Chapter 22
Cillian could understand Alise’s mixed feelings about returning to Convocation Academy, the scene of so many tumultuous events for the both of them.
On the one hand, this was where he’d first seen Alise, gliding through the Convocation Archives late at night, pale as a ghost and lovely as the moon.
And this was where they’d fallen in love—even if Alise had only admitted it to herself and out loud to him later—the setting for so many firsts for them.
It was also the scene of many crimes and harrowing events, culminating in that midnight fire in the archives and battle with Gordon Hanneil—and their subsequent flight to House Harahel, Cillian feeling so broken in mind, heart, and magic that he thought he might never recover.
And yet, somehow they’d survived to this point.
Perhaps arguably stronger than ever. Alise could wield her Elal spirit magic with ever greater skill, and he’d discovered aspects of his own magic he’d never before imagined.
And the lovely, elusive Alise held his hand as they walked into the workroom set aside for their project by Provost Uriel.
Sensing him watching her, Alise slid him a look, not a sharp one, her eyes instead full of sparkling amusement.
“Who knew?” she murmured to him and he smiled in agreement.
Cillian recognized the workroom as one of many in the wizard’s wing of the academy designated for students learning to master their magical skills.
Not that Cillian had ever practiced in one.
This sort of heavily shielded and privacy-protected workspace was for amateur wizards learning fire magic or other similarly dangerous and potentially explosive techniques.
Not library magic. Still, Cillian found it interesting that the provost had sent them to this space.
Surely no one expected the decryption process to pose a threat to the structure or denizens of the academy, so Provost Uriel must be concerned about Hanneil spies, even though she’d supposedly cleaned house following the debacle with Gordon.
The fact that the unflappable and meticulously thorough Tandiya Uriel worried that she’d missed something—or someone—that could pose a danger to them inside the secure walls of Convocation Academy gave Cillian pause.
Not that he’d expected House Hanneil to give up on stopping them from decoding Anciela Phel’s data, nor was he na?ve enough to hope that they’d escaped notice from those plotting against them.
But with the formidable houses that might belong to that conspiracy, he was deeply afraid that their side might not be able to withstand a united attack from the others.
No shielded workspace could protect them from that kind of concerted might.
Although… He looked around the room at the truly stellar assembly of powerful wizards and familiars.
Nic and Gabriel sat side by side at a large desk, apparently going over House Phel business while they waited, their intertwined magics like red wine, pure water, and roses under moonlight.
Seliah and Jadren, looking road-worn, but wearing triumphant grins, greeted the four of them and waited until Alise sealed the door and invoked the enchantment to prevent anyone from entering until the occupants decided on it.
As Gabriel and Nic stacked up their documents and joined the rest of them around a large table, Jadren set a jangling bag in the center.
Several boxes stacked nearby held copies of the documents they’d deemed most likely to contain Anciela’s data, copied at House Phel’s expense and brought from House Harahel.
“Is that the key?” Gabriel asked, giving the lumpy sack a dubious look.
“Keys,” Seliah answered, inverting the bag to dump the contents on the table.
Cillian eyed the pile of silvery boxes with considerable surprise. They radiated moon magic. Moonsilver, which made sense for a Phel wizard wanting to create an enduring set of clues.
“May I?” Alise asked.
“Of course,” Seliah answered. “These belong to all of us. That is, if Nic and Gabriel agree.”
“I echo the ‘of course,’” Gabriel said with a nod and reaching for two of the moonsilver boxes, giving one to Nic.
Following suit, Cillian took two and gave Alise her choice between them. As it happened, there were eight, a coincidence Cillian decided not to give too much thought to.
“They’re books,” Alise commented with surprise, opening hers.
“Like jewelry books,” Iliana agreed. “So lovely.”
“And enduring,” Nic commented. “How do you encode information so that it lasts forever in a watery climate?” She tapped the edge of the book on the table. “Engraved moonsilver. Brilliant, Anciela.”
“You found these in the House Phel arcanium?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes,” Jadren answered. “In the back of a drawer.”
Nic and Gabriel exchanged looks. She shrugged. “We never did get around to searching through everything in there.”
“No, because you always get distracted,” he returned warmly.
“You do,” she shot back, although a blush darkened her brown skin.
“We both do,” he agreed, taking her hand and kissing it.
Seliah, her skin as brown as Nic and Gabriel’s blushed even more deeply. “We, ah, did our best not to look around, too much, you know—at stuff that was clearly not relevant.”
“I looked,” Jadren offered jauntily, actually waggling his eyebrows. “I might need arcanium tips from you two. Tell me, do you think something like the moonsilver bed would work for any wizard and familiar enjoying kinky sex, or should I—”
“Jadren,” Seliah interrupted, aghast.
Alise turned to Cillian, her own black, elegantly winged brows raised in amusement. He took her hand under the table and squeezed, suppressing his own laughter. Iliana, face as crimson as her bright hair, put a hand over her eyes. Han cleared his throat, patting her on the back.
