Chapter 3
~3~
A lise hurried her way out of the provost’s office and plunged down the long, winding steps that led ever earthward. Offices ringed the tower at each floor, on both the inner and outer circles, open doors emitting the chatter of conversation and rustle of paperwork. Ratsiel couriers flew over her head in a steady stream of myriad directions, carrying the communications of the busy academy. Some of the office workers glanced at her as she went by, giving her nods of respect. She might be the subject of gossip from all and disdain from some, but she was still her father’s daughter, when all was said and done, and a wizard.
No one wanted to cross an Elal wizard. Today’s mud-covered, disgraced student could be tomorrow’s Lady Elal, after all. Never mind that Alise wasn’t interested in intimidating anyone. For that matter, she had no intention of improving her wizardry. She’d caused enough damage as it was. She would find a way to learn the bare minimum to graduate, then contrive never to use her abilities again, for any reason. Never again would she risk doing what had killed her mother.
She could add how she’d treated Cillian to her long list of transgressions of how she’d failed everyone around her. He’d looked so flustered, barely meeting her gaze, acting upset. He was probably worried about getting fired. And why had he had he been reading The Saga of Sylus and Lyndella ? That was so out of character for him. Then teasing her about liking it. Yes, of course she recognized the unrealistic aspects of that torrid romance, but it was fiction . Well, mostly. No doubt Cillian would be able to tell her exactly how much of the tale was historically accurate. Had his getting the book—and ostentatiously reading it where she’d run into him—been a way of trying to get a rise out of her?
No. She shook that away. Cillian had said he was pursuing some project with the book and had no reason to lie about that. After all, he had a much bigger life than assisting her research, projects he’d likely had to put on hold to help her, plus being dragged into House Phel business. Probably he was pursuing a project like parsing the history versus the fiction of Sylus and Lyndella, or some such and she was being emotional and paranoid, which seemed to be the new normal for her.
She didn’t know up from down these days, only that getting from one hour to the next felt like such an unbearable slog that she wanted to crawl under the covers and not come out until spring. Maybe longer.
This, however, was not an option.
Class. She was supposed to go to class. Alise racked her brain trying to remember where she was supposed to be on this day, at this particular time. It seemed like months instead of weeks since she’d been at the academy, and… Well, shit. Today was her senior practicum. The worst possible class to have to endure. Worse, the hands-on lasted all afternoon and required active participation. Even the delay of changing her clothes wouldn’t save her from several hours of pretending to know what she was doing. What dreadful luck.
But delaying further would only make it worse. So, Alise strode down the quiet hall in the dorm reserved for upper level wizard students. Everybody was in class at this time of day, a minor stroke of good fortune. She didn’t care to answer any probing questions disguised as friendly conversation. As she drew near to her own closed door, however, she spotted someone leaning against the wall next to it, wearing the garb of one of the academy proctors, which was… very odd. Proctors didn’t spend time where students weren’t. Their literal job was to monitor students.
Alise slowed to give herself time to think. She shouldn’t be in any danger, even though the academy proctors were all Hanneil wizards and despite the fact that House Hanneil seemed to be a part of the conspiracy to destroy House Phel, for unknown reasons. Still, not everyone beholden to a house supported that house’s politics—she should know, as she categorically hated everything House Elal did—nor would everyone in a house even know much about what the higher echelons were up to. Obviously on a few high-level wizards would know about conspiracy-level stuff, not wizards who ended up as academy proctors.
Only medium- to lower-level wizards settled for the grunt jobs that were basically being hall monitors for unruly students. The proctors scanned surface thoughts and attempted to nip infractions in the bud. They were generally effective at that, but the faculty handled any major trouble.
As she drew near, she found she didn’t recognize the proctor who was very obviously blocking access to her room. Even odder. At this stage of her academic career, after all these years of boarding and schooling at Convocation Academy, she recognized most, if not all, of the staff and faculty, if only distantly. A steady gig at Convocation Academy, even a lowly one—salaried, along with room and board—was nothing to sneeze at. Turnover was low. A proctoring job might not be the plum of the psychic wizarding world, but most of the academy proctors were wizards she remembered from more than ten years before when she first arrived at the academy as a girl.
