UGH I'M THE LATEST, SO SORRY
“Besides,” Wolfe added thoughtfully, “there’s a difference between doing something because you’d like to be doing it and it’s your strength, versus muddling through from mere obligation. Not that I’m suggesting that’s what you’re doing! I’m hardly one to preach to a councilor.”
He occasionally still had difficulty reconciling his memories of Merrion with the idea of a guild councilor, now finding himself peering at the younger man over the table and trying to align those definitions in his head. Three years away truly had changed some things back in Emillion, it seemed. “It sounds like you could probably ride the trouble with the guild a very long way, however. You say it won’t be that way forever, but this seems the sort of job where you might blink, look up, and look up and suddenly you’re past forty—” a self-deprecating little chuckle slipped loose at that, “and you’re not entirely sure how you ended up where you are. I never knew you to stay in one track for long, Priddy: I have to admit, I was… surprised, learning you’d gone into the council.”
The sentiment was delivered carefully, tactfully. Wolfe had never been one for giving blunt offense: the man was a stream, curling its way around obstacles rather than running bullishly headlong into them. He was testing the waters, cautiously picking Merri’s brain to see where the other man stood.