You’re also a person.
I wash my hands.
When I finish, Tasa has stepped way back, and that makes me frown again.
I want her close.
Sages live alone.
“Well, whatever you decide, I promise to cheer for you from my mess!” she chirps.
“Yourmess?” I echo incredulously. “Do you mean the cottage you built by yourself that’s absolutely perfect for you, and has been a haven for a sage having a midlife crisis? Or do you meanmymess, since I’ve arrived and intruded on your serenity and made a literal mess of your workshop?”
“My workshop was already a mess, in fairness.”
“Tasa.”
Her eyes go wide at the rumble of my voice saying her name; her cheeks flare with pink.
Andthatmakes my eyes narrow for an entirely different reason.
I am a sage. I am intruding on her home. These facts have not changed.
But if she is watching me the way I am watching her...
Then nothing. That’s not my place.
Still, some part of me tightens in readiness.
“I just meant,” Tasa says quickly, “if you need more space to think—”
“That demonstrably hasn’t helped me.”
“Well, if I’m ever in your way—”
“You,” I practically growl, “are the only thing I know is solid.”
Tasa laughs, but I hear the hysterical note in it. “Oh gods, you’re asage, surely you can tell that I am theleastsolid—”
“I am a sage, and I literally couldn’t have survived a night on this mountain on my own, and here you are thriving byyourself. Iama sage, Tasa, and Ido not say things I do not mean.”
Tasa stares, clearly flummoxed by my vehemency.
I’ve made her speechless.
While I never want to silence her, cutting through her doubts—thatdoesmake me feel as if I have finally managed to do a very big thing indeed.
There is wisdom in her words. Perhaps starting with something small will lead to something big.
Perhaps starting with her is the real precipice.
“Perhaps,” I say, watching closely for her reactions, “once you have eaten, and rested—or once you’ve completed your other work for the day, would you be willing to show me some other things I should know in order to live?”
Her cheeks flare again before she swallows, and a surge of satisfaction fills me.
“I’d love to,” she says breathlessly. Then swallows and tries again, “I mean, I can take today off.”
I feel my expression moving into a frown; wonder when this became such an easy default for me. “Won’t that mean you won’t get food?”
