CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – LEDA

“Hello?”

I stopped in the entryway to the library. Mathias just about fit in behind me, but he didn’t seem bothered by the huge boulder of a man perched on the chair by my desk.

Boulder-man looked up at me and grinned. Well, I assume he grinned; most of his face was covered in a huge flame-coloured beard. But his cheeks went up, along with his moustache; his beard inching up his barrelled chest. His eyes seemed to twinkle as they took me in. He stood to greet me, bowing his head and I saw his hair, tied back in a French braid, was just as long and orange as his beard.

“Hello” His baritone voice blasted across the room, despite his evident attempt to whisper. “It is an honour to finally meet you, Miss Leda.”

“This.” Announced Mathias, striding across the room to meet the stranger, “is Lars Grimmor” he finished, just an eye-blink before two hearty slaps on the back rung out across the still room as the two men greeted each other.

I smiled, Lise spoke highly of this Lars, and Ma