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Athanasius's yellow eyes narrowed. "Yes."
"Was it because you were this rude to him and pissed him off?"
"No. It was because I fell in love with a Corvo woman that he wanted."
That admission raised even more questions, but the door reopened, and Mara appeared. She'd changed her stained clothes for a deep red satin shirt and black jeans that made her coloring even more striking.
Now that he wasn't agitated at the thought of her cursing him, he had the time to appreciate the way the dark flicks of her eyeliner made her black eyes even bigger and the silent, graceful way she moved. It really was a shame she hated sorcerers so much.
"Okay, I'll try and do the miracle," Mara said, reaching for the pot. "Tell me your heartache, and I'll make tea."
"Are you always this blunt with your customers? For a grief saint, you're not very empathic."
"My customers usually forget me and never return," Mara replied, color staining her cheeks. She was flustered and defensive.
Good.
Then something shifted inside of Augustus, and he could no longer remember the lie he'd so carefully constructed.
His heart began to pound in his ears the longer she stared at him, waiting for a response. His mind and tongue were no longer cooperating with each other.
He opened his mouth and said, "There was an incident with a leopard..."
* * *
The year was 1880, and Augustus had traveled from London to Sri Lanka with his best friend, Timothy Highfell. Lord Highfell, Timothy's father, had invested heavily in the growing and exportation of the Ceylon tea trade.
They were twenty years old, fresh graduates from the Academy, and both accomplished sorcerers.
Like most young men, they were adventurous, cocky, and reckless, so when an overseer had come to tell Lord Highfell of a leopard that was attacking their workers in one of their highland plantations, they both volunteered to take a handful of men and hunt the beast down.
Augustus would never forget how horrible that trip was. On their first night at the plantation, two workers had been killed and dragged from their beds without a sound.
The leopard had never been so arrogant, but the presence of the two white men had made it even angrier. Augustus and Timothy had loaded their packs and weapons, and with a group of five men, they began to track the beast through the jungle.
After three days, Augustus had seen the glimmer of a tail and felt strange magic linger. If they had thought they were tracking a natural animal, they were wrong.
He had tried to tell Timothy that they should return to the plantation, but he refused. They were closing in on the beast, and he'd kill it and take its skin back to his father.
Augustus's father had died when he was only ten years old, so he didn't understand the motivations that drove Timothy to impress Lord Highfell. Timothy begged him to stay, so Augustus did.
In the next week, the leopard slowly picked off their men one at a time until only Timothy and Augustus remained.
They were running out of food and water, and every time they were about to give up, the leopard would appear to taunt them, and they would keep going, letting it lure them deeper and deeper into the jungle. It was playing with them, and both men were slowly losing their minds from heat and dehydration.
Augustus finally cast the right spell to track the magic on the creature, and they followed it until they reached a small clearing.
The cat was twice the size of a regular leopard, and it sat outside of its cave, waiting for them.
In the sunlight, they could finally see that it was no leopard at all but a sorcerer, eyes wild with violence and madness.
The sorcerer asked them if they were ready to learn the greatest secret to life. Timothy had collapsed to his knees with exhaustion and said yes. The sorcerer had pounced, shifting into his leopard form, and tore Timothy's chest to pieces.
Life is pain, and the life of a sorcerer is the most painful of all, the leopard shouted as Timothy screamed, and Augustus ran.
He didn't know how long he tore his way through that thick, dark jungle. A second search party found him, dying and delirious, and carried him back to Lord Highfell.
Augustus was on the first boat back to England, and Timothy's remains were never found.
