Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (read me like a book txt) 📕

“Managed to snatch this from Command while I was out,” Ambrose said as he patted Milo’s shoulder with one huge paw. “Thought it might lubricate the process.”

“Are you sure that is a good idea?” Rihyani asked, but the bottle was already in Milo’s hand.

“No,” the wizard answered before raising it to his lips and throwing back a heavy slug.

Milo felt it burn down his throat, tasting of metal and woodsmoke. It reached his belly, where it formed a molten lake. He coughed and gave a growling laugh as he set the bottle on the table.

“It’s good,” he muttered hoarsely. “Thank you.”

Ambrose nodded and ambled over to sit on his cot and listen.

“So, we were sent to Dresden, and Roland made sure we were kept together,” Milo said with a sniff as his fingers played with the neck of the bottle. “He lied about his age to make sure we were in the same dormitory, and soon the children and even the adults in that hellhole knew he was my guardian. Neither of us could avoid everything, but I had a much easier time than most because of him.”

Milo raised the bottle to his nose and savored the way the smell of the vodka prickled.

“At some point, we started sneaking out to steal things,” Milo continued after taking a small sip. “I’m not sure why, but once we learned we could, it was like discovering ourselves. We were no longer rats scampering from shadow to shadow under the boots of the orderlies and the older children. Out there in the dark, we were predators, stealthy and clever.”

Milo raised the bottle again and felt the burning pool inside him radiating a soothing warmth across his whole body. He wanted nothing more than to keep filling those depths until they swallowed him. Only by sheer force of will did he lower the bottle to the table again, dragging his fingers down the smooth sides until glass ended and the wooden table began. With the tips of his fingers, he began to rotate the bottle idly.

“Before long we had a crew, other orphans like us, along with a few strays living rough in Dresden. We moved from simple snatch jobs to schemes more grandiose and violent. I was eleven the first time I held a porter at knifepoint while the crew emptied his wagon. I was twelve when I killed a man we were mugging.”

“The little one in the top hat,” Ambrose said, nodding slowly. “I remember.”

“Me too,” Milo muttered and took another drink.

He didn’t bother to look at Rihyani’s and Ambrose’s faces as he took a swallow he could be forgiven for. He stifled another cough when the swallow turned out to be larger than he’d expected, though not as rough as the first.

“I cried hard that night, but Roland was there, arms around my shoulders, telling me to be brave. We learned from that night, and I only had to kill two more times before things all fell apart. One of those times was a handsy orderly from the orphanage who’d followed us out one night when I was sixteen. No great loss there.”

Milo rolled the bottle on its bottom in a slow oscillating pattern, his hand on the neck. He waited for a few heartbeats and then gave a quiet sigh of relief. No one had asked about the other murder.

“So there I was, about to turn seventeen and looking at the reality that we were going to be sent to the war or a factory. Roland had this plan for us to steal a shipment of arms off a train and use it to start up as gun runners along the eastern edge of the Empire. It was daring, it was inventive, and it was either a victory or a firing squad once we started, so we were all in. By then we were old hands at sneaking, stealing, intimidation, and general miscreant behavior, so despite the risks, we were confident we'd succeed. Then the worst happened.”

“You were discovered?” Rihyani asked, leaning forward, still holding Milo’s hand. “The plan fell apart? You were betrayed?”

“No, no, and yes, in that order,” Milo said with an ugly snicker before drawing on the bottle once more. He was surprised at the ease of his confession but also by how light the bottle was feeling. He couldn’t have drunk that much, could he?

Milo looked up from considering the bottle and saw Rihyani and Ambrose staring at him, faces taut with a pained combination of interest and frustration. He’d been telling them something, he knew it…

“Ah,” he said with a lurching start, thumping the bottle down once more. “So, we pulled off the job, managing to snatch no less than a dozen machine guns with, uh, well, a lot of ammunition, along with several crates full of rifles and even some grenades, I think. We left Dresden and hadn’t made it to Poland before we made a deal with some Red sympathizers in Berlin to sell off most of what we stole. We went from being hand-to-mouth orphans to rich men in less than two weeks. That night we rented the best hotel and had so much alcohol brought into the room we could have drowned in it.”

Milo’s gaze swung back to the bottle, which he began to raise to his lips.

“Much better than this stuff,” he muttered, then giggled as he winked at Ambrose. “No offense.”

Ambrose’s face was hard and fixed to the point it nearly looked waxen and mask-like. When the grim line of a mouth spoke to him, Milo started in shock.

“When did the betrayal happen?” he asked.

“Yes, that,” Milo said, pointing with a finger even as he swung the bottle about. “So that night, I’m drunk, much drunker than I am now, and he, Roland, that is, he has me come back to his room. On the bed is all the money from the sale, which was odd because he’d