Chapter 17
Selly allowed Jadren to steer her through the lingering, curious crowd of her kin and House Phel minions, up the broad front porch steps of the graceful manse, and into the cool, shadowy interior.
She fanned herself gratefully. “I always forget how much warmer it is in Meresin,” she commented.
“Full summer here and barely spring everywhere else.”
Jadren simply looked at her, one auburn eyebrow cocked in question.
“What?”
“Where do we start?” He spread his hands. “I handled getting everyone to leave us alone—including your mother—now you figure out how we’re finding the arcanium.”
“I don’t know why she’s crazy for me to produce a grandbaby,” she groused while she turned in a slow circle, taking in the lovely foyer and high-ceilinged main hall, giving herself time to think.
Nic and Gabriel really had performed a miracle restoring the manse.
It bore almost no resemblance to the moldy, dilapidated—and they’d been sure, haunted—half-sunk house they’d dared each other to explore as children.
“She already has Bria. And Cornelis is practically her grandchild also, so what’s her problem? ”
“I don’t know. Don’t look to me for analysis of standard family mother things.”
He had a funny note in his voice still. “Well, we’re not discussing having a baby until you can hold one without having an internal emotional crisis.”
“I’m sure my emotional crisis was at least partially external,” he retorted, wizard-black eyes a little too bleak, even for cynical him. “But point taken. Besides. Your baby-making works are still very young and fresh—and will be for years to come.”
“Gosh, thanks,” she responded drily. But she didn’t mind, because snarky Jadren was usually a good sign of a recovering Jadren.
“Also, we don’t know that my swimmers will make the grade,” he added lightly.
A false lightness there. “Considering how many times I’ve reconstructed my body through magic and sheer force of will,” he explained when she glanced at him inquiringly.
“Maybe we should reconsider even trying for little El-Adrels. They could come out monsters.”
“Jadren.” She went to him. Kissed him. “Stop obsessing.”
“I’m not,” he protested, his black eyes glittering in a way that made the lie clear. “They could come out black kittens—have you thought of that?”
“No,” she answered, very reasonably, “because I don’t obsess about ridiculous things that haven’t happened and likely never will.”
“Luck you,” he commented sourly.
“Now can we focus on what we’re here to do?”
“This is in your hands,” he answered, holding up his empty ones. “You’re the arcanium-finder in this relationship. I’m just the wizard-muscle to funnel your Phel magic to open the thing.”
Oh, was that how it was going to work? Hmm. “I don’t how to find it.”
“Sure you do,” he replied easily, sticking his hands in his front pockets and shrugging. “Gabriel found it. So can you.”
“I don’t follow your logic.”
“You were kids together, right? Running around and playing, happy siblings. I bet you were the bratty little sister who followed him everywhere whether he liked it or not.”
He wasn’t wrong. “And you say you don’t know normal family things.”
“I know bratty younger siblings,” he allowed. “I bet you tagged along and saw what Gabriel did with his buddies. Did you come play in the nasty old Phel house?”
“Of course.” She tried to think back. “The boys especially dared each other to explore the house, but I did follow them.”
“So, we know that the arcanium has to be accessible from the house.” Jadren ticked the points off on his fingers.
“It has to be somewhere that both Gabriel and Lord Evil Elal could logically figure it out. And we theorize that it’s underwater, which makes a lot of sense to me.
” He raised his gaze to the glossy white trim and rose-colored walls.
“Too bad this manse isn’t sentient enough to be helpful. Hello the house?”
Selly giggled. “I feel quite confident that this manse is not at all like El-Adrel and we can’t count on help from there, but… I do have an idea.”
“Lead on my lady,” Jadren declared expansively, offering an arm with a little bow. “I anticipate the delights in store.”
She turned to the back of the house, to the meal staging area.
Not precisely a kitchen. Nic—in her efficient Lady of the house mode—had caused the room to be updated and equipped with devices, magical and otherwise, to allow for easier distribution of food to the formal and intimate dining halls of the house.
Most of the actual food prep occurred in an outbuilding, but this room allowed for an intermediate storage and assembly area.
Selly found the old door to the cellar and opened it carefully, remembering the state of the underground rooms back in the day.
