He went, running down the big stairs in great strides, turning to the south wing and racing to the space that, instead of the ballroom in the mirroring north wing, had been subdivided into offices for the various in-house wizards.Asa had been the first to claim his space—a smaller set of interconnected rooms for him to see patients, along with a larger room to serve as an infirmary—but he wasn’t the last.Other wizards, including Alise, he noted as he ran past, already had their names on office doors.
The outer rooms of Asa’s offices were empty, though with more furniture than when he’d been there a few days before.They were more than filled, however, with Selly’s familiar screaming.He raced through to the infirmary.The room bordered the back of the house, the same view as their bedroom balcony, with a view of the long lawn that sloped to the river.Recently the lawn had been submerged, along with the rest of the south wing, but a few days of sunshine had the grasses growing tall outside the long row of windows admitting the bright morning sunlight.
Two of the injured from the encounter with the swamp monster were ensconced in beds along one wall, sitting up and watching the scene with great interest.They blanched when they saw him, avoiding his gaze.He’d fired the two wizards who’d just had to poke the pit, and everyone else involved, especially and including Jadren, had been thoroughly reprimanded.He had no time for them, however, his gaze entirely on a bed near the windows, where a thrashing and shrieking Selly fought Asa, Laryn, and Rat.They were attempting to tie her to the bed frame, with little success.Despite the odds and Selly’s too-thin, bony frame, she was gaining on them, fighting with near supernatural strength.
Grimly, Gabriel wondered how the Convocation subdued such wildness.House Hanneil psychic control?He didn’t want to know.He reached Selly, taking her thrashing head forcibly in his hands, holding her still and making her look at him.“Selly,” he said loudly enough for her to hear, but keeping his tone calming.“Seliah, it’s me.Shh.You’re safe.You’re home.”His voice broke a little on the word “home.”
Selly stared at him with feral eyes that held no recognition.Her long hair snarled and caked with mud, she was filthy and emaciated, looking bonier than even two days before.Screaming as if he were a monster, she shrank away, trying to escape him, fighting even harder.
“She needs to be contained for me to work on her,” Asa told him in clipped tones as he held down one wrist.Laryn was fighting to contain the other hand, while Rat sat on Selly’s frantically kicking legs, the slight man bouncing with her furious gyrations.“She’s dangerously dehydrated, on top of being malnourished.We need to get some water and broth in her.”
With deep regret, Gabriel did something he never imagined doing to his sister.Ruthlessly drawing on his native magic, he extruded chains from moon magic, growing them like living vines to snake around the wrist Asa held, tightening to drag Selly’s hand down flat by her side.Selly howled in outrage, yanking her unchained wrist from Laryn’s grip and punching the woman smartly on the cheek.Laryn reeled back but didn’t fall.Gabriel whipped a chain around that wrist, too, restraining Selly on that side.In another moment, he had her ankles chained also, Rat climbing off wearily with a nod of gratitude.
Asa was at Selly’s head, speaking to her, though she screamed even more loudly now that she was constrained.“Can you put her unconscious?”Gabriel shouted to Asa.The last thing he needed was his mother arriving to witness this horrible scene.
Meeting Gabriel’s gaze, Asa nodded, his dark face grave.“I don’t like to resort to that, but…” He laid a hand on Selly’s forehead, having to grip firmly to keep her from shaking him off, and held out the other for Laryn.She obeyed readily, her magic flowing into the healer wizard in a bright stream.
Selly went limp, the sudden silence almost a shock.Gabriel hastily erased the evidence of what he’d done, withdrawing the silver chains, looping them into a coil and pocketing them.
“Are you all right?”Asa asked Laryn with concern.
She fingered her swelling cheek but nodded.“Save some healing for me,” she told him, “but I’ll live.”
“Always,” he said, smiling with an affection Gabriel had never seen his familiar return, though Asa seemed blissfully unaware of it.“Would you get the bindings?We’ll need to strap her down securely but comfortably, just in case.”
She hastened off to retrieve the supplies, and Asa turned his attention to Gabriel.“I won’t be able to do much without her awake.The most important step we can take is to begin to drain her magic.She has to be conscious for that.”
“Just as a wizard can’t tap a familiar’s magic while they’re in alternate form.”Gabriel recalled Nic explaining that.A natural protective measure, perhaps, or some of these Convocation wizards wouldn’t bother with the annoyance of having their magic reservoirs be walking and talking human beings.
“Exactly.”Asa had his hands splayed, moving them through the air over Selly’s prone form, his magic sifting down and into her.“For the time being, however, I can address the effects of dehydration and malnutrition, and attempt to calm her mind so that when we wake her, you can begin to tap her magic.”
“Me?”Even though Nic had assured him that the process didn’t have to be sexual as it was between them, the thought of taking his own sister’s magic didn’t sit well with him.“Can’t you do it?”he asked hopefully.
“No, Lord Phel.I really can’t.I’m not a powerful enough wizard to manage the huge pressure of magic trapped in Selly here.”He smoothed the hair back from Selly’s forehead, his face filled with compassion.“Poor girl is bursting at the seams with magic.That first tapping will be incredibly volatile.I advise that you have me here to help in case it’s too much for even you.”
“All right, do what you can for now,” Gabriel replied, stepping away as Laryn returned with the straps.
Rat stood nearby, looking worried.Also filthy, scratched, and considerably worse off than he’d been a few days before.“Lord Phel,” he said, “I am beyond sorry for this scene.I just—”
Gabriel clapped him on the shoulder.“No apologies.I asked you to do what needed to be done and you did.I’m frankly astonished you managed to bring her in at all.”
“Me too,” Rat admitted.“It were a near thing, too.That gel… I’m afraid her mind is plumb gone.Not once did she know me like she used to.”
He sounded so wrecked that Gabriel contained his own distressed reaction.“How did you manage it?”
“Dirty trick,” Rat admitted.“Never woulda worked if she’d been her usual wily self.I set a snare for her.Was all I could do to tie her up, even snared like that.Had to carry her all the way.Kicking, fighting, screaming like I meant to murder her.”He scrubbed a hand over his face, clearly exhausted.“I think I’ll go sleep now—haven’t in two days—now that she’s in good hands.”
“Stay,” Gabriel urged.“Take one of these beds, and Wizard Asa will take a look at you once he’s done with Selly.”
Rat eyed the unconscious woman askance, shaking his head rapidly.“If it’s all the same, Lord Phel, I’ll skip the magicking.”
Gabriel nearly protested that it wasn’t what Rat feared but decided against it.Most of the folk of Meresin were unused to magic, and there would be time to bring them around to the positive benefits.“Come back if you need anything at all,” he urged instead.“Maybe eat something before you sleep, too.”He dug a handful of coins from his pocket.
Rat gave the coins an equally suspicious glare.“That’s far too much, Lord Phel.And where’s a fellow like me to spend that sort of coin, anyhow?”
Again, not the time to explain Nic’s grand plans to bring in opportunities for people to spend coin they earned, to purchase conveniences to improve their lives.“Stop by the kitchen, then, and help yourself to all the food you like—take it with you.And, Rat…” He put a hand on the man’s shoulder, drawing his miserable gaze.“You did well.I know it may not feel like it, but we can help Selly now that she’s here.Something we couldn’t do with her out there.”
Rat nodded.“I know it, and I don’t.Not to disagree with you, Lord Phel, but these measures…” He glanced again at Selly, now bound to the bed, Asa’s magic shimmering brightly to Gabriel’s wizard senses.He had no idea what Rat saw.“Well, I wonder if she wouldn’t have been better off left alone.She was happy in a way, out in the wilds.Is this really an improvement?”