“Perhaps,” he said, “we should focus on these books. Are we sure they’re the keys?”
“As sure as we can be,” Seliah answered with dignity, ignoring a still snickering Jadren.
Cillian studied his, the thin metal pages shining undimmed and untarnished even after all these years.
The magic of moonsilver. It did look like jewelry, with engraved script decorating the pages of the book.
However, as often seemed to be the case with engraving on jewelry—like the inside of his parents’ wedding rings—the script was illegible.
He adjusted the perch of his spectacles on his nose, moving the lenses away and back in an attempt to get better focus, but nothing made the letters assemble into words and sense.
“I can’t read mine at all,” Alise complained. “And I have good eyes.” She gave Cillian and archly smug look as she teased him.
It made him indescribably happy that she’d recovered enough of her natural resilience to want to poke at him. “You have incredible eyes,” he told her with feeling.
She rolled those incredible eyes, but looked pleased.
“No one can read these,” Nic declared in a tone ripe with frustration, tossing her book down with a clatter and pressing her elegantly tipped fingers to her temples. “I have good eyes, too, and these aren’t even letters, not even in a cipher or another language. It’s just scribbles.”
“Like waves of water,” Gabriel said, taking up the book she’d discarded and comparing it to his own. “But they were hidden in the House Phel arcanium, so they must be important.”
Nic lifted her head, expression full of dawning suspicion. “Do you think that is why my father was so determined to break into our arcanium? Because he suspected the key to Anciela’s data was in there?”
“Or all of Anciela’s data,” Gabriel said with a sharp nod. “But I have to agree with Nic that we’re no better off now than before, with keys that are as indecipherable as the coded documents. Am I wrong, Cillian?”
But Cillian had been watching Jadren and Seliah, who looked no less pleased with themselves than before. They exchanged smug glances. “Do you want to tell them?” Seliah asked Jadren.
“I kinda do,” he answered, “if you don’t mind. I really want to see Lady Phel’s face when she hears this one.”
Nic jerked her head up. “What?” she demanded with sharp suspicion. “If you did something to my arcanium, Jadren El-Adrel, I don’t care if your house does outrank ours, dark arts help me I’m going to—”
Gabriel set a quelling hand on her, waiting for Nic to notice Jadren’s reddening face, brighter than his auburn beard—until the wizard burst out laughing. He waggled a finger at Nic. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but it turns out your foolishly, idealistic wizard saved all our asses.”
Nic flashed Gabriel a disbelieving look and he held up his hands in innocence.
“Just tell them already or I will,” Seliah said.
“Please,” Nic demanded slapping her hands on the table.
“Narlis gave us the key,” Jadren told her, gloating.
“Narlis?” Nic echoed blankly. “Our Narlis at House Phel?”
“We love Narlis,” Iliana exclaimed, clapping her hands together.
Gabriel, clearly mystified, asked, “What does Narlis know about anything?”
So, Jadren and Seliah explained the conversation with GF and Daisy, and what Narlis had told them.
Before they’d finished, Cillian was exploring the book he held for some kind of Iblis enchantment.
Alise bent her head toward his, quietly discussing the problem with him, while the others exclaimed and argued about whether Gabriel had followed his wizard’s intuition or if it had been a coincidence.
Or would any House Iblis member be triggered to give that reply upon seeing the key books?
“I just knew it was wrong to leave her there under those circumstances,” Gabriel insisted. “I didn’t have any special sense or intuitive tickle.”
“You know what,” Nic said, cutting off Jadren’s next point of debate. “It doesn’t matter. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t try taking off the Iblis lock or encryption or whatever it is before dragging us through this whole suspenseful ordeal.”
“It wasn’t a very long ordeal,” Jadren replied, sulkily. “And the suspense was fun.” Before she could retort, he held up a hand. “Besides it has to be a Phel wizard, obviously.” He shook his head for her obtuseness, pointing at Gabriel, and Nic fumed silently at him.
Everyone slid their books to Gabriel, who surveyed them in apparent shock. “I don’t have Iblis magic.”
“You don’t need it,” Nic told him, her magic still snapping. “It should feel like triggering any Iblis lock that’s been preset. Just use water or moon magic—”
“Probably both,” Cillian advised. “It could be uniquely set for the Phel combination of both.”
“Both,” Nic agreed with a nod of thanks.
Everyone held their breath while Gabriel focused his magic, a shimmering blend of moonlight on water feeling as if it floated through the air of the contained room. Something magical clicked. Nic seized one of the metal books, her face lighting like a flame.
“I can read it.”
Cillian quickly snagged a couple, passing one to Alise, and began to read. “Columns of words,” he confirmed. “Translations of silk colors to numbers.”
“I have wasp larvae to magical potential scores,” Alise said with excitement.
“Peaches,” Gabriel confirmed, “and correlations to familiar versus wizard status.”
“We’ve got it,” Nic breathed.
“And now the work begins,” Cillian told them. “Time to make a master list and begin decoding the experimental data and results.”
They all groaned and he laughed. This was the real fun.