Read Online Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk - Free Book Online

packets of sugar. I picked up the coffee and took a sip of it. Black and bitter, it washed the sour taste of spent magic out of my mouth and filled my sinuses with a sharp but pleasant burned smell.
     
     
    ‘‘Nice trick,’’ I said.
     
     
    Zayvion blinked once, slowly. ‘‘Trick?’’
     
     
    ‘‘You set a Siphon to mitigate some of the pain from the price I’m paying for not setting a Disbursement spell, right?’’
     
     
    ‘‘Ah,’’ he said. ‘‘That trick.’’ He followed up that nonanswer with a Zen-like look.
     
     
    But his eyes. Gold flecks burned where there had only been brown before, and an intensity flickered through his calm gaze. He had done something, something more than setting a Siphon—not that setting Siphons was easy. It took two full years of specialized education to be able to cast and set channels that slowly bled used magic back into the raw magic that pooled beneath the city. And not everyone who studied hard and practiced harder mastered that trick. The few who did were usually into the more advanced fields of body-magic integrations, people like doctors and the regulators who set tolerance levels for legal Proxies.
     
     
    I’d seen Siphons set. I put a year of study into it myself before my professor told me I might as well waste my time failing at something I enjoyed. But I remember the basics. Enough to know that Zayvion had not set a Siphon. He’d done something else. Something that took even more skill.
     
     
    ‘‘I’ll be damned,’’ I said. ‘‘You Grounded me.’’
     
     
    Grounding was another matter altogether. It was equivalent to acting as a lightning rod for someone else and was usually done while the original caster was drawing on magic. It allowed a larger amount of magic to be accessed, and a smaller price to be paid by the original caster. The Grounder often bore a heavier burden of the pain—trying to match another person’s magical style and ability was very difficult and dangerous. As so was using Grounding to mitigate the pain of using magic.
     
     
    Zayvion’s eyebrows went down and he tipped his chin to one side. ‘‘I’m not sure I follow.’’
     
     
    ‘‘What are you?’’ I asked. ‘‘Master’s level?’’
     
     
    He shook his head and took another drink of coffee. ‘‘I didn’t go to college for magic.’’
     
     
    ‘‘What did you go to college for?’’
     
     
    ‘‘The women.’’ He smiled. ‘‘Oh, we aren’t being that honest? Economics.’’
     
     
    ‘‘So you’re an economist who stalks people for money and just happens to have mastered the rare art of Grounding?’’
     
     
    ‘‘What can I say? I’m a complicated man. And I didn’t Ground you.’’
     
     
    I took another drink of coffee. He was so lying. ‘‘All right. Let’s go with that. If you didn’t set a Siphon, and didn’t Ground me, how come I feel better?’’
     
     
    ‘‘Acupressure,’’ he deadpanned.
     
     
    ‘‘Acupressure?’’
     
     
    ‘‘Pressure points. It’s a kind of massage that helps with muscle tension.’’
     
     
    ‘‘I suppose you went to college for that too?’’
     
     
    ‘‘No, but maybe I should have. I’ve been told, on more than one occasion, that I have good hands.’’
     
     
    I gave him back what I hoped was one of his blank stares. ‘‘Do you really expect me to buy that?’’
     
     
    That got a smile out of him, and damned if it didn’t make me smile back. ‘‘Well, you don’t have to buy it, or lunch,’’ he said. ‘‘Both are on me. I’ve already ordered and paid, so no argument.’’
     
     
    As if on cue, a girl came over with a platter that held two bowls of soup—beef vegetable, with what looked to be real chunks of fresh vegetables floating in the thick broth—and a side of sourdough bread.
     
     
    My mouth watered so hard I had to swallow.
     
     
    ‘‘Anything else?’’ the waitress asked as she put down the soup, bread basket, and two