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RíAN LEFT that evening, after showing Max how to channel magic into his amulet and the wards, though the wards should last far longer than the amulet despite both being hastily put together.

Max was absolutely certain he would cause the amulet to explode if he tried to pour magic into it without Rían there to help, but that was a problem for Future Max.

Rían left the training device and promised to send some tutorials when he had the chance, but for now, Max locked himself in his room to work on his assignments.

Now that he wasn’t constantly focused on not burning everything to ashes, he could get caught up.

With finals in less than two weeks, he needed to cram in some serious study time.

Days passed without incident, though Max fell into old habits and didn’t leave the house unless he had to.

Lukas was called away on another mission, which was disappointing when Max had just started to feel comfortable around him.

He spent his days studying or exploring his magic and his nights with Caius.

He’d expected Quinn to make a move, but he seemed content to let Caius have priority.

Max was putting the finishing touches on his last assignment when Caius called him for dinner.

Before he could say he’d be down in a few minutes, his body was already halfway to the door, tablet and pen still in hand.

He tried to stop, to turn around and at least put the tablet down, but he had zero control over his own body.

Aradia landed on his shoulder with a soft bark, rubbing against his cheek, but it was a small comfort.

Magic coiled in his hands, responding to the fear and anger thumping in his chest, but thanks to Rían’s spells, he didn’t feel on the verge of losing control of the flames.

Caius and Quinn both froze when he stepped into the room, turning to look at him.

“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked, glancing past Max as if expecting a threat behind him .

“What’s wrong ?” he spat, stalking past Quinn on his way to Caius to shove him hard in the chest. “You used the bond on me! I couldn’t even fight it before I was up and walking down here!”

Caius lifted his hands with a wince. “I’m sorry. It seems to take any statement as a command.”

“Well fix it,” Max hissed. “You promised I wouldn’t be your prisoner.

” He’d felt the bond before, as a shiver of suggestion in the back of his mind, but it had always been something he was willing to do.

His body moving without his will controlling it was an experience he never wanted to go through again.

Quinn cleared his throat, throwing his own hands up when Max spun around to glare at him. “Why don’t you dial back the pyromania, and then after we eat, we can experiment with the bond and see how to control it better?”

Max blinked and looked down at his hands to see bright white and blue flames surrounding them.

With a yelp, he tossed his tablet on the table before shaking his hands out, which did nothing but make a whooshing sound as the flames sailed through the air.

He closed his eyes with a groan, forcing his breathing to steady before he could panic.

He was safe here. He didn’t really want to burn the house down, or Caius or Quinn.

Reaching inside himself, he found the spigot on his magic and imagined turning it from full blast to a trickle. The swell of flames in his hands flickered and lessened, and when he opened his eyes, the flames had turned from blue to orange, until they fizzled out with the faint scent of smoke.

“Your tablet looks fine,” Quinn said, offering it to him.

True enough, there was no melted plastic or any sign of heat damage at all. Max sighed and set it aside before sinking into a chair at the dining table. He glanced at Caius to make sure he hadn’t caught fire, relieved when there was no sign of damage on him either.

Caius sat beside him at the head of the table. “We’ll figure something out. Unless you’re in danger, the bond shouldn’t be needed.”

Max sat back and crossed his arms. “There has to be some kind of guide on how it works. People have been binding mages for centuries.”

“Yeah, and most of those were done with every intention of keeping the mage under someone’s control,” Quinn said dryly.

Max made a face, but that was easy enough to believe. He didn’t even want to think what would happen if his father managed to put a binding on him. He picked at his salad, feeding pieces of lettuce to Aradia between bites.

They ate in a tense silence, before Quinn bumped their shoulders together. “Come on, let’s figure this out.” He slung an arm around Max and tugged him towards one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room. “Sit.”

Max sat without thinking, only realizing afterwards that he’d felt the bond at work.

He tipped his head back with a glare, a faint curl of satisfaction in his gut when Quinn backed away with his hands up.

Maybe being a mage wouldn’t be so bad, once he learned to control it properly.

Once the people who were after him were dealt with and everyone else learned he wasn’t worth the risk of messing with.

Caius sat on the sofa across from him. “Lift your right hand.”

