Chapter 9
~9~
C illian watched as what little healthy color Alise had in her pale face drained away entirely. Her lovely black eyes that had already been shadowed in a way that made Cillian want to wrap her up in a soft blanket and hold her until she fell into much-needed sleep—never mind how inappropriate that would be—went haunted and bottomless in her taut face. He put a hand on her arm to catch her as she swayed in her seat, in case she actually fell.
“Alise?” he prompted, and followed her gaze to where she stared across the crowded dining hall. She looked as if she gazed into the abyss, like a monster lurked there, poised to devour her. But Cillian saw nothing. He even tried stretching his limited archivist-wizard’s senses to determine if something magical lurked there. Still nothing. But Alise was a far more powerful wizard and, more to the point, exceptionally talented in spirit magic, capable of detecting entities most wizards could not. “Is something there?” he asked in a lowered voice, squeezing her arm lightly to penetrate her stupor. “Something malevolent?”
She jumped in his loose grip, startling him with the violence of her reaction, her wide-eyed, panicked gaze flying to his. “No! Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Don’t you lie to me,” he bit out. “Tell me or I’m going over there.”
She swallowed hard, clearly frantic. “Please don’t. Please, Cillian.”
“Then tell me.”
“Don’t look though. The proctor,” she whispered. “Directly ahead. Staring right at us. At the end of the table.”
Confused, Cillian surreptitiously searched for who she meant. Several proctors monitored the dining hall, as usual, keeping tabs on the minds and emotions of the magic-bearing adolescents of varying ages, some powerful enough to level the building and a few quite capable of doing so in a fit of temper. He didn’t see anyone of note—and definitely no one standing where Alise’s gaze had been fixed. “The closest proctor I see is Wizard Divya, near the coffee pots.” And Alise wasn’t looking at her.
“Then you can’t see him,” she whispered, her expression crumpling in despair.
“Do you know his name? Or can you describe him for me?”
Pressing her lips together, she shook her head, steadfastly not looking in the direction she’d indicated. Refusing to answer, he thought, not that she didn’t know.
“I’m not crazy,” she said, her harsh whisper beseeching.
“Of course you’re not,” he agreed easily, though the pitch of her emotions seemed off the scale. Alise had no reason to fear one of the academy proctors. Still, something had frightened the usually unflappable Alise and he believed her fear was real. “I believe you.”
The look she turned on him, the immense gratitude in her expression, was nearly as good as if she’d said she longed for him like he did for her. “Let’s try this. I count nine proctors,” he said, very quietly, just loud enough for her to hear him, “all of whom I know.”
She swallowed hard. “There are ten.”
Alise wasn’t one to make mistakes, especially careless ones. Acting nonchalant, Cillian sat back and counted again, backing up the visual scan with his wizardly ability to assess quantities. “I still get nine.”
Making a choking sound, she abruptly pushed back and stood, using enough force that her chair clattered to the floor. “I’m sorry, Archivist,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. She also punched the words loudly enough to silence the debate underway at the other end of the table. Alise flicked a glance at the place where her invisible proctor stood, then fastened a pleading gaze on him. “I appreciate the effort you’ve put into organizing my independent study, but I simply have no time. I cannot work on it. Period.” With that, she seized her coffee and her book bag and scuttled away before he realized her intent.
“Student wizards,” one of his colleagues commented, shaking her head in disgust. “No respect for faculty anymore.”
“Report her to the provost,” her companion advised. “Particularly that one. This isn’t her first transgression, as I’m sure you know.”
“Or even the second,” another said.
“Or the worst! Those Elals think they can get away with anything,” another added.
But Cillian was no longer listening, having barely listened to begin with. The lower-level faculty tended to resent the more powerfully talented and highly placed wizard students. It stuck in the craw of some people that these “ignorant kids” already enjoyed more wealth and influence than they would. Employment at Convocation Academy in the lower ranks would never lead to full professorships and endowed chairs, so the positions weren’t exactly highly sought. Cillian didn’t mind because he basically got paid to hang out in one of the best libraries in the known world.
Most of his peers resented their dead-end jobs, however, and the only thing those petty minds enjoyed more than seeing one of the student wizards suffer some kind of failure was witnessing the stumbling or toe-stubbing of one of the high-house scions. The same thing had happened when Alise’s sister, Nic, so widely believed to be the next head of House Elal, manifested as a familiar instead of a wizard. The unholy glee at her loss of prestige, power, and even basic citizenship had been frankly awful to witness.
Cillian fully understood Alise’s insistence on being called by her House Phel affiliation instead of Elal. Even if her father wasn’t a monster who’d committed his worst deeds against his own intimate family, being an Elal wasn’t doing Alise any favors these days. The gossiping faculty proved that, falling into an exchange of lurid tidbits about the Elal progeny and the house itself. Cillian ignored his colleagues and their callous remarks, taking his empty tray and Alise’s barely touched one to the discard station, which led him past the spot where she’d seen a proctor he hadn’t.
Though the hairs stood up on the back of his neck, Cillian otherwise sensed nothing unusual. And that reaction could be attributed to Alise’s markedly odd behavior. He’d watched her face down hunters and automatons wielding wheels of blades. And the sight of a proctor terrified her to speechlessness? No, something very strange was going on and he wouldn’t lose this opportunity to gather any information he could.
So he waved to Proctor Raya Hanneil, a friend from student days. She gave him an absent smile, brushing her brown hair out of her eyes before glowering at a group of young, uncategorized students in a rising shouting match. “Hey, uncats,” she called, “inside voices or I mute you for the rest of breakfast.”
