Arson of the Heart Read online

  "I'm usually there long after classes end for the day. I have to do grading and that sort of thing, too," Lajos said ruefully. He'd love to devote more time to his research, but he couldn't shirk the responsibilities that let him perform that research.

  Toma smiled again, glancing down at the books he held a little wistfully. Probably wishing something similar, and Lajos grinned, putting a bit of space between them before he did something stupid.

  "So I'll see you later, then," Lajos said, pleased when Toma nodded distractedly.

  "See you," Toma echoed before turning away, entering the classroom. Lajos smiled victoriously and headed back to his office to grade quizzes and wait.

  *~*~*

  Toma wavered hesitantly at the threshold of Lajos's office, waiting for the professor to look up and see him. He should really not be here—it was late, and he'd meant to go straight back to his own room and study.

  But if Lajos really was studying the differences between spellcasting here and spellcasting in Kajal, he'd be the best person to tell whether Toma was doing something out of the ordinary for Marjan spellcasting.

  Tapping his knuckles lightly against the doorframe, Toma smiled hesitantly when Lajos's head shot up from the papers he was working on.

  "Hey," Lajos greeted distractedly, glancing around in confusion for a minute. "Oh, when did it get so late?"

  "I can go—" Toma began, frowning a little. Lajos shook his head, setting down his pen and standing.

  "No, come in, I was expecting you even if I got caught up in my work," Lajos said, smiling widely. He had a nice smile, Toma noted, and tried not to blush at the thought. What was he, a smitten schoolboy? He didn't have time for a crush, let alone a crush on a professor—off-limits, even if Lajos wasn't technically his professor for anything.

  "I like your office," Toma said, setting down his bag before it wore a groove into his shoulder. Lajos's office was wide and spacious, brightly lit by a handful of decorative lanterns. He had a giant window, which would be a pain in the winter but provided lovely views during the spring, summer, and fall.

  "It's too big," Lajos complained cheerfully. "I never use that second desk; I don't even know why it's there."

  "In case you have a student who needs to make up a quiz?" Toma suggested, taking the seat Lajos gestured to. "I've done that with a few of my professors."

  "You miss quizzes? Tsk," Lajos chided playfully, and Toma flushed. He hadn't actually meant to, only sometimes one or two of his classes overlapped and he missed the first few minutes.

  "Are you hungry? I'm hungry," Lajos asked, and Toma thought he was probably always hungry. The man was huge; it had to take a lot of food to maintain that.

  "Sure," Toma accepted after a second. He hadn't eaten since lunch, some five classes and three hours in the library earlier.

  "Excellent," Lajos declared, ducking around his desk and only barely not clipping the tall stack of papers and books resting dangerously near the edge. "I'll go track someone down to bring us something."

  Toma nodded his agreement, swallowing a bout of nervousness. It wasn't strange, dining with a professor. Not strange at all.

  Lajos didn't reappear quickly, so Toma dug out the book he'd gotten caught up in at the library. It was a thick volume on how to extinguish fires, with a focus on fires too large to take out all at once.

  He got caught up in the book, so much so that Lajos's return startled him. Lajos just snickered, setting down the laden tray he carried on the spare desk with a clatter.

  "It's not much. I raided the professor's lounge," Lajos said, pouring a glass of wine for Toma before pouring one for himself. "Help yourself."

  "Thanks," Toma said, setting aside his book. Taking a sip of the wine, he shifted chairs so that he was sitting in front of the empty desk instead of in front of Lajos's desk. Lajos just leaned against the desk, disconcertingly tall and still too handsome for Toma's peace of mind.

  "Can you tell me more about your research?" Toma asked, tearing free a chunk of the bread Lajos had brought and slicing some cheese to go with it.

  "Of course," Lajos agreed with an indulgent smile, sipping at his wine. "If you tell me why you're studying here instead of at the university in Kajal."

  Toma winced, because it wasn't the first time he'd been asked and he really should've expected that. He could lie—or go without learning about Lajos's research—but it really shouldn't be that big a deal.

  "All right," Toma accepted, making a face at his wine. "But you have to go first."

  "Sure," Lajos said, dishing himself a bowl of the strange-looking salad dish that was sitting on the tray. Toma eyed it warily, but didn't move as Lajos sat back in his chair with the air of a storyteller gearing up for an epic.

  "The research I'm doing isn't too complicated," Lajos began, and Toma scoffed lightly in disbelief. "I'm really just comparing the ways Marjan magic has diverged from Kajal magic. They're based on the same system—if you've ever been overseas you know that the Kylarians don't even have the elemental break-ups we do."

  "That's because their magic comes from a different source," Toma said slowly, thinking over Lajos's words. He'd said diverged, like casting had been done all the same way at one point. "When did it diverge, then? When the empire split into smaller countries?"

  "Not sure, actually," Lajos said with a loose, languid shrug. He paused to shovel a mouthful of food into his mouth—really, being a professor should have taught him some manners—and he took a healthy swallow of wine before continuing. "There's evidence that some sectors of the country did things slightly differently even before then. Everything was exacerbated when Kajal and Marjan isolated themselves from each other, of course."

