She eyed him.“I like to think so.”Her sharp gaze lanced past them and softened beyond what Nic would’ve thought possible.“Bertie.”She came around her desk and opened her arms.He practically skipped to her and gave her a one-armed hug, as he was still carrying the immense tome under the other arm.No one could persuade him to leave it in the carriage, or even under Priyan’s watchful eye.
“How did this crew manage to dig you out of your study?”she asked.“Last time I knew, you’d declared that you intended to spend the rest of your life reading and thus refused to budge from House Harahel ever again.”
He winked at her.“I did spend the rest of my life doing that—and then it turned out I still had some time left over.Extra credit for being an exemplary human being, I suppose.”
“If anyone has earned that, you have.”She laughed, then turned an abruptly stern face on Han and Iliana.“I didn’t anticipate seeing you two miscreants in my office ever again.Aren’t you supposed to be on the run, hiding out somewhere?”She tapped her lip, pretending to think.“Oh yes, you claimed sanctuary at…” Her eyes slid over to Gabriel.“House Phel.”
“We settled the legalities, Provost,” Gabriel said, apparently unruffled, though Nic scented a hint of ozone in the air, a sense of silver shimmer.
Tandiya did, too, because she gave him a stern look.“No magical waterworks in my office, boy-o.You have rank in the Convocation, but this academy is my personal kingdom and I rule with absolute authority.”
Nic believed it, too, especially after hearing how neatly the provost had nullified Gordon Hanneil.“Provost Uriel,” she said, resisting the urge to interpose herself between the provost and the errant familiars, “we brought Han and Iliana here because they have pertinent information on, a, ah, issue of ongoing concern.”
The provost gave her a very dry look and resumed her seat behind her desk.“Yes, so I ascertained once Priyan told me who was here, as I’m not either uninformed or an idiot.I established the silencing shield as soon as you entered.And I’ve swept for Elal spirit spies.”She gave Nic’s surprise an arch smile.“Nor do I underestimate my enemies.Sit, sit, all of you.Now,” she mused as they all found chairs, “who should start this tale?Iliana, you were always a diligent student—and technically, still mine—report, please.”
“Me?”Iliana squeaked, her fair, freckled complexion turning bright red.She looked to Nic for help, but Nic only returned the look coolly.She had no intention of crossing the provost, yet.The time might come for that, but not until they ascertained how Provost Uriel took the news they brought.
In the end,they all ended up contributing pieces of information to the tale, including Bertie, to Nic’s surprise, who had apparently been far more aware of Cillian’s research—particularly prior to Han and Iliana’s arrival—than anyone had realized.Possibly even Lady Órlaith Harahel, who’d supposedly walled off Cillian and the folded archives from anyone else in the house.When Han asked about that, Bertie smiled and cackled softly.“I remember when Órlaith was born.Taught her every trick she knows—and kept a few for myself.”
Tandiya had long since kicked back in her chair and now stared thoughtfully out the windows at the splendid campus of Convocation Academy spread out below.“All the research done in these halls,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone.“All the funding we’ve devoted to the problem.All of the horrific experiments on familiars back in the day before we—with great difficulty—outlawed them…” She cut her gaze to them, making it suddenly clear that she had been speaking to them after all.“Am I to believe thatno one, out of all of my distinguished faculty and those of my predecessors, none of them stumbled upon this technique that an obscure Phel wizard discovered centuries ago?”
She sounded so personally incensed that Nic felt compelled to answer.“House Phel was hardly as obscure then as it is now.”
Tandiya Uriel cut her a sour look.“No offense intended to your house,LadyPhel.”She emphasized the honorific just enough to remind Nic that her title was recently come by and not without its measure of scandal.“No, I’m furious that we’ve let House Hanneil run circles around us all this time.Planting spies inmyacademy.Continuing to suppress this research, no doubt in collusion with any number of high houses.”
“You mean, you think Hanneil knows about this?”Han blurted, then tried to backpedal.
“Of course they know,” Tandiya said scathingly.“And, forgive me for any aspersions to the central role of House Phel in cutting edge research, if Anciela Phel discovered this technique working with chicken eggs in her farmhouse kitchen, then others with state of the art equipment and unlimited access to funding and the archives have also done so.”
“And Hanneil operatives erased memories, buried the data, and kept generations of familiars from being able to control their own magic and lives,” Nic noted, marveling at her calm.Being back in this place, the site of her downfall and disgrace, where her closest friends had turned against her for being a mere familiar, this discovery should send her into a rage.Gabriel apparently thought so too—or thought she might need comforting—because he set a hand on her, his magic cool and soothing.
Oddly enough, though, sitting there with her breasts aching with milk for her tiny, precious daughter, and thinking about where the wrenching turn of her life’s path had led, she couldn’t be angry or sorry at all.If she’d become a wizard then, she’d be at House Elal plotting with her father.At some point, she’d have been let in on this secret, probably as happy as any of them to take advantage of the unwilling bounty of magic familiars provided.
The only point of anger—and it was admittedly an intense ball of burning rage that could easily billow into a conflagration worthy of the Wizard Sylus who destroyed the world in bringing down his enemies—was that surely her father had known the truth.
She had been his golden child, his pampered and petted heir, the one he raised to follow in his footsteps to head House Elal.And he’d let her designation as a familiar stand unchallenged.He hadknownher fate could be changed and he’d chosen not to do anything about it.Instead he’d married her off with the gift of a pretty gown and a pat on the head, then turned his attention elsewhere.
Bertie and Tandiya were discussing next steps, Gabriel seeming to listen with half an ear while keeping an eye on her.Han and Iliana weren’t going to speak up unless spoken to in such august company.
“I think we have three prongs of action here,” Nic said, and everyone paid her gratifying attention.She ticked them off on her fingers.“We need to decode the data and test it, proving that the Anciela method works to convert familiars into wizards.I suggest bringing Healer Asa from House Phel to do the testing.We’ll need volunteers, of course, but we can trust him to be neutral and ethical.”
“We need to find Cillian if we hope to decode anything,” Bertie put in.“He has an intuitive feel for the documents from that archive.”
Provost Uriel looked momentarily perplexed.Good to know she didn’t knoweverything.“I understood my archivist was at House Harahel, working on the folded archives.Have you lost him?”
“Yourarchivist?”Bertie retorted pointedly.“You fired our boy, Tandiya.Don’t play games with us.”
She waved that off.“For appearances only.And to give him and Alise a plausible reason to leave the academy.So that they could discover what theydiddiscover.I’d say that means my ‘game’ worked.”
“Except that Cillian left Harahel to go after Alise,” Iliana said with soft despair.
Tandiya cocked her head.“He what the what?”
Nic sighed, shifted.She’d need to release her milk soon.“Putting all the cards on the table.My father extorted Alise into returning to House Elal to apprentice as his heir.Cillian went after her.We don’t know anything since then.”
“Very romantic,” Iliana whispered.
“Very stupid,” Tandiya snapped.