He grabbed his right hand with his left to keep it in place, but it still lifted of its own accord. “I don’t like this,” he hissed, managing a deep breath only after he dropped both hands again.

What followed was a long, strange session of Simon Says. The silver lining was that, after about twenty minutes, his limbs moving on their own was more an annoyance than panic-inducing. Eventually, he grabbed his tablet to finish his assignment and tried to ignore his left arm’s acrobatics.

It was late in the evening when Quinn told him to pat his head and Max stopped with his arm in midair.

“Fucking finally.” Max sat up and leaned forward. “Do it again.”

“Stick your tongue out.”

Nothing. Not even a twitch of magic.

“What’d you do?” Caius asked.

“Honestly, I just thought, ‘I don’t care if he does that or not.’”

“Seriously?” Max eyed him in disbelief. “All this time and that’s all it took?”

Quinn shrugged. “I’ve been trying not to put intention into the words, or pretending I’m talking to no one.”

“Stand up,” Caius said.

There was a brief pulse of magic, and Max’s muscles tensed as if to push to his feet, but then it fizzled out.

He jumped to his feet anyway, not missing the frustrated pinch of Caius’ eyebrows before Max threw his arms around Quinn.

“Thank you,” he said, pressing a kiss to his cheek before dropping into Caius’ lap. “Bed. Now. ”

Quinn snickered. “You’ve turned him into a nympho.”

“Excuse you,” he said, as Caius stood and carried him to the stairs, “it’s satyromaniac for men.”

“How do you even know that?”

“I get bored easily.” Max grinned as Quinn’s laughter followed them up the stairs. “Just so you know, I don’t mind if you keep using the bond a little in the bedroom,” he drawled, yelping with a startled laugh when Caius tripped up the last steps.

“Noted.”

IT SNOWED again overnight, dropping another few inches.

Max braved the elements enough to sit on the swing bench on the porch, breathing in the crisp fresh air.

He learned within minutes that the cold no longer bothered him.

The moment he started to feel chilled, the flames rose up beneath his skin to keep him warm.

As nice as that was, he didn’t want to think about how nightmarish summer would be.

He tipped his head back to watch Aradia climb up the post at one end of the porch and sail to the other side, a burst of wind magic keeping her in the air.

Naming her seemed to have unlocked some familiar ability that let her access her own magic, though she seemed to still be learning how to control it.

He pushed the bench back and let it swing forward, the metal training device forgotten beside him. The day was far too nice to bother with studying or training. There was a restless itch building inside him, but he wasn’t sure what to do to relieve it.

The door slid open, and Quinn poked his head out. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” he groaned, getting to his feet.

He wasn’t sure if it was because he had free access to the kitchen or because magic drained so much energy, but he was hungry all the time now.

He settled at the counter as Quinn set a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich in front of him.

He eyed it with a wrinkle of his nose. “Not that I’m complaining, but we really need to learn to make something new.

” Aradia swooped in to land beside him with a bark of agreement.

“Believe me, I’ve tried. Nothing else I’ve made is edible.”

“Nothing? ”

“I made mac ’n’ cheese once. It was lumpy and crunchy.” Quinn pointed at Max’s face of horrified disgust. “Yeah, that’s what Cap and Lukas looked like when they ate it.”

Max shuddered and bit into the sandwich, thankful it tasted normal. “Are they still out?” Lukas had returned late last night, and he and Caius had left earlier for supplies.

“Yeah, they said they’d be a while.” Quinn sat with his own sandwich and bumped his knee against Max’s. “So I was thinking we could take advantage of their absence.”

Max choked as he inhaled a chunk of bread, feeling his ears burn even as he drained his water. “Advantage how?” he wheezed.

“We’ll think of something. You still haven’t been down to see my lair yet. I’ve got tons of games.”

“Okay.” He suspected Quinn didn’t mean to play games, but he appreciated the option.

He’d started to think Caius was full of it and that Quinn and Lukas weren’t interested in him now that Caius had staked a claim, especially since Caius never brought it up again.

He had to wonder if Caius really meant it when he said he wouldn’t mind, or if Caius would stop wanting him.

“What are you worrying about?”

Max sighed and cursed Quinn’s nose. “Caius said you might want to, you know, but….”