Florian (Augarten Book 4) Read online

  I nodded, too exhausted to argue.

  He stroked my thigh in comfort. I'd taken to wearing skinny jeans on the regular because he seemed to enjoy running his fingertips along the stitching of the outside hem.

  "I made a copy of my key for you. I also swung by a real estate agency Klaus' wife recommended and grabbed some pamphlets. Why don't we think about finding a bigger place once my lease is done? We just have to last till the end of the year."

  "Why are you being so kind to me?"

  He froze, clearly trying to read my expression but I refused to meet his eyes. "Because I care about you, Florian, but I don't want to scare you away."

  "I'm not scared," I said bitterly. "I'm not a child."

  "I know. You're more of an adult than I am."

  That gave me pause. How could that be true?

  He stood and held out his hand. "Let's get something to eat—I can hear your stomach growling from here. And dinner's on me: consider it compensation for tidying up. I'm sure we've passed an early anniversary or two by now. Let's go back to our favorite café and then make out by the river."

  I smiled and took his hand. "Okay."

  Chapter Four

  A few weeks later I'd called home and, not for the first time, it had put me in a mood. Mum still wouldn't stand up to Dad about letting me inherit the shop, even though she had lost me over it.

  Michi gave his characteristic response and shot me a look. "Well. Shall we sue?"

  I crossed my arms, scooted back from the kitchen table and let out a weary sigh. "I don't want to sue my parents. That feels so ugly."

  He flung his arms wide, whacking a stack of books on accident which he then scrambled to steady before it toppled over.

  "Let's hire a lawyer. Klaus told me children in Germany can legally sue their parents for unpaid tuition money. If your mother and father are going to bring you into the world, then they have an obligation to not sabotage you in your adulthood."

  "…I can't sue my parents."

  Michi leaned forward and glared right at me, propping his elbows on the table. "Sometimes parents hate their children, Florian. It happens more often than you think. What's even more common is the saccharin sweetness of 'I just want the best for you' while they do cruel things and expect you to love them."

  My exhalation left me feeling more empty than I ever had.

  Michi took my hands and kneaded the muscles of my palms. "Let me help you. You can switch to part-time and enroll in university while I pay rent. You're too young to have resigned yourself to working on your feet at minimum wage for the rest of your life. It would make sense if you were the owner of a small business, yes, but all you have are parents who want to sell the business out from under your feet."

  I nodded, my thoughts and feelings unable to keep up with the full ramifications of Michi's words. "That shop is all I have. It's all I've dreamed of."

  "But you don't have it, Flor. You either need to fight for it, and fight your parents, or you need to let it go and move on. If you love the shop that much, then it should be worth more than this broken relationship with your parents. But something has to give, sweetheart, because here I am, wanting to buy a place and build a life with you in Paris, and here you are, just waiting until you leave."

  I pulled my hands back and scrubbed my eyes, humiliated and angry at myself. "I don't want to leave you, Michi. That's not what I mean when I talk about this." I sniffed. "Ich liebe dich."

  Michi went still. I choked back a sob, feeling wretched and confused. I heard more than saw my boyfriend push out from the table and come to kneel in front of me. He wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me close, his head against my chest. "I love you too, Florian. Thank you for telling me."

  I cradled him against my chest and lay my cheek on top of his head. I had been lying to myself. I had to admit it, even though I was terrified of making a mistake and getting hurt. In Paris, I had found something—someone—whom I loved more than the shop. If I could just stay with this man and take care of him, then never owning the shop would come as only a secondary pain.

  The next morning, I rose before my alarm and took a moment to watch Michel sleeping beside me. Maybe this constituted an adult relationship: complicated, difficult to know whether you had chosen the right path because so many things could go wrong. Talking things through, owning your shit and making things clear. Trying to see where the other person was coming from and communicate to be understood. Michi himself had been raised in the art of relationships by an older lover, which had to be why he was so patient with me. After our talk the night before, I at least knew what I wanted—I wanted to be with this man, even if that meant changing my standpoint. I knew he would support me while I found my feet again.

  That evening, Michel sat to eat dinner after getting home from work, but after one bite of the stew I'd made, he set his spoon down carefully and looked up. Concern was written across his features, and a stone dropped in my gut.

  "Did you cook this while angry?" he asked.

  I took a controlled breath, letting it out and telling myself I wasn't going to get flustered by my boyfriend's eccentricities. "I might have been thinking about the shop in Vienna. Cooking helps me to cool off."

  Michel nodded, but he didn't pick up his spoon again. I was going to be seriously pissed if my foul mood had ruined dinner.

  "How can I fix it?" I asked.

  Michi's eyes filled with hope. He reached for my hand and I gave it to him.

  My boyfriend positioned my palm just above the surface of the stew. "Think about what you normally do when you're happy while cooking. Like the difference in taste between a fast-food chain, where the workers are underpaid and exploited, versus the tiny hole-in-the-wall establishment run by an old grandma who genuinely loves to make people food, there are magical ramifications as well. It's one of the basic tenets of alchemy. Food made with love is healthier for the body, because the human body is designed to respond to magical signals like that. Your thoughts are golden energy flowing out of your palm into the food."

