“No,” she replied. She positioned the cylindrical parchment against a jar so it would not roll off the table. “He sounded boring. And I rather liked my professors. I don’t think I ever felt the need to prove them wrong. I spent more time trying to prove them right.”
“Prove them right?”
“For taking a post as a girl’s tutor,” she said over her shoulder as she picked up the last scroll on the other side of the room.
When the beast said nothing in response, she looked up at him as she walked back. His eyes were scrunched as though in confusion. “What did you have to prove to them? Weren’t they just paid to take the post?”
“That I could be as smart and interesting to teach as a male pupil even if I would never be able to take the exams and earn the real scholarly title.” Her jaw tightened as she arranged the scroll on the large table. She had put as much energy into being a good student as she had put into the actual studying itself. One would think those were the same thing, but somehow, they were different. She wished she had spent more time enjoying the material than trying to learn her professors’ differing perspectives. She felt like she had not been able to draw her own conclusions about the books she had read. It was complicated to explain.
“Did you want to take the exams?” Aden asked.
Isa nodded, though she felt embarrassed for having admitted it.
“Is that why you are looking for Floutast, then?” Aden asked.
“What? So that I can take the exams and prove how smart I am?” Her mind was still ruminating on her old tutors.
“No. Why would you have to prove how smart you are? It sounds like you already did, exams or no. Are you looking for Floutast because you haven’t read him yet?”
“Oh. No. I...” Isa stopped, finally realizing that she was having a conversation with the beast. The councilors had not stressed any sort of secrecy, just urgency, but she had already shared more than she had intended. “I need to deliver it to the Council.”
The beast raised his eyebrows. “What are they looking for in Floutast?” His voice was deeper somehow, slipping into a growl.
Isa shrugged. What the Council was planning was none of her business. Having no desire to speak of it further, she returned her focus to the table in front of her. Everything was set and ready to begin binding the scrolls, but she had lost her focus.
“Come eat supper with me tonight,” the beast said.
Isa looked up, confused. “What?”
“You haven’t left this room in four days, and you’ve hardly eaten a thing. You found the scrolls. Take the rest of the night to refresh yourself, and come sit down and eat a proper meal with me.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Binding these will take days, if not weeks.”
“When is the soonest the bridge will be replaced?” he asked.
She shrugged. Maybe if she avoided looking at him again, he would leave the room and go eat the supper he was so excited about.
“By Luca’s calculations, it will be four weeks at the soonest, but that is relying on the speedy success of your valiant husband and his fearless manservant.”
Isa snapped her head up when he called Macklin her husband. She glared a warning at the beast, but he did not seem to notice.
“I don’t want to say that I have any doubts about those two,” he carried on, “but let me just say, I have some doubts.”
What was it with this beast and his complete inability to read social cues? Maybe he was a human man after all. “Stop saying that!” Isa yelled.
“What? Oh. That was rude of me. Of course you should not harbor any doubts about the capability of your husband.”
“He’s not my husband!” she yelled.
That seemed to have gotten his attention. He blinked at her. Then his inhuman mouth spread into a very humanlike grin. “It would seem, Lady Bielsa, that we finally have something in common.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked, completely at a loss for where he was going with this.
“It seems that neither of us can stomach Macklin the Cowardly.”
Isa felt the giggle in her throat before it burst out in a wave of laughter, but she was too humored to try and stop it. “Macklin the Cowardly?” She snorted as she inhaled. “He doesn’t deserve that.”
“He did abandon you in a moment of danger,” the beast said, defending his position.
