Those words tickled something in the back of Cillian’s mind.“If House Hanneil is as heavily involved as we suspect,” he said slowly, thinking it through, “and if they have been using some or all of Anciela’s research to improve their psychic magic to unprecedented levels, then either they had access to the data before it was hidden or they have the key to decode it.”
“Not necessarily,” Iliana countered.“I’ve been thinking about this since you told us about your theory of Hanneil grooming their children to have greater magical potentials—and I think I’m following your thought here.A Hanneil wizard could have plucked some information from Anciela’s mind.”
“I’m no psychic wizard,” Alise said, “in fact, Cillian’s magic is much more akin to mind-reading than spirit magic is, but I imagine trying to read dense scientific and experimental data from someone’s mind would be a difficult proposition.That’s more than picking up stray thoughts and secrets.”
Cillian nodded.“That’s a huge part of the Harahel specialization—learning to apply the magic to accessing and processing large amounts of information and committing them to memory.”
“So it would make sense,” Han said thoughtfully, “that a Hanneil wizard or wizards would have gleaned only some pieces, but not all.”
“Especially if Anciela didn’t want them to, and she wouldn’t have,” Alise said.“We don’t really know what happened after that council meeting, right?We can only guess at what happened to her.”
“Jadren thinks she could have been tortured and held for a time to extract this information,” Cillian told the two familiars, realizing they hadn’t been there for that conversation.
“Of course, Jadren always thinks that way,” Alise put in wryly.“Understandably.It really complicates things knowing that Hanneil likely erased memories.We may never know what actually happened.”
Cillian nodded, trying to trace the branching paths of possibility in his mind.He kind of wished he could diagram it.Also, he was feeling that tingle, the intuition that told him he was close to something.“If I were going to hide something—if any of you wanted to hide critical information, data you wanted to keep from your enemies, but not destroy, because you wanted to save it for your friends… How would you do that?”
“Right,” Alise breathed.“Anciela—or whoever encrypted the archives—wanted to save this information, but for the right people.She would have wanted those people, us, to find it anduseit.”
“So the key has to be somewhere we can find it but no one else likely could,” Iliana agreed.“I thought of that, but there are so many texts in the folded archive and most of them I don’t think are relevant.Cillian, you thought that, too.”
He nodded absently, still mentally chasing that tingle.
“If it were me,” Han put in, “thinking strategically, I would not put the key in the same place as the texts it’s meant to decode.”
Cillian pointed at him.“Exactly.The key is not in the archives.It’s not even in Convocation Center.”
“Then where is it?”Iliana asked plaintively.
“House Phel,” Alise said with unerring certainty, then looked faintly surprised when they all looked at her.“If I wanted to secure critical information for my descendants, I would hide it in my house.”
“But House Phel sank into the swamps,” Han pointed out, “except for the main part of the manse, but even it was flooded up to several feet, including the library.And all of it stayed that way for a couple hundred years until Gabriel and Nic raised and restored it.”
“And most of the books in the library were ruined,” Iliana agreed unhappily.“What wasn’t water-damaged beyond legibility had molded.Gabriel went through every salvageable book a long time ago, even if Gabriel did come across the text that’s the key, he might have destroyed it as a dead loss.”
“Making sure the manse sank underwater and caused that damage would be an excellent way to ensure any information the Phel enemies missed was destroyed forever,” Han speculated.
“It’s important to remember that Anciela was a Phel,” Cillian replied with conviction.Though this Phel ancestor wasn’t of his own line, he felt he knew and understood her in many ways.She had also been a scholar, devoted to discovering critical information and preserving it.“Anciela was a water magic wizard and she knew the Meresin climate.Any key she created would have been impervious to rot, mold, and water damage.She would’ve been a fool not to consider the potential damage there.No, wherever she recorded that information, she made sure it would survive water and damp.”
“And it might not be a book,” Han pointed out.It was his turn to flush as everyone turned stares on him.“You’re all bookish people, so you assume this is a text of some sort, but it might not be.”
“No,” Alise said in a hushed tone.“You’re right, Han, it probably isn’t a book.And she didn’t hide it in the library.There is one place that a wizard would hide something most precious to her.I know where it is.”
Cillian stared at her with dawning understanding.“The House Phel arcanium.”
“Yes.”Alise’s wizard-black eyes glinted with excitement.“Now that I’ve been admitted to the House Elal arcanium, I understand better.Every object of power, everything most secret, my father and our wizard ancestors before him stored in the arcanium—behind every layer of security generations of Elals could think up and put in place.”
“And the House Phel arcanium is underwater,” Iliana said.“So anything inside it was already protected.You must be right, Alise.”
“How do you know where the Phel arcanium is?”Alise asked, seeming surprised.“These things are kept secret.
“When your father—” Han stopped and cleared his throat uncomfortably, “Lord Elal, that is, went to House Phel with the Sammaels, to take advantage of Nic’s abduction and Gabriel being in a coma, he invaded the arcanium.”
“Oh right,” Cillian realized.“That’s when Gabriel took Elal’s eye instead of killing him.”
“So, we know generally where it is,” Han said.
“Under the lake that’s in front of the manse,” Iliana put in helpfully.
