“It’s okay if you don’t want to share details, Little Conduit,” I said. “You can just tell me to fuck off and mind my own business.”
“I’m telling you the truth, you pushy bastard,” Arken retorted, though she was still grinning.
I smirked back. Baiting her was far too easy, andfartoo entertaining for my own good.
“It’s hard to explain,” she continued. “The slow, simple life was all that I knew, but I was never satisfied with it. And it probably didn’t help that I was raised by a retired scholar of the Studium. Honestly, I blame her for the fact that I ended upherein particular… but I think I was bound to make a run for it eventually. I’ve always been a bit restless.”
That did explain quite a lot, particularly in how Arken seemed to carry herself. She was very clearly intelligent inthe academic sense of the word, but she was also incredibly grounded. She seemed far more down to earth than the vast majority of her peers.
“That probably seems terribly naive,” she confessed. “To leave behind all of that safety, security, and comfort for what must seem like an errant whim.”
“On the contrary,” I replied. “I think it’s proof that you’re wiser than your years. Stability is a fleeting thing, and often overrated. It takes a lot of courage to follow your instincts like that.”
“Hmm. An interesting perspective,” Arken mused. “I suppose time will tell if it was instinct, or simplyimpulsethat took me so far from home.”
“I’m guessing that for someone like you, those two things are one and the same.”
“Someone like me, eh?” Arken replied. “What makes you so sure about that?”
I grinned.
“We have more in common than you might think, Little Conduit.”
Once we arrived at the café, Arken took one look at the pastel storefront shrouded in wisteria branches, and turned to me with a raised brow.
“Thisis your first choice for lunch?” she asked, a touch of surprise in her voice.
“I’m offended, Miss Asher. Are you assuming I’m the type to let my masculinity stand in the way of Sophrosyne’s best sandwiches?”
“I mean, yes,” she admitted. “You don’t strike me as the type to frequent such a pretty place.”
“Are you suggesting I’m not pretty? Rude.” I replied, leading her into the shop.
The feigned expression of offense that I wore earned me an adorable giggle from the Conduit, and an unexpected frisson of pleasure ran through me at the sight of her smile.
Off-limits, Kieran. She’s off-limits. Move it along…
It was a nice enough day out, so once we’d ordered and retrieved our food from the counter, we sat down to eat on the small patio outside, and continued our earlier conversation about the Cataclysm.
Arken was, understandably, still processing the revelation of what really happened to Aemos. The truth of the Elders was a heady concept—why only nineteen remained, and why the Arcane Studium was truly formed. Most mortals—most of theworld, really—believed that the Elders were just a collective of the last remaining gods, and that Sophrosyne was where they chose to settle. They thought that the Arcane Studium was just a university, albeit a highly prestigious one.
They didn’t know that the Convocation of the Nineteen carried both the aether and the burdens ofhundreds, if not thousands of their fallen brethren, the remnants of our immortal predecessors’ power flowing in their veins. The mortals that often spoke poorly of the gods—those who took issue with their stance of neutrality in the modern age—they didn’t even know how much wassacrificedto preserve mankind as a species, let alone their freedom. And even though Conduits learned about it by default as part of their introductory studies here, a vast majority of them didn’t seem tocare—but Arken did.
Her mind was utterly fascinating, and I was hanging on every word as she rambled through her thoughts on the matter. She barely took a breath, but every insight was surprisingly complex, nuanced, well thought out, and deeply empathetic. Arken seemed to view our history like a living, breathingentity. She talked about the past like it was something of great importance to consider, not just a forgone conclusion. Her frenzied enthusiasm for it almost reminded me of Viktor—though I promptly pushedthatthought out of my mind.
Even as we strayed from the topic, there was something mildly unsettling about the conversation. Perhaps it was just that Arken saw the world in many of the same ways I did, which was… rare, to say the least. And somehow, we just kept stumbling into one another. Repeatedly.By sheer coincidence, as she claimed.
Interesting indeed.
“So,” Arken said, interrupting my train of thought. “Croissants for breakfast. Sandwiches for lunch. Do tell, Kieran. What’s your evening meal of choice? You do seem to be a creature of habit.”
I shook my head, disregarding the way it felt to hear her say my name out loud.
“You’re making some bold assumptions, Asher,” I countered.
“You didn’t even have to give Corinne your order,” she replied. “And you said yourself that you’re a regular at the bakery.”
Okay, that was a fair point, but I didn’t actually come here every day—unless it was late winter, in which case I absolutely did. In my defense, Corinne’s soups were unparalleled, and a bowl of tomato bisque paired with a cheese sandwich on a cold day? Divine.