“I don’t think anyone but another comparably skilled and powerful psychic wizard could,” Han said darkly.“Which is why we’d better hope House Uriel steps up.”
“House Seraphiel, too,” Alise pointed out, thinking of Professor Morghana Seraphiel, who’d taught her life- and sanity-saving defenses against Hanneil intrusion.They pulled up to the steps of Convocation Academy’s administration building.“I suspect we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
~21~
Jadren surveyed thelittle cottage where Gabriel and Seliah’s parents lived with considerable interest.It reminded him quite a bit of the place where Seliah had taken him to heal, a little farm off the road.Simple, rustic, unpretentious.At the time he’d been scornful of the shabbiness and lack of elegance.Now the unassuming ambience whispered of comfort and love, of cups of tea and snuggling under handmade quilts.
What in the dark arts had made him into such a sap in his old age?
“Who is the most beautiful and magical baby in all the world?You are,” Seliah cooed.She sat in a rocking chair on the porch where they enjoyed the warm spring night.So warm that it would be a summer evening in El-Adrel.Bria chortled in delighted agreement, her tiny fist caught in Seliah’s long dark hair, yanking with surprising vigor for a squishy little creature.
Oh yeah, that’s what had happened.Seliah.His fatal weakness and greatest strength.As if she heard his thought, she glanced up, affection rippling through their bond.“Doing all right?”she asked softly.
“Better than all right,” he answered, and sipped the shockingly strong hard cider GF had handed him, clapping him on the shoulder as he did so and suggesting that all the men of Meresin learned to love the stuff, despite the bite.And a sharp bite it delivered all right, clearing Jadren’s sinuses in a blaze of heat.He hadn’t expected to feel a rush of emotion at his father-in-law’s gesture, as if he were being welcomed into the family.Daisy had fussed over him at dinner, too, encouraging him to eat more—a maternal caring that would never have occurred to his own mother.Even though Seliah and he were both anxious to get on the road with their find, the dinner had been the right call to make.They’d both relaxed some over the meal and it had been nice to indulge in GF’s excellent cooking and the fresh produce of Meresin.
But Seliah needed to ask her questions and get her answers already so they could get on the road.He was beginning to get the itch that they should be moving.Everyone would be waiting on them at Convocation Academy, in suspense as to their findings, since he and Seliah had decided not to trust a Ratsiel courier with the information that they’d succeeded, even in code.So far as the rest of the world knew, Seliah had wanted to visit her family and here they were, making it look exactly that way.The only wrinkle in that cover story was their impromptu duel with Piers Elal in the mountains, but only Elal and his familiar knew about that and so far the evil wizard had yet to poke up his head.
So far as Jadren knew.Nothing like being in a hick backwater to have zero idea what was going on in the wider world.
Reading that restlessness in him, Seliah turned to her mother.“Mom, did you ever meet Lady Elal—I mean before Nic and Gabriel brought her here to…” Seliah trailed off.Jadren suspected she’d wanted to say “to recover,” but since no recovery had occurred, Lady Elal had instead come to House Phel to die in peace.
Daisy slid her daughter a considering look.“You might be a fancy lady and head of a high house now, and same with Gabriel, but you must be forgetting that until a few years ago, we were all just simple countryfolk working the land.Where would I have met the likes of Lady Elal?”
“She would have had to come to Meresin, I suppose,” Seliah answered with some frustration.“And since she never traveled without Lord Elal,” she said, more to Jadren, with a rueful crinkle of her adorable nose, “which Nic told us and I forgot until just now, that can’t have happened.No way would he have brought her here.”
“We’d certainly have remembered if such glamourous folk visited Meresin,” GF agreed, putting his feet up on the rail.“But Daisy, remember our honeymoon—we traveled to Ophiel.”
“Of course I remember,” she said with fond nostalgia, offering her hand and clasping it with his.“It wasn’t that long ago.Not quite thirty years.”
Jadren felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.By the suddenly alert expression on Seliah’s face, she felt it, too.“Why Ophiel?”Seliah asked, mostly managing to sound casual.
Daisy turned a questioning look on GF.“It was your dad’s idea.Some Phel tradition, was it?”
He tilted his free hand back and forth.“Not my dad, but my granddad.The trip was a wedding gift from my grandparents, remember?”
She frowned in puzzlement.“No?Maybe you didn’t tell me at the time.”
“I was hoping to impress you, so I might not have said anything,” GF admitted.“I could never have afforded the trip otherwise.”
Seliah looked like she was about to jump out of her skin and Jadren felt the same, but he restrained his questions, letting her run with it.Seems her intuition had been spot on.“I never met your grandparents, Dad,” she offered.“What were they like?”
“Good people,” he answered, his expression softening.“Old school.Last of those who remembered House Phel before it fell.”
“Gabriel asked me once if I had tales of the old days, before the fall,” Daisy remarked, rocking her chair thoughtfully, “but my family didn’t really talk about it.”
“No,” GF agreed.“The old folk didn’t much like to.A lot of grief there and best to look forward and not back.”
Jadren, never all that great at patience, decided to prod the conversation along.“So, what did you do in Ophiel—see any sights?Dress shopping?”
Daisy giggled like a young girl and GF lifted his own mug of cider at Jadren.“We barely left our room at the inn, truth be told.”
Seliah made a little sound of embarrassment and Jadren had to agree.Stupid question.
“I could never have afforded an Ophiel gown.And even if I could, where would I have worn it?I did go to that spa,” Daisy added.“Remember?A wedding gift from you.”
“Ah, yes.”GF rubbed his forehead.“That was from my grandmother.She said that every young woman should have at least one day of her life where she’s pampered.”
“Yes.”Daisy sounded wistful in the gathering dark.“I was soaked and scrubbed and buffed from head to toe.I felt like a new woman afterward.It was lovely.”
