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"Oh? And you said?" Augustus raised an eyebrow.
"The perks. Everywhere I've gone today people have fed me."
"My charm and good looks mean nothing to you? You wound me."
"I haven't seen the first, and the second is subjective," Mara replied.
"With manners like that, it's probably best that people forget you, saint."
Mara's smile grew wider. "You can't get people to like youbecausethey are forced to remember you."
"Wicked little tongue on you when you're hungry, isn't there? What's the holdup, Flynn?" Augustus asked. The sprite held a wooden chopping board, laden with fresh bread, and simply stared at them.
"Nothing. Here, eat." He placed it between them and retreated to make it look like he was busy preparing things when he wasn't.
Flynn had known Augustus for fifty years, and seeing this side of him had Flynn rattled. Augustus wasn't comfortable in company, but he was goading the saint with playful ease. Flynn had expected a quiet, timid woman who was lonely and would bend easily under the force of Augustus's personality. Mara was none of those things.
Mara wasn't intimidated or impressed in the slightest by Augustus, and because of this, she didn't recognize the confused and besotted expression that the sorcerer currently wore.
Flynn didn't know if he wanted to laugh or weep at all the trouble they would cause each other.
Thankfully, Mara was utterly unaware of Flynn's study of the situation. She was happy to be out of the teashop for a night and had a houseful of books that Augustus had promised she could choose from.
"You know Flynn here uses wild magic like you," Augustus said. Mara raised a brow. She could see the poor sorcerer was doing his best to understand her and decided to let him down as gently as possible.
"It's still different, Augustus. Flynn, correct me if I'm wrong, but sprite's draw on the magic of the nature around them, the land and trees and all of the wild things?" she asked. The handsome sprite nodded. "So if you pull too hard on that magic, you could kill the nearest tree?"
"I would never! But in theory, yes," Flynn replied.
"The magic you use is a borrowed power. You can manipulate it, but the power originally belongs to the trees. So you see, sorcerer, you're wrong," Mara said.
"It makes no sense! You have to get it from somewhere," Augustus argued.
"She pulls it from the Divine. That's what saints and clerics have done for centuries, Augustus," Flynn replied.
"It's also hereditary. What if the Divine blessed the original saint, and it was so powerful, it remained in the Corvo bloodline?"
Mara sighed and poured herself another glass of wine. "Do all sorcerers have to study the whys of things so intently that they take all of the mystery out of them?"
Augustus gave her an incredulous look. "Do you really have no desire to learn how your abilities work so that you can break some of your curses?"
"Who says I want to get rid of them?" she said. Mara had spent many years wondering what would happen if her curses were lifted, and she had simply given up hoping anything would change.
"You really don't want to be remembered at all by anyone?" Augustus asked.
"That's not the worst of them."
"What else is there?" he asked, brows lifting. Mara didn't reply; she was too lost in the memory of her mother screaming and dying in her bed.
"I'll tell you some other time, perhaps. I'd prefer not to give everyone indigestion," she said finally. Augustus opened his mouth to press the matter, but Flynn, who was far wiser in picking up emotional signals than the sorcerer, kicked him hard under the table to make him drop it.
"If you can't tell me about your curses, then tell me why the Corvos hate sorcerers," Augustus said.
"Because they are nosey," Flynn muttered.
"I'm sure there are lots of reasons." Mara shifted in her chair uncomfortably.
Augustus smiled. "You don't know, do you?"
