Page 99 of The Lost Art of Finding Where You Belong

Brannal and Cormal still hadn’t shown up by the time dinner finished, so Molun and Arvus walked Perian back upstairs. He stuck his head in Brannal’s room, but it was still empty.

“You want company?” Molun offered.

But Perian shook his head. “I’d rather be here when he gets back.”

They both nodded, the smirk on Molun’s face saying he knew what Perian was waiting for.

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

He waved the two of them off and decided to change into his sleep trousers, but rather than lounging in bed or spreading himself over the table or something, he settled at the fireplace with a book. He didn’t know how long Brannal was going to be, after all, and he’d rather not fall asleep or have a body part go numb while waiting.

Perian turned up the lamp. He was reading about elemental magic from one of the books that Brannal had loaned him. It really was interesting, even if it was clearly meant for people who were actually Mages. Just reading about the concentration involved, and the effort that was needed to get the elements to do what was wanted… Not actually surprising, he supposed, that those who had trained for years made it look easy when it actually wasn’t.

Like anything else, he supposed, honing abilities took practice.

He got lost in the pages and was taken by surprise when the door finally opened and Brannal arrived.

“Hey, you’re late,” Perian said. “I hope—”

“Whatdo you think you were doing?” Brannal thundered.

Chapter Eighteen

Perian blinked at him, taken aback by the angry demand.

Stupidly, he just said, “What?”

“Of all the irresponsible, dangerous stunts to pull!” His dark eyes were flashing, his body stiff and angry.

Brannal was late and annoyed, and he was clearly annoyed withPerian, but why?

“What are you talking about?” he asked, closing the book and setting it down as he rose to his feet, because he didn’t much like being loomed over.

“Did you deliberately not tell me what you were going to do? Do you know how that makes me look?” Brannal accused.

Perian could feel his own temper start to rise. If Brannal wasn’t outright yelling, it was awfully close, and there was an edge ofSummusin the tone, and that… well that was just not all right.

He sucked in a deep breath and let it out.

Deliberately repeating the words slowly, he demanded, “What are you talking about?”

“Even if you’re reckless sometimes, I thought you at least cared about the Princess!” Brannal snapped.

“Of course I care about Renny!” Perian fired back, alarm zipping through him. Frantically, he demanded, “What happened to her, is she all right?”

“No thanks to your stunt this afternoon!”

Perian was confused and alarmed, feeling his heart rate spike. “Wait, you mean our ride? Oh, no, what happened? Did she have a dizzy spell? Is she all right?”

“She’s fine!” Brannal flared. “That’s not the point.”

Perian stared at him in confusion. “Wait, wait. So, you’re saying Renny is perfectly fine and nothing actually happened to her?”

Brannal let out a short nod.

Perian felt all of his relief turn to anger. “Then what in the name of all the elements are you doing, coming in here and yelling at me about nothing bad happening?”

“Just because nothing happened to her this time doesn’t mean it couldn’t have when you were being reckless and thoughtless and stupid!”

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