Well, that was a personal attack.
I don't know if I want to live as the Sage of Wrath anymore, but Zan is right. I need to decide what that even means.
He won't tell me why this visit will help, though, other than to say that Nomi, the person whose house we're now approaching, is the one we need to talk to about supplies for the cottage.
Her house itself is exuding magical pressure, though. The only reason I'm not instantly on alert is because the magic feels like Zan's, but I still have to ask, "Why does this house have so much of you in it?"
He cuts me a sharp look. "That's right, with the Quiet down sages will be able to feel that, won't they?"
"Even priests would be able to feel this, unless their training is vastly inferior now too," I tell him.
Zan swears. "It's because it used to be Kovan and Tasa's house. Once their children were older, they moved to town so they could be nearer to other families and left the mountain cottage for future sages. Since Tasa was a null, my scales made it possible for her to live here without destroying the magic of her own home constantly."
Aha. "And the person we need to see just happens to live here."
Zan's eyes glimmer with appreciation. "No, it isn't an accident. Come on."
He takes the last few steps to the door of the house and knocks before I can interrogate him further about what must in some sense be his house that he also doesn't live in.
"Not a good time!" a woman's voice calls from inside.
Zan's eyes narrow. "It's me, Nomi," he replies, his volume elevated to carry but somehow not a yell.
A pause, and then the rapid approach of footsteps, like the woman is running to the door.
She throws it open, and I get my first glimpse of the woman he's installed in his house.
Nomi is older, on the early side of middle-aged, perhaps in her 40s? and in her prime, with faint lines creasing her face and a stocky, solid build, her toned muscles accentuated by her fitted top and pants. She's tan like she works outdoors and her hair is cropped close to her head, almost like the hairstyles I saw on men in town but still undeniably feminine.
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"Zan, thank goodness you're here," she says fervently. "We don't know what happened, but Teren is strugglingâwho's this?"
Nomi finishes sharply, almost accusingly.
In a flash of insight, I realize Zan has probably never brought a person with him before.
"Can we come in?" Zan asks. "There are things we should speak of, and I promised her ice cream."
I blink, breaking what I belatedly realize was probably a too-intent stare at the woman in Zan's house to look at him. "Ice cream?"
I've seen ices before, crushed ice flavored with juice and eaten with a spoon.
I wasn't permitted to try them.
But ice cream implies something else. Have people of this era poured cream into their ices now, too?
"We save the ice cream for special occasions," Nomi says in a neutral voice, and I look back to see her giving Zan a searching look.
"I know," Zan says. And then: "Please."
Now it's her turn to blink, and then her eyes narrow. She gives me a lookâwondering why I deserve a special exception, which I am wondering too; or perhaps that is projection, and she is wondering why Zan would bring a stranger to discuss magical happenings to her doorâand finally says slowly, "All right. Come in."
She holds open the door and Zan gestures me to precede him in.
I shake my head rapidly. I don't know what customs are for entering a person's home are in this era. I barely know that they existed in mine, on account of I was never invited to individual homes. And wherever I went, it was with an escort determining my behavior.
Zan frowns for a second and then his eyes widen in a flash of understanding.
"Is there a problem?" Nomi asks sharply.
I freeze. In trying not to, in not acting, I've already messed up. I can't even enter a home rightâ
Gently, Zan presses a hand against my back and propels me inside.
I'm so startled that I let him, my budding panic diverted by the warmth of him at my back, at the tingle of sensation that courses through me.
And then we are over the threshold, and the door shuts behind us.
Then more footsteps bound toward us. Nomi whips toward the sound and starts to say something, but Zan throws his other arm out, covering her mouth.
This time I think it's her who's startled by the touchâdoes she feel what I do, or is it that Zan has touched her at all?âand it's just long enough for another person to burst into the room.
"Is that Zan? Does he know whatâ"
This time it's a much younger manâmaybe my apparent age, early 20s. He has bright green eyes; light brown, messy hair; a golden complexion; with a very slight build in comparison to Nomi, like a young cherry blossom tree next to a mature oak.
In fact, they don't look like they could be related at all. And those eyes...
I suck in a breath. The dragon magic masked it at first, butâ
"Oh, sorry," the young man says, looking flustered at me. "I didn't realize there wasâ"
"You're a sage," I blurt.