Chapter thirty five

        There were four floors to choose from , with four rooms on each floor. Each room was as wide as the living room in my old house and was tastefully furnished with a large canopy bed and a dressing table, I took a room on the first floor because I didn't want to go up and down stairs everyday, but Lidia chose one on the top floor because of the view, and she had a point, Montreal was a truly beautiful city and her room had a pretty good vantage point from which to see this beauty.

         We had about an hour to get used to our new rooms when a maid in a classic maid's outfit came to show us to the dining room for lunch. Although there was a long dining table, there were only six chairs and they were all grouped together at one end of the table. Already sitting there at the head of the table were Mr and Mrs Steelbender. The only other person in the room was a young boy of about eight sitting on the right side of the table.

           "Dad is that him, is that demonbane? He doesn't look very big,  are you sure he's the one who defeated all the demons?"

           "Yes that is him, and remember this son, being big doesn't mean you are powerful and being small doesn't mean you are weak, you should never underestimate an opponent just because they look a certain way. I had to learn that the hard way when I went to China for the warrior's tournament and had my ass handed to me by a tiny old lady. You two, come here and take a seat while we wait for Bella."

              We had just sat down when the doors at the other end of the room opened and a beautiful woman with flaming red hair entered. She was wearing an elaborately embroidered blue dress which clearly showcased her classic hourglass figure. Her beauty was almost like a physical thing, like a giant hammer crushing you and taking your breath away.

            "And that is the daughter I told you about, her name is Isabella but everybody just calls her Bella or Bell. Told you she was beautiful didn't I ? And she's already taken a shine to you, she has been waiting outside for fifteen minutes to make a grand entrance to impress you."

              "Dad!  You weren't supposed to tell him that!"

             "Its okay Bell, a girl as beautiful as you trying to impress him, he'll only feel flattered. Now everybody sit down and let's eat, I haven't eaten in two days and I haven't eaten anything decent in two weeks so let the meal begin before I start eating the forks."

             Taking his declaration as a signal servants came in to serve course after course of delicious food. Throughout the meal Isabella seemed very interested in me and asked me several questions about myself. I tried to answer them as honestly as possible.

                "Mr Demonbane , is it true that you defeated the army of demons with your bare hands?"

                "Oh God no, I have very powerful weapons that I used to defeat them. I'm an enchanter , not a mage or warrior."

              "Really? You have such a powerful artifact ? You must show us later. If I'm not being to rude, can I ask who the woman next to you is?"

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               "This is my friend Lidia, she's a priestess of the Sofia church, I helped her escape an arranged marriage, so we're kind of on the run from the church."

               She started to smile happily when she heard that.

             "You don't have to answer me, but why do you wear that cowl?"

              Michael suddenly decided to join the conversation,"Yeah , I was wondering that as well. Its not because you're ugly or anything is it? You're not trying to hide your identity or something are you, because at this point I don't really care who you are, you're the guy that saved my family,"

             For a second I hesitated, I really liked the Steelbenders and even though it was premature, I trusted them. Plus the only reason i was hiding my face was to cover my distinct looking features so I wouldn't be recognized easily, but that seemed to be pointless now, so I slowly took off my hood. Suddenly it was absolutely silent at the table. Isabella was staring at me with her mouth slightly opened and her cheeks were blushing slightly. Mary had an incredulous look on her face. Carlos was just looking curiously at my eyes. The silence was finally broken when Michael broke down into loud laughter.

                "Here I thought you were horribly disfigured or something and it turns out you are wearing that cowl because you wanted to keep the droves of women that would follow you around if you didn't cover your face."

                "None of you think my eyes are weird?"

               "Nah, everybody knows that mana does strange things to the body and glowing eyes ain't the strangest thing I've ever seen, hell even we are affected by the mana we use. I'm an earth mage and as you can see I have brown hair and I am built a little more solid than your average man. My wife comes from a family of fire mages and even though she can't use magic her hair is still red, water mages always have weird blue hair, and the air mages are all blonde. What I mean is the only thing that I think when I look at your eyes is that you have some type of gift, am I right?"

              "Yes , but I would like to keep it a secret, so please don't ask me what it is."

              "Hey, that's your business. I'm not going to pry on your private business."

             The rest of the meal passed with no further incident, we all just made casual conversation and enjoyed the meal.

             "Thank you for the meal Mr and Mrs Steelbender, it was nice meeting you Isabella and Carlos, but I have work to do if I'm going to open my store."

              "Hey, I heard about that. 'Enchantments r us, magic for everyone' Maurice isn't gonna like that, he's the owner of  the enchantment shop in the uptown district, he's a firm believer that if the common man was meant to have magic he would be born with some. He might try and make trouble for you."

             "Well he can try, but I think I'm going to take a leaf out of your book and tell him to stuff it."