Bright Familiar by Jeffe Kennedy
~ 7 ~
Nic spent a miserable night alone. It didn’t help that she didn’t know how to light the fire and it was uncomfortably cold without it. She missed having an elemental-heated house with a surprising twist of homesickness. Though she searched through her things, she couldn’t find the little fire elemental Missus Ryma had given her in Wartson. She hadn’t seen it since they arrived, when it must have been unloaded with the other supplies in their wagon.
She was warm enough under the covers—and still too upset to be hungry—but she woke what felt like every hour to wonder where Gabriel might be sleeping. Then told herself she didn’t care. Then reminded herself that this was as it should be: with no more illusions between them that they were anything other than what they fundamentally were. Except that she shouldn’t be sleeping in this luxurious master suite—luxurious by House Phel’s diminished standards, anyway—while the lord of the manor was… where? Sleeping with Vale in the stables probably, the stubborn oaf.
She didn’t care. This was as it should be. The sooner she could reconcile herself to meek obedience, regardless of how wrongheaded and shortsighted Gabriel was being, the easier it would be. Somewhere in all his prattle of partnership and mutual bonding and working together, she’d lost sight of the one thing she’d promised herself to be always brutally honest with herself about. She was a familiar, and as such, she was consigned to a life of powerlessness. It was just a bit of priceless irony that she’d schemed her way out of belonging to the likes of Sammael and his uncaring cruelty, only to bind herself to a wizard who scrupled to use her that way at all.
You clearly don’t know your own mind.
Was that true? She didn’t know anymore. Which, she had to admit in the dark and restless privacy of her lonely bed, went to prove Gabriel’s point. How much of her longing for the sexual magic of the arcanium came from the Fascination driving her to want those darkly tantalizing fantasies? Did she crave Gabriel’s chains because it was in her nature as a familiar to want to be controlled, or because it was him? Certainly her body had never ached with this sexual frustration before him. But then, he’d been the first to draw any kind of sexual response from her. Before he’d walked into her tower room, the encounters with other wizards had left her cold at best and feeling filthy at worst. I refuse to demean you that way.
What was wrong with her that she thought she wanted that—no, that she knew she wanted and needed it from him—and that it didn’t feel demeaning? Sammael had demeaned her with nary a chain or whip in sight. He’d flayed her pride on a profound level and left her bleeding and broken without a mark on her.
Gabriel had hurt her heart, and more the fool she for letting him do it. She’d known better, from the very beginning, than to let herself feel anything more for him than the Fascination demanded. She’d gotten caught up was all, caught up in the dream of raising House Phel—literally and figuratively—from the muck and making it into a… what? Be honest with yourself, she ordered herself sternly. This is no time to indulge in denial.
“Into a home,” she whispered into the darkness. The image she’d evoked for Gabriel, of the sweet farm girl with her sunny ways and simple wants, haunted her now. Nic would never be like that. Even at her meekest and most obedient, she couldn’t be what Gabriel really wanted. What she honestly didn’t blame him for wanting.
She just wished she didn’t care.
When the sky finally began to lighten, she got up, deciding that her energy would be best spent on some useful task than fretting and worrying over what she couldn’t change. The rain continued to drizzle down, a decided chill in the air, so she donned the burgundy velvet riding habit again. It needed to be cleaned, which meant washing it herself—not a great option, as she wasn’t sure of the method—asking someone to wash it for her, or using a cleaning imp she didn’t have.
None were going to happen that morning, obviously. She just hoped she didn’t stink. Because it made her feel better, she applied the Aratron cosmetics Gabriel had acquired for her in Ophiel, setting the grooming imp to styling her hair. The short sides and back didn’t need much, but the looser curls on top had gotten themselves into an astonishing amount of disarray during her restless night. It would’ve been better to have it all equally short, but she’d succumbed to vanity and a foolish desire to look pretty for Gabriel. You look more beautiful than ever. The way he’d looked at her as he’d said that… She sighed for that, and not in a dreamy way.
