“You do know that lack of appetite is one of the signs of a broken party bond, right?”

Zach rolled his eyes at Torvik’s attempt at humor. “You do know someone has to have a party bond for it to be broken, right?” he shot back. He did gather up his books, though, so that he could join the other man for lunch.

“Ya don’t say,” Jeremy laughed. “Guess I missed that part of the lecture.”

“Too busy making eyes at the ladies, I assume?”

“How do you know they weren’t making eyes with me?” Torvik asked, scandalized.

Zach didn’t bother answering. He slid his laptop into his backpack and stood. “Didn’t you want to eat?”

“I’m perfectly acceptable date material.”

“Careful,” Zach warned, “or I might think you’re trying to date me.”

Torvik actually seemed to consider it for a moment. “Don’t get me wrong, you look good. And you’re probably rich. Nephew to royalty, though, and I don’t think I could get a shovel talk from a king. I’d kiss you, sure, but dating? I’d rather keep my family jewels.”

“My uncle stopped castrating the harem boys years ago.”

“Wait, that’s a thing?!” Torvik asked, his jaw hitting the floor.

It really wasn’t, but Zach liked the way Torvik looked shocked.

“Is it? Because I totally didn’t mean it! Zach!”

Jeremy looked close to tears, so Zach relented: “Didn’t I just say? It’s not a thing. My uncle doesn’t like men anyway.”

Jeremy let out a breath of relief. “Oh thank goodness. Tell him I was never interested in you if he asks, okay? Just to be safe.”

“I doubt the topic will ever come up,” Zach drawled as they reached the cafeteria. “And even if it did, they haven’t done that sort of thing in over a hundred years.”

“But - you said -“ Jeremy groaned. “You’re heartless. Cold. Cruel. How can you tease a guy about that?”

That word again: heartless. Torvik wasn’t entirely wrong; Zach had lost his heart doing royal magic. “Who said I was teasing?”

As much as Jeremy liked to date women, Zach knew Torvik wasn’t sleeping around. Jeremy cared too much about emotions and ‘heart’ to make that connection with every date. That was probably why it bothered Zach each time Torvik called him ‘heartless’.

“Zachary? You okay?” Jeremy asked.

Zach shook himself back to the present. They were holding up the line. He pointed randomly to a meal set and didn’t answer the man pestering him. Once they finally sat down, Jeremy started with: “I’m sorry. I was too much again, wasn’t I?”

“I was just thinking,” Zach responded honestly. “You remember our lesson, don’t you?”

“About parties? Of course.”

“And about your promise to get in the top five?”

Jeremy slumped. “I could get Ari to tutor me? You have a lot of classes.”

Zach nodded. “That’s acceptable.”

“You were going to ask him about dreams, though. Is that okay?”

That was true, but Zach hadn’t gotten that far yet. “We can distract him with that once you manage to get that high score.” It was probably better for him to do more research on his own first, anyway. Torvik already thought him heartless; he didn’t want Gruff thinking the same.