Alise bounced in place, unable to contain herself, clasping her hands together.“She is more than all right.She feels greatandshe’s a wizard now.”
“She actually wielded magic,” Nic marveled as they nearly ran through the hallways to the shielded workroom.“I almost can’t believe it.”
“Seliah made it rain,” Alise crowed with delight.She grinned at Gabriel, delighted by his answering grin.“Just like big brother’s first magic trick.”
They reached the corridor nexus where Alise needed to turn.“You go on ahead.I have to go tell Cillian.He’s still deciphering documents in another shielded space.He didn’t want to stop until he translated all of the conclusions for the council.Han and Iliana are with him, helping, and will want to know, too.”
Nic touched Alise on the shoulder.“You told us first.”
“Yes.”Alise looked from Nic to Gabriel.“We all agreed you two needed to know first.”She bounced on the balls of her feet again, unable to contain herself.“I can’t wait to tell the others.We’ll be there soon!”
Alise turned down the corridor to Cillian’s new workspace, practically floating on sheer glee.She couldn’t wait to see Han and Iliana’s faces.At last they could become truly free.They could become wizards in their own right, be together, and choose their own path.No more looking over their shoulders in fear of being bound to a wizard, essentially enslaved, and parted forever.Or, worse, used against each other.And back at House Phel, Quinn would at last be able to be a true wizard, too, and resist her family’s pressure to be bred by a wizard.She’d be able to have her own baby and keep the child, raise it herself, which Alise suspected Quinn wanted more than anything—except perhaps to find her own true love.
This would change everything, the face of the entire world.The information was out there and couldn’t be contained now.Nothing could hold them back.After so much awfulness and despair, the sensation of incredible hope buoyed her heart so it felt like it soared and zoomed like air elementals set free.This was pure happiness, she realized, something she had perhaps never felt before in her life.She actually skipped around the corner like a little kid…
And skidded to a stop, her heart crashing to the floor.
“Hello, Daughter,” Piers Elal said, seeming to fill the entire hallway.“I’ve been wondering where you’d wandered off to this time.”
“Hallo, Papa,” she drawled, trying to calm her racing heart which seemed to have crawled back into her chest to cower and shudder in sheer terror.He couldn’t be here.He shouldn’t have been able to penetrate the academy.
But there he was.
Her father’s powerful magic resonated in the air as if an immense gong had been struck.Brinda Chur knelt at his feet, her arms wrapped tightly around his leg, her face pressed against his thigh.The familiar looked smaller and younger somehow, her formerly robust Chur sunshine and fire magic flickering as if not quite stable.She wasn’t drained, so Alise wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that her father couldn’t pull on Brinda’s magic fully and effectively, but it was an odd sight, as if something had caused Brinda’s magic to become slightly unmoored from her body.
Something had interfered with the way Brinda’s own spirit occupied her body, a similar effect, though a few steps sideways, to Alise’s ability to sever the wizard-familiar bond.Had her father been trying to alter Brinda in some way?Perhaps he’d been looking for her alternate form and it went wrong.Or, more likely, he’d been experimenting with locking Brinda into a more convenient shape and size, like the cat that had been Maman’s alternate form, while maintaining access to Brinda’s magic.
All possible.All horrifying.
All of this went through Alise’s mind in a flash as she assessed her situation.She was topped off in magic, thanks to Cillian and her generous friends, but she had no familiar to draw on.The little-used hall in the quiet wing—chosen by Provost Uriel for discretion for their project—was empty.She had no way to notify the others of her predicament.It seemed she’d be facing down her father as they’d predicted all along, but with no preparation or support.
And she’d have to find a way to kill him.
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”he demanded.“After all I gave you, all I taught you, admitting you to my arcanium and my secrets and you run off with that wizardling bookworm.”He finished on a thunderous note.
Alise breathed an internal sigh of relief.Her father’s great weakness: he couldn’t let go of the leash he thought he still held.He wanted her for his heir—and under his thumb—and he still believed he could make it happen.More important, he didn’t believe she’d try to kill him.If he’d been wise, or less overconfident, he’d have struck her down immediately.He’d have caught her unawares, skipping like an idiot around a blind corner, preoccupied with butterfly fantasies of a happy future.
But his ego had done her a huge favor.She was still massively outpowered, but at least she had a chance now.Gathering her wits and assembling her best tricks, quietly, subtly, so he wouldn’t notice her arming herself, she kept him talking.If she delayed long enough, one of the others might come looking for her.
“What happened to your eye?”she asked, faking sympathy.She knew very well that he’d clawed out the El-Adrel mechanical eye Jadren had used against him, but they all hoped Piers Elal still believed she hadn’t been there.That side of her father’s face was a horrific mess.It had only been a few days, but he clearly hadn’t been to see a Refoel healer.The whole eye orbit had swollen like a purple cantaloupe, angry red inflammation streaking outward like scarlet starburst lowlighted in bloodred.Green bruising flowed over his forehead and down to his jaw, like stagnant water oozing through blood-soaked mud.
“I don’t need El-Adrel poisoning my mind,” he snarled.“Elals for Elal.You are mine.I made you with my body and my will, Alise.You’re coming with me and you will learn to be my new eye, my hand, an extension of me in every way.”
He was stark, raving mad, she realized in a rush.A sick kind of sympathy settled in her gut, along with a kind of relief.There was nothing sane left in the wizard, so killing him would be less like patricide than putting down a rabid animal.Not that she’d ever done that, either, but she thought she maybe could find it in herself to end another creature’s suffering.And Brinda would be free.
Which gave her an idea.It was underhanded and highly unethical, but if she didn’t do it, her father would likely destroy Alise where she stood.
“Well?”her father prompted, lifting his chin in arrogance as if he were still a handsome man and not the monster he’d made himself.“Do you agree?”
“No,” Alise answered, and hit him and Brinda with a rain of water elementals she’d gathered.
She caught him off guard, taking advantage of his shock to muster other elementals.Air elementals to drag the breath from his lungs.Fire elementals to sear his skin.Earth elementals to crawl beneath his clothes and chew on his flesh, a children’s trick she’d last played on Nander.All of those were low-level, but a good distraction from her true effort.Elementals were so basic and pervasive that they could sneak through, but while he had that shield in place, he’d be invulnerable to anything more powerful.With her wizardry, she reached in and changed the frequency of her father’s personal spirit barrier, making him open to her attack.
Wishing she could lob moonsilver or fireballs, Alise threw all her might into hitting her father with a barrage of soldier spirits.They manifested weapons that sliced into him, Piers bellowing with apoplectic rage that his shield had failed him.Blood ran in rivulets down his body, combining with the deluge from the water spirits, Brinda ducking her head even more as she shivered under the crimson rain.Piers Elal staggered.
For a brief and shining moment, Alise thought she might succeed, that she’d successfully undercut the great Lord Elal by sneaking under his guard and taking him down before he could muster his full might against her.
But no.
