“All this to say, we are not enemies,” the wizard clarifies.
“We’re not allies, either.”
“Agreed. We simply both exist and can benefit from one another if the option arises. If you need etherium or my assistance, I only require one thing in return.”
I glance down at my hands, which feel odd without gloves. “Knowledge. Silas says it’s what drives you.”
He smiles. “How very true. He’s always been quite bright—my only official apprentice for the last two hundred years, and I daresay someone I could almost consider a friend. And to think, I nearly refused to take him in. Those damned immortals would have raised him if that elemental of yours hadn’t stepped in.”
I blink. “What?”
The Garnet Wizard peruses the little teacakes on the table.
“Indeed. I charge a rather exorbitant fee for tutelage, let alone raising and apprenticing someone for many years. The Crane estate and fortune ought to have passed to that young prodigy when his parents killed one another—but their will was suspiciously altered, and his distant Crane relatives descended like wolves. He would never have survived on what little they left him with, and he knew it. He sent an application to me, but I overlooked the boy because of his severe lack of funding.”
He huffs with disdain. “Not to mention, I knew how much the Immortal Quintet wanted to make a Crane into one of their obedient, brainwashed pets. You see, I like to avoid thementirely, so I was resolved to ignore the so-called prodigy and continue as I have.”
“But…Everett stepped in?” I press, still stuck on that. “How?”
“He had contacted me and paid quite handsomely a few years prior for a very special trinket—intended for an empath, I believe. He contacted me again after the death of the Cranes, but instead of money, he offered nevermelt. At the time, it was worth far more than a fortune would have meant to me. After quite a lot of haggling, wherein I realized he seems to have inherited his annoyingly keen business sense from that prat father of his, I agreed to take in Silas as my apprentice.” He laughs. “Looking back, it is one of the finer decisions I’ve made in my very long life. Quite a lad, your blood fae.”
Oh, my gods.
Knowing Silas’s life could have been so drastically different at the hands of the Immortal Quintet and that Everett stepped in like that…
“Silas doesn’t know about this,” I realize.
“No, to be sure. Secrecy was part of the arrangement. I assumed the elemental would tell him eventually.”
I try to tame my smile, but it’s surprisingly tricky.
Those fucking legacies. They’re all secretly a bunch of softies, aren’t they? They can gripe about each other and fight all they want, but the sense of brotherhood they deny having any trace of has clearly played a part in all their lives.
You’re getting a blowjob tonight,I send just to Everett.
There’s a shocked silence, followed by a very flustered,I…you…um, what?
Just say yes and thank you.
Yes. Thank you. But only if I get to return the favor. Also,pleasetell me you’re safe.
I reassure him that I’m good as I finally pour myself tea. If the Garnet Wizard was going to try hurting me, he would have done it by now.
Thank the gods. But keep talking. We’re kind of dying over here without updates, Snowdrop, Everett’s soft voice says in my head.
Whoa. Hang on. Snowdrop?
Not you, too. You cannot nickname me,I protest telepathically.Just call me Maven or Oakley like usual.
As we discussed, your last name isn’t Oakley.
For the last time, I will not be named after a motherfucking flower.
But it’s symbolic. I put a lot of thought into it, unlike Baelfire with his ridiculous string of nicknames. If he gets to call you everything under the sun, at least let me call you ‘Snowdrop’ and ‘mine.’
Gods. What the hell am I supposed to do with all these fucking nicknames? It’s ridiculous.
“Back to the subject at hand,” I mutter, realizing I’ve zoned out while the Garnet Wizard sips his tea. “What knowledge do you want in exchange for etherium? And more importantly, what will you do with anything you learn fromme?”
