And knowing his own power—thanks to Nic, her advice and tutoring, along with the wizards she’d roped into providing him with excellent teaching—he came to the city with a confidence he’d been incapable of back then.To his surprise, as they passed the Convocation Central building, it looked smaller and less startlingly glamorous.The first time he saw the towering structure made of gold beams and inset with Byssan glass, he’d been flattened.Of course, he’d never seen actual glass at that point, much less magically tempered Byssan glass of perfect clarity and meticulously shaded in ombre colors of Convocation Center, the deepest making the windows at the bottom opaque for privacy and shading to translucent at the top, so much so that the building seemed to dissolve into the low-lying overcast.
Now it struck him as rather tacky.Certainly overblown, the architecture clumsily rendered.He caught Nic watching him with quiet amusement and he took her hand, marveling anew at the elegance of her long fingers tipped with jeweled nails and at the sophistication of her intelligence and taste.He suspected she knew what he was thinking, even if she couldn’t actually read his thoughts—though he sometimes wondered about that with her maman’s Hanneil blood.
She proved at least her intuition when she said, “It looks more grotesque and pretentious to me every time I come back.”
Bertie snorted without looking up from the heavy tome splayed open across his lap.“You should have been around when High Houses Sammael and Tadkiel proposed the plans for that monstrosity and rammed the decision—and funding—through the high council.”
“No wonder it looks like the unplanned child of the Sammael and Tadkiel houses,” Han commented.
Gabriel had never seen House Tadkiel, but he disliked the Sammael manse enough to believe Han’s assessment was accurate.
“That’s not real gold,” Bertie added.“Not because they didn’t want it, but the House Hagith engineers finally convinced them that even gold alloy would be too soft for the weight of the structure.Everything inside is gold-plated, though.”
“I remember,” Gabriel said drily—and, to his chagrin, he remembered being dazzled and intimidated by all of it, too.
“I’m surprised they got that kind of expense approved by the council,” Iliana said.
Bertie and Nic both had jaded expressions on their faces for Iliana’s innocence.“When you have Sammael, Tadkiel, Elal, El-Adrel, Chur, and Ariel all in favor—and willing to pay Hanneil to influence the vote of the holdouts,” Bertie explained, “then there’s no surprise at all.”
“But Hanneil psychic interference is strictly illegal,” Iliana protested.“Everyone knows that,” she insisted to Han when he put an affectionate arm around her.
“Yes, well,” Nic put in, tugging on her ear thoughtfully, “in the Convocation, there’s what’s illegal enough for action to be taken and what’s technically illegal but overlooked depending on the circumstances.”
“And the rank and power of the perpetrator,” Gabriel put in cynically.
Nic tipped her head in tacit agreement and Bertie cackled gleefully.
“But what you don’t include there, boy,” he said, pointing a quill at Gabriel, “is that there are all kinds of power.Some of the high houses may have beenoverlookingcertain shenanigans.”He slid a sly look at Nic.“But that doesn’t mean they approve.”
“They certainly haven’t fought,” she returned with crisp fire, to Gabriel’s surprise.“Where were these noble objectors when House Phel was destroyed?”
“Ah, but House Phel, to all appearances, collapsed on its own.Very sad tale, but the plague that wiped out all the living Phel wizards and familiars, and their progeny, was assumed to have also burned out the magic-bearing genes of the rest of the populace.”
“Plague?”Nic jumped on that before Gabriel could.She glanced at him for confirmation.
“I’ve asked and no one in Meresin remembers anything about what happened when Phel died,” Gabriel put in.How troubling, but also… it made so much sense.
“We’ve never heard of a plague,” Nic confirmed.
“Haven’t you, young Elal?Hmm.”Bertie tapped the quill against his lips, black eyes sharp.“Harahel remembers.”
“Why haven’t you told us this before?”Nic demanded.
Bertie gave her such a calm and pitying look that even Gabriel winced beneath the power of it.“You didn’t ask, did you?”
Nic sat back in dismay, her chagrin palpable in the dimming of her magic.Gabriel patted her thigh in sympathy.“No,” she said faintly.“I didn’t think to ask Harahel.”
“Well, youarean Elal,” Bertie said with patently fake generosity.“Your house among many others dismisses House Harahel as irrelevant.A bunch of fusty old scholars, redundant with the Convocation Archives available to all.No useful magic or lucrative trademarks to speak of, lands that are barren northern moors that no one in their right mind wants.Isn’t that what you were taught?”
“Yes,” Nic admitted.“A massive bias and oversight on my part.I apologize, Lord Harahel Emeritus.”Her worried glance for Gabriel told him she offered the apology to him, too.
“Eh.Call me Bertie, I told you.No need to apologize for being a product of your upbringing, but before you throw stones at those houses who’ve chosen to bide their time and wait, you might consider whoison your side.”
“If we count those who haven’t shown themselves to be enemies of House Phel,” Gabriel said, smoothly stepping in while Nic stewed in self-recrimination, “that would be Houses Uriel, Refoel, and Harahel,” he finished with a nod to Bertie.He counted the twelve high houses on his fingers.Who was he missing… “Ratsiel?”
“Like Refoel, Ratsiel has always considered themselves neutral in all high house conflicts,” Nic said.
“Yes, and look how neutral Refoel turned out to be,” Gabriel retorted.