That this unfamiliar proctor behaved out of character and clearly waited for specifically her sent a chill of foreboding down her spine. But Alise pulled her poise together and lifted her chin, channeling her best Lady Elal manner. “Can I be of assistance, Proctor…?”
The man smiled and sketched a bow. He had golden hair, pale skin, and a square jaw, classically handsome if you cared for that sort of thing. His coloring was striking with his black eyes. His psychic magic had an unsavory look to it, however, a murky quality that canceled out any physical appeal he might have. “A moment of your time, Wizard Elal.”
“Phel,” she corrected sharply, and his smile only curved as he tipped his head in dubious acknowledgment.
“I am Proctor Gordon Hanneil,” he said. “I must have a word with you.”
“Must you?” she inquired coolly. She set down her overnight bag, and her bag of books, folded her arms and waited. “Go ahead. I need to change clothes and attend my practicum, as I’m sure you’re aware, being a proctor.” She added that last pointedly, since she wasn’t at all convinced that was true. Proctor’s robes were easy to acquire.
“In private,” he qualified with a flash of a grin that was likely supposed to be charming, as he gestured to her door.
Oh no, boyo, I don’t think so. She made a show of looking around the empty hallway. “You can speak here. There’s no one to overhear.”
“Elal spies are everywhere.”
“So I always hear. I don’t have a say in what House Elal does—but I can promise you that, if Elal has sent spirits to spy on this hallway, then they’re even more certainly in my room. Lord Elal and I haven’t exactly seen eye to eye of late. Speak here or nowhere.”
Gordon’s jaw flexed. “I will only deliver this very important message in the confines of your private chamber, Wizard Phel.”
She shrugged. “I suppose you won’t be delivering your very important message then, as I have no intention of letting you into my room. It’s your very important message. You keep it.”
“You’re awfully cheeky for a young thing.”
Alise was getting a bit tired of people treating her like a child. Yes, she was slight and looked younger than her years. But she had reached actual, legal adulthood, not to mention being a full-fledged wizard with not inconsiderable abilities. And she would only grow stronger, whereas this mid-level—at best—Hanneil wizard had topped out. She outranked him in every way and he thought he could bully her? Anger coursed warm under her skin, far better than the previous chill of trepidation.
“What I am is late for my practicum, Proctor ,” she bit out, emphasizing his job title. “Move away from my door and cease delaying me—or I shall report you.”
His face took on such ugly anger at her words that Alise wondered how she could’ve ever thought him handsome, even objectively and in passing. “You wouldn’t dare,” he hissed. Darting forward, he seized her arm in a crushing grip that felt like it went to the bone. Equally numbing, his psychic magic wormed into her through the contact, sending invasive tendrils through her throbbing nerves to her brain. This was no low- or mid-level wizard. In fact—she realized, far too late—he was more powerful than she knew how to defend against.
Alise didn’t know what he intended to do. Influence or control her in some way, that was certain. Psychic manipulation was also hugely illegal, but unless she could get to help, piffling laws didn’t matter. Belatedly, she tried summoning a warrior spirit to get the wizard off of her, but her magic went nowhere, feeling as if it had bounced off a glass wall. He was blocking her somehow. She should have taken defensive action sooner. Hard on the heels of that regret, came a frisson of real fear.
“Listen to me, and listen well, sweetheart,” he said into her ear, his breath unpleasantly hot on her cheek, the message behind his words pounding through her brain from the inside of her skull, reinforcing it with irresistible insistence. “You will cease looking for the House Phel archives.”
She tried to jerk away, to wall out the psychic magic pummeling her will, encasing her in an ugly wall of dissonance, but his grip, both mental and physical, only tightened. Tears blurred her vision.
“You may keep up the appearance of conducting a search,” he continued relentlessly, “but you will not be effective. Any information you learn, you will immediately forget. Any information you discover, you will hide or destroy so no one else can access it. Finally, you will tell no one of this conversation. You will be unable to speak of me or what we just discussed. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” she heard herself say in dull obedience.
“Glad to hear it.” He sounded smug, self-satisfied, no doubt pleased to have so easily bested her. To her shocked horror, he licked her ear. “Mmm, tasty. You might look like a little girl, but I bet you’re all woman in bed. Be grateful I didn’t decide to instill a compulsion for you to come to mine. Mind yourself, or next time, I will.” He drew back and caressed her cheek with a finger, smiling when she shuddered.