  "Right," Toma accepted thoughtfully, taking a small sip of his wine. "So what was the prevalent means of spellcasting?" He asked, waving his hand to indicate the passage of time. "Way back then, before the split?"

  "With words," Lajos said with a grin, and Toma rolled his eyes. "Worse than what the Marjans do now, actually. They had a whole formal spellcasting language that was much more complicated than the pidgin mix they use now."

  "Ulgh, and I thought this crap was bad," Toma muttered, eyeing his knapsack with disdain. There were two more books—half-read, he kept meaning to get back to them and finish them—detailing all the spellcasting terms that Marjans learned in their first year of study.

  Lajos snickered, setting down his half-eaten bowl of salad and climbing to his feet. "Here, I'll show you."

  Toma nodded agreeably, cutting himself another chunk of bread and nibbling at it. Lajos was poking around in the stacks of books that were crammed haphazardly into the bookshelf behind his desk. He made a triumphant noise after a few minutes of shuffling and produced a thick book with a worn cover. The binding was held together by a few pieces of thick twine.

  "Your organization makes me cringe," Toma told Lajos solemnly as Lajos cracked the book open and held it out to him.

  Lajos laughed, flipping a few pages to reveal slightly yellowed pages filled with neat script. "I know where everything is, mostly."

  "Right," Toma muttered, distracted by the book. It was written in archaic language, old outdated terms and modes of speech, and he kind of wanted to steal the book and squirrel away with it for a few days.

  Except he didn't really have time for that, did he?

  "That's really neat," Toma said, sitting back reluctantly. "I'd probably quit if I had to learn that, though."

  Lajos snickered, carefully folding the book back together. "I'd lend it to you, but I'm afraid if I give you another book your back would break."

  Toma scoffed, but didn't object. The worst he'd done was fall over when he hadn't balanced his bag properly.

  "So what are the differences now?" Toma asked, getting the conversation back on track. "The big one is the speaking to spellcast."

  "Right," Lajos said, smiling at him like he'd said something special. "The other differences are small, nothing you'd have to worry about for pra
ctical exams."

  Toma flushed, annoyed that he'd been that transparent.

  "Some of them are elemental, too," Lajos said thoughtfully, and he was still watching Toma with that funny smile on his face. "You wouldn't have to worry about the air dance, or the weird water superstitions."

  "I've seen some of that," Toma said, stifling a snicker as his flush died out. "Anything fire-based?"

  "Not that affects spellcasting. They don't think very highly of practicing where it isn't safe," Lajos said, frowning. "Which means indoors. They like to have a second fire mage around as well, to keep things contained if necessary."

  Toma swallowed a protest and just nodded. He wasn't going to stop practicing in his dormitory room; he didn't want to give away that he was working on an advanced fire-sculpting technique, not before the exams.

  "It also seems like there's much more posturing between the fire students here than there was in Kajal," Lajos said, raising his eyebrows at Toma knowingly. Toma bit back the protest that they'd started it. "But there are no silly requirements to make you duck around alleyways in the dead of night."

  "Right," Toma muttered, shaking his head. "I knew that, but…"

  "Mmhmm," Lajos murmured, a slow grin slipping across his face. "So, your turn. Spill."

  "Ulgh," Toma groaned, his cheeks turning pink. "You're going to think it's stupid, too."

  "Well, I can promise I won't think it's stupid until you tell me," Lajos said cheekily.

  Toma rolled his eyes."How generous of you," Toma muttered, sighing. "Fine. I have a twin brother. Identical."

  "Fire mage, too?" Lajos asked curiously.

  "Identical," Toma stressed, frowning at Lajos.

  "I've known identical twins who controlled different elements," Lajos said mildly, unperturbed. The man was seriously a rock, Toma decided. An easily amused rock.

  "Then they weren't identical, even if they looked it," Toma declared stubbornly. "Magic is hereditary, and that new paper by Kilegen says it's based on genetics –"

  "And where did you get a hold of Kilegen's latest paper?" Lajos asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "The library doesn't have it yet."

  "Huh," Toma said, surprised. "I didn't realize that. Jesni—my brother—sends me things to read all the time."

  "So you're not estranged," Lajos observed. "He's studying at the Kajal university?"

  "No," Toma denied, frowning. "The whole mess is our father's fault. My mother died giving birth to us—we were my father's first children—but apparently my mother's death was traumatic enough that the midwife couldn't remember which of us she'd birthed first."

  Lajos snickered, looking highly amused. "So there's some land, a title involved here?"

  "Yes," Toma answered, shrugging. "I don't want it and neither does Jesni, but it was my mother's, not my father's, so it has to go to one of us. My father decided that we would have to choose, and when we told him we wouldn't, he said whichever of us graduated with higher marks from the Kajal university would get it."

  "So to spite him, you came all the way out here?" Lajos asked, obviously torn between laughing his fool head off and utter confusion.

  "Well, that and other things," Toma admitted, flushing. "I ran out of classes there, but they require a number of years of schooling before they give you the exams."

