Chapter 65. Unfortunate
Steam curled up from each cup as the tea filled them.
He guided the first cup across the table to Koleen, who caught it with both hands and nodded. "Thank you, Archmage. Sincerely."
"Hmm."
The second cup floated to Margaret, who smiled as she wrapped her weathered fingers around it. "Thank you, Grandpa Sael."
"Of course, little Margaret."
The third cup drifted to Robin, who blinked and reached for it quickly, like he wasn't sure if he was supposed to. His fox ears twitched slightly as the cup settled in front of him. "Oh—thank you, sir."
Sael studied him for a moment as the man took a cautious sip.
Robin had been out of a job until recently. Margaret had hired him. More than that, she'd made it clear she was keeping him around specifically so he could accompany Sael whenever he had to travel out of Orlys. Her reasoning was that Robin's personality had enough affinity with Sael's own that they could become friends. That Sael needed friends.
The thing was, Sael did like Robin.
It wasn't the first time he'd thought it. The feytouched fox was honest in a way that felt deliberate rather than incidental—he didn't soften truths to make them palatable, didn't waste words on pleasantries that served no function. When Robin said something, it was because it needed saying. When he stayed quiet, it was because nothing needed saying. Sael appreciated that. The world had too many people who filled silence because they were uncomfortable with it.
Margaret's intuition about their personalities being conducive to friendship wasn't far-fetched.
But paying someone to be friends with another person seemed... unlikely to work. Friendship, as Sael understood it—which admittedly might be limited—required some degree of organic development. Mutual interest. Shared experience that wasn't predicated on a financial transaction. If Robin was being compensated to spend time with him, then the relationship had a structure that felt inherently unequal. One person was performing a service. The other was receiving it.
Maybe he'd ask Robin later. The man would be honest about it.
Sael's gaze drifted past the table, down the hill to where Ilsa and Orion were working near the house. The girl had rolled up her sleeves and was demonstrating something with a knife—how to separate muscle from bone, it looked like—while Orion watched with intense focus and seemed to desperately want to avoid looking incompetent. The deer leg lay between them on a flat stone Sael had shaped earlier, and Ilsa's hands moved fast at it.
Orion tried to mimic her technique. The knife slipped. He caught himself before doing any damage and glanced up to see if anyone had noticed.
Ilsa had noticed. She said something Sael could hear from this distance, and Orion's face flushed, but he nodded and tried again.
"I brought candied peanuts," Margaret said suddenly.
Sael turned back to the table.
She was pulling a small cloth bag from her coat pocket, setting it down like something fragile. "According to the townsfolk, the merchant you bought it from last time started making them again. And others in the market have too." She opened the bag and the smell hit him immediately: sugar and salt and roasted peanuts. "It's the return of candied peanuts."
Sael stared at the bag.
"The greatest candies to have ever existed," Margaret added, completely serious. She then set the bag in the center of the table and gestured to it, smiling warmly. "Please, indulge."
Koleen glanced at the bag and smiled slightly. "The whole city's selling them now, as the official favorite candies of Sael the Great, who has now returned." He picked one up and examined it. "The merchant who initially sold them to you has become quite popular, apparently. People keep asking which stall served Sael."
"Oh." Sael said.
He wasn't sure what to say about that... so he said nothing.