“I can make you want me,” he murmured. “Or I can let you loathe me as I sense in you right now and compel you to give yourself to me anyway. I enjoy that, too. Perhaps more. Your call, baby wizard. Do as I say: don’t even think about retaliating or speaking a word about me other than to sing my praises, and I’ll leave you alone.”
At last he released his vise-grip on her arm, and the equally agonizing hold on her will, and Alise gasped at the sheer relief, then began shaking uncontrollably. The warrior spirit she’d tried to summon before suddenly manifested, looking to her for instructions. Gordon Hanneil glanced at it, then raked her with a salacious stare that left her feeling filthy, and shook a warning finger at her. Hastily, she banished the spirit.
“Not completely stupid,” the other wizard said. “Though I was kind of hoping you’d test me. Something tells me you’ll end up in my bed eventually, panting and eager, spreading your legs willingly, while your mind shrieks in useless protest. Mmm. I can feel it already. Are you a virgin? Ah, yes. Delightful.” He paused, not waiting for a reply so much as enjoying her terror. “There. Message delivered. Was that so difficult? Remember your instructions.”
He strolled away, whistling a tune vaguely familiar, but that she couldn’t identify. Alise flung herself at her chamber door, fumbling at the Iblis lock coded to her and her alone. The door gave and she hurled herself inside, slamming and locking it as if it could protect her from what had already occurred. Only then did she release the sob of utter and horrified despair, realizing as her stomach spasmed that tears weren’t all she’d be spewing. She made it to the washbasin and vomited, hard and painfully. Continuing to dry heave for a while, she wept continuously. Surely either puking or sobbing, or both, would provide a cathartic release and she’d feel better.
But she only felt soiled and ill.
At last, she got herself together enough to summon an earth elemental to clean up her sick. For those creatures, getting to consume anything was reward enough, but she was so grateful to it for removing the smell and visible evidence of her shame that she fed it an extra boost of magic, too. Sitting wearily on her narrow bed, she gazed bleakly around her small room.
The tiny earth elementals employed by Convocation Academy didn’t allow for dust to gather, but the room still seemed stale with disuse. She’d had a much grander room, back when she’d been Alise Elal, heir apparent to House Elal, petted and spoiled by her papa. Now that House Phel had taken over her expenses, the days of being one of the wealthiest students at the school were over. Her sister, Nic, and her husband Gabriel, had apologized that they couldn’t give her more, but Alise had been quick to shush them, knowing very well the precarious state of the House Phel finances. She certainly didn’t want to be more of a burden than necessary on her new family.
She didn’t long to go back to those relatively carefree days of wealth, when all she thought about was herself and her wizardry. She didn’t even wish to go back to the time before she’d impulsively gone to Meresin to rescue her family under siege at House Phel. No, all she really wanted, with every aching bone in her body, was to go back half an hour, to before that Hanneil magic fouled her mind. She fervently wished, as if wishing could make it so, that the encounter with Gordon Hanneil had never happened.
But it had. And she would never be the same.
A knock on her door set her heart lurching in the cavity of her chest, then to pounding frantically. Had he come back, perhaps to make good on his threats? Gazing at the inside of the door in stark terror, she distantly groped at the idea that she should muster a defense of some sort.
The knock came again. “Wizard Alise Phel?” a voice called.
Female. Not Gordon Hanneil.
“Wh—who is it?” she stammered, her throat tight and burning.
“Proctor Divya Hanneil. You’re quite late for your practicum.” A pause. “Is all well, Wizard Alise? I’m sensing agitation from you. Please open the door.”
Alise made an effort to strengthen her mental shielding, the annoyance that her distress had leaked through to the psychic wizard beyond the door helping to bolster her will. She made herself get up, unlock and open the door. “I’m fine. I just needed time to change clothes.”
Proctor Divya gave her a long searching look—along with an assessing probe that made Alise flinch, even though it was the oblique, non-invasive variety she’d experienced from the academy proctors her entire life. Nothing like Gordon’s lancing power that had laid her mind open as easily as a knife through butter.
The proctor noted Alise’s reaction. “Perhaps you should attend the healers.”
