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~16~
Gabriel bit backthe impulse to immediately refuse and send the lot of them far, far away from House Phel. He also wished very much that he could consult with Nic on the question. She hadn’t anticipated any of this, he knew, or she’d have coached him on how to respond. And she couldn’t help him now, having assumed proper Convocation demeanor for a familiar, all meek and being seen and not heard. There was an ominous stiffness to her silence, however, her magic very contained, so it seemed likely something wasn’t right with this offer. He was tempted to say that nobody else’s mommy had brought them to apply, but that would be unnecessarily cruel when it might not be the guy’s fault.
Jadren stared back at him unflinchingly, even defiantly. The man, who appeared to be about Gabriel’s same age or slightly older, didn’t look remotely interested in being a junior anything. “I’ll take him into consideration,” Gabriel replied, using Nic’s trick of a bland regal tone to convey nothing at all. “You brought your MP scorecard, I’m sure.” Not a question. This was the first applicant who hadn’t immediately presented his papers.
Jadren visibly clenched his jaw, the muscle there ticcing rapidly. “You can see by my eyes, Lord Phel, that I am a wizard,” Jadren replied haughtily. “And if you’re any sort of wizard yourself, you should sense my magic. You shouldn’t need more assurance than that.”
Nic shifted slightly beside him, confirming the rudeness of the interchange. She’d repeatedly assured him that the MP scores of all Convocation members were essentially public knowledge—and she’d reminded him several times that he still needed to dig through the pile of scrolls documenting the scores of all the applicant wizards. Why would Jadren refuse to provide his?
“I’m not much for Convocation laws and customs,” Gabriel replied, making his scorn clear, “but I fail to understand why a scion of a respectable High House would disdain those conventions.”
“You fail to understand a great deal,” Jadren replied, his contempt clear. “LordFell,” he added with a smirk.
Gabriel figured he deserved an award for his remarkable self-control in not running the snotty bastard through right then and there. Well, self-control and those creepy soldier dolls. Nic wasn’t giving him any clues, but she couldn’t. Lady El-Adrel also simply observed, as if academically interested in how the exchange would play out. It was up to him, then.
“Unfortunately,” Gabriel said, making it clear he wasn’t sorry at all, “without seeing your MP scores and associated documentation, I cannot assure myself of your compatibility in my house.” Nic had been very clear on that. “It seems your long journey is in vain.”
“Aha, Lord Phel. It seems you’re not as ignorant of Convocation customs as I’ve been led to believe,” Lady El-Adrel said smoothly, her glittering black eyes fixed on him. Potent magic in her, something to guard against, though he wondered if makers of enchanted objects could do much on the fly. She could likely command those soldiers, perhaps more. She deliberately shifted her gaze to Nic, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Someone has been tutoring you, perhaps. You see, Jadren, why I encouraged you to apply for this familiar? Not only powerful, but useful.”
Jadren stared stonily past Nic. “How nice for Lord Phel.”
“You have no familiar?” Gabriel asked, more because it seemed like an interesting sore spot to needle than because he cared.
“No,” Jadren answered tightly, giving nothing more.
“You’ve contracted other wizards without familiars, Lord Phel. I have my sources,” Lady El-Adrel added with a sly smile. “That clearly isn’t a condition of employ.”
Though the skin of his face went tight with anger that she so casually informed him he’d been spied on, Gabriel produced a thin smile of his own. “Nevertheless, I will not be offering a contract to your son.”Your spy and plant to undermine my house,he managed not to say. Nor would he offer them the hospitality of their house. He didn’t care what Nic would say about the polite social rules of that.
Lady El-Adrel didn’t look bothered by his refusal at all. In fact, her expression sharpened with anticipation, the way a warrior might when presented with the perfect opening in her opponent’s guard. “Oh, Lord Phel, I nearly forgot to mention,” she purred, extracting a dagger from a pocket of the long white coat she wore. She dangled it between thumb and forefinger, point down. “I believe this is yours?”
Nic made a small sound that likely only he could hear. Of vindication, most likely, as she had to recognize the dagger as well as he did. The silver blade he’d experimented with, bathing in moonlight as he infused it with lethal charms—completely ignorant of the Convocation and its draconian licenses that gave its houses monopolies over certain kinds of magical incantations. Despite Nic’s dire warnings of Convocation ire, he hadn’t regretted making that blade, since it had been the only thing that fully destroyed the hunters that had so mindlessly pursued Nic.
What he’d most regretted was losing it. Overboard. Into the ocean. Along with that hunter that had somehow survived. He believed the hunter’s geas had driven it to survive the drowning and continue to pursue Nic, but someone had to find that dagger.
Lady El-Adrel cocked a brow as if reading his mind. For all he knew, she could. “It was found on a barge that listed you as a previous owner. Naturally, as an enchanted artifact, it was brought to the attention of one of my wizards. Imagine my surprise! No El-Adrel trademark stamp, no maker’s mark,andit tastes of moon magic.” She curled a lip and waggled the dagger so its point ticked back and forth like a pendulum. “Naturally I thought to bring it to House Phel.”
Wanting to keep Nic free of the taint of this particular guilt, Gabriel didn’t so much as glance at her. “I didn’t realize House El-Adrel was in the courier business,” he said, making sure to sound as bored as possible. “Does House Ratsiel know?”
A slight change in Nic’s breathing and a light aroma of roses wafting against his skin hinted that his sally amused her, and that perhaps it hadn’t been entirely the wrong approach. He might not have fancy Convocation manners or Nic’s keen understanding of politics, but he’d spent enough of his youth getting into trouble that he knew to never admit to wrongdoing, even if the evidence stared you boldly in the face. Also never outright deny the accusation. You might get punished anyway, but it was always good to leave a door open to potential absolution.
Lady El-Adrel looked off over his shoulder at the manse. “I’ll make this quick, shall I, since it appears we won’t be offered the basic courtesy of refreshing ourselves.”
Gabriel said nothing, and Nic didn’t cue him any differently.
“There’s no point in you dissembling in an attempt to evade guilt,” Lady El-Adrel continued. “Nor for me to mince words. If I wanted to sic the Convocation lawyers on you, I would have the moment my people brought this to my attention.”
Ah, here it came. Some sort of blackmail, then.
She passed the blade to her familiar. The man, who shared Jadren’s coloring and bone structure, held the knife on open palms, very clearly not prepared to use it as a weapon. “You will offer a contract to Jadren here and now, to be a senior wizard in House Phel, and you will agree to tutor him in such skills as intersect with yours.” Lady El-Adrel made that sound unlikely. “And I won’t tell the Convocation of your infringement on House El-Adrel’s license.”
“And in the future?” he asked, well aware she gave no guarantees.
“You proposed a business partnership, and I accept, conditionally. I look forward to negotiating our share of whatever artifacts you and Jadren manage to develop. House El-Adrel will, naturally, produce those objects under our house license. I’m prepared to offer House Phel twenty percent of net sales.”
Nic casually slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. He didn’t need her pinch on the sensitive skin there to recognize a shitty deal when he heard one. “I’ll contract Jadren as ajuniorwizard in House Phel,” Gabriel countered, not above needling Jadren a bit more, though the man showed no reaction. “Given his apparent lack of quantifiable magical potential, however, it’s premature to discuss mutual profits that may never come to be.Ifhe manages to make something worth selling, we’ll be in touch.”
Jadren visibly fumed, though his magic remained oddly amorphous. Nic didn’t pinch him again, or otherwise seem agitated, so Gabriel must not have gotten it too wrong. Lady El-Adrel drummed long gold nails against her thigh. “I’ll have evidence of your license infringement.”
