Her father waved that consideration off with such ease that her worry increased.What would he do?
“Listen to me closely, pet,” he instructed, his magic condensing around her.When she was a little girl and had committed some transgression, he’d used his tame spirits to frighten her, and now he tried the same tricks as if she weren’t a grown woman.Besides that, she was an Elal herself, a trained familiar and well able to discern the spirits he tried to intimidate her with.He was miscalculating, underestimating her, and she kept the satisfaction of that to herself, waiting to use it to her advantage.
“If you want any sort of life,” her father continued, speaking as if she were that child still, “then you will do as you’re told.Look around you at all you can have.I’m sure you missed the wealth and comforts of a Convocation High House.You can be Lady Sammael in due course.No familiar can aspire to better than that.”He held out his hands with open palms facing the sky.“Pain, misery, and insanity on one hand.Wealth, status, and the love of your family on the other.The choice is a simple one.”
She pretended to consider, flicking her uncertain gaze between smug Sergio and her arrogantly preening father.“What would I have to do?”
“Submit to bonding with Sammael here, naturally,” her father replied, confident in her capitulation already.“Once we’ve taken care of Phel, that is.And answer a few questions, make yourself useful that way.”
“Questions?”made a show of looking puzzled, though she began to see where this was going.Why had House Elal—and likely others, such as Sammael?—sought the fall of House Phel generations ago?Though houses fought regularly, it was rare for one to be so decimated the family disappeared altogether.Or nearly so.
“Oh, details of House Phel.Reconnaissance.That sort of thing.”Her father waved a hand, pretending to nonchalance, apparently oblivious to the fact that he’d always prided himself on gathering his own information.He thought Nic knew something he couldn’t uncover on his own.
“House Phel?”she echoed, hoping she wasn’t laying on the stupid-familiar routine too thick.“There’s nothing much to know.”
Her father shrugged a little, beaming, lapping it up.“I’m sure there isn’t, but information is always useful.Maybe you know something worth all this trouble, something to redeem yourself in my eyes.”He pretended to think.“I know—to begin with, you can tell me where the House Phel arcanium is.”
Nic fought to keep her expression quizzical, not to allow the gleam of triumph to enter her gaze.This was it.Lord Elal was eager to know this specific thing.The pieces of the puzzle fell into place with startling clarity.Her father had engineered all of this, perhaps from the very beginning.She’d suspected before that he’d somehow induced the Fascination that made her want Gabriel, as she’d wanted no one else before him.And that he’d induced Maman to submit to his bonding her via the same method.The big question had been why.The alliance with Gabriel and House Phel had not been a jewel in House Elal’s crown.
Now she knew the answer: her father wanted the House Phel arcanium.
However the plot had played out generations ago, the conspirators had succeeded in destroying the family and the house, but the arcanium had gone undetected, quietly submerged beneath the lake.
Her father must have seen the reappearance of magic in the form of Gabriel as an opportunity, a chance to obtain whatever he—or more likely, their Elal ancestors—believed the arcanium contained.Nic had certainly noted to Gabriel how the arcanium stored magic at an extraordinary level, far beyond what she knew of other arcaniums.Not all houses had them, of course, and many wizards created their own, making them look impressive from the outside.The joke in the Convocation went that the bigger the arcanium, the more substandard the wizard.
Apparently the House Phel arcanium, discreetly hidden away, was as special as she’d speculated.
Nic barely managed to conceal her excitement at this insight into her father’s plans.Her best chance lay in making him believe her ignorance, in having him continue to underestimate her.Shaking her head, hoping to look a little daft, she tested the extent of his knowledge.“But there is no arcanium.”
“Of course there is,” her father returned impatiently, and her spirits sank.“I’ve read… information about it.And Jan indicated that Phel was waiting to bond you until he got you back to Meresin.We all know the only reason for him to delay was so he could access the power of his house arcanium.Clearly he needed the assist, as everyone has witnessed how he botched the eventual bonding anyway.”Her father peered at her, wizard-black gaze penetrating, and she wondered what his wizard senses told him about their reciprocal bond.Whatever it was, it caused him to shake his head in apparent disgust.“One can’t expect more from an uneducated rogue wizard.”
