“I’m giving a lot,” she corrected.“And this is mine to give.It’s necessary.You’ve been over the methods.You know we need to test this on a person.There’s no intermediary step.I want to do this, Jadren, and I want your blessing.I want you beside me and ready to be the first person to congratulate me on becoming a wizard.”
He held her gaze for one long excruciating moment and a deep, insecure part of her wondered if he didn’t want her to be a wizard, if he feared her becoming equal in magical ability with him.Certainly it would change their relationship, potentially disrupt the wizard-familiar bond.Shewasasking a lot of him and Jadren was so deeply scarred that this might be more than he could give.He, too, was like the espaliered trees the house had shown them, twisted out of a normal, healthy existence.Selly was well aware that she had been the saving of Jadren.Even though he never said so, she knew he feared she could be the destruction of him.
Finally he nodded.“I’ll run the treatment myself, crazy girl.”
And by that she knew he loved her and always would.
While the treatmentteam prepared the supplies they needed, Selly wanted to take one last stroll as the marsh cat, just in case that alternate form would be forever lost to her.Jadren had to go with her, of course, and they walked together out of the Convocation Academy buildings, through the warm spring afternoon, to a deeper copse of trees bordering the parklike grounds.They passed groups of students, some talking and laughing, others silently studying texts.
Jadren swung their joined hands.“Do you ever think about what it would have been like to attend Convocation Academy?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted, “but I’m not sure I’d have been happy here.Even without the magic toxicity and the crazy, I really loved running wild in Meresin.I don’t think I would have liked being cooped up in classrooms and dorms.”
He smiled wistfully.“That sounds very you.”
“What about you?”She swept a hand at the stately campus.“Can you see yourself here as Jadren El-Adrel, student wizard and haughty scion of a powerful high house?”
He snorted in derision.“I’d have been such an asshole.Yes, I can see it.I used to think that if I obeyed my mother, complied with her demands and assisted willingly with her experiments, that she’d eventually let me come here.She used to dangle that as a reward, you know.”
Selly hadn’t known, but she wasn’t surprised.
“Of course, that was before I knew she’d concealed my very existence outside the house,” he continued in that breezy tone that meant he concealed pain.“I think it all worked out for the best, for both of us.We learned our own lessons, the way we needed to.”
She nodded.“True.”And that shared experience—or non-experience—had been one of the factors that bound them together.She didn’t say so, but that was her other reason that she didn’t care that she hadn’t attended Convocation Academy.She regretted nothing about the path that had brought her to Jadren.It pained her that she was causing him so much distress with this decision.He was carefully concealing it under his usual insouciance, but she knew him well.
They stopped in a clearing, well out of sight.Not that academy students weren’t familiar with familiars taking alternate form, but this moment felt private to her.Possibly the last time she would feel Jadren’s well-oiled magic clicking inside to open the door for her to become the cat.Very likely their last moments alone together if things didn’t go well.Despite her confidence, Selly understood the risks.She faced Jadren, searching for words.
“Jadren, I—”
He laid a finger over her lips, stopping her.“I love you, too,” he said.“It’s all right, crazy girl.I know you need to do this.”He sighed.“And I think you’re right about the house’s message.I just have to trust in that, and in you, and you know…”
She smiled with sad affection.“Trust isn’t easy for you.”
“No, but I’m working on it.”He cupped her cheek.“I have the best teacher.”
Her eyes filled with tears at the emotion.Jadren was so rarely sentimental.
“I’ll miss your lovely amber eyes if you become a wizard,” he whispered, “but I want this for you.For us.With all my heart.”
“Thank you,” she said, just as quietly.
“Now go for your romp, kitty cat.”Brushing a kiss over her lips, all the sweeter for its whisper thin contact, he wound his clicking magic into her and her body changed.She became the big black cat.
Hopefully not for the very last time.
~26~
Gabriel watched Nicpace around the rooms they’d been given at Convocation Academy, reflecting on how often he did exactly this since first meeting her.It had become almost a form of personal meditation, watching the graceful sway of her full hips, the enticing swell of her breasts, the way her black curls bounced and caught the gleam of light.Her magic swirled with her, heady, fragrant, and intoxicating.
“What is taking so long?”Nic demanded, not of him, but of no one in particular.“This waiting is excruciating.”
“They’re being meticulous,” Gabriel answered her, not for the first time, and suppressing a yawn.It was past midnight.The equipment for the transformation had taken longer than expected to set up and calibrate.But Jadren had refused to be rushed and no one blamed him with Seliah as the first test subject.Gabriel had been impressed that Jadren was even holding himself together.“Just because everyone is aware of the risk Seliah is taking and because she truly is the best choice for the first volunteer, doesn’t mean that they’re not going to take every precaution.You’ve seen how exacting Jadren can be about experimental procedure.”
She snorted without pausing in her rhythmic pacing.“Who knew Lord Sarcasm had a serious side like that?”On her turn, she pointed at him.“And how are you not eaten up with worry?She’s your only sibling.”
Oh, he worried all right.He’d been taking the opportunity to concentrate on controlling his magic, not letting his turbulent emotions manifest in rain or silver.Trying not to think about the worst outcomes.Mostly he kept replaying the possible scenarios where he’d have to explain to his parents what had happened to Seliah and why.Daisy and GF would’ve been happier if magic hadn’t returned to the Phel family, particularly to their children.Their lives had been jerked out of a familiar pattern and turned around and upside-down, not just by his manifestation as a wizard, but by all that had happened since.Raising the manse, populating it, the battles, physical and political.It had all been a lot.And the one saving grace of all the chaos he had brought upon them with his single-minded pursuit of re-establishing House Phel, was that Seliah had been recovered from madness and restored to them as a happy, healthy person.
Losing her again would inflict a wound that might never fully heal.Images of Seliah as a toddler and a little girl flooded his mind.He’d been relieved that Nic hadn’t been the first volunteer, but he hated that it was his sister.
