Page 49 of Silver & Gold
“Am I losing you?” he asked.
“Never,” Seth replied and heard Raider’s breath catch. “But maybe for the afternoon.”
CHAPTER 17
BEFORE SETH EVEN KNOCKED, Julian’s door opened, and he found himself standing there with his knuckles raised and Adavasti floating at head height.
“Password?” the ifrit prompted.
“Password?” Seth echoed.
The little blue creature blinked his large citrine eyes. His thin fingers drummed the edge of the door, and the lower half of his body, which was a tapering tail of blue smoke, waved lazily side to side like a cat’s. With the horned brat still banned from the library, Seth hadn’t seen him over the past week as he’d worked with Julian to gather all possible information on Ulam and the Alchemist’s Stone. Somehow, he’d managed to forget what a pain in the ass the ifrit was.
“No entry without the password,” Adavasti informed him archly.
“Julian!” Seth shouted.
Adavasti stuck out his small blue tongue between his sharp teeth, blew a raspberry at Seth, and slammed the door.
Seth raised his knuckles again, but, again, the door opened before he could knock. This time, it was Julian who opened it. Looking frazzled, he motioned Seth inside with his free hand. His other held a glass cup. It was hard to say what had Julian looking so frazzled. Adavasti hovering behind him? Or whatever was bubbling so aggressively in that cup?
“Adavasti, how many times do I have to tell you, there is no password,” Julian muttered distractedly.
Adavasti planted his tiny fists on his smoky hips. “Jewel-man, it’s for security purposes!”
Julian cast an anxious look at the cup as pink smoke began to billow up from inside it. “I don’t think a password is a very effective—”
When the smoke turned white, Julian’s eyes bugged. He spun and raced across the room, his purple robes flapping as he darted around an absolute chaos of bowls, cups, tools, scraps of leather and metal, and stacks of books. Reaching the open window, Julian flung the cup through. There was a boom and fizzle, then angry shouts could be heard from below.
“Sorry!” Julian called out then closed the window. He turned to face the room only to startle at finding Adavasti inches away.
“You don’t understand security purposes, Jewel-man! Anyone could come in here! They could murder you! Then what would Adavasti do?”
“Find someone else to annoy, I imagine!” Julian retorted.
Adavasti gasped and drew back. His smoky tail lashed angrily for a second, then he hissed at Julian and flew straight at the closed window.
“Adavasti, wait! I’m—”
The ifrit blasted through the shutters, leaving a smoky hole without even jostling them on their hinges.
“—sorry,” Julian finished on a sigh. He shook his head then turned to Seth. “I shouldn’t have said that. He’ll pout for days.”
“Maybe you two are spending too much time together.”
“He really is helpful, he’s just …”
“Obnoxious. What are you going to do if you want a girlfriend someday?”
Although, given the messy room, the stench of whatever had just blown up, and Julian’s ill-advised haircut, there might be a few additional hurdles. (Especially the haircut. Clearly, Julian wanted to hide the reddish birthmark at his temple, but Seth had seen it before and it was actually pretty cool looking. The thick fringe of bangs, however, was not.)
“Oh,” Julian chuckled uncomfortably, “I don’t think I’ll worry about that.”
“A boyfriend then.”
Seth didn’t know what made him say it. Curiosity perhaps. Raider had this crazy notion that Julian had a crush on him, but there had been no signs of it.
The one thing Raider was likely correct about was Julian being a virgin. Maybe that was why Seth was opening the subject. If Julian needed advice, he probably didn’t have anyone to ask, and Seth had developed a sort of big brotherly feeling toward the kid.