Things fell into a normal banter, an ease that was impossible to explain unless you basked in Verin’s light for more than two minutes. He could pull anyone out from behind whatever walls they had constructed for themselves, and Essek was just as much subjected to that as anyone. After all, Verin had many decades to perfect it.

“At least the library is rather decent.”

Which was a rather significant plus, this ability to feed his knowledge and watch Caleb read his rather adult books.

But then he stopped as he heard that question, looking away before back up at Verin. “How do you know?”