“Of course I said yes,” he retorted. “Just how many times do you think you’ll survive people trying to kill you before one of them gets lucky? What if I’m too far away next time? What if I’d been a few minutes later than I was last year?”
When I didn’t have an answer for that, he exhaled, hands on his hips.
“I said I’d do it, but only if they let me do it my way,” he said, his voice back to that flatter, more patient tone. “That means only the practical side of forms, and little to no technique testing. I wasn’t going to prioritize any of the points or positioning bullshit. I said I’d make sure you knew enough to pass your exams and rank at least at the bare levels of proficiency in the areas where they test, but that I intendedto focus the vast majority of my time with you on sparring, including hand-to-hand, defensive magic, diversionary attacks, and evasion. I may not have mentioned poisonsspecifically,but given your track record, I’d hope it was implied.”
“So you’re going to poison me?” I asked, back to incredulous.
“Yes. At some point.” He snorted at whatever look came to my face.“Eye of Ra,Shadow. I’ll have antidotes handy.” He smirked. “For the lethal ones, anyway.”
At my blank stare, he shrugged, adjusting one of his wraps.
“Forsooth agreed with me, incidentally. But then, I don’t suppose he’s particularly invested in the fight ranking rubbish, either. Or fighting in general. I doubt he has much need of it, given who he is.”
I swallowed. Forsooth intervened to pull Bones further into my life?
Again?
I was tempted to ask Bones what he thought about that, but I didn’t.
“Oh,” Bones reached into a back pocket of his fitted workout trousers and pulled out a piece of parchment, unsealed. He walked up and handed it over to me casually. “I was going to wait until we were finished, but since you have questions now, and I’d rather you not be distracted… he asked me to give you this.”
Even more baffled, I took the letter from his fingers.
I unfolded the parchment clumsily with my wrapped hands.
The note had been folded over twice. It hadn’t been rolled up, and was completely unsealed by wax or even by magic. Bones could have easily read it and likely had.
Clearly Forsooth hadn’t cared much whether he did.
There was no greeting, just two paragraphs of precise handwriting.
I would like to formally invite you to the meeting I told you about, Ms. Shadow. As this month’s has unfortunately been canceled, the next one will not take place until November 11th, eight o’clock in the evening, at the top of the Northeast Tower. I apologize for the long wait, but I hope this will give you plenty of time to organize your schedule so you can attend. Unfortunately, due to the delicate positions of many attendees, and the frequent events of the wider world, we often struggle to all come together at the same day and time.
Oh, and I do hope you don’t mind these new arrangements for your offensive and defensive magical education. This offered a seemingly ideal solution in my view, as Mr. Bones strikes me as quite a practical and level-headed young man when it comes to such things. He was thankfully very agreeable about taking the position when I approached him on Sunday. However, if you have a different proposition to accomplish this task, one you would prefer for whatever reason, let me know when I see you next, and we’ll discuss that, too.
I frowned, looking up at Bones. I hesitated, then just went ahead and asked.
“Why do you think he’s done this?” I studied his face. “Why would Forsooth want us working together like this?”
Bones’s stare flattened.
“You must have a theory,” I said. “You always have a theory, Bones––”
“Yet I’m not entirely clear on why you’d care to hear it,” he said, a touch of coldness in his voice. “When you would obviously need to askhimthat question.”
I stared at him a moment longer. Sighing, I gave up and shoved the note in my pocket. I took a few steps back and made my body loose.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “Just pretend I’m sparring with Alaric?”
His jaw visibly ticked. “Just how much sparring did the two of you do together?”
“Most days last summer, after I got back to London.”
“Which was when?”
“Last two weeks of July?” I said, thinking. “So about two months?”
“Where were you before that?” he asked.
