Page 126 of Scales ’N’ Spells: Volume One

“Ouch. Then yes, a bigger city might be better for him.”

“Better than thinking of him being on the run.”

Warin stilled at Baldewin’s dark comment. “Jaeggi?”

The name alone could send a chill down Baldewin’s spine and tighten a knot in his stomach. The rogue mage clan had successfully kidnapped Cameron and threatened the life of their king. They didn’t know the Jaeggis’ motives yet, but it was clear they were after mages and had malicious intent. It didn’t matter. Baldewin would not allow another mage to come to harm by their hands.

“I don’t know, but it would be wise of us to at least consider it. If Cassie and Lisette were able to find him, we have to assume the Jaeggi can find him as well.”

Warin grunted and looked down at his phone again. “Very true. Even without the Jaeggi, I see why he’s so strained. Life hasn’t been good to him so far.” He perked up. “Maybe we’ll be the wind of change for him.”

Warin’s optimism couldn’t completely chase away Baldewin’s growing sense of unease. Why did he have this nagging suspicion they were going to have a fight on their hands with this one?

Nestori Taavi sat on the edge of the extremely firm twin mattress and rubbed his burning eyes. He was exhausted down to his very core. Everything hurt. Even his damn hair hurt. But all the exhaustion, stress, and headaches were worth it.

He was free.

After nearly three decades of being treated like a second-class citizen by the fucking Taavi Clan, he was free of them. Free of their gay-hating rhetoric. Free of their rigid style of magic training. Free of all the snubs, shit assignments, and all-around belittling he’d been forced to stomach for almost as long as he could remember.

He wasn’t going to be their whipping boy any longer.

It just sucked that he’d waited so long. For the first couple of decades, he’d stupidly clung to the belief that if he just worked hard enough, he could prove he was a great mage to the rest of his clan. But no amount of hard work and dedication was going to change their minds.

When he’d finally given up on that ridiculous hope, he turned his focus to more realistic problems. Namely, money. He needed to save enough money to escape that miserable life. Not an easy feat when he could land only dead-end jobs that barely paid anything. His lack of education and useful job experience limited his choices. And then, of course, as he got close to his goal, his father’s fishing business started struggling, and he’d been forced to hand over a large chunk of his savings to help keep them afloat.

Life kept trying to beat him down, but he crawled back time and again.

And now he was free.

Not that the road ahead was going to be easy by any means, but he liked to think that if he’d gotten this far without being discovered and dragged home, then he had a real shot of starting fresh.

It had taken him nearly three days to get from Nuorgam, at the northernmost tip of Finland, to Helsinki at the southernmost border. He’d driven from the clan’s home to Sodankylä and abandoned the car there, unwilling to risk anyone from the clan reporting it stolen. That was one sure way for them to get revenge on him for daring to leave.

In Sodankylä, he’d grabbed a bus and ridden it as far as Kuusamo. From there, it had been a mishmashed collage of hitchhiking and buses until he finally reached Helsinki. More than thirteen hundred kilometers from the only home he’d ever known, and if he were being honest, he still wasn’t far enough away from those people.

Were they even looking for him? Maybe his parents. Anyone else was just worried about the supplies he was supposed to bring back.

His mobile phone had been bombarded with calls when he boarded the bus to Kuusamo. By then, he should have already reported back.

At first, he’d simply silenced the ringer, unable to get himself to actually turn off his phone. He’d never done anything against the wishes of his family, of his clan.

Fear had him briefly contemplating getting off the bus, turning around, grabbing the car, and making up some excuse for his delay when he showed up at home again. He’d never lived outside of his clan. Definitely never lived in a place as big as Helsinki. What the hell was he even thinking? He was going to get himself killed or end up starving on the streets because he’d failed at this just like he failed at everything else in life.

But what would he be going back to?

Disappointment in his mother’s eyes.

Disgust from his father.

It was bad enough that he was gay, but he’d been labeled as a mage who couldn’t be trusted to perform more than the most rudimentary of spells. Not only could he not learn and perform magic like the other mages because of his dyscalculia, but he’d never marry a woman and create more little mages to fill his clan. In the eyes of his clanmates, he was utterly useless. A waste of space. He never should have been born, and his fellow clanmates didn’t hesitate to remind him of that fact daily.

For too long, he’d agreed with them. What good was a mage who wasn’t allowed to perform magic? What good was a male mage if he couldn’t father more mages to support the clan?

A lifetime spent with no friends, surrounded by people who would cross the street rather than pass him on the sidewalk. Every look contained a sneer, every comment filled with derision.

If he was a waste, then he was better off on his own. Even if he never managed to cast another spell, at least he could do something with his life that would make him happy.

Lifting his head, he glanced around the spartan motel room. It was barely bigger than a closet, with a narrow twin bed, a small desk and plastic chair, TV, a tiny fridge, and a coffee maker. The white walls were broken only by a pair of windows that looked out on the gravel parking lot and a single print of a green car that looked as if it was straight out of the fifties. Or maybe sixties. Tori wasn’t sure. Cars had never been his thing.