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“Thanks for that image, Dad,” Gabriel said on a wince.
With a good-natured guffaw, his dad clapped him on the back again. “So what’s your plan? I thought you’d raised up as much of the house as you could. I suppose we could saw off the listing sections and salvage what we can. You don’t really need such a big house, even after the baby is born.” He chewed on his lips, eyeing those wings dubiously.
“We’re going to raise it all,” Gabriel replied, enjoying his father’s surprise. “Now that Nic is here, she and I can work together to perform the necessary magic.” He grinned in the face of his father’s jaundiced expression. “You’ll see.”
For the first time since he’d arrived at House Elal to discover Nic had fled rather than marry him, excitement filled him at the prospect of working with her. She was right: They were bonded, and what had gone before was water under the bridge. He needed to set aside his guilt—he would never entirely forgive himself for his role in destroying her hopes for a better life—and focus on building their partnership.
Restoring the house together would be an excellent first project. After he dealt with the fires that needed putting out. Or rather, the water that needed displacing.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell his father about discovering the old arcanium under the lake when he reconsidered. Nic had said that wizards kept their arcaniums secret. In some houses, apparently, all the occupants knew the location of the arcanium, but couldn’t enter. Having the House Phel arcanium as a place no one believed even existed would be even more secure. Still, it felt odd to keep a secret from his father, especially one that implicated their family in unsavory activities. What would his good-hearted, farming parents make of the devices and tools in there?
They’d be shocked, and they wouldn’t understand. Yes, better to keep it secret from them. Just one of many secrets, in truth, with no doubt many more to come.
A lone wizard amid a nonmagical family.At least he had Nic now. “Headed to the orchards?” Gabriel asked, and his father nodded. “I’ll walk you there.”
“Coming to fix the levee?” his dad asked as they turned in that direction.
“I’ll take a look at it anyway.” Gabriel figured that he’d promised Nic not to work on the levee. Assessing it wouldn’t take much time, and he had to go there anyway to find workers for her. And to set a few people on Selly’s trail.
“Your mother’s beside herself about those orange saplings,” his father noted mournfully. “She’s worried about losing that much money.”
“Tell her we’ll more than make it back now that Nic is here.”
“Don’t call me a coward, but I’ll letyoutell her that.” His dad glanced sideways at him. “You’re putting a lot of stock in that new filly of yours.”
Recalling Nic’s many barbed remarks about being an expensive piece of livestock, Gabriel breathed a laugh. “Yes, I am.”
“You need minions,”Nic said without looking up from what appeared to be one of several lists on the desk. “I know you’ll want to argue, but there’s no getting around it. Hear me out.”
“Lady Veronica Phel,” he replied formally, “I have brought the assistance you requested.”
She glanced up, not in the least embarrassed, and smiled at the group of workers hanging behind him, shuffling mud-caked boots against the parquet floor. Selecting one list, Nic stood and came around the desk, smoothing back her asymmetrical curls and tucking them behind her ears, managing to look elegantly regal anyway. “Greetings to you all, and thank you for coming to help.”
They stared at Nic in brash curiosity, far more impressed with meeting a real Convocation familiar than they’d ever been with him. They also eyed the purple and green bruises around her throat, left by the hunter’s collar. It looked like Gabriel had throttled her, unfortunately, an impression helped along by a vivid and fresh love bite just under her ear that he must’ve put there that morning.
“I’ve made a list of tasks,” Nic was saying, smiling warmly at the crew. “I put them in order of my preferred priority and then in what I think is the logical order of precedence, but please feel free to tell me if I’m mistaken. I don’t know a great deal about house renovation.”
Their mute gaping soon turned to smiles and occasional laughs, as Nic wryly jested with them, charming them into being at ease with her. He shouldn’t be surprised that she excelled at this, too. She’d been raised to run House Elal, so herding—what had she called them? “minions”—was no doubt one of the required skills.
Staying out of her way, Gabriel wandered to the desk, perusing the several lists she’d completed. He was reading a dauntingly long list of supplies she apparently intended to acquire, frowning at the inclusion of Elal imps, elementals, and spirits, when she joined him. The workers had begun an industrious and noisy attack of the boards covering the library windows, while another group headed out the door. In search of furniture, no doubt. He wished them luck. “See?” she said, tapping a different list than the one he was looking at. “You need minions.”
“I brought you minions.”
“No, you brought me barely magical commoners who are earnestly invested in helping and who will be of critical assistance inthislong list of manual chores.” She waved the list that she’d been discussing with the workers at him. “Youneed other wizards working for you. If you had an established house, you’d have a full roster of wizards of various levels—”
“And familiars,” he reminded her, not liking the way the Convocation tended to erase the existence of half the magical population.
“In some cases, sure, but not all wizards have familiars.”
“Because they can’t afford them.”
“That’s true for some, but not all wizards seek to bond a familiar. Minor wizards can be useful within certain refined skill sets that don’t require a familiar’s power augmentation.”
That coil of cold shame twisted inside him. “Then the Convocation lied to me. I didn’t need to acquire a familiar.” And ruin Nic’s life.
Nic stomped on his booted foot—impressively painful given her small stature and the light slippers she wore.
“Ow,” he complained, scooting back.
