Chapter 24 #2
He had no idea how she’d known to come and save him, but he sagged in relief that she had. “Alise,” he began, wondering how to explain without tipping off his grandmother—or the wizard controlling his grandmother’s mind.
She flicked him a glance and returned her attention to Lady Harahel, who’d whirled to face Alise, keeping her body blocking the precious documents. “It’s all right, Cillian,” Alise said, slowly advancing after ensuring the room had resealed. “I know.”
Of course she did.
“Let her go,” Alise advised calmly, speaking to and through órlaith. “You are found out. Lady Harahel won’t be allowed to see anything of import, nor will she be trusted again until she’s been cleansed of your influence and her mind healed.”
His grandmother drew herself up, fully the regal head of an ancient high house. “I still outrank you, Alise Elal, and I will not abide your corrupting influence on my grandson and heir. You do not give me orders.”
“Second warning,” Alise said softly, her magic intensifying, heady as red wine, lethal as the thorns of the full-blooming roses scenting the air.
Another element wove through her magic, something he’d only glimpsed in her a few times and just recently: the deep rooted vines of the dark arts, steeped in earth and fed with underground rivers, reaching for the sky and sunlight.
“We’ll find out who you are regardless, but you let this wizard go or you will regret the opportunity to flee that I’ve so generously offered. ”
órlaith’s mouth opened, widened, and emitted a hiss.
When her voice followed, the tenor of it had changed unmistakably, an eerily different personality channeling through the same vocal chords.
“You cannot defeat us. We are everywhere and we have power you cannot imagine, baby wizard. The final conflict is coming and we will win. See what generosity means to us when you and every wizard in the Convocation is mentally enslaved to us.”
“Great speech,” Alise commented drily. “And we’ll just see who will triumph. In the meantime, this wizard is no longer yours.”
The thick vine of dark arts magic snaked out and órlaith briefly seized in a convulsion.
Cillian darted to catch his grandmother before she fell, the spasm dissolving as she fainted.
Alise joined him on the floor, kneeling beside the unconscious wizard, the dark arts magic diffusing into a wider ray, the sunshine of it heating, balanced by the other elements.
“I can do something to help her now,” Alise said. “But we’ll need Jonathan Refoel to heal her mind. By the feel of this, those evil Hanneil psychopaths got to her quite a long time ago, so the compulsions are deeply embedded.”
“I didn’t know you could do this,” he marveled, watching her work with his wizard senses.
“I mean,” he amended when she glanced up in surprise, “I knew Professor Seraphiel had taught you the dark arts as a defense against further Hanneil attacks, but I didn’t you could do…
this.” He waved a hand at the prone form of Lady Harahel, looking oddly collapsed and fragile, a far cry from her usual proud and vital self.
He felt a twinge of dread, as if something in his world that he’d thought immutable had suddenly shattered.
“I’ve been practicing,” Alise admitted, coloring a little. “I like the rituals of the dark arts. I find them soothing, like they balance me out. They make a good contrast to the, I don’t know how to describe it—the abstract nature of working with spirit magic.”
“That makes sense,” he told her sincerely. “Maybe I could learn, too.”
“You could,” she replied with enthusiasm and a pleased smile. “I could teach you the basics, though I’m just an amateur.”
órlaith released a sigh and seemed to subside into a natural sleep. “There,” Alise said. “She’s free of them. Better summon Healer Jonathan.”
Cillian got up to do that. Hesitated, looking at the precious data. “Dare we let him come in?”
Alise tipped her head a little, giving him a sardonic look. “Well, we could drag her into the hallway…”
“Right. Good point.” He unsealed the door and summoned one of the interoffice Ratsiel couriers floating around the academy for staff and faculty use.
It still responded to him, confirming he hadn’t ever been officially fired, which was nice to know.
He stood by the door, as a kind of guard, in case anyone happened by.
Unlikely in the dead hours of the morning, but…
“How many others?” he asked Alise bleakly, watching the still, waxy face of his grandmother.
Alise stood and came to him, putting her arms around him and leaning her face against his chest. He held her close, breathing in her scent, physical and magical, roses and the silky sweetness of her hair.
He felt stronger with her in his arms, though it made no sense.
Maybe it didn’t need to make sense. He just needed her and that was the beginning and end of it.
“We won’t know until we look,” Alise murmured against him, answering the question he’d almost forgotten he asked.
“And it might take deep scanning via the dark arts to discover everyone who might be carrying the influence of some Hanneil compulsion.” She tipped her head back to look at him. “You couldn’t have known, Cillian.”
“Do you think…” He hated to consider this. “Is it likely that she separated us because of that compulsion?”
Alise smiled ruefully and lifted a hand to run her fingers through his curls. He leaned into the caress. “I think it’s very likely. But it wasn’t her fault. That’s the good news. She wasn’t doing those things for any reason other than because Hanneil was pulling her strings.”
He kissed her, savoring the sweet yielding of her mouth, the softness of her perfectly bowed lips. “Thank you for helping her anyway.”
“Of course.” Alise shook her head a little. “I, of all people, know what it’s like to not be in control of your own mind.”
He shuddered, feeling the truth of that. The short time he’d spent under Gordon’s absolute mental control had been a grueling, gutting experience he’d never forget. Alise had resumed her favorite embrace, leaning her cheek against his chest, so he brushed a kiss over her sleek hair.
He knew. Worse, he worried that, before this was done, more people would experience that nightmare. If Lady Harahel had been compromised a long time before today, then… A terrible thought occurred to him.
“Shit!” When Alise looked up in alarm, he shook his head at his idiocy. “The Phel archives at House Harahel—my grandmother set up the seals to protect them. If Hanneil was manipulating her even then…”
“Then they could have gone and taken everything by now,” Alise finished grimly. “That just means we have to work faster on the decoding.”
“And on testing the methods,” he agreed.
“We need proof to take to the council, to convince everyone to stand against House Hanneil or we’ll find they’ve already won and control us all.”
They couldn’t let it happen.