„Pretty cool, dude.“ The voice startled Zaska and fifty marbles fell on the floor, rolling in all directions. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you hadn’t noticed me.” He took a bite out of a banana. “Is it hard to keep so many objects floating?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Watching. Your magic shows are pretty impressive.”
“Heh. No, levitation is a beginners practice, anybody can do that.”
“I can’t. Oh, didn't mean to eat by myself, you want a banana too?”
“Uh… no, thanks.” Zaska magically collected the marbles off the ground.
“Can you do other things too?”
“I can set things on fire but it’s forbidden to use destructive spells in the city if not under supervision of an expert.”
“Sucks. My name’s Raymond, by the way.” He reached out a hand.
“Zaska.” She said as she took it.
“You hungry? I heard Zakash is a good place. You wanna go with me?”
“Uh. Okay.”
“Since when are you training magic?”
“Since a few months. I read about it in books and kept trying and when I finally got a grip on it, I decided to get serious. My teacher says I make incredible progress.”
“You really like the levitation, huh?”
Zaska floated a little over the ground next to him.
“It’s more fun than… walking, I guess.”
“I can imagine. I’d be too lazy to walk too if my thoughts could carry me.”
“Hey, I’m not lazy! I just prefer to exercize my mind rather than my body. What do you do anyway?”
“I got some secret projects. Also I’m trying to learn an instrument but I can’t find one that I’m really feeling, you know?”
“Oh, musician, huh? Cool. What’s that secret project?”
“It’s secret. You’ll have to figure it out.” He smiled at her. “What do you like doing?”
“…I like reading books.”
“Any specific genre?”
“No, all of them.”
“All?”
“Yeah. If I could, I’d like to read every single book and collect them all in a big library...”
For some reason a huge grin appeared on Raymond’s face.
“What’s the matter? You like reading too?”
“Eh, no, I don’t read that much. It’s just… you’ll see.”
“Dude, stop making me curious!”
“We’re here, come on, I’ll pay.” He took her hand and dragged her into the restaurant. Just what kind of guy did she meet here? She couldn’t say she wasn’t intrigued to find out more about him.