Bright Familiar by Jeffe Kennedy
~ 12 ~
Gabriel recognized the peace offering—and Nic’s deep reluctance to dwell on her disappointments—for what they were. Taking her slim hand, which still felt too cool to him, lacking her usual fire, he walked with her. It bothered him profoundly that he’d drained her of that fire, of her intoxicating rose-infused wine-red magic, leaving barely a flicker of fire within her.
But he didn’t say so. He was learning, he supposed, not to lay his qualms on her. Nic, in her characteristically passionate fashion, was all in. No matter what it was or what he asked of her, she gave him everything of herself. Whether compelled by the Fascination, the bonding, or her quintessential self, she simply didn’t have it in her to do anything halfway. He couldn’t stop her or change that. In all truth, he didn’t want to. As much as he’d love to save her pain, he also wouldn’t change anything about her.
All he could do, he was slowly beginning to realize, was to do his best to reciprocate. He could right the balance between them by giving her everything of himself in return. So he walked with her down the arcade, joining her in marveling at its beauty both in overall form and its minute details. When they reached the door to the north wing, he hesitated, remembering well how it had been entirely severed long ago.
“Maybe we should stop here,” he ventured, “wait for daylight.”
“Your moonlight gives us enough light to see. Just look already. You know it’s there. You feel it,” she replied implacably.
“How do you know?”
“You said so, back in the arcanium.”
“You trust me that much?”
She gave him an owlish look. “I obviously trust you with a great deal more than that,” she replied, lifting her free hand and rotating her wrist, still bearing the imprints of the silver rope. He flushed at the memory—in chagrin and desire—and had to get a grip on himself. “It’s you who needs to learn to trust,” she continued. “Trust what your wizard senses tell you.”
“Is this part of believing, like my thoughts shaping the magic?”
“Absolutely.” She smiled sunnily. “Also, I can feel it through you.”
Hmm.Braced for an onslaught of marsh water, he opened the door. On the other side, a huge, high-ceilinged ballroom echoed, empty, the smooth marble floor perfectly dry. “Marble,” he observed wryly. “No wonder this was the first wing to sink.”
“Was it?” Nic wandered into the ballroom, turning in circles, head tipped back. Moonlight silvered her slim form as it poured in the floor-to-ceiling windows. They were all missing glass but appeared to be framed in the same style as in the master suite, including doors that would open onto terraces. “I think the ceiling is painted, but it’s too dark to see exactly what it is.”
“According to family lore, yes. The last denizens of House Phel moved out when the north wing sank. The rest of the manse slowly followed.”
“You didn’t tell me there was a ballroom here.”
“I didn’t know,” he admitted. “It’s funny. I never imagined my ancestors having social events like balls.”
“Why not? House Phel was a High House. For a time, it was the highest of them all. Seeing the magic you’re capable of, what the arcanium can do, I understand that very well now.”
He wasn’t sure what to make of that remark, so he put it in the back of his mind to mull over as he followed after her exploratory perambulations. “As you’ve so often observed, House Phel is in Meresin, surrounded by wetlands and far from Convocation Center. This location isn’t exactly the center of society.”
She was peering at a raised dais in an alcove. “For musicians,” she noted. “We could fit an entire orchestra in here.”
“What house would I be mortgaging our orange crop to?”
Laughing, she patted his cheek. “House Euterpe, but they’re second tier, so it would only take a few trees’ worth.” She sighed wistfully. “It’s an expense that can wait.”
“What about the wedding?”
She canted her head. “What about it?”
“Isn’t having a ball part of the festivities? I assumed that’s why you asked if I danced.”
Narrowing her eyes, she studied him. “I assumed your non-reply was a no.”
It was, in fact, a no. “I grew up farming, not gracing ballrooms.”
“I’m not criticizing,” she replied mildly as she continued to the far side of the vast room.
“If you can teach me to raise an entire manse, I assume you can teach me to dance,” he said, catching up to her.
“Well, a great deal of that was your wizard’s intuition,” she said, making her doubt clear.
“Dancing can’t be that different from sword-fighting.”
“I’d prefer not to be gutted at my wedding ball, darling.”
“So noted. No sword on the dance floor.”
