He looked ever-so-slightly embarrassed, and Trill knew that he’d do it again if he thought someone might be in trouble. Trill hadn’t realized that he’d given that much away, but he supposed hehadkind of fixated on the two of them. That was probably the exact sort of thing they were supposed to notice and then wonder about.Mage Warriors.
“You can lure me here with sex,” Trill suggested. “A quick lunchtime event again? An afternoon snack?”
Molun was grinning widely now. “I’m in. How many sections do you think we can reasonably divide the day into?”
Arvus finished his breakfast while Trill and Molun broke the day down into increasingly small and increasingly ridiculous measures of time where Molun basically managed to get about five minutes of work done and then needed to dash back to these rooms so they could have more sex before he attempted to get a few minutes of work done yet again.
At one point, Arvus finally asked, “You don’t think that perhaps you’d find that a little draining?”
Molun shrugged. “What can I say? Trill is very inspiring.”
Trill preened, especially when Arvus nodded like this was a fair point. Trill was pretty sure that not evenhehad ever tried to have quite so much sex in a day. He could probably do it, but he wasn’t positive Arvus and Molun could keep up with him unless he helped… and he was pretty sure that was something they’d notice.
He was going to have to make a decision in the next few days, though. He couldn’t keep feeding Molun energy and not get anyin return, or he was going to exhaust himself. But maybe he could suggest they go dancing? That might be his best bet. Or if he really needed to, maybe he could leave during the day when they were busy and come back. It was normal to want air, right?
It would come to nothing if they turned out to only want him for another couple of days, but if theystayedinterested long enough for Trill to be able to really help with Molun’s leg, well… he was going to need weeks. He couldn’t go weeks without feeding, especially not when he was healing, too.
But he wouldn’t worry about it immediately. It would probably be good not to do anything weird right at the beginning—but then, it might also be smart to try to start building in the things that he needed, in case this did go on longer.
So as they were finally finishing breakfast and getting ready to go, Trill said as casually as he could, “I thought I might walk through the city later, just to get some air. Can I do that?”
“Of course, if you want to,” Molun said. “But I think you’d find it much nicer in the quadrangle.”
“The quadrangle?”
“I’m headed in that direction. I can show you, if you like,” Arvus offered. “I need to talk to Onadal.”
“Well, now I’m curious,” Trill agreed.
It seemed unlikely it would meet his ulterior motive, but now he had to know!
They bundled Trill up into a spare coat and hat of Molun’s, and then they were finally all hurrying out the door. Trill noted with satisfaction that Molun seemed to be moving well this morning. He was still limping, but it was less pronounced, and he didn’t look like he was in pain. There were still lots of improvements Trill could make, but this was so much better.
He and Arvus were apparently going in the other direction from Molun, and enough of what he was thinking must haveshown on his face, because once Molun was out of sight, Arvus spoke.
“He’s still recovering from the attack that wounded him.”
Trill frowned. “Attack?”
He’d hoped it had been an accident.
“Demon,” Arvus said.
Trill froze.
Arvus squeezed his arm. “It was a lesser demon and not near the castle, so you don’t need to worry. A team of us took care of them. But I’m afraid they took us by surprise at first, and Molun was badly injured.”
Trill nodded, managing to start walking again with an effort. “I’m so sorry to hear that. It sounds very scary. But it seems as though the wound is healing well?”
Might as well throw that in there now, try to establish it from the beginning.
“There have been some challenges,” Arvus said, expression grave, but then it softened. “Molun is very determined, and he says the pain isn’t so bad these days. I can usually see where it pinches his eyes, so I think he’s telling the truth.”
Trill could absolutely imagine Molun trying to pretend that it didn’t hurt as much as it did so that people wouldn’t worry about him. That just made Trill more determined to make sure itdidn’thurt.
He wished again that he could just heal it completely.Wouldit be worth it if he could figure out how to do it when they wouldn’t notice and then slip out? When they were sleeping, maybe? But what would Molun tell everyone else if he was suddenly fully healed overnight? No, that wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t want suspicion to fall on them. Plus, it made it too likely someone would think of him. He’d already be running, of course, but they had far more resources than he did.
It was probably really dumb to risk putting the Mage Warriors on his tail and causing problems for Molun just because Trill was impatient, right? It just… felt like more than that. He didn’t want Molun tohurt. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could like to see that. Might they… pretend not to notice if Molun was suddenly well? Could everyone just pretend that it was perfectly normal because it was better for him to be not hurting?
