“Of course.”She tried to think back.“The boys especially dared each other to explore the house, but I did follow them.”
“So, we know that the arcanium has to be accessible from the house.”Jadren ticked the points off on his fingers.“It has to be somewhere that both Gabriel and Lord Evil Elal could logically figure it out.And we theorize that it’s underwater, which makes a lot of sense to me.”He raised his gaze to the glossy white trim and rose-colored walls.“Too bad this manse isn’t sentient enough to be helpful.Hello the house?”
Selly giggled.“I feel quite confident that this manse is not at all like El-Adrel and we can’t count on help from there, but… I do have an idea.”
“Lead on my lady,” Jadren declared expansively, offering an arm with a little bow.“I anticipate the delights in store.”
She turned to the back of the house, to the meal staging area.Not precisely a kitchen.Nic—in her efficient Lady of the house mode—had caused the room to be updated and equipped with devices, magical and otherwise, to allow for easier distribution of food to the formal and intimate dining halls of the house.Most of the actual food prep occurred in an outbuilding, but this room allowed for an intermediate storage and assembly area.Selly found the old door to the cellar and opened it carefully, remembering the state of the underground rooms back in the day.
It was a strange thing: the magic that hit her in adolescence obscured her memories of her teen years almost completely, rendering them a kind of incomprehensible dream, but events before that were vivid.To her vast relief, the fetid stink she recalled from back then had completely disappeared, replaced by the cool, slightly damp scent of goods best stored in the perpetual chill of the cellar, including wine and brandy.
Jadren took a deep sniff.“So this is where Phel hides the good stuff.”
“Don’t you dare tell him I showed you.”
“Oh, after this, he owes me.”Jadren followed her down the stairs.They’d been entirely replaced since those old days, not simply repaired, and were wide and easy to navigate, with good hand-railings.Exactly the sort of thing Gabriel would do to take care of Nic if they were going to be coming this way often.It boded well for her theory that this was the way to get there.
The cellars were clean, neatly arranged—and free of standing water, which was always a pleasant surprise for underground spaces in watery Meresin.Contained fire elementals lit the space evenly—Alise’s work, no doubt—and Selly was able to wend through the several adjoining rooms to the back wall with the tunnel she remembered so well.
There was nothing there.Only a blank wall.“Huh.”
“It’s a nice wall,” Jadren commented.“Were you expecting something else?”
“Yes, a tunnel.”
“A tunnel would be useful for connecting to an underwater arcanium,” he said agreeably.“Maybe it’s in a different room?”
“Maybe?But I was certain I remembered it here.”Doubting herself, she turned to look elsewhere.
Jadren stopped her with a hand on her arm.“Hang on.Notice anything funny about this wall?”
“Not a thing.It’s a perfectly boring, perfectly blank wall with no tunnel entrance.”
“Exactly.”He shot a triumphant finger in the air.“Every other wall in this place is usefully employed holding up shelves of goods or bracing casks of truly excellent liquor.Why not this wall?”
He was right, she realized.“Because you don’t want to stack stuff in front of a doorway you use often.”
Jadren tapped that finger against his temple.“Exactly.If you and I were traipsing down here all the time—probably at night sometimes to have arcanium sex—then we wouldn’t want to be shoving stuff aside instead of getting busy.”
“I don’t really want to picture my brother in that context,” Selly commented.
“The point stands though.”Then he snickered and Selly rolled her eyes at him.
“Can we stay on topic, please?”
“The topic, my sweet, is on.”He was running his hands over the smooth surface of the bare wall.“Really, if they were smart, they’d make this a little less obvious.Hang a painting here or something.”
“Because a painting hung in the cellar screams totally normal,” Selly observed.
“True,” he replied, unruffled.“What do people hang in cellars?Dried herbs, haunches of meat.”
“No.”She watched him explore with careful fingertips.
“There’s a hidden door in this wall, I know it,” he said, stepping back.“If you were to use your water and/or moon magic to disguise something, how would you do it?”
“I’m not a wizard—how should I know?”
“You understand your own magic,” he answered patiently.“If youwerea wizard, how would you do it?”
