~2~
Everyone came toattention as Gabriel and Nic opened the front doors and walked out onto the graceful porch of House Phel.Though it gratified some small and mean part of him—the overwhelmed and ignorant farmer boy he’d once been—to have the instant and immediate attention of this cohort of the Convocation’s finest, he also didn’t much care to be under scrutiny.
Was it too much to ask to be left alone to enjoy his wife and family in peace and quiet?Apparently so.
Reading something of his regrets in him, Nic gave him an assessing sideways look from her canny emerald-green eyes.You’re the one wanting to dash yourself brainless fighting the Convocation,she seemed to say in his mind, though they did not have that kind of telepathic communication.He didn’t need Nic’s remonstrations in his head for her to make her opinions clear.The look in her brilliant, knowing eyes was more than enough.
How he loved her.
“Lord Phel,” the Convocation Proctor declared, as if identifying an odd species of fungus, rising to her feet.The ornate tabernacle containing the oracle head sat on the wide porch rail, its doors locked again.“Where is the rogue familiar you promised to retrieve?”
He banished the urge to cringe like a disobedient schoolboy caught out by sharp-eyed tutor.Instead he fluttered the fingers of his free hand, imitating what he imagined a lordly noble might do.Nic’s fingers remained firmly entwined with his other hand.She’d repeatedly warned him that keeping physical contact with her made it look as if he were prepared to access her magic as his familiar—a sign of weakness or aggression—but he didn’t care.He liked holding her hand, and doing as he liked was the soul of wizardly arrogance, wasn’t it?
“The incantation has been enacted,” he intoned, trying to sound powerful and enigmatic.
The proctor narrowed her eyes at him.“Forgive me, Lord Phel,” she said, her tone clearly unapologetic, “but I am well aware you did not attend Convocation Academy and lack, if not the training for a proper incantation, then at least the language to describe what you’ve done.But indulge me.What sort of spell, precisely, have you enacted to retrieve the rogue familiar you endangered through willful concealment?”
Nic’s magic warmed his hand, filtering into his blood with rose-dark, bloodred warning.Make up something arcane and twisty that no one will understand.He raised a hand and pointed to the moon, invisible behind the cloud cover, yet vivid in his mind.He always knew where the moon was.“The moon shines her face upon the land and none may hide from her reflection.”He swept a hand at the lake and the marshes beyond.“Likewise, water infiltrates all, seeping into every crevice, and no force may keep it out.”Beside him, Nic snorted softly in wry agreement.He’d been sure her alternate form would be a feline, like her mother’s, what with the way Nic loathed getting wet.“And none may hide from it,” he finished on a low note.
The watching wizards—among them Asa, the Refoel healer; the glassmaker, Sage; the furniture maker, Wolfgang; and the enigmatic El-Adrel spy, Jadren—exchanged bemused glances.At least they seem suitably confused.
The proctor waited a beat longer.“That’s all you have to say?”
Gabriel pulled icy arrogance around himself.“I don’t expect a mid-level wizard such as yourself to understand.”
She huffed out a breath, setting a hand on the tabernacle containing the oracle head as if considering asking it.“How long am I to wait for a result?”
“As long as necessary,” he replied coldly, allowing some of his water magic to chill the humid air around the loathsome woman.
“I am expected at Convocation Center.”Though she shivered, the proctor lifted her chin and firmed her lips.“I cannot dally here.”
“Then by all means,” he returned, “do not dally.”He swept a hand at the carriage she’d arrived in just a few hours ago, then cast a jaundiced eye at the overcast, twilit sky.“Feel free to depart immediately.It looks like rain.”
“Does it evernotlook like rain in this miserable swamp?”she snapped back.“I am not leaving, Lord Phel, until I’ve completed my duties.”She slid her disapproving glare onto Nic.“As you’ve failed to demonstrate that this recalcitrant and demonstrably disobedient familiar is properly bonded, I shall send a Ratsiel courier to Convocation Center.They will dispatch an escort to take Lady Veronica Elal into custody and return her for disciplinary action and retraining, while I wait here for the other one.”
Nic made a sound of distress—not for that prospect, but because he’d vised his grip on her hand.Making himself relax, he stared down the proctor.“LadyPhelremains with me.I have need of her.And you were allowed on my lands only on the contingency that those Convocation hunters do not step one hairy, clawed foot here.”
That got their audience’s attention.The familiars, gathered into their own little group—though Asa’s familiar, Laryn, stood well apart from them—in particular looked keenly interested.It seemed the hunters were kept somewhat secret.With common folk, he could see how that was possible as they couldn’t see the creatures, but magic wielders, whether wizard or familiar, seemed able to detect the presence of hunters easily.
“The Convocation agreed to your terms on the premise that I’d be welcomed here and allowed to observe.So far I have not been offered lodging or refreshment, and I hardly feel welcome.”The woman delivered her remonstration slicingly, but beneath, her magic, weak as it was, quaked slightly.
And Gabriel actually felt a hint of remorse.Glancing at Nic, he found her deep-green eyes fixed on him—with some of the same feeling in it.“My apologies,” he said, returning his gaze to the proctor.“Our hospitality has indeed been remiss.Mom?”
His mother, Daisy, jerked in surprise at being noticed.She and Gabriel’s father had retreated to a far corner of the porch, observing in appalled anxiety.No wonder.Their daughter had been found, named a familiar, and proclaimed insane as a result of it, lost again, and now arguments raged that they could barely understand.His father, too, looked confused and more than a little sad.Gabriel grieved at how he’d turned their lives inside out—and he saw an opportunity to at least spare them the sight of Nic taking her extraordinary alternate form.
“Mom,” he repeated, more gently, extracting a tremulous smile from her.“And Dad—would you two see about finding a room for the proctor and a snack to tide her over until she can…” He set his teeth and will against the prospect of the odious woman at his dining table.“…join us for the evening meal?”
They nodded in the unison of a long and harmonious marriage.“Daisy, you know more about the room situation,” his father said.“I’ll round uprefreshments.”The old farmer made the word sound overly dainty, but it was easy to forgive.The proctor had made many enemies quickly.
“Acceptable?”Gabriel inquired of the proctor as his folks slipped inside.
She sniffed.“You have yet to demonstrate the familiar is properly bonded and obedient to your will.”
“She looks obedient to me,” Gabriel said, unable to resist teasing Nic with an assessing look.Her expression remained carefully schooled, but her eyes held green fire.
“That remains to be seen.Regardless, it would be irresponsible of me to allow her to remain free if she is not under a wizard’scompletecontrol.”The proctor eyed Nic with false sympathy.“If only for her own safety.”
“Ah, yes.”Gabriel snapped his fingers as if only then remembering.“I recall you suggested a demonstration of Lady Phel’s alternate form, just before we were interrupted.”By the untimely arrival of Selly, trussed up in ropes and fighting like a marsh cat.He’d desperately wanted Selly to be found, but that had been the worst possible timing.“Familiar,” he said to Nic, using the word to harness her attention.This had to go smoothly.And he couldn’t compromise this little demonstration by asking her permission.This was as close as he could come.