Marked For Magic Read Free Page B

head at the poor crop, then pulled up a leek and two scrawny carrots. Not near enough for a hearty stew, more like a broth, but it would be warm and most welcome. Both her hands were full so she could gather no more. She needed a basket, but so far, the kitchen had revealed none but the one he’d stripped.
    She would have to ask if he had a gathering bag or something like one.
    Once she prepared all she’d picked, the gloom could not disguise that the vegetables wouldn’t fit in the small pot. She drummed the table. Even though she’d eaten a few of the carrot slices raw, her stomach clenched. She needed this meal.
    She toyed with the idea of calling up to him, but she’d promised not to disturb his work, and his temper certainly burned short. If she didn’t call him, she couldn’t cook, and he’d be angry. Yet chances were if she did call him, he’d be angry, too. By the end of her deliberations, she’d grown angry herself.
    She might as well get on with it. I’ve got to have a bigger cauldron!
    The door to the stairs creaked on its hinges as she opened it. About to call up, she stilled when his tread sounded at the top of the stone steps.
    “You have no need to yell up the stairs.” His voice echoed in the lofty darkness.
    “I didn’t.” Was this part of his magic? What else could he do as well as hear what she thought? Only Alicia had ever heard the mind singing, but neither she nor her friend thought the trick was anything but a game. Mind singing couldn’t be magic.
    “I distinctly heard you yell.” He hesitated, as though waiting for an explanation. When she offered none, he continued down the stairs. “The cooking pot is here.”
    She moved out of the way. He brushed past to reach up to the top of the cupboard where she couldn’t see, and handed her a much larger cauldron than the one on the table.
    He glanced toward the hearth and demanded. “Where is the small pot?”
    She froze. Was he angry?
    A spasm crossed his face and his lip twitched.
    “I emptied it in the stream. I meant to use the small pot for the soup.”
    “Gods, I am doomed!” His stare blazed green fire. “You have thrown away the finest batch of seeing mushrooms I have made in years.” He ran his hand over his hair. The blue coils around his wrist seemed to writhe like live, spring-woken snakes. “Foolish brat, did you not think to ask?”
    She shook her head, gritting her teeth to keep silent.
    He glowered. “Nin, a new rule. Here you touch nothing if it contains anything.”
    “That’s stupid. You can’t say I mustn’t touch anything. You should have said not to use the small cauldron. I didn’t know.” Ready to bolt, she edged to the door.
    “Well, you know now!” His yell almost lifted her feet. “Do you know what a seeing mushroom looks like?”
    “Yes,” she murmured. Aunt Jen had pointed them out, so both she and her cousin Lettie knew them. Her aunt had always warned they should never go in the pot, no matter how hungry they all were. The seeing mushrooms were small, sour, but most of all, dangerous. “I’ve seen them.”
    “Then go out and pick more. I’ll need twenty-four, at least. I want them before nightfall.”
    She backed around to the other side of the table. Safe with something solid between them, her heart hammered less. She quelled her fear. His green robe, it wasn’t so fine. A tear ran up to his knee on one side. It needed stitching. “I’ll make the soup first, shall I? I’ll need a collecting basket.”
    He opened the tall top cupboard and yanked down a wicker basket. One of his sleeves bore a patch at the elbow. For a Mage, he wasn’t so well off.
    “Here.” He shoved the basket toward her. “And don’t come back without them.”
    He stomped up the stairs. She could have spat after him. Several of the more unpleasant names the villagers screeched when she left raced through her mind. He deserved all of those names.
    “I heard that,” he called. “Don’t let me hear you