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The back kitchen was silent, empty of people.Though the old manse was coming to life, housing more wizards and familiars by the day, Nic had decided to keep the old kitchen in the central part of the house as a staging area.The kitchen in the north wing was being outfitted for the primary meal activities, which she hoped to enhance with magical conveniences.Eventually they could add a kitchen annex to the south wing, too.But it would be best for Gabriel’s temper—and would be in service of keeping the location of the arcanium secret—for this space to remain a glorified pantry.
“I wouldn’t mind taking a look in the Convocation archives,” she mused, eyes and ears alert for trouble.Everyone must be still out front, awaiting Nic and Gabriel’s return with Selly.“It’s your right to access House Phel’s records.”
“Ourright,” he corrected, squeezing her hand, then releasing it to rest his on the hilt of his sword.
“Sure,” she agreed easily.“As long as you don’t mind me making a trip to Convocation Center so I can—”
“Out of the question,” he growled.“You’re not going anywhere near those savages.”
That was what she’d thought.She’d have to think of another way.Alise and Nander were enrolled at Convocation Academy and could potentially access the archives, given a seal of permission from Gabriel.Ifthey were willing to help out.Her brother wasn’t likely to do it.A newly minted wizard, Nander was tragically self-involved, not to mention replete with the fundamental laziness of a fifteen-year-old boy.
But Alise might do it.She’d been a wizard only a little longer than Nander, but Alise was older, more mature, and less taken by the sudden elevation in status, even though it meant their papa was now grooming Alise to be the next head of House Elal.Unfortunately, Nic and Alise didn’t have a close relationship.They hadn’t talked in ages.
It could be that Alise felt bad that it was her and not Nic who’d manifested as a wizard.They hadn’t really spoken about it.Looking back, in fact… the lack of communication was probably Nic’s fault.She’d been so crushed at the oracle’s declaration that doomed her to be a familiar, so humiliated that all her grand dreams were nothing but dust, that Nic had thrown herself into finishing her studies.She’d cranked through the advanced courses for familiars in record time, taken her final exams, graduated, and promptly locked herself into the Betrothal Trials, determined to get the rest of her life going, however dismal it might be.
Now she considered that, even if the rumors of Nic’s unwise escape attempt and subsequent recapture by her vengeful wizard husband hadn’t gained much traction in the wider gossip circles, it was likely that Papa had at least contacted Alise about it, if only to interrogate her on what she might know.
Which would be nothing, because Nic hadn’t confided in Alise.In fact, Nic couldn’t recall the last real conversation she’d had with Alise, the kind that didn’t involve polite greetings and discussion of family business.She should write to her sister.Nander, too, regardless of whether he’d care.With a twinge of unaccustomed guilt, she realized she should’ve done so a long time ago.
There: Gabriel would be pleased.She’d engaged in some self-excoriating philosophizing worthy of her wizard at his most angst-ridden.She had to say, she didn’t at all understand his fondness for the depressing preoccupation.
As they came down the hall toward the front of the manse with its expansive front porch, it seemed little had changed in their absence.Though the great front doors were closed, the flanking wide windows—newly unboarded and glassed in by the Byssan sisters, bless them—gave them a good view.
Everyone remained out front, on the porch or on the soggy lawn beyond.It had stopped raining, and some of the House Phel denizens appeared to be engaged in a game where a ball was volleyed or kicked about.The Convocation proctor had taken a seat, if stiffly, on the wide porch steps, the oracle’s tabernacle beside her.Gabriel’s parents stood to one side, looking worried.
“Will your parents be prepared to see me take alternate form?”Nic whispered to Gabriel.
He’d already fastened his wizard-black gaze on his folks, his pained expression a mirror of theirs.“They’re not prepared foranyof this, unfortunately.”
She squeezed his hand in sympathy.All the people of Meresin had been so uninvolved in the Convocation for so long that they were largely ignorant of so much of what was common knowledge in Elal, where Nic had grown up.Their ignorance may have been bliss for centuries, but things had changed, and the monsters they didn’t know about absolutely could and would hurt them.
“What do you plan to tell the proctor about your incantation?”she asked in a low voice, only partly to divert his worry.She also needed him to be prepared with a good lie, something that did not come naturally to her ethically moribund wizard.
“Incantation?”He frowned at her.“For your alternate form, you mean.”
“No.The one you told the proctor you needed me for, in order to recover Selly.”
“Oh.”He waved off that consideration.“I’ll say it didn’t work.”
“I see.”
“What?”He stopped just shy of opening the doors.
“Nothing.”
“No, that’s your oh-so-neutral voice that means you think I’m being foolish but you don’t want to openly disagree with me.Spit it out.”
“You’ve been going to considerable effort to establish yourself as prideful, powerful, and scary Lord Phel with your new minions,” she pointed out.“Which I know has strained your moral code.By admitting to failure—one that doesn’t exist, by the way, as you didn’t even try—you risk undermining all of that.”
He sighed in annoyance.“Why do you even bother to ask me?Just tell me what I should say and I’ll say it.”
If she wasn’t barefoot, she’d kick his shin for that.As it was, she’d only bruise her toes.“Because you’re not my puppet, Lord Phel.I’m giving you advice, as you requested I do, I might add, not shoving my hand up your ass so I can work your mouth with my hand.”
His mouth gave up its flat, irritated line, sensual lips quirking into a reluctant smile.“As charmingly filthy as that image might be, I agree it’s not ideal for the partnership we’re developing.I’d much rather have your hand working other parts of me.”He lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of hers.“I apologize.”
She actually flushed in pleasure and arousal, his moonsilver essence sparkling through her blood, cool and effervescent.“Accepted.”
Still bent over her hand, he raised a brow.“And you suggest that I say…”
“Oh!”Where was her head?He smirked a little, well aware of how easily he’d flustered her.“Say that the incantation is in place but takes time to work.If questioned, make up something arcane and twisty that no one will understand.Make sure it’s enough time for us to find her again,” she added.
“I’m not handing Selly over to the Convocation,” he warned darkly, straightening at last.
“I understand,” she replied, not bothering to explain—yet again—that they might not have a choice in the matter.
