“That boy is dangerous,” Serraphila said to her cousin.
Gioelion had asked if she’d been able to meet Kunon.
He’d invited her over, and they were sitting at his dinner table. She’d chosen to rent a nearby house instead of living in the dorm.
Upon his recommendation, she’d met his friend Kunon Gurion earlier that day and had come to tell him how it went. Gioelion had likely invited her for just that reason.
She’d met Kunon. Her visit had been brief, but they’d had a full conversation.
A full conversation from which she was still recovering.
“He said he was going to seduce me with the charm of magic, whether I liked it or not…”
Just the memory of the look in his eyes sent a chill down her spine. Well, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel the intensity of his will and gaze even through the eye mask.
“Whether you liked it or not?” Gioelion repeated.
“Then he started telling me about all these incredibly interesting things. I pleaded for him to stop, saying I didn’t want to hear it, but he just kept going, as if he was a slave to his desires. He was like an animal.”
Ilhi Bolyle, who was also at the table, burst out laughing upon hearing the word “animal.”
“I know just what you mean,” she said. “He always gets like that when he talks about magic.”
“Personally,” Garthries Gadanthus added, “I think the funniest part is that you ran away.”
He was right—Serraphila had run away. She’d stood up, given Kunon a curtsy, and with her hands still on her skirt, sprinted from the classroom like a fleeing rabbit.
It wasn’t easy for a child, even one as graceful as her, to maintain a ladylike appearance while lifting her skirt and running at full speed.
“This is no laughing matter,” she said. “I haven’t sprinted like that in a long time. He might never have stopped talking… I would have been in real danger if I hadn’t run. I could feel myself being seduced by magic, just as he’d said I would be…”
She wouldn’t have said that if she weren’t already seduced.
I knew Kunon could do it, Gioelion thought. To think he would pull it off so quickly.
His friend had thrown his calm and mature cousin’s heart into disarray with just one meeting.
“Is there a problem with being interested in magic?” he asked. “You just enrolled in magic school, after all.”
What was the problem with being seduced by magic? There was no better place to learn, so she might as well let herself get excited.
“There are steps to this, Cousin Gio.”
“Steps?”
“I have a feeling I will surrender myself to magic eventually. I’m sure there is much to earth magic I don’t know and will be interested to learn about.”
She might, admittedly, already be interested…
The things Kunon told her about were quite fascinating, however…
“But this is too fast. I just entered school. It will take more than one conversation to win me over. I can’t let people think Quartz women are so easy,” Serraphila said. “I want to start by exchanging letters. Then we’ll gradually begin to speak in person, until one day when our hands happen to brush… There’s an order to these things. Holding hands right away would be improper.”
Gioelion couldn’t follow her logic. She was clearly comparing becoming interested in magic to the courting customs of nobles, but that made no sense. Allowing herself to get invested in magic now would only save her time.
But Ilhi said, “Spoken like a true maiden.”
Maybe this is just a girl thing, he thought.
…Or was it? Ilhi was a pretty eccentric person, so he wasn’t sure if her idea of maiden-like behavior was entirely accurate.
“What exactly did Kunon tell you?” he said.
“I’m so glad you asked, Brother. First, he told me about…”
Serraphila began to speak of her conversation with Kunon. She gushed with true excitement in her voice.
Sure enough, it looked like she had been seduced already.