She laughed, a free and musical sound he rarely heard from her. “A wedding ball would be fun,” she conceded. “As long as we’re dragging everyone out to the marshes of Meresin. So, the ballroom leads onto the terrace above the gardens on the river side, and out to the lawns north of the arcanium lake.”
“Only best not to call it that,” he reminded her.
“What do you call it?”
“Just… the lake,” he told her, feeling foolish, but she only nodded.
She reached a set of several paired wooden doors on the north wall. “If I don’t miss my guess, this will be…” With a dramatic shove, she pushed a pair of doors open. “Aha. Yes, a feast hall.”
“We need two dining halls?” He followed her into the darker room with open windows only on the river side, so admitting less moonlight. A large fireplace, inlaid with stone, took up most of the opposite wall.
“This one is much larger,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “The other is an intimate dining hall, for family or small parties.”
He refrained from commenting on the absurdity of calling the other dining hall “intimate.”
“We’ll use this one for large banquets, feasts we’ll host in concord with balls, or on special occasions. The rest of the time, this will be the dining hall for students, contracted wizards, minions, and other assorted guests.” She walked briskly from door to door on the north and west walls, opening them and peering in. “Here is a secondary kitchen. And these corridors lead to the guest rooms you mentioned, so the design makes sense. This space is large enough to also serve as a common room. We can set up seating areas near the fireplace on that end, with conversational groupings and also singles for reading and study. A few desks would be nice. There’s space for bookcases, too, which might be convenient for the students—unless you’d rather require that all books be stored in the library? There’s a good argument for that, too.”
That was the second time she’d mentioned students. “I remember agreeing to minions and contracted wizards.” As she envisioned the room for him, it came alive in his mind. A cozy room for gathering in the evenings, filled with study and lively conversation. “But students? And assorted guests,” he added with a frown.
“Students and guests,” she echoed firmly, going to the terrace doors on the river side. “Not marsh rats and water snakes. Don’t make it sound like that. This terrace connects to the one for the ballroom. We can have more seating out here. In good weather, it will be like having an additional room.”
“For all of those students and guests.” He added a grand gesture at the dark and empty hall, the moonlit—and still distinctly marshlike would-be terrace.
“Exactly.” She beamed at him. “Let’s check out the bedrooms.”
The woman was indefatigable. “We should sleep at some point.”
“And we will. I just want to see what we’re facing with these guest rooms, like will it be possible for a person who is not a swamp creature to live in one. You can go to bed if you’re tired, and I’ll join you soon.”
No way was he leaving her to explore on her own. Not with the possibility of more hunters lurking about. Besides, he wasn’t tired, but he worried that she was. “A compromise. We save the south wing for morning.”
“Done,” she happily agreed, charging into a long, shadowy corridor.
“Tell me about these students and guests.”
“Students are like apprentices. Sometimes wizards graduate from Convocation Academy with a mix of mid-level MP scores. They travel around and study with various wizards who are high level in a magic they’d like to explore. Sort of testing out what suits them best. Think of them as proto-minions. There’s three stories?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t trust that staircase.”
Ignoring the warning, she traipsed up the wide wooden stairs that led to a semicircular landing with tall bay windows admitting bright moonlight. She peered at the dark corridor on that level, which he obligingly illuminated. It was almost scary how easily the magic flowed into him, with unimaginable potency.
Nic was already climbing the right-hand flight of stairs to the third floor by the time he joined her. “It’s perfectly solid,” she informed him. “You do good work, so stop worrying.”
“How are these students different from minions?” he asked, rather than argue.
“Minions are already trained and settled in their specialization, or one step away and simply needing a contract with a house to finalize it.” She opened the first door and walked confidently into the shadowy room. “Much the same floor plan as the master suite in the main house,” she noted. “These will be the best suites up here. Maybe a few like this on the ground floor, for people who don’t do stairs well. Otherwise, the grander guests and higher-status wizards will want the view. Second floor will be smaller, student rooms.”
Bemused, he followed along as she made her inventory of the third floor. And the attic rooms under the gables. Then the second floor, which indeed held a series of smaller rooms. Finally the ground floor proved her theory correct, with a blend of smaller rooms and grander suites. He nearly remarked that she knew everything ahead of time, so actually going in each room seemed redundant, but he wisely held his tongue.