Setting him firmly out of her thoughts, she went down through the quiet house, feeling quite alone in the chilly dimness. The library windows, save the one glassed-in set, had been boarded over against the rain, plunging the place into gloom, tempting her already glum mood to follow. None of the workers from the day before had shown, probably because Gabriel hadn’t told them to. How aggravating that she couldn’t round them up and set them to work herself. Of course, it was still early. Maybe they’d turn up later.
Fortunately, several couriers waited for her in the rafters of the library, quietly roosting until her arrival triggered them to deliver their various messages. The Calliope paper shipment had arrived overnight also, along with several decent self-replenishing quills. It was probably just as well that the Calliope courier had simply deposited the order and left, sparing Gabriel the admittedly uncanny sight of a giant angel.
Not exactly happily occupied, but at least busy enough to ignore her misery, Nic set to replying to the accounts-related messages, then to penning the final versions of Gabriel’s replies to Iblis, the Convocation, and her papa. She labored the longest over the last, nearly reneging on suggesting that grape vines be sent in lieu of coin. It was part of that dream of making a home, really, to consider cultivating a vineyard to produce wine, not something a new familiar ought to be taking on.
She also knew, however, that Gabriel would think poorly of her if she backed out of it. There wouldn’t be another opportunity like this. Papa refused to sell his precious vines, even grafted ones, to any other house. He wouldn’t be happy about giving her a share, but he’d do it. He’d loved her well, and despite his fury with and disappointment in her, Papa would also play fair. He’d said Gabriel deserved a chance to make House Phel succeed, and this would be a good long-term investment.
The sense of fresh water and bright silver alerted her to Gabriel’s approach, and she braced herself, neatly stacking the missives awaiting his signature, then folded her hands and waited, back straight. He appeared in the library doorway a moment later, wizard-black eyes landing on her with peculiar intensity. The silver moon magic shimmered molten in him, and the water aspect steamed in the cool air.
Still angry, then. Ah, well.
“I didn’t expect you to be up so early,” he said, coming into the library and assessing the room. “Why are you sitting here in the cold and dark?”
“That fire elemental I had must be packed away somewhere with the other things we brought from Ophiel, and I wasn’t sure how to light a fire manually. Or where to find the supplies.” She gestured to the pale light coming through the windows beside her. “I had light enough. These are ready for you to sign, if you approve of the final versions.”
He eyed her, the scent of steam more vivid, like a teakettle on boil. “It’s like that, then,” he said, and came just close enough to pick up the first of the missives. Setting it down with a grunt, he picked up the next, reading them one after the other in rapid succession without comment. Tossing the final one down, he studied her, wizard-black eyes inscrutable. She tried not to squirm under that relentless gaze, tried not to reveal how it aroused her, too.
If only she didn’t want him so badly, all of this would be so much easier. Or, if only he wanted her the way she wanted him to have her.
“Any revisions?” she asked, pretending to be calm, even as her heart thudded in her breast.
“No.” He fell silent again, and she thought maybe he’d say nothing more. Then he added, “You have an elegant hand.”
“Nothing like a Convocation Academy education to drill one in such disciplines,” she replied, instantly regretting the words, as the thought of discipline roused her further and made his shuttered gaze go even colder.
“They’re excellent, of course,” he finally said. “Any reason not to send them off?”
“Not so long as you approve.”
His jaw flexed, but he nodded. “I want to say that you don’t have to wait for my approval, but you wouldn’t listen to that, would you?”
“I do need you to sign them,” she said instead of answering, handing him the quill with a lift of her brows.
Looking slightly chagrined, he took it, and—after examining it with interest—signed the stack of letters. She busied herself with sending off the ones she could via the various mercantile couriers, making a stack of the ones he needed to send a signal to send, aware of his eyes on her all the while. Much as she was pleased to have all those tasks off her list, she was almost sorry to finish. Folding her hands in her skirts, she turned back to Gabriel and his burning gaze.
She’d already listed the relevant house crests, so he made quick work of sending the missives. Once they’d cleared the desk, he studied her, thoughts obscure behind his brooding mask, though hints of steam lingered in the air.
