“Do you know how people ingest a bit of poison every day to develop an immunity to it?” I ask Lucinda while chomping down on my sandwich.

“I have heard of it,” she replies.

“I get the feeling that all this mess, all these fights have been too much at once to develop immunity. I simply feel... poisoned? I mean, yeah, if we want to stick to the simile. But the point is, I would have liked taking it slower.”

“You were the one coming to the Nine Towers Academy to duel every [Mage] of your generation. It didn’t take a genius to understand what could have happened. You really thought no one would challenge you to the death? Appius and Adriana were unexpected. Appius, for sure. But the rest? What did you think would have happened?”

I look into Lucinda’s deep green eyes while she speaks.

“I don’t know. No one really said anything. I was half-expecting Stan to tell me. Eh, I made my bed and—what was the expression? Anyway, I made a mess. That’s for sure.”

“What about the homeless geezer? Is it true that he is Princess Laura’s uncle?”

“Not uncle. He’s a very old royal family member who chose to take it easy in his last years. But I didn’t expect him not to interfere when Marcus wanted to kill me. Also, did Valarith tell you all this?”

“Lord Juler and Levener, too. Princess Valarith doesn’t speak much. But Levener and Lord Juler love to chat. Especially Lord Juler.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

I’m munching on my sandwich when a frown takes over my face.

“Levener?” I ask, pointing at my lips.

She shrugs when she sees the gesture.

“Mind communication.”

I nod.

“This bread sucks,” I say as I down another bite of the stale thing.

“They only eat when they need. They don’t stock the pantry often. I suspect that bread is a week-old, at least. And that meat—”

“Puah, don’t tell me. I’m still going to eat it. If I feel sick, whatever.”

“Wait, how does that man eat?” I ask with wide eyes. “No, you know what? I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.”

We are both leaning against the table in the middle of the kitchen. It’s not a table meant for eating. It’s intended for cooking. See, even though there’s no dust around here, probably due to some enchantment, this place is clearly half-abandoned, or at least unused. It’s probably just my experience in the cooking industry, but this kitchen looks like it has never been used before. Valarith and Levener don’t seem to cook their own things. And if I have to guess, they probably just teleport food to the library from somewhere else when they need to.

“Do you know where we are?” Lucinda asks.

“Valarith is the owner of one of the two unused towers? And Levener of the other?”

“Only Valarith owns one. Levener is still her disciple and thoroughly devoted to her. I think he has a crush on her, you know?”

“Good luck kissing him,” I scoff while trying to chew on a piece of bread harder than plastic.

“Not ideal, yeah.”

A weird silence falls between us while I murder the sandwich with each bite. Only the struggle of my teeth against the stale bread and my chewing fill up the room of the tower.

“If one tower is still free, I could probably snatch that for myself.”

“You could.”

Man.

When I finish the sandwich, I have barely filled up my stomach. However, that hard, bread-looking thing took away all my hunger. I’d rather cook something myself later than try to eat anything else here.

I’m trying to ignore Lucinda willingly, but she keeps looking at me like she wants to say something, and that’s why I decide to speak up.

“Do you ever read fiction? I forget.”

“Not really,” she answers.

“Ok, whatever. If you ever do, you’ll notice how writers style their stories into a fairly straight progression. One of the reasons is that readers are dumb and can’t stand loops or tortuous paths. But the biggest problem is what they project onto the book. Many writers see a fictional book as the perfect story of something good or bad. So, even if something tragic happens, there’s a certain rhythm, a certain cadence to it. Obviously, life is not that linear. Life has many stupid things that we leave behind. Not everyone is as likable as book characters are. Or despicable. Even in the best books, you can pretty much point out who’s bad and who’s good in the end. That’s because we don’t really consider how people can screw up and make up for it at the same time.”

I pause to glance into her eyes; then, I look ahead of me.

“The worst person might do something incredibly good if you capture the right moment. A tyrant may be interested in curing every sickness in his country, but then he will kill his people for the stupidest reason. It depends on when you draw out that image. If you just drew the moment of him trying to save his people from sickness, he would be the most illuminated regent. If you did it during his slaughter, he would only be a monster. As some of the best writers do, you could show both, but you would still be missing something. And that something is simply that we make mistakes. That we are blank slates each time, but we are also not. Maybe free will exists. Maybe not. Maybe people fuck you over. But everyone makes mistakes. Russians, some Humans I know, write really well about this stuff. They have messy characters. They don’t focus on good or bad, just the emotions that govern the duality of men. Is a person angry? Is a person guided by lust? How does that play out in the wrong or right situation?”

Lucinda looks at me with a frown.

“So? I think I know what you are trying to say.”

“You do? Hell, I, myself, don’t,” I laugh. “Look, I just... it’s fine. I forgive you. You saw an opportunity, and you thought we would both be better off with that.”

“You are an idiot.”

“What?” when I look at her again, there’s clearly some anger on her face.