CHAPTER16
CONRAD
Conrad foundhimself smiling at the question.“What is it you would like to know?”
Sage shrugged, but Conrad didn’t miss the way the other man’s gaze stole over his body.“Whatever you’d like to tell.I barely know anything about you.”
“I was born and raised in Bristol.I’m in the middle of a lot of siblings.”
“How many?”
“Nine.”
Sage made a face.“Stars above.I thought I had a large family.”
“Now you can see why there was so much sharing of space.”
“It’s no wonder.What else?”
“My parents were quite adamant about us learning to read and write, and master basic spells.Schooling was…informal.But efficient.And a worthwhile endeavor.Having the little education I did provided me with better job opportunities.”
“And how did you end up…at the shipyards?”
Conrad leaned back on his elbows.“My older brother worked there already and helped me get started.At first, it was just to help with some of the spell casting.But then they learned that I was nimble and could help with the heavy lifting by climbing and passing things down.And I took on additional tasks from there.The work in the shipyards is dependent on the merchant who owns the ship, how much material they have to load or unload, and how much they’re willing to pay.But people are a little more inclined to hire you if you’re willing and able to do more, and if you’re punctual.”
Sage was quiet for a moment, a small frown creasing his forehead.“Did you like it?”
“Well enough.The other people I worked with were quite friendly and nice, hard-working folks.We tended to help each other.I liked that.The sailors respected us if we were respectful of the boats and didn’t make their jobs more difficult.The merchants…there were fewer of them that I liked, I’ll admit.”
“Hard to imagine you disliking anyone.”
Conrad chuckled.“That’s because you’ve only seen me interacting with kind people.”
Sage’s lips pinched together slightly.“Even when some of them tease you about your private affairs?”
“Even then.I’m no stranger to teasing.And I think I have a…gentler history of such things than you do.”
“Yes, you’re probably right,” Sage said quietly.A breeze ruffled past them, toying at the strands of Sage’s hair.
Conrad sat up and tucked Sage’s hair behind his ears.His fingers lingered a little on the pointed ends of them.Sage searched his face guardedly.Conrad stroked the back of his fingers along the other man’s jaw.“What else would you like to know?”
“How long did you do that work?And what caused you to leave it?”
Conrad moved one hand to the other side of Sage’s legs and leaned against his palm.“It all rather blurs together, to be honest.But I think I started when I was fifteen or so.About twenty years, then?”
Sage’s eyes widened.“Twenty years?”
Conrad laughed and used his free hand to trace a fingertip over the mother-of-pearl buttons on Sage’s waistcoat.“As to what caused me to leave, that’s a bit of a longer explanation.I liked my work well enough, but I didn’t want to do it forever.As you can probably imagine, it’s hard on the body.And there’s only so long a person can do it.Not to mention, there’s some amount of danger involved, so it’s always a risk that you’ll hurt yourself and be unable to work.I knew I liked helping people, I knew I liked making plans and lists.I knew I liked magic, for all that I was hardly the best at it.But it’s…challenging finding work that suits such things when your education is informal and your means are small.”
“How did you decide on the Council position?”
“I started following the news a little more closely when Roger and Wyndham were assigned their project last autumn.No one in my family had a particularly high Hastings score.So when we heard that the Hastings Exam might be replaced with something more nuanced, we subscribed to the only source that was discussing it.”
“Torquil’sTribune.”
“Yes.”
Sage turned his face away.“So you have read the gossip then?”
