Page 73 of I Ran Away to Evil #3

My Favorite Part of the Courtship Ritual

Julian

Tully’s mouth dropped. “Did Miss Gerda just blow you a kiss—”

“Yes.” Julian patted his paladin on the shoulder. “Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it.”

Then he left Sir Tully standing there in shock as he marched off toward Fell.

Sir Tully hurried to catch up, before going into a full-volume interrogation that Julian mostly ignored.

His party members—Visha, John, Pram, and Jeffry—were all sitting in the Piping Gorse, each drinking their morning beverage of choice.

Visha stood when she saw them. “Your Grace!”

The relief in her voice made him feel a pang of guilt. “Visha. I hope everything was fine in my absence?”

She nodded. “Yes—”

“It was not!” Jeffry cut in. There were bags under the half elf’s eyes. He looked like he’d been run over by a stoneskin wombat and hung out to dry for three days with no food or water.

“What happened?” Julian waved at Visha to sit and pulled up a chair himself. Pram handed him a menu.

“My sister,” he stressed, “was very put out that you didn’t have dinner with us last night.”

“She’s gonna be even more upset when she finds out His Grace and Miss Gerda are dating.

” Sir Tully dropped the news without a thought as he waved at a waitress across the room.

The waitress smiled and headed their way as John held out his hand to Jeffry.

The viscount had a pained expression as he dropped a small coin purse into the rogue’s open palm.

Julian said nothing to refute the claim, only addressing the waitress. “I’ll have a glass of water, please.”

“Flying pork and potatoes for me, with rye,” Sir Tully added, handing over his menu.

“I’ll have the deep-fried shrimp and wild rice omelet.” Pram smiled at the girl, showing off slightly pointed teeth. She blushed and accepted his menu, giving the selkie an obvious look over.

Julian wondered how he could have missed seeing these kinds of things before now.

“I’ll have the cinnamon stone oats parfait,” Visha said.

Jeffry simply asked for a refill on his tea. The half elf had probably eaten at home already. The waitress dropped off their orders with the kitchen and came to refill all of their drinks.

“So, you and Miss Gerda?” Pram asked Julian, curious. “Does that mean the plans have changed?”

“Of course the plans have changed!” Jeffry groaned. “We aren’t even supposed to be here. We should’ve made it to Borrow Grove last night and set up camp there—”

“I, for one, enjoyed sleeping in a real bed last night,” Visha said, sipping her tea.

Sir Tully slumped. “I wish.”

“Our new plan,” Julian told them, “is to reach Borrow Grove this evening.”

“Wait, why this evening?” Jeffry turned on John. “Is there something in the way?”

John shook his head, his emotionless face betraying nothing.

“Then why don’t we ride hard for the Northern Fortress? We should get there only a little bit after midnight if we push,” Jeffry argued.

“We’ll take the extra day and use it as an opportunity to practice traveling with Miss Gerda without monster attacks.” Julian sat back in his chair.

The people sitting around this table had been fighting beside him on and off for years. They were his party members. They were his friends. He knew that adding someone like Gerda—who could both slow them down and send them further than ever—would take getting used to.

Two days of practice wasn’t much, but it would have to do. He wanted everyone to have a good understanding of each other’s abilities before they were in the heart of the Ice Fields, being overrun by frost goliaths or tula yetis.

“I thought this was going to be a simple escort mission … What am I missing?” Jeffry asked.

“Miss Gerda has offered to help us locate the dungeon in the North,” he told them.

“How? Does she have a scouting ability? Can she fight?” Visha asked. While Jeffry was in charge of their logistics, Visha would be responsible for keeping everyone safe. Her orders were second only to his own.

“No. She will accompany us as a noncombatant.” Julian returned Visha’s dubious look with a slow smile. “She has the ability to create temporary portals with her bridges, so we’ll be able to go back and forth between the Ice Fields and the fortress.”

“Gods.” Jeffry nodded. “If that’s why you agreed to date the troll, then marry her.”

“That’s not including the fact that she has oracle powers and might just see where the dungeon’s at,” Sir Tully added.

John shook his head at the paladin even as Julian chastised him.

“Miss Gerda is under no obligation to use her Madame Potts’s powers to aid us unless she chooses to do so of her own free will.”

“So we’ll be practicing defense formations around Miss Gerda while she’s setting up her bridge points?” Pram asked.

“Yes.”

Visha frowned. “I think we could manage a full defense for three minutes as we currently are. That’s without any of us taking an injury.

” She looked around the table. “If we need more time than that, we’ll have to keep back one more of John’s shadows and leave Pram with enough mana to cast [Ice Wall].

I could double my attack radius if John let me borrow his Eye of Effeldor—”

“You mean MY Eye of Effeldor brooch!” Jeffry declared, smug.

He lifted his cloak to reveal the thing pinned to his tunic.

It was an obnoxiously gaudy piece of jewelry as big around as Julian’s fist, made of gold and set with rubies and emeralds and sapphires and three other colored semiprecious stones that Julian couldn’t name.

A large tiger’s eye stone was affixed in the center.

“And I’m not giving it up for anything!”

Visha turned on John. “You gave it to him ?”

The human shrugged.

“Food’s here,” Sir Tully noted. He’d been watching the kitchen and drew their attention to the waitress heading their way with three platters of food—one in her right hand, one in her left, and one balanced on her left arm.

Everyone paused long enough to welcome the arrival of their meal before the waitress left to get Visha’s oat parfait.

Sir Tully stabbed a potato and ate it, not waiting for anyone.

He stabbed another then waved his potato-skewered fork at Julian.

“You know, if Your Grace used Theo’s Amulet, that would raise your perception to twenty-seven and grant you plus-forty mana, which is an extra four durability to Miss Gerda’s [Barrier].

After your strength modifier that would defend against—”

“Enough, Tully.” Visha’s voice was cold and hard as it cut off the paladin.

He shrugged and stuffed the potato in his mouth. “I was just pointing it out.”

The waitress arrived with the elf woman’s parfait.

Julian thought about it.

Reaching up, he fiddled with his locket. It granted him no combat bonus to equip it. Even so, he’d never taken it off or replaced it with anything else because it was a keepsake from his late father that he was told might protect him in his needed hour.

Julian unclipped the chain, holding out the locket to stare at it. After a second, he sent it to his storage ring and said, “Alright.”

His party members, his friends , all looked at him with varying states of surprise.

Sir Tully choked on his flying pork sausage. “Wait, really?”

“Sure. Pass it.” Julian held out his hand to the paladin, who scrambled to do as he was asked. As Julian equipped the amulet, he considered the other changes to his equipment and smirked. “This’ll go well with my new armor set.”

“ What new armor set?” Visha asked sharply.

“Is Miss Gerda already giving you presents?” Pram asked with a knowing look. “That is my favorite part of the courtship ritual.”

“I think that’s only a selkie thing,” Sir Tully pointed out; Pram’s excitement visibly faded.

“She did, in fact, gift me my new armor set,” Julian said, and Pram regained a bit of his vigor. Julian was sad he’d have to wait until Gerda returned to show off.

“Well,” Visha said sternly, “I don’t care if it was a lover’s gift; it should be a better grade than your current set, or I’m not going to let it pass the safety inspection—even for you , Your Grace.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.”