Book 5. Chapter 41: Time's up
Hexis wanted the Winterblossom technique.
I almost told him to eat ice. But I'm more polite than that. He’s my occult master after all, I have to pay respects and all that.
“Go gargle snow.” I said. "Respectfully."
He kept his hands folded inside his robe, glancing me over with a raised eyebrow. "You certainly have a peculiar bravado for someone seeking secrets from me."
I think that’s his way of calling me a cheeky brat. Just with far more words than needed. Cathida was a breath of fresh air in comparison, she’d drop any pretense of making the insult subtle.
“Master, with all due respects, what you’re asking for would need to have Lord Atius looped in. It’s not on me to tell clan secrets. And he’s in the freeze leading knights to terrorize innocent slavers right now.”
Personally, I think he was doing this as a vacation from his regular paperwork duty as a Clan Lord. Now that his bodyguards were all fighting at or even past his weight class, there wasn’t a huge point to having him out on the field.
“Besides, what are you going to use that kind of knowledge for anyhow?” I asked, waving at his general Hexis-ness. The man likely never held a sword for any other reason than to inspect it. He was a bureaucrat who wanted to stay at his desk and amass minions to go out and do his work for him.
With a disdainful frown, he waved a hand. "Oh, fine, you have a point, albeit a minor one. Naturally, a person of my importance wouldn't sully his hands with such mundane conflicts—I have underlings for that. No, I ask out of mild curiosity.”