Chapter 76
"Do you take milk and sugar in your coffee?"
"I drink tea."
Ling took another cup from the stack next to the coffee machine and filled it with hot water from the nearby kettle before dropping a tea bag into it. "Milk?" she asked.
"Please."
Ling smiled and carried both Bran’s cup and her own cup (of coffee) to the table, setting them gently down on the glass. Bran brought his hand up under the table and pressed his palm against where the cup sat on the table. The glass was cold. He kept his hand there.
They were out of the underground area with the eyeball monster and instead in a crisp and clean room that smelled of both frost and magic. Bran knew they still had to be underground, yet one entire wall of the office was clad with glass that let him gaze out at the city, or at least, a city. So far, he hadn’t spotted a single landmark he knew.
"Did Malcolm tell you about me?" Bran asked the woman sitting opposite him. This table and its two chairs were set in an open area of the office on the other side of the room from the main desk that Bran assumed belonged to the owner of the office. Did that make Ling not the owner since she hadn’t even motioned to sit there? Was she a subordinate perhaps?
In all honesty, Bran’s mind was still buzzing from all the things this woman had told him and he wasn’t quite sure if he was keeping up.
"He did," replied Ling. "He said it was quite the pleasant surprise to meet you all those years ago at the Cloud Flame Manor."
"Sure." Bran could still feel no warmth from the coffee cup just a centimetre away through the glass. He let his hand drop. Then he raised his gaze and locked eyes with Ling. "What about Misha?" he asked.
For the first time, the woman’s calm, cool demeanor broke and Bran saw a sliver of true emotion slide out between the cracks. Then it was gone. "What Misha?" She asked. "I don’t know who you mean."
She clearly did and Bran’s heart ached for his lover. He could still remember the daze Misha had fallen into after revisiting his mother’s grave, this Chau Ling’s grave.