Chapter 72: Trustworthy
When the knight’s away, the apprentices will play—the saying went something along those lines.
With her father no longer there, there was a sense of freedom she felt to no longer having him hawking over everything she did. It wasn’t as if she was that much worse behaved, but he required a level of perfection that she found exhausting after a while.
It was almost as if he had to ensure she was doing perfectly well to convince Rochelle that everything was alright with Irene being an apprentice and trying to become a knight.
It made Irene wonder if her mother knew that she had been wounded at the beginning of the winter or if he had omitted that information from her so she wouldn’t appear on the Duke’s doorstep herself.
Regardless, the knights and mages continued to hold secrets with one another as monsters appeared and Irene found it grating. She knew that Felix did as well.
Leif was always satisfied with whatever the knights did but he would certainly be roped into whatever his friends were doing so they tried to keep it from him. Unfortunately, he was much more in tune to them than they realized.
During outdoor duties, Felix, who had been elsewhere in the Duke’s Tower approached Irene quickly as she began to walk out of the stables. Instead of allowing her to continue on her trek forward, he pushed her shoulder, forcing her to walk backwards until she was inside the stables once more and her back was against a post.
She glared up at the older apprentice.
"What is the meaning of this?" she asked, pushing his hand away from her shoulder. "Manhandling me—?!"
Felix put his fingers over his lips and the girl immediately shut her mouth. It seemed he wasn’t being annoying without reason at that moment.
His blue eyes went to someone else who was staring at them in disbelief from the other end of the stables.