Aldric was annoyed that he didn’t have a good argument against that. Zasia had finished preparing her tea and had taken a seat next to Aldric in front of Kedrin’s desk. She slowly turned her face to Aldric, and he could tell that all her anger had bled out already. In its place was regret, fear, despair, sympathy, and the beginnings of hope. Aldric looked away and stared at Kedrin’s desk, unable to meet either of their eyes.

“So that is what I am going to ask you to do, Aldric. To try. All I ask is that you try just one class session. I really think that the best thing for you now is simply something to work towards. You might teach these students even more than I or Zasia could.”

Aldric opened his mouth to argue, but Kedrin beat him to it.

“I do not expect you to teach them everything you know, of course,” he added quickly. “And I agree it is probably best you keep those things to yourself for now.” Seeing Aldric close his mouth and resume his brooding, Kedrin continued. “But I certainly have no intention of making you do something that you don’t want to do. As nosy as you may think we are being, we are your friends, and will always be your friends.”

He leaned forward and steepled his fingers under his chin, giving Aldric an uncomfortable amount of eye contact.

“But this must be your choice, Aldric. If you can look me in the eye and honestly swear to me that all you need to have a fulfilled life is to get drunk, get into fights and pass out, only to do it all again the next day, then I will leave you to it.”

Aldric had nothing he could immediately say. He was usually better at coming up with witty responses than this, but their genuine concern gnawed at Aldric’s insides. Kedrin had always been the voice of reason, and that hadn’t changed in the almost decade they’d been apart. Zasia sipped her tea and waited with a rare look of nervousness on her face. As much as she could annoy him sometimes, he hated being the reason for the normally confident and self-assured woman to be so agitated.

Aldric slowly looked back and forth between his two best friends, careful to control his expression.

“Room and board?” Aldric asked quietly.

“Of course.”

“Salary included?”

“Naturally.”

“And if this fails horribly?”

“Then we try something else. We wouldn’t push for this if we didn’t think this was best for you. If it’s not, we find something else. You can live here at the academy for as long as you need to until we find you something better.”

“You really shouldn’t try this hard for me,” Aldric said, almost pleadingly. Why did he always drag them into his mess?