I glance up as casually as he tried to pass that off, as if he is not implying something huge, lest he try to diminish its import. “Is that how you got into trouble, then? A new contact?”
Zan nods. “It’s safer for me to take the risk of testing them than for the humans who help me smuggle people out of the Order.” His lips quirk. “Also a way for me to distribute my magical wealth to people who need it that the Order can’t touch, since the only systemic way involves murdering me. What looks good?”
There are so many things here I don’t know where to start.
I’m beginning to understand just how many choices I’m going to have to make, both immediately andforever.
It’s freeing, but there are also so many things I have no ideahowto choose, and some of them will be important, and they’re also endless?
Every time I eat, I’ll have to choose the food. Every time!
This is absolute madness that people apparently live with every day.
Agift.
But also madness.
WhatdoI want?
“Something sweet,” I say, “always. But I did just come out of a five hundred-year stasis and would probably benefit from more nutrition first.” I frown down at the slate.
“...But?” Zan asks with narrowed eyes.
“But,” I say, “how much of that decision is really about taking care of myself, and how much is about following rules that were set out for me by people who didn’t care if I was happy, only useful to them?”
Zan sits back. “Aha. Yes, I... understand the problem.”
Yeah, I bet he does.
“How about this,” he says. “You can have both, and I’ll help you start. I want to take you somewhere that will have a dessert—very sweet,andmade with dairy—that I think you’ll like. So choose just one thing with nutrition, and that will be it for now.”
You can have both, and I’ll help you start.
He has given the matter of freeing sages more thought than he’s allowing himself credit for, I think.
“You noticed how I went for the cheese and jam, I see,” I say wryly.
His eyes crinkle with humor. “Hard to miss how high you piled that. The bread would have given out under the weight if you had shoved the whole thing in your mouth any slower.”
I stick my tongue out at him.
His humor visibly increases—
But his gaze also snags on my tongue, and then away.
I glance back down at the slate before a full-on blush develops.
Still didn’t get a laugh from him.
I’m not sure why I want it so badly.
I barely know him—
But no, that’s not true, is it?
It’s that I’ve only justmethim.
It’s becoming clear that even though we’ve never had a conversation before yesterday, we do actually understand eachother on a deep level—whether that’s a matter of comparable age and perspective, or our similar histories and challenges, or that what we want from life appears to align. Probably it’s the combination.