“I thought we’d practice working together on some wizardry,” he finally said.
“Of course.”
Looking annoyed by her agreement, he opened his mouth to say something, then firmly closed it again. “I’ll show you what I was trying to do with the wing that sunk again. I’ve been thinking that if we work piece by piece, it shouldn’t require huge expenditures of magic all at once.”
Privately, she didn’t agree that it would work very well at all that way, but she was also quite certain they didn’t have enough magic stored up between them to raise the entire manse at once. “All right,” she agreed, waiting for him to lead the way.
He didn’t move, glaring at her. “Are you going to be this way from now on?”
Biting back a sigh, she didn’t ask “what way?” like she really wanted to. He was teetering on the edge of fury, and she didn’t want to fight with him. Abruptly weary, feeling every lost hour of sleep from the night before, she searched for a reply. “I’m trying to be agreeable.”
“Like this sweet farm-girl wife you seem to think I want?” he shot back through his teeth.
Reining in her temper, she kept as calm as she could. “I don’t like fighting with you, Gabriel. I apologize for the things I said last night. I’m doing my best to get along with you.”
“By being obedient,” he sneered.
“I don’t know what else to do!” she fired back, losing her resolve and nearly shouting at him. “I don’t know who you want me to be.”
“I want you to be yourself.”
No, he didn’t, but she couldn’t say so without contradicting him, so she set her teeth and nodded. “All right, I’ll try to do that.”
“Stop being so agreeable!” He took a step closer, hands flexing as if he wanted to seize her. So tempting to taunt him so he would, but that would only lead them back in the same circle.
“Do you even hear yourself?” she asked as calmly as she could, refusing to give ground. “You’re yelling at me for being agreeable.”
A low sound of frustration snarled out of him, but he took a step back. “Fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to fight with you either.”
Could have fooled her. He was spoiling for a fight. More, he was boiling over with frustration, sexual and otherwise. And the fool wizard wouldn’t do what he needed to, for either of them. “Let’s go to work on that wing, then,” she suggested.
With a stiff nod, he turned, waiting for her to step up and walk beside him.
“Any luck finding Seliah?” she asked as they went down the main hall and turned into the dining hall and scene of the dinner debacle the night before. She raised a brow at the shattered dishes and the floor dusted with silver. Gabriel had told her once how, when his magic had first come upon him, that he’d awakened to find he’d layered the floor silver with transformed moonlight in his sleep. She hadn’t asked him what he’d been dreaming about when that happened, but this scene was like looking at her own emotional residue from the restless night, damningly scattered across the floor. She wouldn’t care for there to be such glaring evidence of her own rawness, so she refrained from commenting.
“No luck there,” Gabriel replied steadily, meeting her questioning gaze as if daring her to say something about the mess. “I have my best trackers looking for her, but she’s disappeared into the marshes. It could be days before anyone locates her.”
Something there he was leaving out. “Can you find her?”
Slowly, he nodded. “I always could, though over the years I stopped chasing her down every time she disappeared. It seemed to help her, to be away from people. At least, she always came back calmer. Does that sound congruent with what she’s struggling with as a latent familiar?”
Nic nearly said there was no such thing as a latent familiar—only someone living among people without the knowledge to recognize her nature—but she and Gabriel seemed to have established a kind of detente, so she didn’t want to disrupt that.
“I don’t really know,” she replied honestly. “All I know about untapped familiars is from stories, and the cautions of my teachers at Convocation Academy.” She braced herself for a scathing observation from him on that source of information, but he only nodded thoughtfully. Maybe he was trying, too. “I can tell you that the magic builds up inside, and it can feel like…”
How to describe it?It felt a lot like sexual frustration, like needing to come and not being able to, which was decidedly not an analogy she wanted to use with him when they’d managed to find a fragile peace. And he might not react well to thinking of his little sister in those terms.
“You can be honest with me,” he said, sounding almost gentle, then raked a hand through his disordered silver curls, the black streak standing out like a lightning bolt made of night. “I realize that I’ve been asking you to be honest and then punishing you when I don’t like the answer.”
