I open my mouth to blurt it out but instead say, “Is this your sage power?”
Immediately, his eyes dull. “Definitely not.”
Ah, shit. I sigh and decide to just get it out there. “This is what I’m worried about,” I explain miserably. “You’re going to get sick of dealing with me, and neither of us will have anywhere else to go.”
His head cocks to the side. “Absolutely nothing in our interaction thus far has given me the impression that I would ever tire of you.”
Isnort. “Well, let me disabuse you of that. I say the first thing that comes to mind.”
“I had noticed.”
“I’ll forget things you expect me to remember, and I’ll say I’ll do something and then will get caught up in something else and will do things a different way that you’ll hate because it’s not what we agreed on or common sense or whatever. And I’ll short out all your magic, so dealing with me will always have a cost even beyond the rest.”
I glare up at him, as if that will change how my heart is pounding.
Yes, fine, I just did the same ‘make them hate you in advance’ tactic. I didn’t recognize it by accident.
But he’s still holding my hands.
Now he squeezes them.
“The latter isn’t a problem,” Kovan says slowly, “and I admit I find it difficult to imagine that any of the rest will be, either. But I believe that you are speaking from a place of experience, and I will endeavor not to contribute to those lessons.”
Well. That’s something, I guess?
“You don’t believe me,” he says, letting my hands go.
Damn it.
Double damn it, even—for being the one to make him deflate like that, and for losing that brief—but not as brief as it should have been—connection with him.
I want it back.
All of it.
“Oh, I mean, I believe you mean what you’re saying right now,” I say hastily. “But patience for people who get distracted from important things always wanes eventually.”
“Ah.” His tone changes somehow. “You’ve been told that if you simply cared enough, or tried hard enough, you wouldn’t forget?”
I stare.
The sage nods, like this makes perfect sense. “You don’t strike me as careless. Some people simply don’t work that way. As the sage of resolve, I would know. If I simply apply my magic to increase your determination to remember, it wouldn’t help, because determination is not your problem. There are some spells for focus that have proven effective for some people—” He breaks off. “I apologize. I suppose those aren’t available to you, as a null. I shouldn’t have offered the possibility—”
“Are youkidding?” His words make me dizzy, and I drop down to the ground again. “You mean I’m not—okay maybe there is still something wrong with me, but I’m not just... weak?” The last word comes out on a whisper, and I wince at myself.
Kovan crouches in front of me, and when I meet his gaze I’m mesmerized all over again.
He may not be able to use magic right now, but his golden eyes glow with fierceness, and I’m drawn to the far more mundane—moremagical—power in them.
Living together will definitely be fine and I will absolutely not embarrass myself constantly—
“There is nothing wrong with you,” the Sage of Resolve says.
And I can very nearly believe it.
But as if he can sense that I’m still reeling, his eyes narrow.
And then heoffersme a hand.
