“Okay,” Sora agreed mildly. “You got raked over the coals for this, didn’t you?”
“Oh, so much.”
Ravi had to admit Sora was dead-on about his impulse control. It had not really improved that much since he was a kid. He’d just gotten better about foreseeing the consequences of his actions.
“But didn’t it turn out for the best? With dragons no longer in hiding, mages have a better chance of finding you.”
“Yeah. I mean, in that sense, it’s great. I think we needed something to pull us out of hiding. I just hope it goes smoothly. Alric’s already put his foot down. He’s not getting embroiled in politics. He said he’s got enough to manage with his own clan, which is fair. And he and Cameron are really keen on maybe having kids in the next two years, so they want to get the clan’s affairs stable enough that both of them can be hands-on with the day-to-day care.”
“You have enough mages to do a magical incubator?”
Seriously, was there anything about medicine this man didn’t know? Ravi once again nearly blurted out questions and barely kept them in check. He had to bite his tongue before one of them escaped.
“We’re partnering with the ice dragons to manage it. Taking turns, if you will.”
“Ah. That would be glacially slow, though. You’d only be able to have one child a year.”
“Yeah, hardly a baby boom, I guess. But it will feel like one to us after so many years of not having any.” Ravi shrugged and moved them on to a lighter topic. “So, yeah, more mages, kids, this place is going to feel like a nonstop party soon!”
“You are hereby banned from being the fun uncle.” Lisette joined them at the table, although she didn’t sit, clearly just stopping by for a moment. Her warning look at Ravi was not entirely in jest.
Ravi put a wounded hand to his heart, rearing back, aghast. “But there’s so many fun things to teach them!”
“Yes, that’s what I’m afraid of. No. I’m forbidding this right now. And Sora, please do not get sucked into his pace. We’re due in my workroom in twenty minutes.”
Sora blinked, then flipped his wrist over to check the time. “I’m so sorry, I have no idea how it got to be this late. I’ll be there.”
“Good.” She gave them a nod before beelining for the coffee.
Aww, party pooper. Ravi was enjoying his Sora time, thank you very much. He made a face at her back.
Perhaps Sora felt the same way about it. He gave Ravi a slight smile, eyebrow cocked in a hint of challenge. “You know, you still owe me a drink.”
Ravi perked up. Oh? Oh yeah? So that’s how this was going to go, eh. Ravi was completely on board. “I do, don’t I? How about you meet me for dinner, and I’ll mix you something excellent.”
“You’re on.” Sora chugged the rest of his coffee, standing.
Ravi waved him off before he could bus his own dishes. “I’ve got that. You don’t have a lot of time to get over there.”
“Thanks. I’ll catch up with you later.” Sora opened his mouth, closed it, unsure of how to leave and apparently unwilling to.
Awww. He really did like this man. Apparently, if Ravi was reading the mood right, the feeling was mutual. “Have a good day at work, honey.”
Snorting, Sora shook his head. “Yeah, you too. Don’t do anything crazy?”
“Why would you be mean like that?”
Sora refused to rise to the bait, just shook his head again and grinned at Ravi before turning to leave.
He watched him go, ideas and wants swirling through his head. Yeah, Ravi might need to get his hands on that. The more time he spent around Sora, the more enticing the man became. And Sora seemed to take Ravi’s antics and energy in stride, which was rare.
Dinner, a simple dinner. So that Ravi could sound this out a bit more. Yeah. That would be good.
Sora showed up at the appointed spot for dinner with absolutely no idea how the evening would progress. Ravi had invited him outside, onto a back-patio area near the greenhouse. It offered privacy, beauty—the view of the mountains was gorgeous in the setting sun—and had a very date-like feel. Sora was very happy about that last part. Ravi was the type to use flirtation as communication, so he hadn’t been able to get a good read on the man. But the invitation for dinner and drinks tonight was a good indication that Ravi, too, felt the pull of attraction between them.
As he ascended the two steps to the round courtyard, he gave a double take.
Oh, this was definitely a date.
The picnic table had a snowy white tablecloth over it, with enclosed candles bracketing covered dishes, casting the area in a warm glow. The white dishes were pristine, and the whole thing looked like something out of a romantic comedy. Sora had never been on a date where someone had gone to this much trouble.
He was, in a word, touched.
Ravi had a minibar set up on the stone wall nearby, but his ears caught Sora’s entrance, and he turned with a wide smile. “There you are, handsome. Did Lisette finally let go of you?”
“It was a near thing. Although, really, it was Tori asking the most questions.”
Sora had a better sense of Tori’s background after a full day with him and the other mages. For someone who was basically self-taught, it was amazing how much Tori knew.
“Oh yeah, I can see that. Well, sit, relax.”
Sora took a seat as he inhaled deeply. “What is that amazing smell?”
“Sauerbraten. It’s a marinated beef roast. I snitched some from the kitchens. We’ve got Rotkohl and Semmelknödel to go with it.”
“I have no idea what any of that is, but it smells delicious.”
Sora was perfectly alright trying things he didn’t recognize. Trying new foods was actually one of his favorite parts about traveling.
Ravi started lifting metal covers from the dishes, revealing dinner in stages. The first seemed to be a round bread dumpling, which would be fun to eat. The other, a purple cabbage dish? Or something that looked like it. Sora took a serving spoon and gave himself a healthy serving of each. He had eaten lunch on the go, and after a full day of talking and being on his feet, sitting and eating felt like a luxury.
As Ravi served himself food, Sora thought to ask, “How was your day?”
“Oh, just as busy as yours,” Ravi responded lightly. “We had a lot of paperwork to do in order to settle our new mages in. Some people dropped everything and flew over here to be tested, and now that they’re mages, well, we’ve got to untangle their lives enough for them to stay here. We’re also trying to balance it out so that the ice dragons get some of the mages, or at least interact enough with them so people are aware they have a choice between clans.”
Sora had wondered about that. “Surely not every person who was at your gate proved to be a mage?”
“Very few, in fact. Some of them were just wannabes; they had nothing in their family history that made them think they actually were mages. Some of them had the history but didn’t prove to be mages themselves. We sat and talked longer with them, though, got an idea of who else in the family might be a mage. We did end up finding two more this morning though.
“Heh, that was actually kind of funny. It was a mother who brought her daughter in for testing, and then we realized the mom was a mage, too. Surprised the hell out of her. But she ended up staying. I would think it would be hard to walk away from your life and start all over, but…surprisingly, all of our mages do it.”