“No, no.” The last thing Alise wanted was for more people poking at her, even if the Refoel healers used their psychic healing magic in an entirely different way. She’d be fine. And she really, really, really didn’t want to risk anyone finding a trace of Gordon Hanneil’s presence on her—and then face the promised consequences. No one could protect her from that. “I’m fine,” she said with determination, willing it to be so. “I’ll go to the practicum immediately.” Alise gestured to the hallway, fully expecting the proctor to escort her there.
Proctor Divya raised a brow, her warm brown face concerned. She had always been one of the nicer proctors. “Wizard Alise,” she said gently, “I am no fashion guru, but even I can see that you haven’t changed your clothes yet.”
Alise mentally kicked herself. She wasn’t thinking straight. Probably she looked like shit, too. “Right. I just need a moment, if you’ll wait for me?”
“Perhaps you should take today to recover from your journey,” Divya said, a faint line between her elegant brows. “You don’t feel well, clearly. You’re upset. Did something untoward occur?”
“No!” Alise said, much too quickly and defensively. Divya’s wizard-black eyes widened in surprise at her vehemence and Alise made herself take a deep breath. “It’s just been a day, what with being castigated by the provost and all.”
Divya smiled in sympathy. “Provost Uriel is a force of nature, to be sure. Still, I’m concerned about your current state of emotional agitation. You know we proctors are here to be more than hall monitors.” Her smile twisted sardonically, making it clear she was well aware of how the students reduced their job description. “We also keep a finger on your emotional wellbeing. And personal safety,” she added, with a lift of one brow that stopped just short of being inquisitive.
“I can take care of my personal safety,” Alise replied, thinking wistfully of how she’d fully believed that only a short time ago, but she made herself sound firm.
Not firm enough, apparently, as Proctor Divya didn’t budge. “A large part of our responsibility,” she continued, “is to ensure that the overt and covert conflicts between the Convocation houses aren’t played out in these halls. We don’t imagine that we can prevent all power plays, but we can and will ensure our students’ safety. The academy is neutral ground. You have a right to pursue your education without harassment. If something untoward has occurred, you may confide in me. I will handle the situation discreetly.”
Alise suppressed a hysterical giggle at the prospect of informing on Proctor Divya’s fellow House Hanneil wizard. That would go well. Divya might fully believe in the ethics of her profession, but house loyalty ran deep. Confronted with a conflict between the two, most wizards would choose house loyalty over a job. One could find new employment more easily than a new house, especially a high house.
Alise couldn’t afford for Proctor Divya to go to Gordon, even with vague inquiries. So, she forced a smile, saying, “And we all so appreciate the proctors for your protection. Where would we be if the many house conflicts seeped into these hallowed halls?” Upon reflection, that phrasing might have been a little too sarcastic. “Nothing happened,” she assured the proctor, willing her thoughts and emotions to support her words. “That is, a lot has happened recently,” she amended. “Very difficult times.”
That had the additional benefit of being actually true. Even without the unpleasantness with Gordon—she heard that word in her maman’s voice, delicately alluding to the unspeakable, unpleasantness —she would still be emotionally reeling. The siege. Maman’s passing. All Alise’s fault.
“Is it exhaustion then?” Divya asked kindly.
“Tiredness, yes,” Alise answered, seizing on the excuse. She couldn’t possibly sleep now, however, and there was no way she wanted to sit in her room alone and think about what had happened. “But I’d prefer to get to class and start catching up. I’m already so far behind.”
Proctor Divya nodded slowly, unconvinced. “Fine. I’ll wait while you change clothes and escort you to your practicum. But I’m also putting in a ticket for you to see the healers at some point this week for an evaluation. I see in your records that you haven’t had a full physical in nearly twelve months. It’s been an eventful year for you, and I’m aware that Provost Uriel deliberately gave you an intense courseload, but surely it is not her intention for you to work yourself to collapsing. You will see the healers by the end of week. Are we agreed?”
Alise agreed with eager relief and a bone-watering sense of having escaped a terrible fate. She would recover her equilibrium and no one would ever know what had happened with Gordon Hanneil. She would never face that horrible fate he’d whispered so greasily into her ear, worms of psychic power crawling through her brain like maggots. Feeling her confidence falter, Alise promised to change with all speed, and just barely managed to close the door softly instead of slamming it in Divya’s kind, intrusive face.