I leaned back in my chair and planted my arms on the arm rests. “I am going to be watching you and answer any and all questions you might have.”
Her facial expression was glorious, something between disbelief and anger. Her left eye was twitching and her hands were balled into fists at her sides.
“Didn’t you take notes when working on the material?” she asked, running her fingers over the stacks of books.
It was difficult not to smile. She was clever.
“I did.”
“Well… wouldn’t it make more sense for me to look at your notes first? It would save us a lot of time,” she argued.
I shook my head. “No. My notes are mine, it would not do us any good to have you go through them at this stage. I might have missed crucial details, plus the notes are naturally subjective. I need your fresh eyes on the facts.”
She sighed. “Of all the entities the Fates could have paired me up with, it had to be an anal freak with a penchant for dusty old books, didn’t it?”
Ouch.
With an exaggerated huff, she turned around to study the neatly piled books. I had placed a chair by the table and had provided pencils and papers en masse.
There were six different stacks of books, three folders with assorted papers and roundabout ten to fifteen paper scrolls, plus various maps. Each of the piles was labeled, such as “Prophecy,” “Geography,” “World events,” “Communication,” and so on, there was even a pile called “Wordsmiths.” I pretended to read my book, but kept watching her through my lashes.
“Who categorized these books?” she asked.
“I did.” I muttered, pretending to be totally engrossed in the book.
“Can I rearrange the piles?” she asked.
That made me look up. “You could, but why would you?”
She shrugged. “It’s not a bad system, but I think I work differently than you do.”
I closed my book with a loud thump. “Just because you work differently than me, does not mean you work more efficiently than me. I have planned this exact setup for weeks and believe me, this is the quickest way to get an idea ofwhere we stand.”
Ooh no, she wasn’t having it. Her lips slipped into a straight line and a defiant look took over her features. This tiny human wanted to challenge me. From a scientific point of view, there was no reason to deny her request. It would have irked me with anyone else, to have someone question my methods, but with her… it enraptured me. I could see her brilliant mind working behind her turquoise eyes and it made me curious to know what she would find. But I wasn’t going to give in this easily, it wasn’t in my nature.
She snapped her fingers in the air and pulled me out of my musings.
“Correct me, if I am wrong, but didn’t you say you wanted me to look at these with fresh eyes? So I could give you my thoughts on this? Seems to me that by making me go through the evidence on your terms is not helping me with forming my own opinions on the material, is it?”
The traitorous pull of a smile was forming on my lips. I clenched my jaw to hide it and put on my most annoyed face.
“This has nothing to do with me wanting to dictatemyways. This setup isn’t a personal preference of mine. It’sobjectivelythe most efficient way to gather information. We are on a tight schedule, and I have spent a significant amount of time compiling the information and making it as accessible for you as possible,” I ground out.
Something in her demeanor shifted. It was a million tiny changes, the way she held her shoulders, the tilt of her head, but it was unmistakable.
“Does it upset you when someone questions your logic?” She tried to keep a straight face but failed. Her eyes crinkled at the corners; she was up to no good.
When Caelan had told me about his first encounter with her, I had been worried that she’d be too meek and docile for this world. But whenever she was around me, she seemed to have no problem speaking her mind.
I got up from my chair and walked over to her with slow but deliberate steps.
“No. Progress is born of resistance. If no one ever questioned what they were taught, we’d still be living in the dark. Science isn’t sacred. It’s flawed. It evolves. And ithas to be challengedto mean anything.”
I stopped in front of her, far enough away that there was no risk of us accidentally touching, but close enough to test my own resolve. I could smell her and feel her body heat. She smelled of oranges and hibiscus flowers.
She nodded absentmindedly.
“So… how old are these books? How careful do I need to be?”