  I closed my eyes and thought about my skinny boyfriend and how I wanted to put some meat on him. I lovingly imagined feeding him good Austrian cuisine for months on end, seeing him happy and energetic, filling out a bit to fit his frame. Not any substantial changes, just a healthy nourishment to his skin, some cushion on his ribs and back and neck where he looked like he had bird bones. Michel clearly forgot to eat when he was thinking deeply about something; he'd sit on the floor surrounded by stacks of books, his stomach growling so loudly even I could hear it, but it wouldn't occur to him to stop what he was doing and grab a snack. Now that we were living together, I would keep track of him.

  "Good," Michi said with a toothy smile, his cheeks dimpling. "That was good, Flor."

  He released my hand and I pulled it back. Then he tried a bite of the stew and his brows shot up. "Wow, it worked."

  I smiled self-deprecatingly, not sure what among his claims I was willing to believe.

  I tidied the kitchen while he ate, then brought out the homemade bread once it sounded like he was nearly done eating. Michel liked to mop up soup or stew with bread, then eat the rest with butter instead of any kind of dessert. I was glad he didn't seem to have a sweet tooth and that he relished my cooking enough to not let a drop go to waste.

  "How can I do that all the time?" I asked. "I want to bless you..."

  Then I realized what I'd said and my face burned.

  Michel blinked owl-eyed in his soda-bottle glasses. "It involves doing magic. Are you okay with that?"

  I scratched the back of my neck. "I just want my food to nourish you. I don't want to believe in God."

  He nodded. "That's fine. You'd be working only with the elements of nature."

  That didn't sound too bad. I nodded tentatively.

  Michi scooted back from the table and stood. "Let's try the basic concept with a cup of water."

  He snagged a cup from the cupboard and filled it with the ta
p, then set it on the counter and motioned for me to step up to it. I held my hand aloft over the cup like I had done with the stew.

  My boyfriend came behind me and shifted me just slightly. "Face West, the gate for water."

  I adjusted my stance, then Michi wrapped me in the sweetest hug and I smiled. "You're distracting me."

  "I want to feel when you do deliberate magic for the first time."

  "…okay."

  He tucked his chin over my shoulder, his left arm wrapped loosely around my waist. Then he reached out with his right hand and drew a symbol in the air with his bony fingers. "Three rays of light. A triad is the most stable structure in nature, and therefore many ancient faiths revere it. Trace the beams over the water like this."

  I did so.

  "Then flatten your palm, and imagine the same golden energy again."

  "Does it really work if all I'm doing is imagining it?" I asked.

  "Concrete imagination is mental work happening on the astral plane," he replied, "and this is a blessing from that plane."

  Against all doubt, I imagined a golden glow from my palm going into the water. I imagined that Michel would drink the water, and it would heal him.

  "Good," my boyfriend cooed. "Can I try it?"

  "Sure."

  Michel snatched the glass and chugged the water. I laughed, having expected him to sip it with reverence. Once he downed the last of it, he lipped his lips and grinned. "You're a natural. That tasted great."

  "Does it really taste differently?"

  He nodded. "Though I'm not sure how much of that is because I'm attuned to such things. Want to give it a try?"

  "Yes."

  I got a fresh cup down and filled it. With Michel, the simplest mundane act had become an exciting mystery. I set it on the counter and faced west. "Ready."

  My boyfriend wrapped me in his arms again, and I could already feel him thrumming with the same energy that filled our apartment after he said his morning prayers. "I invoke the gods for this, is that okay?"

  "It won't...drinking such water won't convert me or something, right?"

  "No, definitely not. These gods don't force conversions, Florian. They are the whisperers in the forest, divine people listening to and teaching those who seek them with respect. I promise."

  I nodded, settling my hands on his arm wrapped around my waist.

  Michel's long fingers drew the symbol over the water. Then he flattened his palm and began to sing.

  Without a hint of self-consciousness, he sang words in his Celtic native language from Brittany that I didn't understand. Like a tune hummed while washing dishes, his voice lilted over familiar notes, not especially skilled in their tuning, but well-worn. This was a path Michel had lovingly walked thousands of times. Patient yet eager, his song enveloped me as with his embrace, and I wondered whom he was talking to and what he was asking for.

  I returned my attention to the cup of water, half expecting to see its surface ripple, or some kind of visual effect, like heat waves over asphalt in summer. Instead I saw just a cup of water, but with the feeling of Michel against my back as he sang...something resonated, like my heart was hearing him too, though that was surely waxing poetic.

  He finished and wrapped his other arm around me, nuzzling his face in the crook of my neck and kissing me there. We stood that way for a long moment. I waited for him to break the silence, hesitant to cut through such tangible awe in the presence of his divinities.

  "I love you, Florian," he whispered.

  I huffed playfully. "I thought I was supposed to get a drink of water out of all this."

  He chuckled. "Go ahead, then."

  He released me and I took the cup and sipped it, wondering about the placebo effect. It tasted cold and clear, clean, again reminding me of how our apartment felt after Michel's morning rituals. I was spoiled by the crystalline drinking water of Vienna that got piped in from the mountains, and while Paris water normally didn't compare, this time it reminded me of home. "Good tap."

