“Yes.”He said the word with such fervor that she knew she’d struck a nerve.“But for someone else.”
That made her unexpectedly misty, as her unstable emotions roamed from hither to yon these days.“Also, if there are multiple players, then they could all—very likely do—have any combination of these motivations.”
“Very true.”
She leaned against him, realizing that he’d been distracting her from the discomfort all this time.And that she did feel tired.Curse it.“About this inn…”
“We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She should have known he’d already handled it.“I might not be romantic, but I do love you.”
He kissed the top of her head.“I know.”
~10~
Jadren bit backa curse.It just figured that he’d have to immediately eat his words.“Piers Elal is here.Like,herehere?”he asked the stricken Cillian, just to clarify.
“Can’t you smell him?”Seliah demanded, wrinkling her nose.
“That’s Alise’s magic you smell,” he answered, hoping that wasn’t just a huge dollop of wishful thinking.Of course they all smelled Alise, even passed out, with all that floral and wine-related magic.Dark arts knew he’d wallowed enough in her magic.And in Nic’s.The Elal family seemed to have a knack for sucking him into the gravity well of their annoyingly powerful wizardry.He could identify it almost faster than El-Adrel magic at this point, probably from leagues away.
“No, it isn’t,” Cillian and Seliah said, almost in unison.
Well, shit.They were right.He’d only met Piers Elal once, but that did smell like him.
Cillian, already kind of a pale kid with his scholarly habits and pretty-boy face a contrast to his black hair, whitened further with fear.He looked down at Alise, fast asleep on his lap, laying a protective hand on her birdlike breast.“We can’t let him take her.”
“We won’t,” Seliah said before Jadren could.She looked to him for confirmation.
He took Seliah’s hand, beyond grateful that she wasn’t going to stop him from this potentially suicidal confrontation.Maybe heshouldlet her stop him though… “That’s right.We came all this way to take care of this situation and we’re not backing down now.”
Cillian didn’t look at all reassured.“I can’t help.Even with what little I can do with memorized spells, I have no magic left.And I promised Alise I wouldn’t leave her.Maybe that was unwise, upon reflection, but—”
“No,” Seliah interrupted.“It was wise.It is.You stay here.”
“That’s right,” Jadren said, feeling good to at leastsoundbrave and heroic.He’d envisioned this confrontation in an elegant salon, perhaps with a decanter of a lovely Elal Summer Red.And some snacks.But oh well.“I’ll send him packing, just as I planned before.”
“Wewill send him packing,” Seliah corrected, giving him an amber-eyed glare that defied him to even mutter a counter.“You’ll need your familiar, Lord El-Adrel.”
“I don’t know aboutneed,” he muttered.But he could see how worried she was, so he wasn’t going to argue and upset her more.However, he did have to add, “I did survive for almost thirty years without you, you know.”
“Did you?”she retorted immediately.“I’m not sure that’s the word I’d use for it.”
He handed her out of the carriage, giving the worried Cillian a jaunty wink.“No parties while we’re gone, kids.”
“Do you have a strategy?”Cillian asked, not remotely amused.
“Sure.You and Alise stay safe and cozy in the carriage while I—we,” he amended at Seliah’s baleful glare, “send yon annoying Elal back from whence he came.”It always sounded better to bullshit in fancy language, Jadren had found.
“That’s not exactly a plan,” Cillian pointed out, looking strained.
Everyone was a critic.“Well, I’d tell you to take the carriage and go and we’d catch up, but something tells me you wouldn’t do that and—”
“Exactly,” the librarian wizard fired back with uncharacteristic ferocity.
“And I hate walking,” Jadren continued lightly, squeezing Seliah’s hand.“In all seriousness though, if shit gets bad, remember that I can heal from anything.Better for you, Seliah, to make for the carriage and get this crew as far away from Elal as possible.”
She, of course, started to protest, but he led her away from the carriage, giving her a very serious look.The area positively reeked of Piers Elal’s decaying roses and fetid red wine magic.It smelled like the morning after a party in a greenhouse, and not in a good way.A distasteful hint of old blood underlaid the magic, too, which gave Jadren a very bad feeling.
