I rolled my eyes as I tucked in the tunic. “If you recall, General, after I saved Sol’s life, you were the one who carried me into the inn and strippedmy bloody clothes before laying me in bed. I don’t see how this is any different. It’s just skin, after all.”
He grunted before shoving the boots at me. “Itisdifferent. You need to wear these today.” I shook my head at him. “Faylinn, I know you hate shoes. But you can’t just walk around the city and the administrative offices in nothing but your bare feet. We need you to make a solid impression on the people here, and bare feet isn’t necessarily the way to do it. Plus, there’s all manner of germs and disgusting things that line the walkways. Please, just wear them.” He shook them at me, and I uncrossed my arms to grab them from him.
“Fine. But I want an uninterrupted hour in the gardens today, with bare feet and a book,” I said as I pulled the boots onto my feet.
Argh. At least they’re comfortable. I hated my feet contained.
“Done. Now, let’s go.” He opened the door impatiently.
“Oh! One more thing!” I quickly put the plate of orange meat on the floor and stroked Cotton’s head. “Be good, Cotton. I’ll read you a bedtime story tonight if you behave.”
Cotton meowed contentedly as he attacked the food, and I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
Rohak looked at me like I was certifiably nuts.
“You do realize that is imported salmon from the upper-most part of Elyria, right?” I shrugged my shoulders as we exited the room.
“Okay? That’s great, but if Cotton likes it, then there’s no reason I should be eating it.”
He looked at me as we walked together through the manor. “You are incredibly strange, Faylinn.”
Something warmed in me, and I laughed. I’d been called strange my entire life, but something in the way he said it made it sound like a compliment.
The walkto the administrative offices was short and I tried not to grumble the whole way about the boots. Sure, they were a beautiful, supple, black leather, the price of which would probably feed the entire Henshaw family for months, but they were stillshoesand I hated anything on my feet.
“Can I take these off when we get to your office?” I groused as we entered the building. The interior was just as nondescript as the exterior and was really quite depressing.
No wonder Rohak doesn’t want to work here all the time.
As much as even the sight of the Academy gave me unwarranted chills, I’m certain the training barracks and yard in the back were much more preferable to this sad beige heap.
“After you meet with Lord d’Refan, yes,” he said as we walked down the empty hallway toward the stairs.
I humphed my disagreement but followed him up the stairs and to a nondescript wood door with a small clear orb inlaid in the wall. This one looked similar to the orb that was nestled in the wall on the outside of my room, and it appeared that it had the same function as well. Rohak placed his hand on it, and the orb glowed white for a moment before dulling again as the door clicked open. Rohak pushed through fully, revealing a dark space, his incredibly cluttered desk the only thing visible in the weak light filtering in from the open door.
With the push of a button inlaid on the wall, the strange orbs pressed into the ceiling illuminated, instantly casting light throughout the entire space.
I gasped as I took in the sight.
How did that happen?I was positively mesmerized by the strange light orbs, frozen by the display of magic.
“How do they work? What are they?” The questions rushed out of me as my brain tried to draw conclusions from nothing.
“Art and Gene, our Magical Experiments Department, call them light orbs. To my best understanding, they harness previously trapped Fire Magic and when I touch the button, it funnels that magic into these glass orbs.” He gestured to the ceiling. “Once we’re done using them, we click the button again and it shuts off the flow of magic.”
My mouth hung open as I took in the creative and amazing use of magic.
“Wow,” I breathed.
Rohak chuckled. “I’m certain Gene and Art will stop by at some point today—or multiple times today—and you are free to pick their brains if you want.”
I nodded my head vigorously, excited over the possibility of learning something completely new.
“I’m going to need a new journal, I think,” I mumbled to myself as I stepped farther into the room. It was long—excessively so, and the walls were dominated by a mixture of maps, drawings, and bookcases. The only places to sit were behind Rohak’s immeasurably cluttered desk, or in a wingback chair all the way on the opposite side of the room. “We’ll need another chair or something, too,” I remarked.
“Very well, I’ll have one sent up. And if you look on that shelf”—he pointed to the bookcases that lined the back of the wall, most of them empty—“there should be a few blank journals you can fill.”
I smiled gratefully at him before making my way to the back of the room and selecting a few notebooks to keep track of all the new information I would inevitably gather while in Vespera.