At the far north end of the ground floor, they came to a set of impressively large and imposing doors. Nic raised questioning brows at him, and he shook his head. “I don’t know. Guest suites for the army?”
“Ha ha. Given the amount of water here, we’d do better with a navy.”
“Yes, but they can sleep on the boats.”
“Wow. Remind me not to enlist in your outfit. These are locked.”
“A sign, perhaps, that exploring the barracks can wait until tomorrow.”
“You promised the entire north wing. The south wing is waiting until tomorrow. I’m betting it will be a mirror of this wing, sans arcade and ballroom.”
“I’m fairly certain I made no such promise.”
“We can’t stop now. We’re having too much fun!” The end of the corridor was decidedly dark, the only light from the moonlight flooding the nearby bedroom, but her broad smile came through in her voice.
Huffing out a laugh, he kissed her, surprised to discover that he was having fun, bizarre as that seemed. Pulling moonlight from the adjoining room, he lit up the unprepossessing cul de sac. “Fine. Unlock the doors and unleash the monster within.”
“You laugh, but you never know in a house built by wizards. You’ll have to do the unlocking. The lock is magical and not one I can trip. I bet it’s some special Phel-magic mechanism.”
He gasped theatrically. “What will House Iblis say?”
She snorted at him. “It’s over seventy-five years old, so it’s not competing. You really need to learn Convocation trademark law.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.” The lock didn’t seem to respond to his magic, either water or moon. Hmm.
“It might require a physical component,” Nic suggested. “It would be inconvenient to summon a wizard anytime someone needed to go through this door. Plus there’s a keyhole.”
“A magic key?” He could do that much. Scooping up a handful of moonlight, he let it pool silver bright in his palm, holding it near the lock. A silver key formed, rising from his palm and sliding into the keyhole. With an audible click, the lock released, the doors opening inward slightly.
“Nicely done,” Nic said, warming his heart. “Your intuition is amazingly well honed, once you get that thinky-thinky brain out of the way. Let’s see if I can use the key or if it has to be you.”
He handed the key over, observing as she drew the doors together, turning the key in the lock. Nothing. As soon as she removed the key, they swung inward again. “Alas,” she sighed, handing him the key again. “A wizard thing. You try it.”
The doors locked easily for him, then unlocked again. “That’s not fair,” he growled.
“Along with life and Meresin weather,” she quipped, pushing the doors open and forging boldly ahead into the pitch darkness.
“Hey, we have fair weather,” he protested gamely, playing along. If she wanted to joke these things away, then fine. But he’d revisit this lock. “What is this place?” he asked, eyes adjusting to the gloom enough for him to see that it seemed to be a large windowless room. Even his moonlight only penetrated so far into what felt like a vast interior.
“A workroom, I’m guessing,” her voice came back to him. “Ouch, shit!”
“Nic, are you all right?” He couldn’t see her at all, and her warning about monsters came back with a hair-raising chill. Or hunters.
“Barked my shin is all. I’m coming back your way. This might have to wait for tomorrow.
“I think it is tomorrow.” Putting an arm around her shoulders, he turned her back to the doorway. “To bed?” he asked hopefully.
“Probably best,” she agreed on another sigh, leaning against him and sliding an arm around his waist. “Lock those doors, though.”
“To a huge empty room?”
“A huge, theoretically empty workroom, steeped in all kinds of magic, where wizards practice spells, enchantments, and other questionable pursuits. As students, minions, and junior contracted wizards are wont to do.”
“And why are they wont to do that?” he asked, only partly in jest.
“Well, you’re not letting anyone else use your arcanium, correct?”
Imagining someone else in that space that had become so personal, so intimate—conflicted as he was about the feelings and desires the arcanium stirred in him—gave him an immediate wave of revulsion. Even if Nic hadn’t warned him about having another wizard’s magic in his arcanium, he wouldn’t have wanted to share it. The possessive, even territorial, ferocity took him by surprise. What came of giving free rein to those mercurial wizard’s instincts, no doubt.
“Correct,” he answered, hearing the growl in his own voice.
