Page 39 of The Lost Art of Seducing a Mage Warrior

Notendedended because Perian was talking to a twelve-year-old, but there was that whole absurd portion in the afternoon. Sure enough, the image of Perian being pelted with dirt and water and buffeted with air was enough to have Renny in stitches of laughter, lightening her whole demeanor and making her look almost entirely well. She was still too thin, but at least she was eating food while Perian was here.

“You areverysilly,” was her pronouncement on the subject.

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

The castle clock tolled the hour, and he began to see her eyes darting more than once to the sun.

“Are they going to announce you missing again?”

She sighed. “Probably.”

“Had you better get back?”

“I suppose.”

“Shall I bring you a blanket again tomorrow?” he asked as he began to clean up.

“I can’t tomorrow,” she told him. “The day after?”

“I would be delighted,” he agreed.

She was staring at the spot where her brother had been supposed to sit, and Perian said carefully, “Perhaps your brother will come then.”

Renny gave a nod that looked very unsteady, and it was with difficulty that Perian didn’t ask where her brother was now so he could go talk some sense into him.

He helped her up, then folded up the blankets and piled them in the basket on top of the now empty containers. Renny insisted he take them both back.

“I’m heading right inside. I can’t take them every day. Oh, I forgot about your coat! I’ll have someone deliver it to Brannal’s room.”

“Only if it’s not an inconvenience,” Perian said, glad that she was unfazed about where he was staying. It hadn’t occurred to him to censor the story he had told her beyond leaving out the intimate details.

“Have a good rest of your day, Renny.”

He wished very much that whatever made her sad would diminish. There was rarely an easy fix for sadness, though; Perian knew that from first-hand experience. Some days were perfectly fine, and some days weighed you down like your whole body was filled with rocks. Sometimes, you could distract yourself, and sometimes, you wanted to throw the rocks at anyone who tried to get you into a better mood.

“Goodbye, Perian.”

He headed back inside, wondering if it was too soon to ask Renny more about herself. There was probably no subtle way for him to ask about her family situation. But if her brother kept not showing up, Perian was going to intervene.

He dropped the basket off in the kitchen once more and then carried the blankets back to Brannal’s rooms, brushing them off as he went. He made a mental note to give them a proper shake before he brought them back inside next time. He really didn’t want to leave dirt anywhere.

Once he’d tucked the blankets carefully away in the corner of the sitting room, he decided to go take a look at what the Warriors were up to in the training yard.

It turned out that while the Warriors were not as literally magical as the Mage Warriors, theydefinitelyhad an appeal of their own. They practiced everything from hand-to-hand combat to archery to sword fighting, and with the afternoon sun shining down on them while they exerted themselves, some of them stripped off their shirts.

Perian wasn’t the only one watching, either. It looked to him like a number of people found a reason to cross the quadrangle by the training yard. Practically speaking, cutting through the quadrangle would in fact shorten the route—although if you stopped to stare for a while, that might cease to be true. Perian didn’t know about the rest of them, but he certainly had no excuse for why he was here. If he said they had excellent form, he really wasn’t talking about their fighting skills.

They worked into the early evening, when the light waned from the courtyard. As they were breaking up, Delana appeared, heading for the man in charge, but she stopped when she saw Perian and then headed over to him instead.

“Summus was looking for you,” she told him.

Perian perked up. “Oh?”

“He’s busy this evening. You’re on your own for dinner.”

Perian deflated. “Oh, of course.”

She hesitated for a moment, an expression he couldn’t quite parse crossing her features. “You’re welcome to join us.”

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