Gods & Thieves

26. Rings and Words

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Faris's words echo within my head for half of the night, tangling and spinning until I finally fall asleep.

But the next day, I wake up in a surprisingly good mood, my thoughts back in order.

Shouldn't I be in a good mood, though? There're still a few weeks before the trials, and with the essence or not, Cale can't gather everyone overnight, so I have plenty of time to work on that. And Faris's accusation is stupid. Someone's appearance, young or old, can't speak of betrayal. If I wanted to convince someone to trust me, I'd rather look aged and unhurried like...the head councilor Tikhon? Faris has probably said all that because he's still jealous I've the most talented mentor, his own place in the shaman power rating is, like, the third from the end? And isn't Faris's own devotion to Ariane about hormones of his?

My hormones are in check, I tell myself, looking over the cafeteria in the morning. I'm bigger than that and have more important things to trouble myself with. Loretto and are a team, and I can't be wrong about faer. At least because only with Loretto, I can have what I want. I can let myself doubt it. My plan will work. It must. Loretto will win, and we will change our world.

It's early, the hall is sunlit and languid and not very crowded, so it doesn't take much effort to spot Loretto seated at the table not far from the center.

As always, my mentor is alone. Fae doesn't look lonely or pathetic, though, but rather a little arrogant. Having no friends always makes you look arrogant, I suppose; people don't know anything about you and have nobody to ask, so all they do is gossip, but gossip is the ugliest, layered version of the truth. A mythical goddess's protégé? The First Blood's runaway student? Maricela's loyal servant or secret rival? Both? Loretto never answers anyone's questions straightforwardly, and it only leaves people frustrated. In the end, they stop trying to ask, stop trying to be your friend, and here you are--alone, unfriendly and therefore suspicious of everyone like Faris.

An alluring but dangerous mystery.

"Morning," I say, placing my plate with a slice of corn cake on the table and pulling the chair opposite Loretto to sit.

Loretto stops chewing faer salad, staring at me for a dumbstruck moment.

"I was wondering if you could teach me something new today?" I continue, sitting and putting a piece of cake into my mouth with my fork. "Like, fighting with magic? Or becoming invisible? Can you do that? Or fly? Or read thoughts? Or turn water into wine?"

"You shouldn't sit with me," Loretto says after a long moment, and resumes chewing.

"Because other mentees don't sit with their mentors and you, too, find it disrespectful?" But they don't live in one apartments, either. "Or because if shamans figure we care about each other at least very little, they'll use it against us? I'm afraid it's already obvious we're friends, I'm too tiresome to bear me otherwise." And I'm sick of lying low--I can't, no matter how much I try, so perhaps I should do the opposite--play careless and gullible and pretend Loretto and I don't suspect a thing about everyone else's plans, so they won't try to stop us.

"No, because I--" There's a flash in Loretto's eyes, a timid one. Fae swiftly looks away. "I might get used to it. And you won't have breakfast with me for the rest of your life, will you?"

I don't know what to answer, so I just keep staring at Loretto. It sounded frank and almost...shy. But why would Loretto be shy, fae never is; is a person walking around faer apartments naked every morning even capable of shy? I follow Loretto's lowered glance, and realize that our hands free of forks, rested on the table, happen to be amazingly close. Rather intuitively, I flex my fingers, and the tip of my index finger brushes Loretto's.