“Wizards need a place to practice,” Nic continued, so neutrally that she clearly sensed his strong feelings about the arcanium, was amused by them, and was not going to comment. “Practice, especially among students and junior wizards, can mean mistakes. There’s a reason that space has no windows and was magically sealed.”
He locked the doors.
In the morning,he woke before Nic did. A rare occurrence—unprecedented, now that he thought about it—and further evidence that the working in the arcanium had exhausted her more than she’d let on. She lay on her back, arms and legs exuberantly flung wide, as restless and abandoned in sleep as she was awake. Sunshine streamed in the windows, warming the room and gilding her strong profile, coaxing red-gold highlights from her dark hair.
Tempting as it was to touch her, he carefully slid out of bed instead, doing his best not to wake her. She didn’t move or even alter her deep breathing, so he suspected she might sleep through a hurricane. He’d teased her before about the care and feeding of familiars, a concept she’d firmly rejected, but clearly he’d have to be the one to make sure she didn’t overextend in yielding up her magic.
She’d made a caustic remark the evening before about wizards who were too good to avail themselves of grooming imps, so he found her bottled one and had it shave him clean. Then, because Nic had also said the imp had trimmed and shaped up her lopsided hair for her, he tried instructing it to even up his own. It was a bit odd, watching the flickering, amorphous green being move around his head, the hair magically disappearing. Nic said they absorbed the hair and skin cells, delighting in the feast. Something that made him uneasy, which she’d only laughed at.
By the time he emerged from the bathing chamber, Nic was awake, though bleary enough that she barely grunted in reply to his greeting, then bumped her shoulder against the doorway on her way into the bathing chamber. Seeming not to notice, she yawned and corrected course, closing the door behind her. Breakfast had been left for them outside the master suite, so he busied himself fixing plates for them both. Nic emerged, looking fresh and lovely, but with shadows under her eyes. She sat and ate methodically, with none of her usual banter and teasing, so he stayed quiet, too. He was just considering suggesting that she could go back to bed for a while when she lifted her eyes and gave him a long look.
“Stop worrying,” she said. “This is normal.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he protested.
“You were thinking I should go back to bed. I’m not going to. There’s a great deal to be done today, and I’m perfectly capable of doing it.”
“You’re reading my thoughts now?”
“I don’t have to. You think very loudly,” she griped, sounding very like someone who’d imbibed too much wine and regretted it in the morning. “It could be that the pregnancy is making me more tired than usual,” she conceded.
He hated to pounce on her slightest mention of the pregnancy, but she’d also made it clear that she didn’t like to be interrogated about it. So he had to take the opportunities offered. “How are you feeling that way?” he tendered.
“You can ask about the baby, Gabriel,” she replied wryly. “It’s yours, after all.”
“Ours,” he corrected. “And you requested before that I not ask you about it.”
She gazed at him blankly for a moment. “Oh! Back on the barge of doom. I rescind that request. I was engaged in some unhealthy denial. To answer your question, I think everything is fine, but it will be nice to have the Refoel healer give an assessment. They should arrive today. I’m just hoping that the Byssan, Ophiel, and Ratisbon wizards arrive first so they can furnish a few rooms.” She cocked her head, just as something magical brushed across his senses. He sprang to his feet, seizing his sword and casting about for the source of the disturbance. Nic waved a hand at him. “Wizards,” she informed him. “Someone is arriving, so you can almost certainly stand down.”
“We’ll see,” he replied, striding to the suite doors.
“If it is an enemy, you’re better off using magic,” she said, catching up and descending the great staircase with him.
Not with her so depleted. He wasn’t going to draw on any magic—hers or what they’d stored in the arcanium—more than necessary. But he didn’t say so, because he was learning, if slowly, how to manage his familiar. “I’ve noticed wizards don’t expect the manual chop-chop method,” he said, slanting her a grin as he tossed her caustic assessment of his methods back at her. “Could be effective.”
“Not if they melt your sword first.”
“House El-Adrel with the enchanted artifacts?”
“House Hagith. Metalworkers.”
“Duly noted. Are we expecting a Hagith wizard this morning?”
