Chapter 5
Nic had wanted to fly to House Harahel, but Gabriel had put his foot down.
Well, that is, he’d attempted to put his foot down, met with Nic’s determined obstinacy, then endured a long conversation about her role as a familiar and whether her ability to take the alternate form of a giant silver phoenix counted as a service she owed him as her wizard or not.
He didn’t much like pulling his ultimate card in this disagreement—that she couldn’t change without his wizardry—but he worried about her health more than he disliked exercising that level of control.
Taking alternate form wore Nic out, plain and simple, and she was already tired from childbirth and breastfeeding.
Fortunately, Nic also took a certain pleasure in him taking control and telling her what to do, which he’d belatedly come to appreciate.
She claimed she only liked it during sex, but he’d discovered ways to give his decisions erotic context.
In the end, she knew he did it out of love and wanting to take care of her, so that made both of them happy.
Also, he seduced her with the promise of several cozy inns along the way to enjoy their time together.
He knew his wife well by this point and she loved a nice inn, and food delivered to her in a cozy room.
Though she could be pampered at House Phel, she resisted employing their many staff to cater to her.
She had no problem having inn employees do so, commenting that it was their job and they were well-paid to do it, not to mention that she tipped generously.
When he pointed out that they paid their own staff well, she launched into a complex discussion of House Phel finances and the necessary tiering of compensation for various kinds of jobs to reflect the difficulty of the tasks they’re responsible for and to allow for aspirational levels of employment without generating jealousy and conflict, making his head hurt until he threw up his hands and offered her a glass of wine.
Without little Bria to nurse, Nic eagerly indulged in the Elal summer red he’d arranged for her to have and she barely commented on the extravagance, which said something right there.
They weren’t far out of Meresin at that point and the innkeeper was more than delighted to indulge her “royal guests,” as she called them.
It was a testimony to how much Nic had done to exert House Phel’s influence over the surrounding lands, bringing order and support where things had fallen into self-reliant chaos, along with offering opportunities for increased commerce, allowing everyone to share in the growing prosperity of the newly restored high house.
“I’m the last person to act like House Elal is without fault,” she remarked with a grimace that smoothed with her first sip of wine, “but I can say the house of my birth does two things right: the house sharing prosperity with the people is a good business model and they make cursed excellent wines.”
She’d brought at least one of those gifts to Meresin, and the people they encountered eagerly demonstrated their gratitude, an unexpected bonus of their journey.
The weather and their reception chilled as they moved north, with many people still unfamiliar with the House Phel crest, which had been retired generations before and was still not pervasive outside of certain circles.
Nic muttered and made notes about changing that, and Gabriel enjoyed seeing some of her fire and determination return.
She was an excellent mother, but Nic had trained most of her life to head a high house and thinking business was truly her element.
They arrived at House Harahel to not only an utter lack of fanfare, but apparently to no one’s notice at all.
Gabriel wasn’t much surprised. Alise had told them the story of taking Cillian to Harahel and her strange reception there.
She and Cillian had arrived unexpectedly, during the pre-dawn hours, so that had undoubtedly been a factor.
Nic and Gabriel had, however, sent an actual human courier ahead to carry a note to órlaith Harahel declaring their intention to pay a visit, couched in all the elegant and exquisitely polite social phrasing Nic could muster.
They hadn’t expected a reply or an effusive greeting, but they’d expected the house to be at least aware of their arrival.
Gabriel noted Nic’s narrowed gaze as she took in the closed doors and abandoned appearance, the place looking as if no one had occupied the manse in ages.
Almost ostentatiously Gothic in style, House Harahel looked how he’d imagined haunted mansions might look in the scary books he’d read as a kid.
Weathered, with gingerbreaded eaves and conical turrets on the many towers, the manse perched on a rise overlooking thawing moors.
Though the wind wasn’t blowing hard, he felt as if it should be.
Wispy clouds scudded over a sky so pale it looked almost white.
Though hardly pleasant weather, it seemed people should be out and about. Instead the place looked shuttered.