Sergio snickered at that and Lord Elal cast him an irritated glance, then focused on Nic again.“Tell us where it is, and perhaps I can arrange for a treat.Something pretty to wear, perhaps.”
Did her father even care that she was imprisoned here, dressed in an odd tunic of bedsheets?Clearly not, except to take advantage of the leverage that provided.She had to finally face the reality that her own father was her enemy, and act accordingly.Which meant using everything she knew about him against him.Putting on a disdainful tone, playing spoilt Elal princess, she waved off the possibility of an arcanium.“If there ever was an arcanium, Lord Phel doesn’t know where it is.And I doubt he’d know how to use one—or have the wit to know what it was—if he managed to find it.I can’t see that happening, as the manse is a disaster.Most of it sank long ago.The parts that are above water are dilapidated and moldering.If there was a tower, it rotted away with the last of the old family.”
Her father frowned.“I have reports that the manse has been at least partially restored.”
Aha!Hedidn’tknow everything.Careless of him to let slip his incomplete knowledge.Nic shook her head, feigning contempt and flopped herself down in a chair as if exhausted.“Phel drained me dry trying to restore that lost cause.It doesn’t help that he has no idea how to use magic.”She rolled her eyes, looking to both men for sympathy, grimly pleased when they nodded eagerly.So keen to believe in Gabriel’s incompetence.“You’re so right that it’s probably that’s why he botched the bonding, too.Maybe if he’d been able to use an arcanium, it would’ve helped.”
Her father watched her closely, not entirely convinced.“Think!Are you sure you have no idea where it could be hidden?I have records that clearly indicate the presence of an arcanium.Indestructible, an arcanium constructed with the lost arts of the ancients, one like no other.”
Nic looked as innocent and befuddled as she could, though that might be a hard sell.Still, her father seemed willing to believe his sharp-witted former heir had lost the mind he’d once praised when she failed to manifest with wizard abilities.“Records?”she repeated.“How would you have access to records about another house’s arcanium?”
It was a really good question, given that wizards and their houses guarded the locations of and access to their arcaniums zealously.She supposed all information leaked.After all, she knew the location of the House Elal arcanium, though not how to enter it.
Her father looked smug rather than defensive.“Even after all that time under my tutelage, you still don’t understand that I have ways of uncovering information.Knowledge is power, pet.And there’s a reason I’m the most powerful wizard in the Convocation.”
“My father would disagree,” Sergio put in defensively.
Lord Elal eyed him with pity.“If Lord Sammael is so powerful, why am I in his house without his knowledge, conspiring with his son and heir to have him ousted and replaced?”
Sergio subsided, having no argument to that.But when Lord Elal turned his back, Sergio sent him a fuming glare.Nic filed that away as potentially useful.It was easy to dismiss Sergio as weak-willed and petulant.She certainly had, not without reason, but she was also surprised that Sergio had been bold enough to rebel against his father.He was sneaky, which bore remembering.
Nic’s father studied her with that penetrating gaze.“I think you’re lying to me, pet.”
“What reason would I have to lie?”She managed to sound resigned and weary at once—not a stretch at all.Waving her hand at the round, windowless room, she continued.“I’m a prisoner here, dependent on you and Sammael for my very life.My husband and wizard will be dead soon, his house dissolved.I have nothing and am no one.I’m a realist, as you taught me to be, Papa.”The taste of the affectionate moniker was like bile in her mouth.“I’m well aware of who holds my leash now.”
Her father smiled, pleased with her capitulation, but not entirely convinced.“Forgive me if I don’t entirely believe you, kitten.”He glanced at Sergio.“Fetch Lady Elal.”