24
"And if you had a suitor?" I asked Yllana. "Would you go?"
Yllana shrugged.
"Maybe," she said. "Depends on how much I liked him. And how much he insisted. Yours has been insistent."
That he was. Martinus had been accompanying me everywhere whenever I was at the Academy. He was nice, and he tried not to order me around, but I still occasionally felt the weight of his gaze on me, searching, wanting, longing.
"Yeah," I said, "he's been marking his territory."
"That is a bit harsh," Yllana said.
"It's the truth," I said. "It's the reason I am going to this stupid ball at all, even though I'm not too keen on it. And why he made grandpa publish an announcement of our engagement."
A first-page ad, that was. Must have cost a fortune. Or maybe they did it for free because apparently, our
