He’s silent for a while, if fidgeting, before adding, “How do you know it belongs to dark mages? The shack.”
“I don’t,” he admits. “But it’s a calculated guess.”
“But there’s a garden out front.” A dark path of dirt empty of actual plants, more like, except for colourful Xadian weeds. “How do you know it doesn’t belong to a herbalist?”
“Because I knew a herbalist, and her home looked very different. You don’t put curtains over the windows, even for Xadian plants—” When Callum looks back, Ryn is scrutinizing him. He rolls his eyes. “What?”
“You knew a Xadian herbalist? How?”
“Why not?”
“Well given the state of your office and your brother, you seem to be a bit of a hermit.”
“I am not a—I’m thirty years old.”
“Yeah, and that’s like, ancient.”
“Your mother and I are not ancient,” Callum corrects, looking back at the shack.