“Playing games with me, órlaith?” Nic murmured. “We’ll see about that.”
“How do you want to play this?” Gabriel asked, entertained by the strategy clicking like El-Adrel clockwork behind her high brow.
He left all things Convocation etiquette to her.
Arguably, that was a major reason he’d picked her out to be his familiar.
Besides that he’d impetuously fallen in love with her painted portrait, that was.
She gave him a thoughtful look. “You should take the lead, obviously. órlaith will expect and appreciate that honor. Wizard to wizard. House head to house head. She’ll be suspicious of me as Harahel has no love of Elal, particularly now that Alise is tangled up with Cillian.
órlaith might think we’ve come to cry insult for the way she sent Alise packing, so I think we can let her stew in that uncertainty for a bit.
She might treat me as only a familiar, to be seen and not heard. ”
Gabriel took her hand, seeking her touch rather than succumbing to the instant indignation aroused by her words. “You know how I dislike anyone treating you that way. You are the brains behind House Phel far more than I.”
She patted his cheek in teasing affection, then gave him a lush kiss.
It had been more than good to renew their physical connection.
He hadn’t minded waiting, but his excuse of the slow journey to spend intimate time together in order to keep her rested had turned out serendipitously well.
The passion spiraled lazily between them, twining through their ever-strengthening bond.
Bria was a part of them now, making them a solid triangle, but first they had been a pair and it would always come back to this for him.
More than his other half, Nic had become his beating heart, his love for her almost painful in its intensity.
“Don’t worry, darling,” Nic said against his lips with a smile, emerald eyes sparkling with amused anticipation.
“órlaith won’t underestimate me, by any stretch.
House Harahel is well known for disliking the use of familiars.
Most in the Convocation joke that it’s because the business of books, libraries, and archives requires no great magic. ”
“But then they needed to borrow Han and Iliana from us,” he mused.
“Yes.” She looked thoughtful. “Cillian needed them, anyway, for his project recovering the House Phel texts from that folded archive where they’d been hidden.
They know we know they’re working on that.
They asked us for help. Why wouldn’t they keep us apprised? Especially when we asked so politely.”
“And insistently,” he noted.
She made a face at him. “I should have been more insistent. I feel like my post-baby brain is starting to work again, finally.”
He smiled, amused with her. “Your mind is working just fine, sharp as your tongue.”
“Ha ha. Seriously, those archives were hidden for a reason. I didn’t really understand her explanation at the time, and I was a little distracted.”
“By giving birth,” he pointed out.
“Yes, that. But now that I’m giving it more and better thought, the whole business of all references to House Phel being hidden by diligent effort over time, with some kind of arcane magic Cillian had to unravel…
This has huge implications. And now House Harahel knows more about our own house secrets than we do. Why didn’t we chase this before?”
“We were busy,” he answered. “And we’re here now, so no recriminations. We trusted Cillian to handle it and I assume he has been. Let’s go find out what he’s discovered. It will be very interesting to find out what about his work required so much extra magic that he called for familiars to assist.”
“If órlaith Harahel doesn’t try to wall us out, like she did with Alise,” Nic replied, giving the haunted-looking manse a dark look.
“Alise is a delightful person with a powerful future ahead of her, but she is young yet and she is not you,” Gabriel said, opening the carriage door and stepping out, offering a hand back to his beautiful lady. “órlaith has no idea what she’s up against.”
“Well, and I have you. Just… no striking her down with lightning or stabbing her through the eyes with moon-silver spikes, all right?”
“I have never once directed lightning at anyone,” he replied huffily, restraining a smile at her teasing. “My water magic makes rainclouds and rain. The lightning is incidental, part of the atmospheric disturbance.” He led her up the steps, the old, unpainted wood creaking rather alarmingly.
“Well, try not to disturb any atmospheres.” She cast a dubious glance around the wide porch, empty of chairs, the scars of old window boxes showing on the balustrades, a few leaves from the previous autumn scudding around in a crackling breeze. “This place has plenty of it already.”