“Yes. That’s right. Do you remember?”
“I’m not sure.” He whirled away, striding toward a doorway that had appeared in the wall. Darien hurried after him.
The doorway opened at an odd angle into a hall lined with fading wallpaper, that went on far too long to be in an ordinary house. Somehow Silas’s strides moved him much faster than Darien, who had to run to keep up. At the far end of the hall, Silas stopped abruptly and eased open a door. Darien came up behind him and rose on tiptoe to look in over Silas’s shoulder.
Under a wide window streaming bright sunshine into the room, a very old, thin man lay sleeping, or possibly unconscious. The covers over his chest moved up and down, but his face had a waxy stillness. Beside him, seated in a chair, a young Silas held the man’s hand in both of his, his unlined face drawn, mouth turned down.
“You see?” the Silas in front of Darien said. “Master Coldwell’s still alive. For now.”
“Um. If you’re Silas now, who’s that beside him?”
“I— How odd.” Silas turned to Darien, his eyes wide. His face looked older in that brighter light, with a faint trace of creases beside his eyes and a sharper jaw. “I’m here, of course.” He turned back to the room. Beside the bed, the younger Silas sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand.
“He was everything to me, then.” Darien could barely make out the whisper of Silas’s voice. “Teacher and mentor and friend and father figure, though I had a father of my own, whom I neglected in the heady excitement of chasing my power.”
“Your dad died, and you went home for the funeral.”
“Yes. Coldwell wasn’t so near the end then, but it was coming. We’d begun the power transfers. Giving myself up into his control.” Silas’s face twisted, a shine welling in his eyes. “Damn Coldwell. I loved that old man. But sometimes I hated him.”
Darien’s heart ached. “Relationships are complicated.”
“Mine with Dad was simple. So simple I walked away and assumed he’d always be there.”
“I bet he understood. I bet he just wanted the best for you.”
“Maybe. He died before I could really know him, as one adult to another.” Silas looked Darien up and down. “Darien was there when I went home for the funeral.” His voice turned lighter, more distant, speaking past Darien’s shoulder now. “He must be ten now. Or eleven? So young, and the power beginning to shine through him like sunshine. I don’t know why someone hasn’t seen it yet.”
“I’m Darien. I’m twenty-one now, almost twenty-two.” June qualified as almost.
Silas shook his head. “So much power. There was already a ghost hanging around, nosing about the property, drawn to that power. I laid it, of course. But there’ll be more.” Silas’s face drifted younger again. “I have to tell someone, but not Coldwell. He has no strength for anything but the transfer. And not Norlington.” A crease appeared between Silas’s brows, so familiar Darien wanted to smooth it with a fingertip. “Darien’s power is warm. It’s sorcery, not necromancy, but Norlington… He’d want to control that power. He hoards power, hides it, and he loves secrets. I don’t trust him with Darien.”
“I thought he was your friend.”
“He’s Coldwell’s friend. But I think he’s always his own best friend first. He’s hiding my power, you know. For this trip home. He said it’d be a problem if someone spotted the power transfer my mentor and I are doing. They might want to interfere, to supervise. He created a powerful masking spell.”
“He used it on you?”
A smile grew on Silas’s lips. “I could transfer it. Putting a spell on another person isn’t a necromantic talent, but this spell’s tied into my power. That makes it mine to use. Transfer it to Darien, keep him safe since I can’t stay to guard him.”
Darien was caught by the urge to say No, don’t. And then by another stronger desire to say nothing, because even if he could change the past, he wouldn’t change the part that brought him to Silas.
“It worked,” Silas told him, sounding delighted. “I poured all the power I could spare into the spell and it’s hiding his light, like a bucket over the brightest candle. He’s safe, till the local council reads my letter.”
“That was ten years ago,” Darien said. “It worked, but now I’m your partner and using that power with yours.”
“Sorcery and necromancy don’t go together.”
“They do when the sorcerer’s a Weaver.”
“A what?” Silas suddenly focused on Darien in a way he hadn’t before, and his true age sharpened his features. “Darien? What are you doing here? For that matter where’s here?” He glanced back into the room, and Darien saw that the space was now uninhabited, the bed stripped of sheets, the chair beside it dusty. Silas said, “That’s Coldwell’s bedroom.”
Darien didn’t have time to dwell on how fucking good it felt to have Silas look at him and really see him. “We’re inside your head, somehow.”
“Inside?” Silas pressed his hands to his temples. “What happened? We were hunting a ghoul. No, a demon?”
“We crossed a world gate to the familiars’ Home.”
“Grim!” Silas looked around wildly. “Is he here?”
“He’s inches away, out where our bodies are, if we can get there. Although.” Darien hesitated. “Did you find what you were looking for? Information about the gate?”
“Information.” Silas froze, staring into the room, his face taking on a hint of the blankness Darien had hated. But before Darien could decide what to do about that, Silas turned to him, his eyes bright and fierce. “Yes, I did. And damn those two old men. They hid it behind a spell that was supposed to end when Norlington died and the gate’s magic ceased. They assumed the one would lead to the other. But Lyyll had taught them a gate structure that powered itself from the Veil, and she was still alive on the other side, keeping the spell from collapsing. So when Norlington died, the gate didn’t fall and the lock on my memories held.”
“And now the gate’s gone.”
“Yes. And it took some digging, but I remember it now. The two of them argued through a long afternoon and into the night about which parts of the spell were doing what, and how to grasp Otherspace to drive a tunnel through it. I remember it all.”
Darien grinned. “So we can get home! To Earth, I mean.”
“I hope so. We have a good chance.” Silas turned in a circle. “If we can figure out which way is out. If that’s Coldwell’s bedroom, this should be the top of the stairs, but it’s not.”
“That’s not a real room or a real house, anyhow. I came in through a mist like the Veil, but less power-wispy.” Darien eyed the darkness behind them. “Do you see a thinner spot?”
Silas sketched a rune but no glow of power followed the motion of his hand. He grunted and tried again. “Nothing’s working. You?”
Darien reached down to the source of his power, glowing at his core. The golden strands coiled around his hands as he reached for them, but stubbornly refused to be grabbed or pulled into use. “It’s not working right. Maybe because we’re not actually here? Maybe if you imagine using your power?”