I wasn’t answering that question, wasn’t even going to honor it with a pause. “Your abandonment wasn’t a complete tragedy. I learned three important lessons at Docendum Castle: Love is a liability, and I can’t rely on wizards to take care of me.”
“That’s only two lessons.”
“Yes. I’m not revealing the third.” Let him wonder what it was. I wasn’t telling him about my additional magic abilities.
He laughed and shook his head, amused instead of irritated. “I’ve missed you.” A smile lingered on his lips, lighting up his expression.
This bit of cheer irked me. Happiness, it seemed, came easily to him now while it had evaded me like a hunted hare. He’d probably not thought of me a day since I left. “If I marry well enough, I’ll have a wizard of my own to order around. Wouldn’t that be fitting? Tell me, Ronan, are you for sale these days? What is your price?”
He bowed his head in deference, the way he would to a woman of means. “As much as I would enjoy your company again, I don’t think King Leofric would part with me.”
“King Leofric?” I repeated. I didn’t understand or at least didn’t want to understand.
“I’m one of his council wizards. My name here is Mage Warison.”
The words rushed through my ears like they were carried away on a stream. My stomach painfully twisted. I had to reach out and take hold of the wall to steady myself.
“But…” that’s so unsafe, I wanted to say. Instead, I stammered, “But you’re so young.”
“And yet so talented. You do remember that about me?”
I didn’t answer. I was staring at him, trying not to look stunned. I would have to take Ronan’s mark from him. How could I do that when he’d given me my magic? And would taking his mark destroy mine as well?
“You haven’t agreed about the nature of my talent.” Ronan scratched the back of his neck in mock offense. “You do remember I changed into an animal my first year?” He lowered his voice. “I also changed you into a tree. That’s very high-level wizardry.”
“Ronan,” I murmured. “You changed me into much more than a tree.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Why would you take a new name?” I wouldn’t have come to Valistowe if I’d known Ronan was on the king’s wizard council.
“Warison doesn’t mean war,” he said, guessing at the cause of my displeasure. “It’s an ancient term for garrison.”
“What was wrong with the name Ronan?” He’d discarded every bit of the boy I’d known. Even I, who had every reason to change my name, had kept Marcella.
“Wizards receive new names when they finish their apprenticeship. It’s a step of the graduation ritual.”
“You never told me you’d have a new name.” Perhaps it was a childish complaint, but it was one more piece of proof that even when we were friends, he’d not considered me part of his future.
“Didn’t I?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I’ll remedy that now.” He clasped his hands together the way Mage Quintal had done while lecturing. “When an apprentice graduates, his teachers present him with five possible names. Two represent his charitable qualities, two his cunning ones, and one name is a nonsense word thrown into the mix to see if apprentices have studied their terminology well.
“Unfortunately, some don’t, which is how Mage Picamar ended up with a name that meant: bitter oily liquid obtained from tar.” Ronan grinned, the same conspiratorial grin he’d given me back at Docendum when he’d shared stories with me. I’d eaten those stories like they were made of honey.
I wasn’t that girl anymore, couldn’t be, and spending time with him would only make what I had to do later harder.
I pulled away from the wall, steady again. “I should let you return to your royal duties while I go hunt up some eligible bachelors. It’s no use talking with you. We both know you don’t make attachments with women.”
He tilted his chin down. “Is that what we both know?”
I paused, halted by the thought that Ronan might have ignored Wolfson’s advice and found a highborn, influential wife. I knew nothing of Mage Warison. “Are you attached to someone?” My breath lodged into my throat as I waited for the answer.
“Well, no.” He thrust his hands into his pockets. “But that’s not to say that Ican’tmake attachments.”
“Clearly.” I pushed past him, ready to glide back to the castle in a flourish of indifference.
He took hold of my arm, ruining the elegance of my exit, and propelled me back to face him. “You know I sent you to Carendale Castle for your own good. You weren’t safe at Docendum.”
I knew he believed this. But he was lying to himself, and I wouldn’t let him lie to me as well. “Is that why you didn’t speak to me before I left or afterward? Is that why you never sent word or visited, not even after you left Docendum? Somehow that kept me safer?”