  Lajos did laugh at that, shaking his head. "I wouldn't be surprised if you go through most of the classes here, while you're at it."

  Toma shrugged, not willing to say that he'd already managed a dozen extra courses in the nine months since he'd transferred; never mind that most of them were courses the younger students took to learn basic spellcasting techniques and terms.

  "So, your father's not going to pick your brother by default?" Lajos asked curiously, picking up his bowl of salad again. "Since he's still at the Kajal university and you're not?"

  "No, Jesni went north," Toma corrected, fighting a smile because Jesni was apparently thinking of settling there. "He's getting his accolades from the university in Valon."

  Lajos snorted, apparently still amused by the whole thing. "I don't know what all the fuss is about, but that's all right. What are you planning to do once you get your accolades?"

  "I'm not really sure," Toma said, flushing because he should know by now, six weeks from taking the exams that would earn him the accolades he needed to work magic professionally.

  "You could go into research," Lajos suggested, gesturing with his fork to Toma's bulging knapsack. "You've got the intellect for it."

  "I don't think I'd be very good at it," Toma disagreed, shrugging. "I like…knowing everything. I don't think I could focus on just one piece of magic."

  "Since you can conjure blue flames, I should counsel you to go into the army, but I don't really think that's your sort of thing either," Lajos said thoughtfully. Toma made a face; like they'd really accept him into the army if they figured out who he was.

  Not that he particularly wanted to use his flames offensively. He'd read some of the horrors mages had been forced to perpetrate during the last great wars; he hadn't slept right for two months after the one book.

  "You could always work as a research assistant until you figure out what you want to focus on," Lajos tried and Toma shrugged, flushing a little. He wouldn't mind being Lajos's "assistant."

  "But I'm sure you've already thought of that," Lajos said, grinning widely as he sat up abruptly. He set his now empty bowl down on top of the papers he'd been working on and reached for his goblet of wine.

  Toma guiltily wondered if he was keeping Lajos from his work. Lajos didn't seem to be in any hurry to return to it at least. He seemed far more interested in Toma at the moment, which was a little disconcerting.

  "So why does Epsen dislike you so much?" Lajos asked, not even bothering to hide how amused he was about the whole thing. Toma flushed, scowling a little. He hadn't done anything wrong though, even if it would've been better to ignore Epsen and his taunts.

  "I don't know?" Toma tried, flushing hotter as Lajos raised an eyebrow skeptically.

  "You don't know?" Lajos repeated, his tone as skeptical as his expression. "I have heard rumors…" Lajos baited, trailing off with a smirk. Toma rolled his eyes wondering how old Lajos was that he'd be so…immature. Except he wasn't Toma's professor, so perhaps he didn't really need to be mature.

  It was a good question though, and Toma peered at Lajos curiously. He didn't look too old; obviously he was older than twenty-four, since he'd already earned his accolades. It was unusual for any researcher to be made a professor so young, but Lajos was a shadow mage; special allowances were made for them since they were so rare.

  "I promise whatever the actual cause, it won't be as funny as some of the rumors," Lajos interrupted his thoughts, startling him into blushing again. Really, he did that far too much around Lajos.

  "It's stupid and simple," Toma muttered, annoyed all over again. "I'm not entirely sure, of course, but before I transferred I think Epsen was set to graduate at the top of the class."

  "Huh," Lajos looked thoughtful. "So you're top now?"

  Toma nodded, frowning. He wouldn't mind if he wasn't, but he wasn't going to do poorly in his classes to appease Epsen.

  "That's a lot less fun than some of the rumors," Lajos complained, stretching his arms up. With a deliberate turn of his head, he cracked his neck, making Toma wince. Hopefully Lajos didn't crack his knuckles, otherwise Toma would have to…well, there wasn't anything he could do, really.

  "I don't want to know what the rumors are saying," Toma grumbled, taking a small sip of wine to distract himself as Lajos stood and surveyed the laden tray of food with a frown.

  "Do you subsist on books?" Lajos demanded, eyeing him speculatively as he cut himself hearty chunks of bread and cheese. "Eat some more, before you vanish from my office entirely."

  Toma rolled his eyes, helping himself to one of the loose apples on the tray. He didn't doubt that it took three times the amount of food he ate to sustain Lajos
. Maybe more.

  "I should go," Toma said reluctantly, thinking of the work he had to do tonight. "You have grading to do, and I have to study –"

  Lajos snorted, swallowing his mouthful of food before speaking. "My grading can wait." He paused, looking annoyed. "Not much, but it can. If you need to study though, I can certainly let you go."

  "I have assignments," Toma said, reluctant to move. Only because this was the first civilized conversation he'd had in weeks, of course. Even if Lajos had spent most of it teasing him.

  "You can work in here, if you want," Lajos offered, gesturing to the desk Toma sat at. "I'd be glad of the company for my grading, even if it's silent company."

  Toma hesitated—how much work would he get done in Lajos's company? The idea appealed though—more than returning to his tiny dormitory room or going to the overcrowded library where Epsen was sure to be.