Page 67 of The Lost Art of Seducing a Mage Warrior

Molun grinned at him. “Good.”

With a nod, Perian passed them, left the path, and climbed through the bushes with his blankets and basket. Renny was sitting on the bench just like normal, but she was definitely more tense than usual.

“Hello,” Perian greeted her.

He set out the blanket and then set the basket down on it—and then stopped, because a twelve-year-old girl had thrown herself at him and wrapped her arms around him tight, tight, tight.

He hugged her back, hard.

“You came, you came, you came.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I told you I would.”

“I was afraid,” she mumbled into his chest.

That everything would change. Perian remembered what she’d said.

“I’m not sure I’m allowed to say it in front of your mother or anything, but you’ll always be Renny to me, all right?”

She nodded, tilting her head up to look at him.

“Yes, please.”

“And I’m not going to bow.”

She made a face, scrunching up her nose. “I insist that you don’t bow.”

He made a face back. “Does that mean Ishouldbow to show how I’m not doing things just because a princess told me to?”

She stuck her tongue out at him and plopped down on the blanket.

Perian sat down beside her and laid out the food so that a clear space was still left on the blanket.

They ate for several minutes before she tilted her head in the direction of that empty area. “Brannal told you what happened?”

Perian nodded.

She frowned. “You think he’s dead, too.”

Carefully, he said, “Brannal certainly didn’t make it sound like he survived.”

She was quiet for a moment, and then she leaned closer to him and whispered, “I’m the only one who can see him or hear him. I don’t know why.” Her eyes were bright and her voice vibrated with intensity. “But I swear he’s here. I swear he’s not dead. I swear it, Perian.”

Perian was sure he was not properly equipped to handle this. She seemed so incredibly earnest.

“I believe that you believe,” he told her finally. “But I don’t know any alive people that can’t be seen or heard by everyone.”

“I know it’s weird,” Renny admitted.

“Weird doesn’t mean it can’t be real,” Perian conceded. “Is he always with you?”

She nodded. “Sometimes, he gets sort of faded, and I can’t hear him. But even when he’s loudest, even when he’s yelling, no one can hear him but me. And he says he can’t go very far away from me, he feels like something’s pulled really tight, and he has to stop and come back.”

Perian’s father had told him that when he was very little, he’d had an imaginary friend that he’d played with, but it had faded away quite naturally. Perian didn’t actually remember it, so he couldn’t say if it had been anything like what Renny had just shared. But it sounded awfully elaborate to him, and he couldn’t imagine a six-year-old making it up.

Had it grown naturally more elaborate as time passed, or was it actually possible that something extremely odd was going on? After death, they believed that a person’s energy returned to the world, dispersing to make new life possible. But he’d never heard of anyone remaining in some sort of unseen alternate form.

“He doesn’t eat or drink?” Perian asked.

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