Page 25 of Sold Bullied Mate

“Oh,” she blushes, pushing her hair over her shoulder and avoiding my gaze. “Thank you—I—I—”

I’m patient, waiting for her to collect her thoughts.

“I was just thinking,” she lets out a sigh, then raises her chin and meets my eyes. “There’s fabrication magic. Usually we use it to create very simple things, but I was wondering if, with enough magic and planning, we could—”

“Synthetic Amanzite,” I breathe, realizing what she’s saying. If we could create it ourselves, with no reliance on traders or other packs, that would be the ideal situation. “What do you think, Claire? What would you need to be able to do that?”

“We’re already stretched a little thin, just imbuing the rocks,” she admits, chewing on her lip. “But we could…”

She trails off, and it’s clear she’s not sure where to go with that sentence.

“We could pull from the younger casters,” Emin offers, leaning back in his chair and meeting Claire’s eyes. “Would that work? They won’t have the training, but you could use their power. Teach them a crash course.”

“How many younger casters do we have?” Claire breathes, eyes darting around the table.

“By my estimations,” a woman at the end of the table says, tapping through her iPad. “At least a dozen, juniors and seniors in high school.”

With this information out in the open, they all turn to look at me.

There’s no doubt that pulling kids from their classrooms, turning them to the labor that is casting, is not ideal. But right now, we have no other choice.

“How many from just the seniors?” I ask, flicking my eyes up to our numbers woman.

She glances down. “Five.”

“Alright.” I take a breath, look at them all. “Pull them for half days. Confer with their teachers about their most important classes—let’s try to get them out for things like study hall. Speak with their families about other obligations. Some of them might be babysitting after school—let’s get everything taken care of, and I want all of them compensated exactly the same as our casters.”

Everyone is nodding, writing, figuring out their parts in this plan.

“Claire,” I turn to her. “Get those five learning to imbue with what you have left, then pull your best casters to work on this generative casting. I want daily reports from you on how it’s coming.”

Looking at Leta, I say, “Get me that information about the Llewellyn as soon as you can. Until we have more information about the generative casting, we’ll pursue that avenue.”

“Sounds good,” Leta nods, and I pause, breathing hard, looking around the room.

“Anything else?” I ask, my mind already pulling back to Kira, to the plan I have for myself right after this meeting.

When nobody answers, I dismiss them.

“Hey, man,” Emin circles the table as the room is clearing out, pulling me to the side. He clears his throat, looks down at the floor, then back at me. “Kira still at your place?”

I cross my arms. “Yeah. She is.”

“Cool.” He clears his throat again, glancing around. The only person left is Claire, standing on the other side of the room, obviously waiting to talk to me. Emin rubs his hand over the back of his neck and says, “Any chance I could come by and see her?”

It’s not what I was expecting, but when he says it, it makes sense. He’s felt guilty since the day she left, and even more so when we learned she was in Grayhide territory.

“I’ll ask her,” I say, which seems to surprise him. “I’m cool with it, but…”

“Yeah.” Emin nods, takes a step back. “Makes sense. Just, uh, let me know? Yeah?”

I give him a nod back, then he turns and leaves the room. Claire lingers for another moment before approaching me carefully.

“You asked for this?”

When she holds her hand out, I nod and take the little pot from her. I’m going to need it for what I’m planning to do next.

Chapter 16 - Kira

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