10
"There is a Witch Mass tonight, and you will accompany me."
"Me? B-but why?"
"Why do you think? It's in case I have need of you. You're getting too old to be sitting around the castle while I'm out taking care of things for you."
"I thought only witches could go to the mass," he says, and wilts under the way she narrows her eyes.
"That's completely irrelevant. And in any case, Crona, I don't recall it being a request."
"Yes, Lady Medusa. Forgive me." Ringing his hands so hard the joints ache, he imagines himself stepping into the gates or doors or whatever it was that marked the gathering place, a thousand eyes turning on him before he was rent into black shreds. "What...what should I say if someone tries to talk to me?"
Although he's long since learned to avoid looking directly at her face, for a moment he could have sworn she was rolling her eyes.
"If you think that anyone would waste time speaking to a weak thing like you, you're more arrogant than I thought."