“You’ll do as you’re told, Familiar,” he said, deliberately letting the sensual command purr through his voice.They hadn’t spent time in the arcanium since before Bria’s birth.Gabriel had flat refused to potentially compromise her well-being in the late stages of pregnancy and post-partum, not because Nic hadn’t suggested, even begged.Typically he only addressed her as “Familiar” inside that safe and private space, where they’d found exquisite pleasure in playing out dominance and submission.Using it here and now was an exception—and caught her attention enough to cut through her panic.
Her eyes going luminous with arousal, desire replacing her fear and frustration, she relaxed under his grip, sanity flowing into gaze, and nodded.“Yes, Wizard.”
Thank the dark arts.“Iliana, Han, can you give us what you’ve discovered regarding the archives in a quick summation?”
The two familiars looked a little startled, but nodded.
“Good.Lord Emeritus Harahel, can Lady Harahel meet with us before we leave?”
“Bertie,” the old wizard insisted.
“Bertie,” Gabriel corrected himself and offered a smile, learning from Nic’s experience.“Do you think Lady Harahel can meet with us or not?”
“Not,” he answered decisively.“Órlaith went off to Convocation Center.House business.”
Nic didn’t move, but her magic seethed.Gabriel understood the feeling, his own magic gathering involuntarily.“Is there a reason, Bertie, that you didn’t mention this to us earlier?”
The ancient wizard looked up, black eyes twinkling.“Sure there is.”
And he said nothing more.
Outside, thunder rumbled menacingly and Nic narrowed her eyes at Gabriel in implicit warning.He nodded and attempted to wrestle back his own frustration.
Iliana, well versed in House Phel idiosyncrasies, said brightly, “Let’s adjourn to the study we’ve been working in and give you that summary.It’s all warded for privacy and silence.That will give you the information and time you need to decide how you want to go from here.”
“And where,” Han added, nodding.
That sounded like an excellent idea.
“So,” Iliana concluded,“once Cillian figured out that these super dull booklets on stuff like wasp larvae and which ballgowns and accessories the then Lady Phel wore to various parties were actually code for Anciela Phel’s experimental data, he had a few copied and took off for Elal to show Alise, hoping that would remind her of what she’d originally set out to do in discovering the House Phel archives.”
“Brilliant.”Nic continued to study the original journal of Gabriel’s ancestress and her meticulous entries detailing each outfit, the jewels, the fabrics, the dates and times of the fictional social events.“I’m amazed Cillian looked at this twice.Many ladies keep such records.”
Gabriel was sure he hadn’t made a sound, studiously focused on the treatise on wasp larvae, but she slid him a narrow look.
“It won’t do to wear the same thing twice to a given house unless a decent interval has elapsed,” she informed him, archly enough that he wasn’t entirely sure if she was joking.
“Of course not,” he replied neutrally.
“People might think your house is struggling financially,” she pointed out, “and you can’t have that.”
“Absolutely not,” he agreed.
She gave him one last suspicious stare, then turned back to Han and Iliana, leaving Gabriel to his study of the wasp larvae manual, along with one on the effects of spring temperatures and rainfall on the peach harvest over the course of fifty years.Something about that niggled at his memory.
“You can see though,” Iliana was explaining with excitement to Nic, “how the dates and times could easily indicate experiments, with the types of jewels and fabrics indicating outcome.”
“It’s very clever,” Nic allowed, “and impenetrable.How can we ever know what a jewel or fabric corresponds to?”
“Or a certain kind of wasp compared to rainfall and temperature resulting in a given price for peaches,” Gabriel said, that sense of something just beyond his memory teasing him.
“That’s why Han and I stayed behind,” Iliana explained, “to look through all of this for a key.Some kind of translation tool that tells us that silk means six or that a dozen peaches means an MP score of nine or something like that.”
“Except it probably won’t be straightforward as that,” Han said wearily.“We don’t know what it would look like except that we’re pretty sure we haven’t found it yet.”
“I’m frankly amazed you were able to discover this much,” Nic said.“How would anyone look at a booklet on peach harvests and think it was anything but deadly dull, obsolete farmer’s records?”
“Even worse with ballgowns,” Gabriel retorted, knowing that last bit had been directed at him.Nic gave him a sunny, innocent smile.A relief that, as it indicated she was regaining her usual equilibrium.
