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“Yes, but they can sleep on the boats.”
“Wow. Remind me not to enlist in your outfit. These are locked.”
“A sign, perhaps, that exploring the barracks can wait until tomorrow.”
“You promised the entire north wing. The south wing is waiting until tomorrow. I’m betting it will be a mirror of this wing, sans arcade and ballroom.”
“I’m fairly certain I made no such promise.”
“We can’t stop now. We’re having too much fun!” The end of the corridor was decidedly dark, the only light from the moonlight flooding the nearby bedroom, but her broad smile came through in her voice.
Huffing out a laugh, he kissed her, surprised to discover that he was having fun, bizarre as that seemed. Pulling moonlight from the adjoining room, he lit up the unprepossessing cul de sac. “Fine. Unlock the doors and unleash the monster within.”
“You laugh, but you never know in a house built by wizards. You’ll have to do the unlocking. The lock is magical and not one I can trip. I bet it’s some special Phel-magic mechanism.”
He gasped theatrically. “What will House Iblis say?”
She snorted at him. “It’s over seventy-five years old, so it’s not competing. You really need to learn Convocation trademark law.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.” The lock didn’t seem to respond to his magic, either water or moon.Hmm.
“It might require a physical component,” Nic suggested. “It would be inconvenient to summon a wizard anytime someone needed to go through this door. Plus there’s a keyhole.”
“A magic key?” He could do that much. Scooping up a handful of moonlight, he let it pool silver bright in his palm, holding it near the lock. A silver key formed, rising from his palm and sliding into the keyhole. With an audible click, the lock released, the doors opening inward slightly.
“Nicely done,” Nic said, warming his heart. “Your intuition is amazingly well honed, once you get that thinky-thinky brain out of the way. Let’s see if I can use the key or if it has to be you.”
He handed the key over, observing as she drew the doors together, turning the key in the lock. Nothing. As soon as she removed the key, they swung inward again. “Alas,” she sighed, handing him the key again. “A wizard thing. You try it.”
The doors locked easily for him, then unlocked again. “That’s not fair,” he growled.
“Along with life and Meresin weather,” she quipped, pushing the doors open and forging boldly ahead into the pitch darkness.
“Hey, we have fair weather,” he protested gamely, playing along. If she wanted to joke these things away, then fine. But he’d revisit this lock. “What is this place?” he asked, eyes adjusting to the gloom enough for him to see that it seemed to be a large windowless room. Even his moonlight only penetrated so far into what felt like a vast interior.
“A workroom, I’m guessing,” her voice came back to him. “Ouch, shit!”
“Nic, are you all right?” He couldn’t see her at all, and her warning about monsters came back with a hair-raising chill. Or hunters.
“Barked my shin is all. I’m coming back your way. This might have to wait for tomorrow.
“I think itistomorrow.” Putting an arm around her shoulders, he turned her back to the doorway. “To bed?” he asked hopefully.
“Probably best,” she agreed on another sigh, leaning against him and sliding an arm around his waist. “Lock those doors, though.”
“To a huge empty room?”
“A huge, theoretically empty workroom, steeped in all kinds of magic, where wizards practice spells, enchantments, and other questionable pursuits. As students, minions, and junior contracted wizards are wont to do.”
“And why are they wont to do that?” he asked, only partly in jest.
“Well, you’re not letting anyone else use your arcanium, correct?”
Imagining someone else in that space that had become so personal, so intimate—conflicted as he was about the feelings and desires the arcanium stirred in him—gave him an immediate wave of revulsion. Even if Nic hadn’t warned him about having another wizard’s magic in his arcanium, he wouldn’t have wanted to share it. The possessive, even territorial, ferocity took him by surprise. What came of giving free rein to those mercurial wizard’s instincts, no doubt.
“Correct,” he answered, hearing the growl in his own voice.
“Wizards need a place to practice,” Nic continued, so neutrally that she clearly sensed his strong feelings about the arcanium, was amused by them, and was not going to comment. “Practice, especially among students and junior wizards, can mean mistakes. There’s a reason that space has no windows and was magically sealed.”
