me too.” Ravi waved his own phone, eyeing Sora’s hopefully, like a dog would a treat.
Tori paused his typing in order to tease. “A handsome mage walks in, trusts you enough to follow you around a castle, and you don’t get his number? What’s wrong with you? I thought you had better game than this.”
Ravi didn’t bat an eye at the teasing. “I have to convince him I’m not crazy first. And I generally buy a man a drink before asking for his number.”
“Lengthy exposure to you will not help.” Tori ducked when Ravi aimed for a rib, snickering.
Brothers. That’s what these two reminded him of. They were playing around and messing with each other like brothers would. But they hadn’t grown up like that. Tori had barely been with the clan any time at all.
All marriages in a family were welcome, of course. But that didn’t mean people would automatically fit in. It spoke well of the Burkhard Clan that they obviously did know how to truly welcome new mages into their clan.
Ravi’s grin at him was an invitation to join in. “What do you say, Sora? Give me your number now, and I’ll promise to buy you that drink later.”
It surprised Sora for a split second. He so often felt outside of the joke, the observer watching it play out. A little thrilled to be included for once, Sora did his best to come up with a teasing response.
“Wasn’t there an American cartoon—Popeye—that had a character who always made that promise? A hamburger today that he’d pay back on Tuesday.”
Tori threw his head back on a laugh. “He’s Wimpy! Ravi’s Wimpy!”
Ravi wrinkled his nose at the laughing mage before sidling in closer and batting his eyes up at Sora in an absurd manner. “I mix a mean drink, you know.”
His heart skipped a beat at having Ravi pressing in close, his arm tingling where Ravi brushed against it. Sora wanted to test this out a little more, and even though it was all clearly a joke, he was very interested in getting Ravi’s number. The wind dragon was lithe and very handsome. Sora couldn’t remember the last time he’d been attracted to someone on sight like this. Had he ever? He honestly couldn’t think of a time, truth be told. And giving Ravi his number made logistical sense, too.
He didn’t hesitate to switch phones with the dragon. “I’ll have to taste it to believe it. You’re on, dragon.”
Ravi looked wildly pleased at this, his grin bright enough to be a second sun. Smug, too. And wasn’t that interesting?
Yes, there was a great deal that Sora needed to observe here. And he didn’t mean just the clan itself.
Consort Cameron was all smiles as he held out a hand in greeting. “Welcome to Burkhard Castle, Mage Vo.”
“Sora, please.”
Sora took it, pleasantly surprised by the firm grip and hint of calluses. So, this was the newly wedded mage to King Alric, eh? He looked young, like a non-mage in their twenties. Charming, too, just as he’d been on camera.
“Thank you. Call me Cameron, would you? Please, sit, visit with me for a moment.” Cameron waved to a brace of chairs situated in front of a wide window that had both panes open, letting in a pleasant breeze. “I’m sure my husband will want to speak with you as well; he’s just all over the place today. We didn’t expect this influx of mages, you see. Definitely not this quickly. It’s caught us a bit off guard.”
“So I understand.”
Sora took a seat and looked around curiously. The building maintained the style of a castle even on the inside, with the elaborate wood paneling and landscapes on the walls. It felt old, as if it had stood a thousand years, but it was well maintained. Lovingly so, as his nose could faintly detect a trace of new paint.
But there were also things here that didn’t quite jive for him. Like the Roomba lurking in one corner, clearly docked and charging. Why the hell would a dragon clan need a robot vacuum cleaner? There were cleaning spells for that sort of thing.
And there wasn’t a trace of either cleaning spells or temperature control spells anywhere in the castle. Ravi had given him a quick tour of the place before bringing him up to Cameron’s office. He’d seen enough to get the gist of how the place functioned. There was far more tech here than he was used to.