Alise burst out laughing.In fact, she laughed so hard, she had to put down her wine and hold her ribs.She laughed until tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes, and she was breathless, but every time she seemed to be getting a hold of herself, she took a look at Nic’s face and started laughing again.It got to the point that Nic took up her quill and began copying the NDA while she waited, just for something to do.
“Nic,” Alise finally said on a gasp, pointing a wobbly finger at her.“You wereseven.I think you get dispensation for being a child.I’m sure I was equally as terrible to you.I know Nander drovemebatty with his pranks.”
That wasn’t what Nic had expected, and the anticlimactic response left her feeling oddly deflated.“Even so,” she replied, sounding stiff to her own ears, “the apologies stand.For that and for everything else.”
“Nic…” Alise threw up her hands, then huffed in exasperation.She held up the unfinished letter, produced a fire elemental, and set it ablaze, the ashes wafting away on the balmy breeze.
“Nice trick,” Nic said, squelching the insidious envy.How she longed to be able to use her Elal magic, rather than simply pass it along to Gabriel.
Alise looked briefly abashed, then straightened.“That’s what it is.A bit of a trick.That wasn’t my point—I wanted to show how apologies are like ash, to be blown away on the wind—but it’s a good one for this moment.I’m an adequate wizard, and I’m getting better, especially at my technical skills, but we both know my magic isnothingcompared to yours.More, I don’t have half your smarts and savvy.I shouldn’t be Papa’s heir.Youshould be.You’re the one who should be Lady Elal, and Papa’s a fool to have cast you aside.Also, I don’t need or want your apologies, so keep any further whining about them to yourself, please.”
Nic gaped at her sister, completely flummoxed.“I will never be the head of House Elal.No familiar can be.”
Alise waved that off as inconsequential.“Yes, yes.I know that.You know that.Everyone in the freaking Convocation knows that—but do you ever think about how stupid that is?All the Convocation houses being led only by the most powerful wizards the family can produce, as if magical potential gives youanyability to run a business, which it emphatically does not.No wonder our high and lower-tier houses are forever foundering, being relegated to obscurity.Just imagine if the houses chose the most business-minded and savvy person to head the house!”
“Even a familiar?”Nic asked, her head spinning a bit.She’d never imagined Alise harbored such radical ideas.
“Even a commoner!”Alise fired back, face alight with enthusiasm.“Magic doesn’t make you intelligent or competent.Why can’t people with MP scores below the almighty 3.0 hold positions of power?”
“Because the wizards don’t like it,” Nic answered reflexively.
“Exactly.Because they’re power-hungry megalomaniacs.And we just let them control the whole world!”
“Well, weletthem because otherwise they’d kill us all,” Nic replied drily.
“It’s not right, Nic,” Alise insisted.“No one should hold so much power, and for all the wrong reasons.They become consumed with battling each other rather than working for any kind of common good.It’s as if we put feral bulls in charge when we know they only want to rut and ram horns with each other.”
“I had no idea you were such a rebel.”
“Back at you,” Alise retorted with raised brows.“Youwere always the good girl, Papa’s pet, so determined to be the perfect student and perfect everything.I’m frankly amazed—and impressed—that you had it in you to try to escape Lord Phel’s claim.”
“Don’t be impressed.I failed miserably.”
Alise studied her.“I’ll still help you,” she said in a lowered voice.“I’m not a powerful wizard by any stretch, but I’m competent and getting better.We can run away, back to Wartson, if you like.I can tap your magic to keep you sane.Han and Iliana would come with us.We could begin something new there.A magical community without the Convocation rules.”
“Is that why you helped them?”Nic asked, genuinely still unable to wrap her mind around it.
Alise took up her wine and studied it without drinking.“In part?I’m not sure why I did, except that I really loathe Sabrina Sammael and couldn’t stand by while she hurt my friends.”
“Youcouldhave,” Nic suggested gently.“No one would’ve held it against you.”
“I would’ve held it against me.Iliana asked, and I hadn’t been a good friend to her since I became a wizard.I didn’t like who I was becoming.I hate what it does to us, you know?When we were young uncats, we could all be friends, but then as, one by one, everyone was categorized as wizard or familiar, it’s like we became something… else.Only our magical roles and no longer people.Monsters instead of humans, particularly the wizards.”
“You sound like Gabriel,” Nic commented with a sigh.Apparently this kind of thinking was as contagious as a new virus.
“Do I?”Alise sat back, easing into a more comfortable posture in the rocking chair and cradling her wineglass in her hands as she studied Nic with canny black eyes.“You almost sound as if you like him.”
She sounded so dubious that Nic laughed, then grimaced ruefully.“I do like him.I’m in love with him.I wouldn’t leave him even if I thought there was a feasible way to do so.”
“Just like Maman,” Alise replied softly, regret in her voice.“You’re Fascinated by him, aren’t you?”
Arrested, Nic didn’t know how to answer at first.“What makes you think that Fascination is real?”
Alise snorted.“Oh, come on, Nic!We grew up in the same house—when we weren’t away at school, of course—and we both saw how Papa ruled Maman and she just smiled and took it, never going against him in the least little way.Convocation Academy might say there’s no scientific basis for Fascination, but nothing else explains the way she adores him.You had to have seen that for yourself.”
Nic had seen, but much too late.Clearly Alise had paid more and better attention than Nic had.“I agree, but I didn’t realize it until just recently.”
“Well, you always were Papa’s favorite,” Alise replied with a resigned sigh.“No reason you would have noticed.But I always hated that Maman never stood up to him, not even for us.”She had a bitterness to her voice that surprised Nic.