“He’s occupied in his arcanium.I dare not interrupt him.”Nic tried to sound meek, but Sergio eyed her with contempt.
“Without his familiar?”he sneered.“You’ll have to lie better than that.”
“Surely you’re aware that Lord Phel is astonishingly powerful,” Jadren said smoothly, stepping up on Nic’s other side.“He can accomplish more without a familiar than most do with one.”He made a show of peering around.“Oh, but you don’t have a familiar yet, do you, Sergio?”He grimaced in false sympathy, tsking.“That Sammael infertility raising its ugly head in the next generation.”
“Jadren El-Adrel,” Sergio mused, as if trying to place the name.“I thought you were dead.”
Jadren smiled thinly.“Rumors can be so misleading.”
“I note you have no familiar, either,” Sergio sneered.“Mommy still withholding that particular treat to extort you into good behavior?”
“At least I’m not having to service every high-MP-scoring familiar that pops up on the market,” Jadren replied casually.“How many have you tried now—a dozen?More?Perhaps you should consult a Refoel healer specializing in whiskey dick.”
“Watch yourself, El-Adrel,” Sergio growled.“Someday, perhaps very soon, I will be Lord Sammael, head of a High, and you’ll still be a junior minion, at best.”Sergio made a show of looking around, unable to disguise his confidence, however.“And you won’t have even that once House Phel crumbles back to the ashes it belongs to.”
“Do you know something we don’t?”Nic inquired in a polite tone, though she deliberately omitted any honorific.“As Wizard Jadren notes, rumors can be so misleading.”
Sergio settled his sneer on Nic.“How the mighty have fallen.Veronica Elal, disinherited, outlawed, knocked up by a house-poor wizard too afraid to show himself to his betters.”He eyed her more closely, even scathingly.“Is he too impotent and incompetent to even bond you?”
“Lady Phel is duly bonded to Lord Phel,” Alise retorted for her.
“I witnessed the Convocation proctor determine it herself,” Jadren added.“As did we all, when Lord Phel commanded Lady Phel to take her alternate form.”
Well, not everyone here,but Nic discreetly kept that tidbit to herself.She had enough to worry about with the direction this inquisition was going without fretting that someone would pipe up thattheydidn’t see the proof.Gabriel and his reciprocal bonding nonsense continued to jeopardize them all.Unless his being so incapacitated had disrupted their bond.Supposedly only death could dissolve the wizard–familiar bond.But then, Gabriel was as close to death without being dead as anyone could get.
“She doesn’tlookbonded now,” Sergio commented, speaking to Jadren and Alise.“Perhaps something else has occurred in the interim.You can confide in me,” he added in a silky tone.
“Your wizard senses deceive you,” Jadren replied on a yawn.“Not surprising, given your weak scores.Mostly sixes and sevens, aren’t they?”
“Enough to punish you,” Sergio spat, then recovered his composure.Eyeing Nic, he withdrew an envelope made of heavy, very expensive paper.Convocation stationery.“This discussion is moot regardless.I have here a directive to remand one Veronica Elal into custody, pending a decision by Convocation Center on her bonded status.”
“This is House Tadkiel’s purview,” Jadren said.“You have no authority to—”
“This gives me the authority,” Sergio replied, waving the document languidly.“Sammael borders Meresin, so I was in the neighborhood already.And darling Sabrina here wanted to visit her little school friends.I suggest you produce them, Nic, or things will go badly for you.”
Nic held on to her composure with the shreds of mental fingernails.“Alise came to visit me alone.I have no idea where these misplaced familiars are.”Mostly true, as she didn’t know where Rat had taken Han and Iliana.
“Ah-ah-ah.”Sergio waved a finger at her.“The only thing worse than a familiar who speaks without being asked a direct question is one who lies.”He waggled the document.“I have here a letter from a member of House Phel certifying that you are harboring two escaped and unbonded familiars who match the description of House Sammael’s property.”He withdrew another document, one Nic recognized as a deed of agreement.“I also have proof of ownership of House Sammael of the two familiars.You may verify the authenticity of all.”
Nic held out a hand to take them, but Sergio passed them to Jadren, blithely pretending she didn’t exist.Jadren read the letter first and passed it to her, speaking in a low voice.“It’s from Laryn, Wizard Asa’s familiar.”
So much for the NDA, Nic reflected with seething rage.Did Asa know?She doubted it.Asa might argue with her, but he didn’t have a duplicitous bone in his body.So infuriatingly ironic that a familiar’s words and will were ignored until one decided to betray her entire house.Maybe Nic had been wrong to bring more people in.They’d have been safer being just the two of them.Her thoughts chased each other like songbirds scattered by a hawk, slamming into the glass windows thinking it was freedom.But the glass only reflected the sky, bringing mockery and death.
Nic finished examining the documents Jadren passed to her as he was done.She’d be irritated that he was so careful to read them first, but if this went the direction it looked to be going, then it would be good for him to have seen and witnessed everything.She handed the papers back to Sergio, who deigned to notice her this time.“I’m afraid I can’t help you recover your lost property.There are no unbonded familiars in House Phel.”
“Saving yourself,” Sergio replied with an unfriendly smile.“Oh, and another, I understand.A Seliah Phel, Lord Phel’s undocumented sister.”
“Seliah Phel is not in residence at the moment,” she smoothly lied.“I’m certain the Convocation proctor noted Seliah’s escape into the wilds in her report.”If she couldn’t save herself, she could at least save Selly.
“This affidavit suggests she was recovered.”Sergio waggled the letter.
Nic shrugged.“Such a pity you can’t believe everything a liar and traitor tells you.”
“We’ll see what a search turns up.”
“Lord Phel won’t allow you to search his property.”
“Too bad Lord Phel isotherwise occupied,” Sergio retorted, “and unable to stop me.”He watched her reaction with such obvious and cruel glee that Nic instantly realized what she should have the moment Laryn’s role in House Sammael’s appearance at this critical juncture truly meant.Laryn had also conveyed what few even in House Phel knew: that Gabriel was incapacitated, perhaps permanently.