“Did Vale give you that counsel?” she asked with a smile. It helped more than she’d have imagined to have the tension between them relieved somewhat.
Gabriel cocked his head. “How did you know I slept in the stable?”
“There aren’t that many dry places nearby to sleep,” she pointed out, then risked edging close enough to pluck a wisp of straw from his sleeve. “And there’s physical evidence.”
He grimaced. “My clothes are in the master suite, and I didn’t want to disturb your rest.”
Pressing her lips together, she held back the offer to sleep elsewhere, even though that made the most sense and would fit Convocation expectations. That kind of suggestion would only compound the problems between them, but what else could she say? He wanted honesty, which she realized in that moment, wasn’t something she’d been trained to give. She’d learned the ways of power and manipulation, behaviors that were only exacerbating the gulf between her and her wizard. Gabriel wasn’t a Convocation wizard and never would be, no matter how she tried to coach him to behave like one.
“You wouldn’t have bothered me,” she said on impulse, “because I wasn’t asleep. I tossed and turned all night, because I was upset also.” She waved a hand at the silver on the floor. “I just don’t leave as much of a trail,” she added with a wry smile.
He huffed out a laugh, quickly swallowed, then fastened his gaze on her, worlds of pain in it. “Vale said I was an ass.”
She took the peace offering for what it was, her heart feeling oddly tender, raw and stinging. “I may have behaved badly.”
He reached out and set a careful hand on her velvet-clad arm. “I think you had cause. I am brooding and prone to outbursts of anger. And you were spot on that I…” He swallowed, squeezed her arm lightly, searched her face. “I don’t like the things I feel sometimes, as if I’m battling some monster inside that I don’t dare give into.”
“I know that feeling well,” she replied softly, putting her hand over his. “Maybe we can work together to figure it out?”
His lips quirked. “That almost sounds like a partnership.”
“Yes, well.” She rolled her eyes and let out a sigh of the long-suffering. “My wizard is odd and demanding in strange ways. It’s incumbent on me to accommodate him.”
A muscle ticced in his cheek, and for a moment she thought she’d teased him too far, but then, with a sigh, he wryly acknowledged that. Sliding his hand down her arm until he caught her by the wrist, he lifted her hand slowly enough that she could pull away, bending over it and holding her gaze the whole time. When she didn’t resist, he brushed a kiss over the back of her hand, his wizard-black eyes intent on hers. “You honor me with your tolerance,” he said very quietly, and she shivered for no good reason, as if he’d said something else, something far more intimate.
“Shall we do some magic, wizard?” she asked with deliberate archness, not entirely comfortable with the emotional intensity.
Gabriel straightened, still holding her hand, his thumb passing over the back of it in a subtle caress, and regarded her with a considering look. No doubt seeing right through her. But he let her off the hook. “Yes, let’s try.” With a wave of his hand, nails flew out of the boards covering one archway, the planks and nails falling to the floor with a startling clatter.
She managed not to show her startlement and raised a brow instead. “Silver nails. Clever.”
“I thought so,” he replied with a smug smile, gesturing for her to precede him into the dank hallway that had been revealed. “They’re too soft for most uses, but handy for things like that so I can come and go without acquiring brawn.” He slid her a smile for that term. “Speaking of which, where are the workers?”
“No one has showed up yet. I assumed because you hadn’t told them to.”
He looked irritated, his jaw tight. “So noted.”
“You should practice using your magic without physical gestures,” she said, only partly to divert his attention, hoping the advice wouldn’t further annoy him.
He glanced sideways at her, unoffended. “Your father used his fingers to invoke magic, and the Convocation proctor even more so.”
“Showing off for you,” she explained. The floor beneath her feet gave soggily, but wasn’t underwater. They’d entered some sort of salon, probably one that had been used to entertain guests while they waited for dinner to be served. “In the first case, anyway. If Papa didn’t want you to see what he was doing, you wouldn’t have any warning. What magic did he work?”
“Forcing your mother into her alternate form,” Gabriel answered, a note of dawning realization in his tone. “Ah. He wanted me to know he had control of her.”
