“Thus Jadren.”
“Yes. Jadren is a puzzle.” She frowned, trying to dredge up the pieces of memory. “You know, I can list all forty-eight high and second-tier houses, their current lords or ladies, almost all of their heirs and most of their progeny—particularly the wizards—and yet I don’t remember anything about Jadren.”
“Maybe he didn’t attend Convocation Academy.”
“That’s unheard of.”
“Not precisely,” he corrected, gesturing to himself.
“Youare the exception to so many rules that I’m issuing a full present-company exemption.”
“You warm the cockles of my cold, cold heart, darling. But seriously, there must be plenty of people who don’t attend the academy for one reason or another.”
“Sure.” She ticked off the reasons on one hand. “Lack of magic, lack of connections, lack of money.” She slid him a look. “Lack of sense.”
He smirked for her sally, then sobered. “No academy attendance would explain his lack of an MP scorecard.”
“No, it wouldn’t. The Convocation wouldnotlet a wizard go untested. I bet it wasn’t your idea to go to Convocation Center to get tested.”
Tipping his head ruefully, he said, “You are correct, as usual. The Convocation summoned me for testing. Apparently there are no secrets from the Convocation, even in remote Meresin.”
“Keep that in mind, and I’m not surprised. It’s far too risky to have rogue untested wizards running around. One of Elal’s contracts with Convocation Center is to use spirits to spy out undocumented wizards. A house might try to circumvent that, for one reason or another, but the Convocation would pull El-Adrel’s status as a house before they’d allow them to hide a wizard like Jadren. I don’t know what was up with them refusing to show us his scores. El-Adrel clearly doesn’t want us to see them, but I can promise there is an MP scorecard out there.” She tapped a finger thoughtfully on her chin. “I wonder if I can find out through the gossip network.”
“Wouldn’t El-Adrel fight having their house status removed?”
“They’d try, but they’d be one house against…”
She trailed off, a terrible thought occurring to her.
“What?” Gabriel prompted, leaning forward to pin his elbows to his knees, steepling his fingers and pressing them to his lips. “Tell me.”
“There were signs that Lady El-Adrel has been collaborating with someone from Elal. Those automatons were animated by spirits, and only an Elal wizard of considerable power could do that.”
“An alliance for a new product line?”
“If so, it was kept very secret. I would’ve said before this that I knew everything about Elal business.” But then, Papa had been involved in complicated incantations extensively in recent months, retreating to his arcanium regularly, her maman more exhausted than usual. And Nic had been confined to her tower, not exactly in the swim of information.
“Perhaps it’s someone else in Elal’s employ,” Gabriel suggested.
“I considered that, but then there’s the message Lady El-Adrel passed along.” She had to take a breath to release the tightness in her chest. “That could only have come from Papa. Whatever is behind placing Jadren in House Phel, they’re collaborating on it.”
“Against the Convocation?” Gabriel’s brows rose. “They’re already heads of the two most powerful High Houses. They are the Convocation, for all intents and purposes.”
“Not truly. There are a lot of checks and balances. You scoff at what you see as the immovable architecture of the Convocation, but those laws are in place for good reasons—and one is to prevent any one house, or alliance of houses, from seizing too much power. There is balance in the current system.”
“Hmm.” Gabriel tapped his fingers against his lips, brows creased.
“I thought of something else, too. Remember how I told you that Papa encouraged me to accept your application? He made a remark at the time that if you won me, you’d be allied to House Elal, and—without the resources of a full house or experience of your own—forever beholden to Elal.”
Gabriel’s eyes went hard as obsidian. “Is that so,” he said softly, not a question.
She recalled how proud Papa had been of her, how delighted that Gabriel, practically a rogue wizard from a fallen house, had been the one to impregnate her. How Papa had produced that incredible wedding gown and how annoyed he’d been when Maman suggested that Nic’s future might be difficult. Of its own accord, her hand went to cover her womb protectively, the child within more vividly real than ever—and more painfully at risk. “He might have thought to control you through me, and through our child.”
Gabriel’s gaze followed her gesture, lingering there before his eyes rose to meet hers. “He’d be mistaken.”
“Well,Iknow that. I knew that the moment you walked into my tower room. But Papa didn’t, and then…”
“And then you proved to be too stubborn to be a good tool,” Gabriel said, finishing her half-formed thought.