“We need to stop the carriages and consult with Jadren and Seliah,” Cillian told them all.
Alise looked the question at him.“Are you thinking…?”
“Yes.Seliah is House Phel, so she’ll be able to provide the water and moon magic, and she’ll be attuned to the place, able to find her way through.”
Alise shook her head a little, though she was smiling.“And Jadren is clever and amoral enough not to worry about violating trust.”
“Plus they had to find their way through to the House El-Adrel arcanium on their own, following Katica’s death,” Cillian agreed.“So they’re accustomed to the puzzle of it.”
Alise gave him a curious look.“How do you know that?”
“Jadren mentioned it, one time when we were chatting after the siege.He didn’t share a lot of details, of course, just that it was quite the puzzle, even with the house helping them.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically.“I had no idea you spent so much time hanging out with Lord El-Adrel, being buddies.”
“You were busy a great deal,” he pointed out equably.And, to the surprise of both of them, Cillian and Jadren had discovered they got along quite well.Especially for two people with very disparate upbringings.But they were also both guys who didn’t have many friends—Jadren because he’d never had the opportunity to make them and Cillian because of his natural aversion to socializing.
“All right then,” Alise agreed.“Let’s see what they think of this plan.”
~16~
Jadren rubbed hishands together and cackled in delight.It was just the two of them again, in the carriage headed to Meresin.“Breaking into the House Phel arcanium is going to go down in history as one of the greatest high-house heists—see?It even sounds good—of all time.Gabriel Phel will have to acknowledge the greatness of El-Adrel after this.”
Seliah gave him a weary look, though he could tell she was also excited about the challenge—and solving the riddle of where her ancestress might have encoded and hidden the key to decrypting her data.She hadn’t said so, but Jadren felt sure Seliah must be excited about the prospect of becoming a wizard in her own right, too.Still, it felt like bad luck to speculate about that possibility.Time would tell.
“It’s hardly a heist when we’re simply doing what they would do if they were at home,” she pointed out.
“Don’t ruin this for me.”Jadren should probably try to be a better person, but the idea of getting one up on the noble and ridiculously powerful Gabriel Phel outweighed all other considerations.“A heist is a heist,” he decided, “whether the heistees give permission or not.What do you think—shall we sneak into House Phel at midnight, under cover of darkness, while the minions sleep unawares?”
“There are plenty of night owls among the minions,” she pointed out to him, the spoilsport.“Not to mention two newborns who will have people up and tending to them.Sneaking in is unlikely—not only because the Convocation Academy team will tell Nic and Gabriel the plan when they arrive and they will send a Ratsiel courier to House Phel giving permission.Besides, if we travel all night while we’re sleeping, as Alise programmed the carriage to do, we should arrive midmorning.”
“We could wait until dark of night.”Arriving in the bright light of day and announcing their purpose took a great deal of the heisty steam from the enterprise.Disappointing.
She gave him a disapproving look.“And waste time?We’re not doing this for fun, Jadren, but to unlock this code and save the Convocation.”
“There’s no reason we can’t have fun, too,” he grumbled.All this noble and idealistic behavior had its definite downsides.“Also, I think it’s fair to point out that many of our most distinguished citizens of the Convocation will regard this little project of ours as destroying the Convocation rather than saving it.”
“That’s true,” she returned in a bright and patronizing tone.“There you go!Do you feel better now, contemplating that iconoclastic, criminal aspect to our mission?”
“You’re not funny.”But he had to struggle to keep a straight face.
She giggled appealingly.“You think I’m funny.”
He crossed his arms forbiddingly and shook his head.“Not in the least.You’re failing to show due respect for your wizard.I should punish you for that.”He gave her a hooded look, letting the sensual promise sizzle down the bond between them.“And I know just how to do that.”
“Oh no,” she exclaimed, squealing when he seized her and triggered the clever mechanism that turned the carriage bench into a bed.“Help, I’m trapped in this carriage with an evil wizard.Somebody save me.”
Rolling, he pinned her down by the wrists and with the weight of his body, raining kisses all over her laughing face.“Oh, you’ll pay for your sarcasm, familiar.”
She wriggled, unable to displace him.“What will you do to me, now that you have me under your power?”
“Remember that thing the wizard Sylus did to seduce Lyndella?”
Seliah nodded, her red-wine magic heating, infusing him with the scent of roses and woman.
“Let’s see if it works on this stubborn familiar,” he suggested silkily.
Turns out, it did.