“Very likely. Papa doesn’t do anything by accident.”
“And the proctor?” They’d crossed the large and distinctly waterlogged salon to another boarded-over archway. Though he made no movement, the silver nails eased out, falling with the boards to reveal a solid door.
“Well done. Proctors tend to be into theatrics, and that one in particular. The ones assigned to monitor the Betrothal Trials and monitor the oracle heads are pretty low-level Hanneil wizards. The oracle heads don’t require all that much magic, barely more than a trigger, so their minders tend to eke out as much drama from the position as possible. Mine had guessed I was minded to run, so I imagine she was especially puffed up with borrowed authority.”
Gabriel snickered, flashing her a genuinely amused smile. Ah, that was good to see. “You have nailed it precisely, Lady Veronica.”
She shrugged a little, embarrassed by how much his approval warmed her. “Should I be concerned about what’s on the other side of this door that you haven’t opened it yet?”
“A lot of water,” he admitted. “I need to concentrate to hold it back.”
Holding out her hand, she raised her brows when he hesitated. “First rule of working together: don’t wait until you’re drained or desperate to use—that is, to call on my assistance,” she hastily rephrased when he frowned. “By preserving your own natural magic, you’ll be better prepared to handle any surprises, or to handle something on your own should we be separated. You might need to protect me, for example,” she added, which was exactly the right note to play, his frown fading into thoughtful acknowledgment.
Taking her hand, he interlaced his fingers with hers, more like a lover than a wizard drawing from his familiar, but she didn’t argue, especially when he gave her a quelling look. Some arguments went unsaid, she supposed. “Like I did with calling the couriers?” he asked.
“Yes. Start small, then work your magic, trying to use me as the source instead of your own reserves.”
“How do I know if I’m draining you too much?”
She nearly quipped that he’d know when she collapsed on the soggy floorboards, but she could just imagine his reaction to that. Look at her, learning discretion. How to Manage Your Squeamish Wizard 101 should’ve been a Convocation Academy class. But then, no one else had a wizard unwilling to use them to the hilt. “Maybe that’s part of my assignment,” she reasoned. “I’ll have to let you know how much you’re drawing from me—will that work?”
He gave her a considering look. “That’s not something that’s usually done between a wizard and familiar, is it?”
Relieved not to have to dance around that topic, she smiled. “No, it’s not. So, new territory for me, too.”
“There’s also the reciprocal bonding,” he noted. “Maybe I can gauge how much I’m drawing from you.”
“Worth a try.” Though privately, she doubted it. She doubted that there was any reciprocity to their bonding in the first place. In the second, she’d never heard of a wizard gauging their familiar’s reserves, but that might simply sound so unlikely to her because no wizards bothered themselves to try.
Gabriel’s magic wound around her like an embrace, most intense where their hands were joined, but also washing over her like a gentle spring rain, like the fall of moonlight on naked skin. Her body responded as if he’d caressed her with sensual intent, but his attention was focused on the far side of the heavy door. She couldn’t sense exactly what he was doing, so she concentrated on monitoring the magic draw from her own reservoirs.
It made for an interesting exercise. At Convocation Academy, they’d studied the principles of how a familiar yielded magic to their wizard, as that information was equally valuable no matter how the students manifested. Even in the Advanced Training for Familiars, however, none of her teachers had mentioned techniques for measuring how much magic she had or the rate of drain. All the focus had been on opening up most fully, offering magic without reservation. Very likely they hadn’t wanted familiars to get any ideas about resisting the demands of their wizards.
For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder if she could restrict that channel of flow. Not now, but Gabriel would probably be willing to experiment with her. Even more likely, he’d probably be over the moon—heh—if they determined she could cut him off if she wanted to. In the meanwhile, she concentrated on monitoring the slow trickle of her magic. He was developing more finesse, but she also wondered if he was accessing enough. He’d been working at the task for longer than he did with most of his magic use. Like all naturally talented types, he tended to be profligate with his magic, blissfully overconfident and unaware of how badly tapped out he could get. Particularly with his dual-magic nature, he’d become accustomed to simply switching to the other when he’d drained one.
