Her father laughed, black eyes glittering like knives.“In all the world,” he corrected gently.“Everything else is a lie, an illusion.I’m curious, though, what you think matters.Do tell.”
“Love.Freedom.Working to better the lives of others,” she answered with painful honesty, hating how her father curled his lip in contempt.
“Lies and illusions,” he repeated.“Don’t tell me you believe you love your wizard master?”
She said nothing, able to obey that command the way he phrased it, but he plowed on, face going hard with ruthless delight.
“I arranged that,” he informed her.“What you experienced as the Fascination.It’s an Aratron potion crafted in secrecy and shared with only a few.You will, by the way, never speak of that to anyone.”He reinforced the command with an agonizing stab of Hanneil wizardry.“I’m only telling you this for your own good.I made you feel the Fascination for Gabriel Phel, just as I made my precious feel it for me.Did you know she thought to escape me?”He shook his head, hatred briefly flaring in his eyes as he gazed at Maman.“You familiars have a distressing tendency to think of yourselves as autonomous human beings, fatally unable to resign yourselves to the bare fact that your brains are inferior.We allow you to believe you love your wizards.We deliberately incorporated that into the bonding spell, because that makes everything easier for us, but it’s not real.”His face lit with manic glee.“And, with my discovery, it’s not necessary.Precious does everything I say now, holding nothing back, even more purely than before.Once you are properly bonded, you will do it for Sergio, too.After you reveal where the House Phel arcanium is.Enough of these games.Tell me everything you know about the arcanium.”
She screamed at the increased pain—and began babbling.She’d been kidding herself that she was dodging her father’s questions, thinking she fooled him with her evasions.Now she indeed told him everything she knew.Where the arcanium was.How to get there.She described its properties for him, and he voraciously drank in every detail of the stored power there, his magic glittering with excitement.He only sobered when she explained the access spell.
“It has to be water and moon magic?”he demanded, frowning.
“Yes.”
“Applied in what way?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, the truth a relief.“I’m only a familiar.”
No one would blame her for savoring how he ground his teeth in frustration.“Apparently we’d best not assassinate Lord Phel just yet,” he bit out, and Nic’s battered heart leapt with hope.Her father studied her thoughtfully.“Fortunately, I have the leverage I need to make him do my bidding.Does he believe he cares for you?”
“Yes,” Nic answered reluctantly.
“Soft-headed, the pair of you,” he grunted.“And you carry his heir, which is also useful.It seems I must see to it that he wakes up.Fortunately, I’m in possession of the perfect bait.You wait here,” he told Nic, smiling at his joke.“I suggest you play nice with Sergio, as he will be your eventual master.If you want to have influence over your wizard master, then you will find sweetness gets you much farther than sarcastic words and dour moods.”
He led Maman away—who never once gave any sign she knew her daughter—leaving Nic reeling with the realization that her mother’s favorite advice had always come from her father’s mouth.
Vale stretched hislegs in a ground-eating gallop, seeming to know that they raced on a mission to rescue Nic, one of the gelding’s favorite people.It was good to be moving.Or at least to feel some sort of progress, rather than the endless waiting.
It hadn’t helped that they’d taken a supply boat down the Dubglass River, which meant standing still, even though Gabriel knew in his head that they were making progress.It was the fastest and most anonymous way into Sammael lands.They’d disembarked well before Port Carica, taking the horses on back roads through the forested foothills of Sammael, the ground gradually rising as they made their way to the craggy peaks where House Sammael sat, perched like a vulture surveying the valley for the weak.
Of all of them, ironically enough, Selly was holding up the best.Her mental fragility didn’t translate to a lack of physical endurance.In fact, her long tenures in the wilds had toughened her dramatically.That and extended time with intensive healing from Asa had her looking bright-eyed and brimming with vitality.
In contrast, Gabriel felt like shit, though he was careful not to let on to his companions.Jadren and Han were unlikely to interrogate him, as both of them were unused to traveling by horseback, and so were sore, exhausted, and cranky about it.Alise didn’t complain, but she was also concentrating fiercely on using spirits to disguise evidence of their progress and intentions, as well as to guard against any spies that might be sent against them.They might be planning to knock on the front door, but they didn’t want to give Sammael, or Elal, forewarning or time to set traps for them.
Because Alise’s magic was critical to their approaching House Sammael undetected, only she was accessing Selly’s and Han’s magic.Gabriel’s was slowly returning on its own, but—even though he’d topped off in the arcanium before they left—he was aware of his weakened state still.He wanted to spare the familiars as much as possible until the time came when they’d need everything they had.
They also had to stop more frequently than he would have on his own, for people to refresh themselves and for their horses to rest.Gabriel missed when it had been just him and Vale, when they’d chased after Nic with single-minded intensity.
“This is brutal,” Jadren commented, stretching his body and grimacing, “how you backwoods types live.We invented carriages for a reason, you know.”
“Poor little soft and spoilt wizard,” Selly commented, digging some oranges out of her saddlebags and passing them around.
Jadren scowled at her but took one.“When you’ve bruised your balls against a saddle for a couple of days, you can talk to me about being soft and spoilt.”
She smiled mirthlessly.“Like worm-ridden fruit, are they?”
Han snickered, and Jadren sputtered in outrage a moment before opening his mouth to retort.
“Enough,” Gabriel inserted sharply.He already begrudged every rest they took, feeling Nic’s time ticking away.“We’re supposed to be a team.”
Jadren muttered something darkly, but Gabriel let it go.“Alise, how are you holding up?”
The young wizard had collapsed against a tree trunk, legs splayed, holding an orange without seeming to register she did.Han went to her, setting the orange aside and taking her hands.“Alise, sweetheart,” he said gently.“You need to take some magic.”
“I don’t want to drain you,” she replied, tugging her hands away.“Lord Phel will need you soon.”
“It won’t do us any good to spare Han and Selly only to have your father catch us out here in the woods,” Gabriel said, not for the first time.He’d tried using a shield of reflective moon magic, but it was difficult to cover the entire group, particularly when they were moving.They’d gone back to having Alise combat any questing spirits, of which there were plenty.She was sure either Lord Elal himself was in the vicinity—which seemed like an unlikely coincidence to them all—or one of his protégés.