Page 25 of Scales ’N’ Spells: Volume Two

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.”

This didn’t surprise Sora. “It’s incredibly fulfilling, magic. Like no other experience. And there’s something amazing about learning what you’re truly meant to do in life. What your calling is. There are so many people who never achieve that. For the mother, I imagine she’d never thought she would have this kind of insight into herself. Of course she’d feel compelled to stay and see it through.”

Ravi relaxed on the bench, chocolate brown eyes captivating as he looked at Sora. “Is that what healing magic is for you?”

The seriousness of the question surprised him. Ravi had never regarded him so frankly before. And it meant he truly wanted an answer.

He didn’t have a ready one to give. Sora had to pause and really think about it for a moment. And he had to think about how to phrase it, how to say it without giving too much away. These half-truths and evasive answers were starting to wear thin. Sora’s nature wasn’t to lie, and he wanted, achingly, to be completely truthful with Ravi. When Ravi himself was so transparent and open, it made him want to respond in kind. It was difficult to be in this position where he was constrained from doing so.

“My family has always been made up of healers. We are known for it. I think, when I was still too young to really question matters, I learned how to heal because everyone in the family did it. Of course I would do it, too, and I wanted to be just like everyone else. It wasn’t until my late teens that I questioned it, why I was learning and investing so much time in it all. Eventually, what I found was I like the challenge of it. And it’s immensely satisfying to look at someone who was once in terrible pain, knowing it was my knowledge and actions that helped them. That restored them back to the health they once enjoyed.”