  Michel smiled at me and giggled.

  "I thought it would feel different somehow, fizzy or something."

  He shook his head. "No amount of magic could ever add vitamins to your water, or anything like that. The planes are separate, so an astral blessing heals you on the astral plane, not the physical plane."

  "I see."

  Michi kissed me on the forehead. "I'm going to finish that amazing bread. Bring the butter?"

  "Sure thing."

  Chapter Five

  Several weeks later, Michi announced that he'd finally gotten off the waitlist to view two rare texts in a special collections library in Toulouse. He would be there for a month and he wanted me to come with him. I was torn between taking that much time off work and knowing I would miss him. In the end, my friend James came begging for more hours, so I offered him my full-time pay for a month and he gratefully took it.

  In Toulouse, we moved into a tiny apartment in faculty housing. As soon as we arrived, Michel asked if he could repeat his morning prayers, even though he'd done his usual routine in Paris before we left. I did not know the meaning of the Breton words he sang, but the breeze from the window washed over me and my soul flew to Vienna. Something about Michel's prayers made me think of the second district where I'd grown up, of our neighborhood park Augarten. I suspected it wasn't the location, but rather the person I was with, who felt like home. As the gentle wind ruffled my hair, I went to get the kitchenette into some semblance of functionality so I could be our homemaker for a month.

  That first evening, we cuddled on the tattered old couch in our temporary living room. Michi had his bottle glasses on, which made him look both older and twice as hipster.

  He turned the page of the large book in his lap, absently playing with my hair with his free hand.

  I struggled to see what was on the page. "Is that your handwriting?"

  "Mm-hmm."

  Straining, I could only sort-of read it. "What kind of French is that?"

  "Late medieval. The authors couldn't risk writing it in Latin because then it might come to the attention of the priests."

  "Because it's on occultism?"

  Michi nodded. "Christianity was once filled with magic. A major reason why Christ's message spread like wildfire through the Roman empire is because Christian mages outperformed pagans in their own magic. They built a sweeping new oversoul that enveloped Europe."

  I cuddled in his lap, leeching his warmth. "But why is it in your handwriting?"

  "Because it's a forbidden book. I had to sit on a waitlist for six months and live in Tarb for five weeks."

  The details weren't adding up. "And they just let you into the special collections room with a blank book and fountain pen to copy it?"

  "Of course not. Any writing instruments are strictly prohibited in special collections. That's why the librarian sits there watching you the entire time and turns the pages for you."

  Then realization hit me. I sat up, scanning Michi in disbelief. He pulled off his glasses, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

  I could barely believe my own words. "You memorized it."

  He grinned wolfishly. "Maybe."

  I gaped in shock. "How did you memorize an entire book in medieval French?"

  "Day by day, and chapter by chapter. That's why my trips are so long. I copy the pages down each night."

  "Why don't you just type it?"

  "A forbidden book, on a trackable computer? Or a typewriter clacking away all hours of the night in the faculty housing they've arranged for me?"

  Oh. "You're some kind of genius."

  He barked a laugh. "Hardly. I'm just willing to put in the hard work with memory techniques. Robert got me started on them early—he used to drill me at the academy, since I wanted to learn magic but could not safely start until puberty. I worked on them all the time, just to please him."

  I stared in awe, but Michi cocked an eyebrow. "Now, if I could get back to it?"

  The next day, h
is schedule with special collections started. Michi's method involved what he termed 'mapping'. He would read over a section of the text with his dictionary open in his lap, one of the few things allowed inside.

  To memorize a text, Michi would take a paragraph and visually imagine it moving from the original text onto a page of his dictionary. Then he would read the section softly to himself, tracing it with his finger on the dictionary pages, since touching the special collections texts was usually not allowed. In this way, he mentally copied the text onto his dictionary. When he returned home he would write out what he had memorized that day, finally creating a physical copy. Any disruptions increased the chance of that transmission going awry, and Michi was already a bit volatile in our new place, because he felt like he could not adequately protect a foreign apartment without the groundwork of his rituals.

  He worked long hours each day—twelve to fourteen without stopping. I grew concerned he would burn out, but Michi insisted this was how he managed to copy entire texts in so short a time, and this month he was attempting two, one in Latin and one in ancient Greek.

  He stopped shaving and his appearance grew increasingly haggard. I had to drag him into the bath. I did all the chores and laundered his clothes. Aside from that and keeping him fed, there wasn't much I could do. At nights, he would sleep restlessly and sleep-talk in ancient Greek loud enough to wake me up. Some nights I slept only lightly, waking every couple of hours to hold my boyfriend and soothe him back to a quieter sleep, stroking his arms and humming to him. Though I'd had a chance to explore Toulouse at first during the day, as things got progressively worse, I switched from tourist to full homemaker. As Michi's nights grew more and more restless, I had to resort to catching up on sleep during the day, but at least if Michi came home he could still work with me sleeping.

  Near the end of the month, my boyfriend became a cranky zombie.