Nic shook her head.“No, I mean, yes.But they only got here so quickly because they didn’t stop and Alise used her Elal magic to amplify the air elemental.Cillian wouldn’t be able to go that fast.But he also could take a slightly more direct route.I’d said it would take three days from here.”
“Four, at least, in the carriage Órlaith provided,” Lord Harahel Emeritus put in without looking up from his book.“Probably five.”
“Itwasa bit of an antique,” Iliana said, almost apologetically.
“So, he’ll have been there only two or three days at this point,” Gabriel told Nic, easily able to follow the direction of her greatest worry.“And we’ve been traveling since then, so we wouldn’t have gotten word.”
“Even if anyone bothered to send us word about anything,” she groused.
“Besides,” Iliana said brightly, “they probably already left again.”
“Left?”Nic echoed.
“Cillian planned to rescue Alise,” Han explained.“Take her out of that place.”
“Veryromantic,” Iliana added.
“It’s not romantic in the least,” Nic snapped, verbally and emotionally, her magic billowing up like a fire doused with rose-scented lamp oil.“He’s a fucking idiot.”
“Whoa.”Han held up his hands sliding a look at Lord Harahel Emeritus, who only cackled gleefully.
“My great-grandnephewisa fucking idiot,” he agreed.“But also romantic.Both truths can exist simultaneously,” he mused in a philosophical tone.
Gabriel, who privately agreed, having engaged in his own foolish quest to find Nic and bring her home, put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him.She looked spitting mad, and beneath that was the fear.“Bria is safe at House Phel,” he told her firmly.“They would have sent a courier if there were any problems.”
Tears welled in her eyes, magnifying the green.“But you and I are not there.What if Alise goes with Cillian and our father decides that abrogates the agreement?”
He shook his head.“Alise wouldn’t put Bria in peril.If she makes a decision to leave House Elal—and we don’t know that she has, only that Cillian went there—then she’d only do so if she felt confident all would be well.No one at House Phel will let your father get to Bria.We prepared against this very possibility.”
“If Alisehasleft House Elal, our father will be enraged.He won’t let her go easily—and he’ll want to kill Cillian for interfering.We need to help them.”Nic’s voice rose perilously to the point of hysteria.
Gabriel understood, having thought down all the same paths, but they needed to make a plan and not act hastily.It was an ironic turnabout, as Nic usually was the one to restrainhisimpulsive actions and emotional volatility.“Take a breath,” he advised, as she so often did to him.“We came here for information and now we have some.We’ll make a plan now.”
Nic took a deep breath that broke into a sob that she quickly contained, then took another, deeper, shuddering breath, and nodded.“Lord Harahel Emeritus,” she called, still looking up at Gabriel, steadying herself by holding his gaze.“Are there truly absolutely no Ratsiel couriers or wizards in house?”
“Eh, call me Bertie.”He waved a hand at them.
Nic held Gabriel’s gaze a beat, her mastering impatience over Bertie’s lack of answer obvious.“Thank you, Bertie,” she said smoothly, as if entirely unbothered.“Please call me Nic.And the Ratsiel couriers?”
“Nary a one,” Bertie answered, sounding like this was something they should be delighted to hear.
Nic growled under her breath.“We can’t get a message to anyone; we’re stuck out here in the back of beyond.We could fly out.”
“No.”
She firmed her chin and mouth in a way that boded ill for him, eyes no longer teary, but glittering with determined fury.“I will protect my daughter, Gabriel.I will help my sister.Don’t try to stop me from doing what’s necessary.”
“I’m not stopping you.I will help you.This is my daughter, my sister, too.Let’s find somewhere private and discuss our options.”
“There isn’ttime,” she snarled, her magic spiraling hot again.“I feel fine and even if I didn’t, which I do, I’ll risk anything to help Bria and Alise.I’m flying.You can come with me or not.”
So they were doing this with an audience.“Don’t make me remind you that you can’t take alternate form without me.”
She punched her fists to her hips.“So help me, dark arts, Gabriel Phel, if you don’t—”
Bertie snorted loudly.“A fireball for sure there, you’ve got, young lord.Not many a leash can contain that one.”
Nic’s eyes and magic flashed.She started to turn, but Gabriel held her firmly in place, knowing she’d later regret not giving the pretense of being a submissive familiar in front of a high house.Even Han and Iliana watched with wide eyes, and they were accustomed to the freer ways of House Phel.
