A Knight's Purpose (Book 1) ✔️

Chapter 28 - Dinner is Served

Teacher has Sereya do some light reading while he whips out a small stack of papers for us to fill out.

"You carry these with you?" I ask with an arched eyebrow as I flip through the ten page, double sided document.

He doesn't deign to respond to that comment. "Now, you'll have to fill out this part here," he points to the first page.

We walk through the document which is surprisingly in depth as to who we wanted to visit, why, and how we were going to pay for our services. Though, as witches did originally learn to make contracts from the fae I shouldn't be surprised. Those little pixies knew how to twist words into a binding net.

I glare at the last two pages as I think about payment.

"What would the normal payment for a contract like this be?" I turn to Teacher. My face might have blushed a little. It was stupid of me to remove myself from magic and now I have to rely on someone else's knowledge.

He frowns briefly as he thinks. "How many pages?"

"I've got four at the moment but I'd estimate the full spell is eight pages double sided." I'm about half way through transferring the layered spell onto individual sheets.

He nods slowly. "There are two prices I could give you. The price for the translation, or the price that means Enforcement won't use the spell or keep a copy for themselves after it's translated." His lists off two exorbitant prices, the second almost double the first.

I screech a little. "Are you insane?"

"Those who work at Enforcement are some of the best and you're paying for them not to be working on things useful for Enforcement. It's discouraged, which is why the price is so high," He shrugs.

"I don't have that kind of money." I think for a moment of what else I had to offer. "Do they accept trade?"

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Meaning, if I had say, a very old and rare book worth the hundreds of thousands they're asking for would they accept that as payment?"

He tilts his head as he sizes me up. "I'm sure there are some books they would accept. Do you have such an item?"

"I might. I'm not sure if it's something I'd part with though. I'll think on it tonight and we can finish the paperwork tomorrow. Thanks, Teach."

He clears his throat. "You may call me Teacher, not Teach." He glares for good measure then goes to check in on Sereya, who's reading a book on mage craft eagerly.

With nothing to do, I kick my feet up on an extra chair and slouch back to take a nap.

I wake to April glaring down at me and Sereya packing her bag. Teacher is already gone.

"What?" I snort and hop to my feet.

She just shakes her head.

I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder. "Ready to go, kid?" I ask as Sereya shoves one last book in her backpack.

She walks past us and heads to the elevators, head hanging. We walk silently to the car, neither of us sure what to say to her to cheer her up. As Sereya slips in the back, I awkwardly get in the front.

I'm not thrilled about sitting up here next to April and she's clearly not excited about the prospect either as she starts the car with a glare. Yet I think it would have been worse had I hopped in the back and treated her like a chauffeur. There's just no winning.

We stop at the gate so I can hop out and take my weapons back from the guards and then we're on our way home. It's a short drive and April glowers the entire time while I sit and clean my nails.