Much as she disliked interrupting his focus—and with a Convocation wizard, she’d never dare—she quietly asked, “Are you making progress?”
He grimaced and blew out a breath. “You haven’t said if I’m drawing too much, but I think this isn’t enough to do the job without augmenting from my own.”
She couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her then. “Oh, honey, you’re not even close to drawing too much. I can barely feel the trickle.”
“Seriously?” He raised a dark brow. “Your magic feels so robust to me.”
“Take,” she murmured with a smile, deliberately evoking their sexual union. “Have. It’s all for you.”
“It’s yours,” he corrected.
“I can’t use it. You can. Use it for me.” The silvery tendrils of magic tightened around her, evocative and deeply stirring, the sense of him drinking from her growing stronger and profoundly erotic. It hadn’t felt like this when she’d practiced with wizards at the academy, or even with Gabriel before this, so it must be a result of the bonding. His wizard-black eyes rested on her face, his own expression tight with sexual need, so she knew he felt it, too. No wonder bonded familiars looked to be in the throes of ecstasy at times, even when berated by harsh wizard masters. This felt… amazing. “Yes,” she purred, letting him see her pleasure. “That’s very, very good.”
“All right,” he replied, voice hoarse with desire. “That seems to be enough.” With his free hand, he turned the old-fashioned handle and pushed the door open, revealing one of the most extraordinary sights Nic had ever glimpsed.
A wall of green water hovered at waist height, tumbling a bit at the top from the force of Gabriel’s magic, but otherwise glassy clear. The sun had risen higher, burning through and banishing the misty rain, and daylight streamed through a long row of open arches on either side of the room. The arcade sloped down at a decidedly disastrous angle, but the hall retained a bit of its once-elegant grandeur. The ceiling above rose high with flying buttresses, lovingly detailed with architectural flourishes popular centuries before.
And where the sunlight streamed through the water held back by the invisible wall of magic, fish swam within, brightly gold and cobalt blue. A water snake swam past, rippling with effortless ease. “Amazing,” she whispered, at a loss for anything wittier.
“It has sunk more than it was before I messed with it,” Gabriel said, studying the slant with a frown. “I was hoping they were exaggerating, but apparently not. I don’t know if this wing is worth saving.”
“I can see why you started here,” she replied, aware of the reverence in her tone. “This is a gorgeous arcade. I know of nothing like it still in existence.”
Gabriel smiled down at her, a rare, fully delighted expression, nothing brooding in it. “I’m glad you agree.” His gaze lifted to roam over the soaring ceiling, the graceful arches that miraculously retained their integrity despite long immersion and neglect.
“Why hasn’t all this wood rotted long ago?”
“You know those trees with the big hand-shaped leaves?”
She nodded. They’d passed forests of them, and she’d wondered if they were fruit-bearing trees out of season.
“Tectona trees. The wood is nearly impervious to wet. Most of the house is constructed from it, which is the only reason it’s lasted so long. This arcade leads—once led—to a four-story wing of bedrooms. There’s another wing, but if there’s a way to raise this one…” He trailed off dubiously.
“Then we’ll have rooms to offer our guest wizards and your future minions,” she filled in firmly. “It’s a good plan. How did you raise it before?”
“I wicked water out of the soil beneath, trying to make it firm enough to support the foundation. But I think the slant is too great for that now. And I hadn’t at all figured out what to do about the parts that are sunk to the gables.”
She nodded, considering. Though he had barely tapped her magic reserves—so far as she could determine without more practice—she felt like she had slightly less magic than before. What she had wouldn’t be enough, not without the focusing power of the arcanium, but Gabriel would have to learn that for himself. “The arcade is still connected to the sunken wing beyond?”
“Not anymore. We went in and sawed the two sections apart after my first, quite spectacular failure.” He winced. “I had a splitting headache for three days afterward.”
Hmm. So Gabriel had learned about the consequences of magic depletion but was still heedless of them. She wasn’t sure how to teach him better. “I have a suggestion.”