They subsided sullenly, continuing the argument at lower levels. “Can you really do that?” Cillian asked, electing to take a moment for friendly chatting before grilling her.
She winked. “I can make them think I can do that.”
Laughing, he gave her a little salute. “Clever. I’m curious, Raya, are there always ten of you working the breakfast shift?”
Wrinkling her nose, she laughed. “Cillian, I know your curiosity knows no limits, but how could you possibly care about that?”
“I’ve been reading up on crowd control,” he answered on impulse. “Of course, students aren’t rioting mundanes, but…”
“They’re that not far different either,” she finished drily.
“Angry adults without magic are less dangerous than children with it,” he agreed amiably, “but I’m interested in the commonalities. I know House Hanneil has a contract with the Convocation to provide crowd control in certain circumstances.”
She slid him a sideways glance, clearly refraining from comment. Yeah, it wasn’t common knowledge, but not exactly a secret either. Still, high houses tended to guard proprietary information zealously, whether or not the secrecy mattered.
Cillian held up his hands in a peacemaking gesture, hoping his sideways approach hadn’t taken so long that it cost him his quarry. “That’s not something I need to know. What I’m wondering is, how it’s decided how many proctors should be assigned per expected student? For example, are there nine or ten of you here this morning? I think I counted nine, but…”
“Ten,” she answered with confidence.
“Are you sure? I only count nine.”
She rolled her eyes, confident in her authority now. “Ten, Cillian. Where’s your archivist’s ability to count?”
“I see you, Divya…” He pointed and recited the names, counting them off on his other hand. “That’s nine.”
“And Gordon Hanneil, right there.” She shook her head at him, grinning. “Maybe you need a Refoel healer to check your eyes.”
“Oh!” he looked that direction and still detected no one. But a Hanneil wizard could see through a psychic manipulation that he could not. “Silly me. I don’t remember seeing him around before.”
She shrugged. “New hire. Replaced Beck, who retired.”
“Striking,” Cillian commented, fishing for any physical details she might give.
“Want me to introduce you? He’s handsome with all that golden hair and those bulging pecs, but I’d have to warn you that he’s got a rep for being unkind to his lovers.”
“Thanks, but no,” Cillian answered with a dry laugh. “Not at all my type.”
“That’s what I thought. Though you might seriously consider going with beefy, arrogant, and male. Better than going doe-eyed over a student,” she said with significantly arched brows. “You should know there’s gossip about you and Alise Elal.”
“Phel,” he corrected. “Wizard Alise is House Phel now,” he explained in the face of Raya’s bafflement. “And I’m surprised you listen to gossip. I’ve simply been assisting Alise with an independent study requiring deep research in the archives, at Provost Uriel’s behest, I might add.”
“I didn’t say I was listening,” she replied with a shrug.
“Just repeating.”
“Warning a friend,” she corrected. “I know all about your white knight tendencies, Cillian, remember?”
He flushed, in irritation and embarrassment. Old friends knew too much about you at times. “Szarina was a different story.”
“Was she?” Raya nodded in the direction Alise had gone. “Pretty, waifish wizardlings have always been your weakness. But you can’t save this one any more than you could save Szarina. And Alise Elal—Phel,” she corrected with a sigh when he started to interrupt. “Even if you could somehow rescue her from the pit she’s dug for herself, she wouldn’t thank you for it. She’s not going to reward you for your service to her. Or, if it occurred to her, she might make you House Elal archivist, where you’d probably get paid even less than you are now—but she’s never going to make a low-level Harahel wizard her consort.” She snickered. “Imagine you as Lord Elal, even in name only.”
Cillian was remembering why his friendship with Raya had tapered off. “As I said,” he replied with stiff formality, “I have no designs on Alise. She is my advisee only.”
“Yes, well, a word to the wise—let her go her own way. She’s meddling in dangerous waters and this ‘research project’ of hers is not looked upon favorably by any number of powerful entities.”
Cillian’s neck prickled. He looked again in the direction of the invisible Gordon Hanneil. “Entities like House Hanneil?” he inquired mildly.
“Any number of powerful entities,” Raya repeated with slow emphasis. Then she softened, smiling. “We’ve been friends a long time, so know that I’m only thinking of your best interests. This is not an arena for a wizard like you. Stick to the books and the baking. That’s where you shine and you’ll be the happier for it.”
“So noted,” he said.
“Aww, don’t be like that.” Her smile turned inviting. “You know I always appreciated your baking. Especially breakfast in bed. That was the upside of your dalliance with Szarina—she taught you well.”
He made himself laugh, as if pleased. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do. You know where to find me. We always had a good time together.”
He thought that was highly debatable, but he might need Raya for more information, so he kissed her cheek. “Nice to catch up.”
“Yes, and—Hey!” She fastened her attention on a pair of wizards with their heads together. “I hear what you’re thinking and not in my cafeteria.”
Grateful for the reprieve, Cillian ducked away while Raya was preoccupied, gathered his things, and headed for the library. The archives might be mysteriously missing reams of information on House Phel, but they contained certain information without a doubt. That included the personal profiles of every Convocation citizen.
This Gordon Hanneil would have to appear on the rolls to have been hired as a Convocation Academy proctor. He might be using his psychic magic to obscure his presence from some eyes and not others, but other Hanneil wizards like Raya knew of him and so he must exist on paper.
Cillian would use all his considerable skills and wizardry to find out everything there was to know about Gordon Hanneil who was unkind to his lovers. Cillian might not be white knight material, and he’d never be the hero of anyone’s story, but he could do this for Alise. Gordon Hanneil had terrified Alise and Cillian would find out why.
And put a stop to it.