Corollary

Aftermath

Where was the bloody path? It should have opened up already. Pushing back his coat, he dug his hands deeper into his pockets and leaned back. He couldn’t backtrack towards the station to consult the map since it was yet to open. He stifled a yawn. He had maybe an hour or so before dawn, when the path would be closed to him and anyone mad enough to break into the Garden.

However, trying to sneak an entry into the Garden during the daytime was asking for the Old Man’s attention and he wasn’t prepared for that, not yet. The real issue was that he had always cycled here especially the first time he came looking for it. Unfortunately, the boy who could cycle down the cobbled lane no longer existed.

Maybe the Old Man had rescinded the standing invitation of Luc’s youth. He snickered quietly at the challenge. That the House and Garden had a protected pathway was a known fact that frustrated many magicians trying for access. Outside of an invitation, one did not stumble across it. You had to be led there or be in possession of a fated amulet. It had been the latter that brought him to the House and Garden in the first place.

He stopped and led himself through an exercise of shallow breathing. He didn’t want to be breathing deeply this close to the river, especially now. He reviewed what he had learned from his father’s journal about the way to the Garden, via the riverside paths on the south side. You stayed within sight of the river for as long as you could and the cobbled lane would appear before you turned off. He had been both terrified and exhilarated the first time the cobbled path had appeared to him. Magic and the possibility of finding out who his father was had carried him the furthest he had been away from home without adult supervision.

However, what he was trying for was not something his long dead father would have advised. Walking about in the early hours of dawn, like a noob advertising for a jacking. The tell-tale whiff of a mother amulet snapping zipped up his nose. Luc swore. What was it with stupidity that it was so carelessly bestowed on so many? He would have to take care of the person who had stepped on the marker the amulet was connected to. He wasn’t about to risk anyone discovering that he knew the Old Man, much less that he had a pathway to the House and Garden. Luc patted his coat pockets down. He hadn’t packed the gun. He didn’t think the pathway would appear to him, while carrying one. Well, there were other ways to dispose of nosy people who should have learned better by now. He dropped another marker and pushed into the ground with his shoe. Not enough to break it but enough to keep someone else from mistakenly kicking it away. Not that there was anyone else foolish enough to be exploring the river path at this time. Nope. Just him and apparently the other magician who was about to contribute his life to the greater cause of Luc’s vitality.