Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Gunter himself was swathed in a dark blue sweater, sleeves pushed up to the elbows, a tie holding his shoulder-length blond hair away from his face. He had glasses perched on his nose (which made Sora twitch, because, really? Glasses? When there were so many optical spells to fix eyesight issues?). In front of him was a laptop, his fingers perched over the keys.
“Thank you for this, Sora. There’s too much about your clan that I don’t know.”
“It’s not a problem. Actually, it gives me a chance to apologize for my part in the little prank Ravi pulled on you. I am sorry. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”
Gunter lifted his eyes to Sora and sort of blinked at him in confusion for a moment. “Prank?”
“The shrink-wrap and the bubble wrap,” Sora reminded him.
“Oh! Yes, that nonsense.” Gunter waved a hand at him and chuckled softly. “It was nothing. They like to think I’m not aware that Hoheit has Ravi on a regular schedule of dragging me out of my library, but I’m no fool.”
He paused and gave a little shrug, sighing softly as if to himself.
“The truth is that my dragon enjoys the hunt and excitement.” Gunter suddenly narrowed his eyes at Sora. “But if you tell Ravi that, I swear I will deny it until my dying breath.”
Sora laughed, tossing his head back. “Never. I’d never ruin your fun or his.”
“But let’s get back to why you’ve been pulled into my lair. Can you tell me more about your clan as well as the make-up of the Sodalicium? How many magical families compose the Sodalicium? What are they?”
Sora expelled a slow breath and sank back in his chair, trying to organize his thoughts. He hadn’t attempted to list all the mage clans in a long time.
“Quite a few,” he murmured, trying to buy himself a few seconds. “We have the Kedar from India, the Feroz from Persia, the Korstiaan from the Netherlands, the Zeleny, of course, the Panapoulos from Greece, the Manalo from the Philippines, the MacDougall from Scotland, the Aznar from Spain, and a few Xhosa family members from South Africa joined us during the migration. There aren’t many of them left; they don’t tend to marry, for some reason. But I want to say there’s about two dozen of them.”
Gunter looked wistful. “So many. We feared most mage clans had been lost.”
“We have stragglers from other mage clans who have joined us, but those are the major ones.” Sora didn’t like the idea that the clans hadn’t survived out in the real world. He asked hopefully, “But you’ve seen magic from other families born in this generation, correct? That’s where your new mages have come from.”
“Yes and no. It’s sort of a mixed result.” Gunter stopped typing to tick them off on a finger. “The Noh family has the most so far—that’s Cameron and Cassie’s family line. We have three from them at the moment, and we’re investigating their cousins in Korea. North comes from the Aldridges, who were originally in England but are now found in the southern United States. It’s the same clan Lisette comes from. Tori comes from the Taavi, formerly Taavetti, and they are in the northernmost part of Finland. We don’t really deal with them for the most part. They’re a sizeable enough clan at two hundred members but very toxic in culture.”
Gunter looked uncomfortable, his gaze straying down to his keyboard.
“We’ve been able to draw only about five mages out of that clan, including Tori. Most have gone to the Valerii Dragon Clan in Brazil. While we’re desperate for mages…”
“There’s no reason to drag a potentially toxic element into your clan when you’re also dealing with the Jaeggi,” Sora finished gently.
He was empathetic to their plight. He was looking at a dragon who’d lived more than five centuries with little hope of finding his mate, and now an entire clan of mages was just a short distance away. But no one wanted to deal with that kind of hatred and mistrust from someone who was supposed to love you.
The entire situation dismayed Sora. So few mages? In the entire world? “Even the Valerii haven’t found any mages?”
“Their seeking spells were very short-ranged. The Noh family has managed to give us back that lost information, so our seeking spells have improved drastically. But for the most part, we’ve been researching family trees and finding mages by blind luck.” Gunter pointed to a binder sitting nearby. “That’s the Aldridge line, right there, after they left England. North’s grandfather gave it to me to help with the research. But you can see why having mages pounding on our front door is so exciting for us.”
“Yes, I can.” And it was heartbreaking that this situation was an improvement. Sora was ever so glad he’d won the argument with his mother and his clan was coming here.