“No,” she admitted, stepping to the side as he opened the great doors to the manse that led onto the long porch that bordered the front of House Phel. Sunlight poured in, making him blink after the interior gloom, and he found himself with Nic on looking forward to having more windows uncovered.
A sled glided around the lake, moving at a speed no mortal steed could match, which meant it was elemental powered. Four people sat within, looking about and occasionally pointing at something. Beside him, Nic let out a soft breath of disappointment, so faint he almost didn’t hear it. Sheathing his sword, as the group didn’t look all that threatening, he set a hand on her back, giving her an inquiring look.
Giving him a wry smile, she shook her head slightly. “I was hoping it would be my dowry and trousseau. Supplies before people would be optimal, but we get what we get when we get it. How do I look?” She sleeked her palms along the short sides of her hair, then shook out her skirts.
She wore the soft purple linen gown, the one with the neckline that showed off a great deal of her bosom—and the ring of bruises in contrasting green decorating her collarbones. Personally, he was hoping one of their impending guests would be the healer. “You look incredibly beautiful,” he told her in perfect honesty, gaze lingering on her tantalizing breasts.
She wrinkled her nose. “Not do I look good enough to bed. Do I look presentable for Convocation company?”
“Both,” he said decisively, then picked up her hand and kissed it, rewarded with a dry but sincere laugh. “Let’s take in the view while we wait.” Interlacing her delicate fingers with his, he led her down the broad steps and onto the thick lawn. Reaching the verge of the pond, they turned, taking in the full grandeur of House Phel.
Nic whistled, low and long. “I have to say, I’m impressed despite myself. Goodbye, decrepit manse. Hello, House Phel.”
He nodded, not quite summoning the words. A surprising wave of emotion welled up in him, a bewildering tide of grief, joy, pride, fury, and cold vindication. Nic had said he’d inherited the Phel magic. In that moment he wondered if he’d also come into possession of the legacy of those final generations of Phel wizards. The bone-deep love of this house and exhilaration at seeing it intact, rising grandly against the misty blue Meresin sky felt not entirely his.
“We did this,” he said in a hushed tone, squeezing Nic’s hand. He looked down to find her gazing back with eyes glimmering green with similar emotion. “If nothing else, you and I did this.”
“Yes, we did.” She transferred her gaze to the manse. “This is a good thing. Special and important.”
“The south wing does appear to be a mirror of the north,” he observed after a moment, and she giggled.
“What a practical observation, Lord Phel,” she accused with a mischievous smile. “I may be rubbing off on you.”
He nearly made an off-color remark about her rubbing on him, when one of the visitors hailed them. “Hey there, the house,” a dark-skinned young man called. “Lord and Lady Phel?”
“Remember,” Nic advised under her breath. “Arrogant, powerful, lord of all you survey, including me.” She tried to tug her hand out of his, but he held on, suppressing a smile at her muttered imprecations about obstinate wizards.
Probably his impulse to wave in welcome wouldn’t fit the arrogant image, Nic recommended, so he straightened instead, inclining his chin slightly as the sled coasted to a stop before them. Three women and one man, all brightly dressed as if for a festival, bowed their heads in greeting. None of them could be any older than Nic. One young woman smiled directly at Nic, a happy glint of friendship in it.
The young man leapt out and bowed fully. “I am Asa, wizard and emissary of House Refoel, submitting my application to be contracted to House Phel.” He produced a rolled scroll with a flourish, stamped with the Convocation seal. “My MP scores and other relevant documentation.”
Gabriel took the scroll, bemused.
Asa seemed pleased, giving another bow. “I and my house welcome House Phel’s invitation for placement. We support and celebrate House Phel’s reinstatement, and we look forward to a strong alliance with the Convocation’s newest house. My familiar, Laryn.” He held out a hand without looking, and a dainty, fair-skinned brunette stepped out of the sled. She curtsied to Gabriel, eyes demurely lowered, then slid a curious glance at Nic, who nodded to her minutely.
“I hope,” the Refoel wizard continued, “that I will be an acceptable addition to House Phel.”