“Please,” he replied fervently.
“Remember the barge? Try floating the house up.”
“A house isn’t a barge,” he argued, knitting his brow.
“To water, they are the same thing.”
“Water doesn’t think.”
“No, but you do. Approach this from the other direction. Your magic affects water, not the house. Look at you holding this water back like it’s behind a pane of glass.” With some irritation, she realized he could be doing that in the library with a low-level spell, no boarding of the windows necessary. They could have kept rain out of the entire manse with fixed enchantments in the windows and saved a fortune in Byssan glass. Maybe they still could if no Byssan wizard applied for the contract. No sense squandering magic if they could outsource to someone who’d also become a loyal minion. “Try moving this water out of the arcade and push it underneath the foundation. Float it like a boat.”
“But we’re standing on it.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. We stood on the barge, too. The water will do what you tell it to do.” Circumspectly, she used her free hand to push closed the door to the attached salon. No sense flooding that too, should things go awry.
Gabriel, brow furrowed unhappily, muttered something about easier said than done, but the wall of green water moved away, flowing out through the open arches.
And more water flowed in to replace it. Cursing under his breath, Gabriel drew on her magic more, increasing the speed of the water flowing out—which resulted in water rushing back in at a greater rate. Waves began to form as the ripples fed back on each other, the water growing turbulent, fish swimming frantically through the peaks and troughs. The water snake flew out to land on what had once been an ornamental rug, now festooned with algae, and slithered away rapidly.
With a whoosh of breath, Gabriel abruptly released his hold on her magic, the sudden snap of the connection slapping back at her. His control of the water simultaneously broke. With a roar, all the displaced water rushed back, taking them under and yanking her hand from Gabriel’s. She rolled, inadvertently gasping at the shockingly cold water, which most unpleasantly filled her mouth and nose with something that tasted a lot like spoiled lettuce. Her velvet gown dragged her down with its sodden weight, and she shoved against the slimy rug—eyew—to struggle up again.
Grasping hands seized her, dragging her up by the shoulders, Gabriel’s face panicked. “Nic! Are you all right? Breathe. Talk to me.” He shook her a little, and she grabbed ahold of his forearms.
“Stop. I’m fine.” She spat water out. Disgusting.
He hauled her against him, embracing her a bit too tightly for comfort. “I was afraid you’d drowned.”
“In waist-deep water in less than a minute? I surely hope not. How ignominious a death that would be.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said raggedly, still clutching her tightly. “I failed you. I lost control.”
“Yes.” Gently, but firmly, she extracted herself. “About that.”
“Right. It didn’t work.” He glumly took in the lake of marsh water filling the room, still sloshing against the walls from the magical tempest. “There’s too much water. We should just abandon the house.”
She thumped him hard on the chest.
“Ow.” Rubbing the spot, he gazed back at her like a wounded puppy.
“Pull yourself together,” she snapped. “All that happened is you learned how not to do it. Now we try again.”
“Again?” He looked aghast, then shook his head. “No. I’m not risking your well-being. You’re soaked and shivering.”
“And covered with stinking algae crap that I don’t want to know what it is,” she agreed, plucking something brown and vile from her hair and throwing it far away from her. “But we’re both already slimed, so we might as well continue.”
“I can’t believe you want to try again.”
“I can’t believe you want to quit after a single failure,” she retorted. “Also, if you were so concerned about me, once we were separated, you could’ve used your reserves to pull the water away from me so I didn’t drown.”
“I didn’t think of that,” he admitted with chagrin.
“Start thinking, then,” she replied equably. “That’s why we practice, to discover our weaknesses and plan around them so if we’re in an emergency situation—like a battle against another wizard—we have strategies.”
He regarded her with some bemusement. “You weren’t exaggerating when you said you’re a practical person. I don’t think most people would be so sanguine about what just happened.”
She shrugged. “Magic goes awry, and we’re trying new things. Also, I plan to soak in a long, hot bath after this, as a reward. Now let’s talk about what went wrong.”
