I bowed. "It's an honor to meet you, Archmage Creighton."
"Alastor is fine," he said, and the corners of his eyes creased. "You're a guest, not a petitioner."
Easy to say. Harder to believe, standing three meters from him.
I knew who this man was. Every reader of Saga of the Divine Swordsman did. One of only three living nine-circle mages. The shield of the North against the Shadow Seekers that crawled out of the ice every winter. The man who had trained Lucifer Windward in magic when the boy was barely tall enough to see over a desk.
And, apparently, a father who arranged gardens so his daughter's friends would arrive calm.
"Rachel tells me you train like a man with a deadline," Alastor said, leaning back against the rail. "Is that true?"
I glanced at Rachel. She looked very interested in the skyline.
"It's true," I said.
"What's the deadline?"
'The end of the world, give or take a decade.'
