Page 52 of Axis of Fire

In response, Airis exhaled almost silently, tossed the remaining piece of pastry into his mouth, and started chewing slowly—never taking his eyes off me.

“Before you, the most stubborn creature in history was him,” Aars muttered.

“I’m not telling you anything until you eat,” Airis said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

“Are you seriously neglecting your duties as a mentor?”

“My duties also include keeping your stubborn ass alive.”

“So you’ve had time to check out my ass too?” I raised a brow.

Silence.

But it said everything.

Our eyes kept arguing for us.

Neither of us willing to show weakness.

“They really shouldn’t have paired them together,” came a quiet voice—Moirz or Louise.

“On the contrary. Otherwise, they’d have killed each other by now,” another voice replied.

“I wonder why I even saw potential in you at the beginning,” Airis said aloud.

“That was the moment you lied to me about being dead?” I arched a brow.

“Exactly.” He nodded.

“Back then I thought you were pretending to be stupid—not actually being it.”

My fists clenched instantly.

“I could hardly imagine anything else from a little girl raised in Vuduarus.”

“That ‘little girl,’ as you so kindly put it, is twenty-five,” I said through gritted teeth.

God, I hated it when people questioned my intelligence.

“And you don’t look much older yourself,” I shot back.

“Appearances in Istarus can be deceiving,” one corner of his mouth lifted.

“Oh really?” I raised a brow.

“How old are you?”

“Over a hundred.”

The answer was short.

But it hit hard enough that I couldn’t hide my reaction.

Right now, my face was probably easy to read from a mile away.

“You’re joking.”

“The average lifespan of a mage is around three hundred and forty-seven years,” he said, clearly entertained by my expression.