Gabriel realized—after a slight and awkward pause—that it was up to him to say something to the Refoel wizard’s obviously rehearsed speech. Clearly he should have Nic teach him some polite responses to these overtures. Arrogant, powerful, lord of all you survey. “House Phel appreciates the good will of House Refoel,” he replied. “Lady Phel and I appreciate the long journey you’ve made to join—” At the hiss of Nic’s breath, he hastily revised his words. “To introduce yourselves and apply for the position.” He waggled the scroll. “I shall review your documents.”
That was the correct approach, because Asa nodded agreeably, and Nic relaxed. Asa’s wizard-black gaze did linger on their joined hands, a glimmer of assessing curiosity there. Belatedly, it occurred to him that it might look as if he meant to access his familiar’s magic rather than holding his wife’s hand out of affection. Ah well, done was done, and he liked holding Nic’s hand.
The other two women now alighted from the sled, both golden haired and clear skinned, so alike they could be sisters. The one with black eyes took the lead, bowing to him and giving Nic a nod as well, presenting him with a similar scroll. “I am Sage of House Byssan and this is my familiar, Quinn Byssan.” Quinn bobbed a curtsy, smiling widely at Nic, who remained quiet and still, but her hand quivered with happy response. “House Refoel was kind enough to give us a lift, as House Byssan is on Refoel lands.” She gave a nod of thanks to Asa, then looked past Gabriel to the manse. “I understand you need some windows.”
“Indeed we do,” Gabriel replied, far more comfortable with Sage’s craftsperson’s approach.
“Point us at where you want us to start, then,” Sage replied agreeably.
Gabriel looked to Nic, hoping she’d take over. Thankfully, she did. “Welcome to House Phel,” she said with a deep curtsy. “Have you all breakfasted? Perhaps you’d like to rest after your journey. I apologize in advance that the manse is still being renovated, so we do not yet have rooms prepared for you. I promise some will be ready by the end of the day.”
“Quinn and I are fine,” Sage replied, glancing at Quinn and receiving a nod of affirmation.
Gabriel felt some tense part of him release at the obviously easy relationship between that pairing.
“We work best in regular bursts, with rests between, but we can go all day.”
“Thank you,” Nic replied warmly, and Gabriel began to understand that she could play gracious hostess and solicitous lady of the house in contrast to his forbidding arrogance. “I can show you where to begin. Wizard Asa?”
“I’m fine also,” he replied, notably not checking with his familiar. Asa’s gaze went to the bruises around Nic’s throat. “Laryn and I are early risers, and we all passed a comfortable night not far from here. Once you task Wizard Sage with your lists, Lady Phel, perhaps we can discuss a place where I can see patients. I’m happy to examine your ladyship first, if you like.”
“Oh, I don’t—” Nic began, tucking her hand in her skirts and Gabriel knew she’d been about to cover her bruises.
“That would be excellent,” he interrupted, giving her a quelling look. There were some advantages to playing imperious lord and master. “Lady Phel will be delighted to be your first patient.”
Her eyes glittered with some unspoken retort, but she acceded with an excellent pretense of meekness. The Refoel wizard accepted the declaration with a slight bow, his dark face mild. And yet, Gabriel felt judged by the other wizard, who clearly assumed Gabriel had left those marks on his familiar. He opened his mouth to explain, but closed it even before he caught Nic’s warning glance. Right. The wizard he was pretending to be wouldn’t be sorry for physically abusing his familiar. Likely he wouldn’t even notice.
Nic gave him a deep curtsy, not attempting to withdraw her hand from his. “With your permission, Lord Phel, I’ll give wizards Asa and Sage a tour of the manse. I know you have correspondence awaiting you in the library.”
Appreciating her deft delivery of the appropriate cues, he released her hand, feeling oddly bereft without the contact. And also not particularly thrilled at the reminder of all the missives—and those creepy couriers—likely awaiting his attention. When he’d decided to restore House Phel, he’d imagined more glorious battles and less paperwork. Didn’t that just figure?
“Thank you, Lady Phel.” He paused awkwardly, hoping it wasn’t apparent. “Join me there after your examination, please.”
“As you wish, Lord Phel,” she acknowledged humbly. Arrogant, powerful, lord of all you survey, including me.
The more he learned about Lord Phel, the more he loathed the guy.
