Arken laughed.
“I didn’t.”
“Bullshit,” I challenged. “There is no way this is your first round of formal education. You speak like a seasoned scholar half the time.”
At that, she snorted, though a corner of her mouth crooked upwards. There was a glimmer in her eyes that suggested sheknew damn well how intelligent she was.Gods, as if I needed another reason to be attracted to her.
“I told you, I was raised by one! My caretaker, my mentor—Amaretta, she used to be the High Scholar of Clerical Studies here. She moved back to Elseweire when she retired, and then found that she preferred a more quiet life than the city could offer. Eventually she found her way and settled in with the village.”
“Even though we lived simply out there,” Arken continued, “She still had quite the collection of texts. And she never truly lost the urge to teach. I think I received an academic lecture for breakfast almost every day.”
That certainly made sense. I noticed that she saidcaretaker, though, and not mother, which only left me with more questions.
Unfortunately, though, I had to go. Both literally and figuratively.
I had work to do, running my men through plans for a few scouting missions around the outskirts of the city and monitoring the movement of a rather troublesome group of humans. Occasionally, they would attempt to harass guests of Sophrosyne as they came and went, and their numbers had been steadily increasing as of late. Nevermind the fact that we still didn’t know much about their intentions.
But I also had to get out of here before I set my mind on legitimately stalking this woman and asking for her entire life’s story.
I sighed as I stood up.
“Alas, I have a shift starting soon, and answering all of the questions in your pretty little head would most assuredly make me late,” I said, bowing my head in slight apology. “Until our next random encounter, Miss Asher.”
“Random,” she laughed, making air quotes with slender fingers. “But hey—thank you for lunch, Kieran. I’m glad I ran into you… this time.”
“Any time, Little Conduit,” I called over my shoulder, blanching slightly as I walked away.
Now why in theactual fuckwould I say something like that?
Fates help me, this girl was trouble.
Chapter Seventeen
Arken
That night was the first time I dreamt about Kieran Vistarii.
By the time I woke up the next day, I barely remembered anything, but I did distinctly recall that he’d been in it. That man, his smirk, and his Shadows.
Fucking Hel.
While our lunch had been perfectly pleasant, and I’d legitimately enjoyed his company, the fact that I was already so eager to see him again was… a problem.
Sure, there was nothing wrong with making friends while I was here at the Studium, but there was a distinct urge to be more than friends with him. And that? That just couldn’t happen.
It was one thing to consider dating casually around Sophrosyne, to enjoy myself in my spare time. It was anotherthing entirely to consider dating an extremely attractive, extremely perceptive scouting captain of the Elder Guard who would be duty-bound to report my secret to the Convocation if he ever discovered it. And as a Shadow Conduit? He could easily discover it, if I let my guard down. The urge to let my guard down around him was a little too strong, as is.
As much as it pained me, as much as I really didn’t want to, I set my mind to actively avoiding places where we’d already encountered each other. This was rather irksome for my sweet tooth, but I could find other restaurants, shops and cafés to frequent. It was a big city.
Several days passed, and it seemed like so far, my efforts had worked. Three days went by, then four, then five, and I had yet to run into Kieran again. For some reason, I wasn’t particularly pleased with my own success, and found myself more moody than anything else.
I knew that he hadn’t really been stalking me, but a pathetic part of me had wished he would. There was no avoiding it at this point: I was lonely.
I missed home, I missed Amaretta and all of her lectures and clucking about. I missed the children of the village and the way they’d ask me to participate in games of tag and hide and seek, even though I was twice their age and size. I even missed the stable boys and their dirty minds, if only because it was all so familiar.
Sometimes, I even missed Graysen.
I hadn’t really found a niche or a social group at the Studium. I had made a single friend in Laurel Ansari, sure, but the woman was a social butterfly. She was constantly preoccupied, and we only had one course together.