Chapter 27
~27~
C illian stared at Alise, beyond shocked by her suggestion. “You can’t remove stacks from Convocation Archives!” To his chagrin, his whisper ended in a horrified squeak.
“Can’t as in shouldn’t or can’t as in impossible?” she persisted with relentless logic. “It seems like the enchantment triggers on the removal of physical texts.”
“ Shouldn’t .” He was insistent on that point. He could not possibly do what she was suggesting. Not even for Alise could he contemplate such breach of ethics. None of us needs another Szarina incident.
Alise still gazed at him expectantly. He should lie to her, insist that it was impossible. Except that he likely could get around the enchantment. “And very nearly impossible,” he finally said when it was clear that she’d wait him out, and that he couldn’t find it in himself to speak the lie to her face.
“Very nearly impossible leaves room for possible,” she replied gently. “So, the enchantment might be bypassed if the texts are in a non-physical state?”
“Maybe,” he answered unhappily. “By someone who knows how the enchantment works.”
“And who knows how the enchantment operates?”
He couldn’t meet her knowing gaze, looking past the tip of her left ear. “The archivists.”
“Harahel wizard-archivists?” she asked, not really a question.
“Yes,” he answered on a hush, unwilling to speak the anathema too loudly. “But Alise—I couldn’t possibly! It goes against every ethic that underpins my avocation and my profession. No archivist would commit so grave a crime as to remove materials from Convocation Archives.”
“Not even to save them from evil conspirators?” she asked, wizard-black eyes wide. “People who now know the hidden archives have been discovered and will fight to recover them. Probably this time to destroy them forever,” she added darkly.
Cillian knew exactly what she was doing and still couldn’t fend off the horrified reaction at her suggestion. “They wouldn’t .”
“Are you willing to take a chance on that possibility? Especially when we have something we can do to prevent it.”
“You don’t understand, Alise,” he said slowly, willing her to listen, knowing she couldn’t possibly get the extent of his fears. He should have told her about the Szarina incident before this. Now it was the entirely wrong moment. Though, even in the best of moments, he couldn’t possibly explain his shame over what he’d done, nor why he’d done it. Looking back, he hardly recognized himself. He’d been so dazzled by Szarina, so eager to help her. I know all about your white knight tendencies, Raya’s mocking voice reminded him. Yes, he’d been a fool, thinking he could save Szarina, be the hero for once. Worse, he’d thought she’d love him for it. What a fool he’d been.
“It’s true. I don’t understand,” Alise said. “But I want to.”
Cillian took a painful breath, willing himself to explain. The words that would damn him forever in her eyes refused to come. He couldn’t bear to have her look on him with the inevitable disappointment. “I just… can’t,” he finally got out. “I can’t do something unethical like that. Not again, not even for you.”
“Ah.” She nodded, a sympathetic smile twisting her lovely mouth. “‘Not again.’ By that I assume you’re referencing what happened with Szarina Sammael.”
He’d expected many replies from her, but not that. Grappling with his shock, his crawling shame, he couldn’t look into her face. “Who told you?” he asked, voice hoarse. And how long had she known?
“Brinda Chur.” Alise nodded, wrinkling her nose as his astonished gaze flew to her compassionate one. “That’s only one reason she is no friend of ours.
“But…” He had to clear his throat, seeing none of the contempt and disgust he’d dreaded. “But if you know, then…” He couldn’t finish.
“I know you , Cillian,” she said, softly but firmly. “Whatever you did, I’m sure you did for the best of reasons, if perhaps not the wisest ones.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her gentle teasing. “I don’t know about that. I was a fool.”
“Well, I want to hear the whole story—no doubt the real story—directly from you, but let me put it to you this way.” She gazed at him with a level of trust, of earnest faith that rocked him to the core. “Preserving those archives, analyzing how they were tampered with and why, that is your calling as an archivist. You wouldn’t be doing this for me. You wouldn’t even be doing it for House Phel. It’s for the integrity of these archives, which belong to all Convocation citizens. Something you believe in before all else.”
She was good. And he had no defense against her. Wouldn’t have, even if her rationale hadn’t made sense. He hadn’t been able to refuse Szarina either, but he could at least count on the fact that Alise would never use and betray him. “You’ve presented an argument too slippery for me to counter,” he allowed. “I may not be the better debater, after all.”
“Elals are known to be deft politicians for a reason,” she answered glibly, though her deliberately cocky attitude faltered. She worried so much about becoming like her father.
“You’re using your powers for good, though,” Cillian told her with firm conviction. “I only hope that history paints me that way, too.”
“If anyone dares to write otherwise, we’ll just alter the archives,” she responded with impish glee, grinning when he choked on his shocked reaction. “Oh, come on—that was a joke. I wouldn’t really.”
Yes, she absolutely would. Alise possessed a different moral scale that way, one that drove her to protect the people who mattered to her, no matter the objective right or wrong. They would discuss further. For the moment… “All right, cloak us,” he told her. “And I’ll bring the Phel archives with me.”
He was pretty sure he could do it. The hidden stacks hovered there, neatly parked where he’d mentally bookmarked them, so bringing the folded-up space with him required something of a hook, not unlike picking up a stack of books instead of leaving them on a table. A bit unwieldy, and it required some mental balancing. He worked on it while Alise summoned her cloaking spirits. Once he had a feel for the thing, he could carry the weightless burden just fine.
Holding Alise’s hand—mainly to stay close within her range, though the contact with her soothingly warm and rose-scented magic helped steady him—he walked along with her toward the exit and safety.
Getting through the enchantment with his burden in tow would take more finessing. Alise was right, however, that any Harahel wizard trained by the house and who’d worked any length of time in Convocation Archives could likely pull this off. That came as a reassurance that perhaps a Harahel had not been involved in concealing the Phel archives. Why go to those lengths if smuggling the stacks out of the archives entirely was an option? Surely Alise wasn’t the first person to think of that possibility. Yes, it hadn’t occurred to him, but that was because the ethical breach was essentially unthinkable. Leave it to a wily Elal to come up with that, a sneaky voice suggested. He ignored the voice, knowing better than anyone how vicious and damaging and outright false such gossip could be.
Regardless, it didn’t matter—yet—who’d done the expert work of hiding the Phel archives. They would investigate that later. He needed to focus on the exigencies of the moment.
In the end, however, bypassing the rather basic enchantment didn’t take anything extraordinary. Without realizing it, he’d been practicing for this moment practically every day as he checked out allowed materials, ensuring that anything removed from the archives had been recorded to the person taking it, adjusting the enchantment to let them pass, reestablishing it when the materials were returned. This monumental theft came far too easy.
When they reached the door, Alise glanced at him and he nodded. They walked out unobserved—and would have been regardless, as no one was about. Likely anyone awake had gone chasing the alarms. He and Alise walked right out, taking the Phel archives with them.
And walked straight into Gordon Hanneil.