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“Moon and water magic don’t immediately inspire obvious ideas for marketable commodities,” she pointed out.
“I’m aware,” he answered in a dry tone.
She gave him a wry smile. “What did the records show?”
He hesitated. “I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the state of House Phel’s records.” And the house itself, perhaps.
She rolled her eyes. “The Convocation records,” she clarified almost patiently. “In the archives? At Convocation Center. You should have been given access to them when you claimed status as Lord Phel.” She studied his face with widening eyes. “They didn’t tell you.”
“No.” Anger began a slow burn behind his eyes. “That would’ve been helpful.”
“No doubt.” She considered, finishing her own wine. “Do you want more?”
“I’ve had enough.” He thought she had, too, but he had zero intention of saying so.
“Good thing, as the carafe is empty, and I’m not inclined to order another. I’m exhausted.” She crawled off the bed again, snagged his empty glass, and deposited it with hers, then set the entire tray outside the door.
With chagrin, he recalled that she’d walked all the way to Port Anatole, and that was after running from the hunters—and him—and spending a night outdoors. “Will you share the bed with me?” he asked tentatively.
She snorted with derision, fiddling with the copper snake bracelet. “You might be my enemy, but I’m not an idiot. The only reason I stayed was for the warm, dry bed on a miserable night.” She put a screen across the fire. “There’s always your ever-full water flask.”
“What do you mean?” He had trouble following the mercurial leaps of her mind when he was sober, and he was feeling definitely light-headed—though perhaps as much from the dizzying thought of her in the bed with him as anything.
“Your water flask,” she repeated, sending the lantern elementals to sleep. “That’s a neat trick. A lot of people would pay good coin for one of those.”
“Doesn’t it count as an enchanted artifact?”
“Now you’re catching on. No, you’d argue before the trade council that the bulk of the magic lies in the ever-replenishing water—squarely in House Phel’s traditional aegis—and that the flask is simply the container. You can’t exactly sell handfuls of water. Say, can you do wells?”
“I’ve never tried.”
She came to him and began pulling away pillows, leaving him with one that she helped him settle onto. He did his best to ignore her barely clad breasts brushing his bare skin. “That could be a lucrative service,” she observed, and he had to drag his thoughts from her sensual beauty to the topic at hand. Not at hand—not his hands on her, but the topic of conversation.
“Speaking of which,” she said, “why didn’t you use wizardry on the hunters instead of going for the manual chopping-them-up method?”
Why hadn’t he? “I didn’t think of it. Water and moon magic isn’t much good for combat either.”
She flipped back the covers and slid under, bunching a pillow under her head with her arm crooked beneath as she lay on her side. Her black hair spilled over the white sheets and down-filled comforter, her skin gilded by the low firelight, eyes the shadowed green of an ancient forest. “You have to start thinking of these things, Lord Phel.”
He knew it. “Why are you helping me now?” he asked softly, taking the chance. “If you see me as your enemy, why are you thinking of ideas for my house’s future trade, giving me valuable information?”
Her eyes went opaque, face unreadable. “Regardless of my feelings, Phel is now my house too. I’m legally your familiar and wife, so I might as well start doing my job.”
“You haven’t contracted with House Phel,” he pointed out.
“Familiars don’t contract with houses,” she replied flatly. “We become the property of a wizard, then go where they go. I belong to you, Lord Phel, whether either of us likes it, and I’d rather belong to a wealthy wizard than an impoverished one.”
“You called me by my name before,” he ventured. “It seems odd for my wife to call me ‘Lord Phel.’ You could call me Gabriel.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She turned over to her other side, giving him her back.
A lock of her long hair had fallen near his hand on the comforter, and he touched it, coiling the silky curl around his finger, gently, so she wouldn’t know. “Veronica?” he whispered. “I don’t want to be your enemy.”
She didn’t reply, and he fell asleep with his fingers in her hair.
~13~
“Youboughtanentire boat.” Nic stared at the unprepossessing barge, then eyed Gabriel, who was coaxing Vale aboard. “You know, you don’t act like a guy who spent his house’s fortune purchasing a familiar he couldn’t afford.”