It was a strange thing: the magic that hit her in adolescence obscured her memories of her teen years almost completely, rendering them a kind of incomprehensible dream, but events before that were vivid.
To her vast relief, the fetid stink she recalled from back then had completely disappeared, replaced by the cool, slightly damp scent of goods best stored in the perpetual chill of the cellar, including wine and brandy.
Jadren took a deep sniff. “So this is where Phel hides the good stuff.”
“Don’t you dare tell him I showed you.”
“Oh, after this, he owes me.” Jadren followed her down the stairs.
They’d been entirely replaced since those old days, not simply repaired, and were wide and easy to navigate, with good hand-railings.
Exactly the sort of thing Gabriel would do to take care of Nic if they were going to be coming this way often.
It boded well for her theory that this was the way to get there.
The cellars were clean, neatly arranged—and free of standing water, which was always a pleasant surprise for underground spaces in watery Meresin.
Contained fire elementals lit the space evenly—Alise’s work, no doubt—and Selly was able to wend through the several adjoining rooms to the back wall with the tunnel she remembered so well.
There was nothing there. Only a blank wall. “Huh.”
“It’s a nice wall,” Jadren commented. “Were you expecting something else?”
“Yes, a tunnel.”
“A tunnel would be useful for connecting to an underwater arcanium,” he said agreeably. “Maybe it’s in a different room?”
“Maybe? But I was certain I remembered it here.” Doubting herself, she turned to look elsewhere.
Jadren stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Hang on. Notice anything funny about this wall?”
“Not a thing. It’s a perfectly boring, perfectly blank wall with no tunnel entrance.”
“Exactly.” He shot a triumphant finger in the air. “Every other wall in this place is usefully employed holding up shelves of goods or bracing casks of truly excellent liquor. Why not this wall?”
He was right, she realized. “Because you don’t want to stack stuff in front of a doorway you use often.”
Jadren tapped that finger against his temple. “Exactly. If you and I were traipsing down here all the time—probably at night sometimes to have arcanium sex—then we wouldn’t want to be shoving stuff aside instead of getting busy.”
“I don’t really want to picture my brother in that context,” Selly commented.
“The point stands though.” Then he snickered and Selly rolled her eyes at him.
“Can we stay on topic, please?”
“The topic, my sweet, is on.” He was running his hands over the smooth surface of the bare wall. “Really, if they were smart, they’d make this a little less obvious. Hang a painting here or something.”
“Because a painting hung in the cellar screams totally normal,” Selly observed.
“True,” he replied, unruffled. “What do people hang in cellars? Dried herbs, haunches of meat.”
“No.” She watched him explore with careful fingertips.
“There’s a hidden door in this wall, I know it,” he said, stepping back. “If you were to use your water and/or moon magic to disguise something, how would you do it?”
“I’m not a wizard—how should I know?”
“You understand your own magic,” he answered patiently. “If you were a wizard, how would you do it?”
She felt oddly cranky contemplating the question.
Most of the time she didn’t think about not being a wizard, or being “only” a familiar.
She was happy to be bonded to Jadren and be his partner.
She loved her alternate form. And she was really happy not to be crazy anymore.
Maybe it was because her mother had wound her up with the grandbaby talk, but Selly felt an unusual sense of frustration, even as she tried to wrap her mind around Jadren’s question. What did she know about using magic?
Nothing. Which was pretty annoying, now that she thought about it. That made her sound like a pretty, potential baby-maker of a walking magic-reservoir. All right then, how would you use the magic to do this? Put some thought into it!
Though she’d asked herself the question, Jadren watched her with sparkling wizard-black eyes, as if knowing full well what she struggled with internally.
He probably did. From the beginning, even when he’d been entirely snarky and insulting, he’d seemed to know her better than she knew herself.
Avoiding his knowing gaze, she turned away and studied the stupid blank wall.
Water magic couldn’t do anything, could it?
Gabriel used it to make rain—sometimes whether he wanted to or not—and he could purify water it, heat or cool it, or move it making the water like a weapon with the force of it.
And even the most minor wizards could generally move water.
Water magic had persisted in the denizens of Meresin even after the fall of the more powerfully gifted members of the Phel family, with many householders able to wick water out of their homes, a useful skill in the damp and humid climate.
But she didn’t see using it to disguise a door.