Chapter 13 #3
“Speaking of children,” Nic said later, as Nander had still not been found—because he was apparently not in class as he should have been and the proctors had to be mobilized to root him out of wherever he was slacking off—“at least tangentially, I’d like to settle the matter of Alise and her formal graduation. ”
Tandiya raised her brows. “I was surprised Lord Phel hadn’t brought that up already.”
That gave Nic pause. “Would you prefer to negotiate with Lord Phel?” she asked carefully.
She’d become too accustomed to feeling like a full partner in the running of House Phel, forgetting that as a familiar, to most of the Convocation, she was little more than a walking, talking piece of furniture.
But Provost Uriel gave her such a stern look that Nic had to steel her spine not to wilt.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lady Phel. There might be hidebound traditionalists in the Convocation, but I am not one.
” She produced documents. “Certification from Alise’s professors that she’s met all requirements, with flying colors.
” She smiled at Nic’s shock. “House Uriel is happy to assist who we all fervently hope will be the new head of House Elal.”
Between that happy surprise, being able to express her milk, and have a bit of rest, by the time Nander was located, Nic was feeling much better. Good enough to face her wastrel little brother. She hoped.
Nander slouched resentfully into the proctor’s spacious office, escorted by one of the Hanneil proctors Nic remembered from her student days.
The proctor withdrew faster than Nic could search her memory for a name.
Her brother had his hands deep in pockets and magic like sour wine.
In fact, he also smelled like sour wine, which likely explained where he’d been instead of in class.
“Provost Uriel,” Nander said with a sullen sneer and bloodshot wizard-black eyes—a disconcerting effect.
“Why have I been dragged out of bed to—Nic?”
His shock and astonishment might be gratifying if Nic wasn’t so immediately concerned about Nander’s state.
He looked like he’d been drinking in a tavern all night and slept in the gutter.
Alise had said that Nander had become even more insufferable since believing himself the heir to House Elal, but she hadn’t mentioned any increased dissipation.
Had this happened just since Alise had returned to apprentice with their father?
Entirely possible. For the first time, Nic felt something beyond aggravation and contempt for the spoiled, selfish, and bratty Nander. She actually felt sorry for him.
“Shouldn’t you be chained up and going through retraining somewhere, Familiar Nicky?” Nander drawled.
Nic stopped feeling sorry for him pretty quickly at that point.
“Lady Phel,” she said, not exactly drawing herself up, as she’d already been poised for the confrontation, but reminding herself of her own power and status.
No one had been more delighted than Nander at Nic’s demotion to familiar status.
“Familiars should be seen and not heard,” he snapped, then deliberately turned his back on her and faced the provost. “What is the purpose of this rude summons, Provost? When my father hears of—” Nander abruptly stopped speaking, bloodshot eyes bugging in outrage.
Tandiya Uriel smiled, politely and oh-so coldly. “Manners, Wizard Ferdinand. You will speak to me, and to Lady Phel, with respect or you will not speak at all.”
Hanneil wizards—mostly Nic knew the academy proctor version of this kind of magic—could silence people, so it made perfect sense that a Uriel wizard could also do so. Still, it hadn’t occurred to her that Tandiya could and would use that power on students.
“That’s better,” the provost said approvingly, as if Nander had complied, even though he clearly still strained against the silencing magic.
A few spirits popped out of the air, zooming toward the provost and she expressed dramatic shock before chopping a hand to banish them.
Leaving Nic wondering how a Uriel wizard managed that trick.
Truly illuminating and food for thought.
She better understood now why Tandiya had wanted to know if Nic had contemplated pitching Elal against Uriel.
“Ferdinand Elal,” the provost said with soft menace, “you did not just try to attack me with spirit magic, did you? Because that’s grounds for immediate expulsion.”
Nander sagged, abruptly disconsolate, and nodded mutely. Then shook his head.
“I suggest you sit,” Tandiya said, more gently now, almost as if speaking to a child.
As Nander was only fifteen, and an immature one at that, he was probably more child than man, come to think of it.
Nander sat, slumping in the chair with adolescent bonelessness.
“Now, Wizard Ferdinand, I will allow you to speak, but the first words out of your mouth will be an apology to Lady Phel, and then to the Office of the Provost.” She gave the instructions pleasantly, but with iron will beneath.
Was she adding a psychic compulsion? That would be strictly illegal, but Nic wondered.
Nander blew out a breath, as if he’d been suffocating—which of course he hadn’t been, but all very dramatic—and threw Nic a nasty look. “Sorry, Lady Phel.” He loaded sarcasm into the title. “Apologies, office,” he said, waving hands at the walls.
Tandiya slid Nic a neutral look that spoke volumes of her enduring patience for the job. “Less than adequate, but I’ll let it pass for now. You’re on probation for the moment, Wizard Ferdinand. Don’t fuck up.”
“Fine,” he muttered, staring at his bony knees.
“What was that?” She cupped a hand to her ear. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“I said yes, Provost,” he said, much too loudly.
“Thank you.” She smiled, all sweetness. “Lady Phel, I believe you have questions for your brother?”
“I don’t answer to a fa—” Nander’s words choked off and the provost wagged a chiding finger at him.
“Answer your sister’s questions, politely, accurately, and without attitude, or I’m confining you to your room with basic rations for a week. Understood?”
Nander looked appalled, then reluctantly nodded.
“There we go. Lady Phel?”
Fortunately, Nander’s continued insolence had given Nic time to gather her thoughts. She hadn’t realized Tandiya planned to lob the interrogation ball at her like that. “Nander, are you aware that Alise returned to House Elal?”
“Of course, the sneaky, lying bitch.”
“Why do you call her sneaky and a liar?”
“She said she didn’t want to be heir,” he exploded in a whine, waving his hands.
