of him into his creation. He had to sever it or it would suck him dry, though all this occurred without the requisite fear he should have felt.

His mind was numb and clumsy, but somehow with the last vestiges of his jagged will, he sheared through the magical connection. Like a taut string snapping back into place, his senses snapped back with painful clarity. He was covered in a cold sweat, and he ached in every way possible—and a few impossible ones to boot.

On the table lay what looked for all the world like a deflated Klaus Shuster.

“Well,” Imrah said with a grunt since she was still holding him upright, “I suppose for doing forbidden blood magic, that went exceptionally well.”

Milo tried to straighten, but his joints sent protesting spasms of pain in rebuke. Instead, he swung his burdensome head around to give the ghul a pained grin.

“And to think you doubted me.”

As carefully as she could manage, Imrah lowered him to the floor and propped his back against a table leg. Milo didn’t protest, in part because he didn’t want to and mostly because he couldn’t. He settled onto the floor, a low groan passing from deep in his chest to leave his lips sonorously. His eyes fluttered closed, and he surrendered to fatigue, but then fingers squeezed his jaws open, and that sweet onion taste washed down his parched throat.

The nightwatch’s bouncing energy rolled through him, battering his limbs to wakefulness. It wasn’t nearly as pleasant as the first dose he’d taken, but by God, it woke him up and dragged him to his feet with fierce intensity. His eyes popped open as though they would burst if he didn’t let them loose.

Imrah had already stepped away and busied herself with something in a small cup at the table.

Milo realized with a start that he must have been out longer than he thought because the skin-coat was no longer on the table and the leftover ingredients had been cleared as well. The knife he’d used to open his hand was still there, sitting next to the bowl whose flame had shrunk to little more than the fire to be found on a candle stub.

“So, that was interesting,” Milo said a little breathlessly, the nightwatch dancing in his chest.

“Indeed,” Imrah remarked, casting a critical eye over the interior of the cup. “I suppose it goes without saying that what you did was incredibly reckless and stupid.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But it worked. Speaking of which, where is my handiwork?”

His eyes roved around the basement as Imrah turned and held the cup over the shrinking witchfire in