“Papa was all set to officially designate me as the next Lord Elal, which is my right! But then you had to go and have a snivelly baby and Alise goes prancing back to apprentice at Elal. Did you know he showed her the arcanium?”
Nic had not known that. No one but their father and Maman, as his familiar, had known the precise location of the House Elal arcanium, hidden from them all via magical means.
“If he was serious about apprenticing Alise and having her as back-up to head the house should something happen to him, it makes sense that she’d need to access the arcanium and be able to attuned herself to the Elal magic stored there.
” She thought she’d sounded very reasonable, but Nander writhed in his chair, nearly in a frenzy.
“It was supposed to be mine,” he cried. “He was going to show me, he said. Papa came to visit and he told me that Alise had failed and betrayed him—aiding familiars to escape, ditching out on the academy.” He flung those last words at the provost, who listened impassively.
“Alise even fucked around with a faculty member. Did you know that?”
Neither of them replied and he pouted in frustration. “Well, Alise showed her stripes,” he continued, sounding more miserable than gleeful. “She disappeared on him again. And now dear Papa has no one because I won’t be his heir now. I told him so.”
Nic exchanged interested glances with Tandiya. “Lord Elal was here?” she asked.
“Yes.” He drew out the word, making it aggrieved. “But not to visit me, his son. Nooo. He was looking for Alise, thinking she came here to tell Provost Uriel about—” He cut himself off. “Whatever.”
Tandiya shook her head minutely at Nic, communicating that she hadn’t picked up whatever thought Nander had quickly censored.
From what Nic understood of psychic magic and mind-reading, surface thoughts could be easily “heard,” much as if the person had spoken them aloud.
But thoughts a person took pains to hide had to be more forcibly hunted down and dug out.
Uriel integrity wouldn’t allow for that kind of invasiveness.
It was one of the lines they drew between their practices and House Hanneil’s.
“He said Alise left again?” Nic prompted with curiosity, leaving the slip alone. Nander would be on guard now. “How odd.”
“Not odd at all.” He laughed bitterly. “She’s fickle as a mink changing its coat. Ran off with that librarian, again. Papa was so fuc—flipping angry. Shows him what he gets for picking the wrong heir.”
“It really isn’t fair,” Nic said with sympathy.
She did feel kind of bad for Nander, awful as he was.
He might grow out of it, but he would never be half the wizard Alise was.
His MP scores had never been up to snuff and he didn’t have the smarts or strength to head a high house.
The only person who didn’t know that was Nander.
“I know it’s not fair,” Nander replied, petulant but also maybe a little gratified to have Nic’s sympathy.
“You and Alise do whatever you want and everyone just loves you, but me? I’m right here and I get treated like shit.
I could rot away at this stinking academy and none of you would even notice. ”
There was a grain of truth to his words. “I’m sorry,” Nic said sincerely. “You’re welcome to visit House Phel any time.”
“In the swamps? No thank you.” He laughed in contempt, his voice breaking unevenly, reminding her that he was still a boy, teetering on the precipice of manhood, but not there yet.
He’d benefit from being around Gabriel and the other solid men of Phel.
“I’d rather suck a pig’s teat,” Nander added with transparent defiance.
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to her, which it really didn’t. This offer was for him. “The invitation is open. Come any time. You can meet your niece, Bria.”
“My niece…” He seemed as if that hadn’t occurred to him, that he was an uncle to that snivelly baby. “Maman liked babies.”
“Yes.” Nic also nodded, struck by how sad Nander sounded then.
Of course he’d have grieved for their mother also.
They’d never even had a memorial service, where they could all remember her together.
“Maman is buried at House Phel,” she told him on impulse.
“You could lay flowers on her grave. We could have a ceremony, to remember her.”
He glared, fully mean again, but with a glimmer of tears in his eyes. “Papa says you killed Maman. You and Alise.”
“No,” Nic said firmly, sinking the weight of truth in that. “That’s not what happened at all. Alise and I loved Maman as you did. We never would have done anything to harm her.”
He sneered, a disdainful baring of uncleaned teeth, but Nic also thought he believed her. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said, shrugging into the chair. “She was only a familiar.”
Nic let that pass, feeling very adult to do so. Nander was clearly a festering mass of hormones and hurt, and it had been wrong of her not to communicate with him following Maman’s death.
“So,” she said, feeling through what was probably her last question for him. At least for the time being. “You haven’t seen Alise—she hasn’t contacted you?”
“I am the last person Alise is going to contact.” Nander expelled that bitter cough of a laugh again. “What amazes me is that none of you seems to know that. She hates me. The last time I saw her, she put spirit mites on me. It took me hours and exhausting two grooming imps to get rid of them.”
Nic suppressed a smile with valiant resolve.
She could only imagine what Nander had said or done to Alise for her to pull that trick, a favorite among young Elal wizards.
And sad that Nander lacked the skill to get rid of them on his own.
“All right,” she said. “Thank you. Just let us know when you want to come visit House Phel. I have a room set aside for you,” she added on impulse.
She didn’t—hadn’t thought of it—but they had plenty of space now that they’d finished the renovations on the manse, and she’d designated Alise’s suite as her permanent space. Nander should have one, too. Only fair.
“You do?” He asked incredulously, looking at her directly for the first time since his shock upon entering the office. “Why?”
“You’re my brother,” she said simply. “You’re welcome in my home. So long as you behave,” she felt compelled to clarify. “But come visit anytime. Just show up if you like.” She caught Tandiya’s subtly quiet clearing of the throat. “With permission from the provost, naturally.”
Nander glanced at the provost, then right back to Nic. Then tried to look cool. “Yeah, maybe I could visit you, next break. Instead of kicking my heels doing nothing in Elal.”
Nic nodded, surprisingly pleased. “Good idea.”