Page 3 of Strange Familiar (Warriors of Magic #2)

~3~

W hen Alise had agreed to journey to House Harahel with Cillian the first time, she’d envisioned a formal approach and negotiated visit with all the appropriate etiquette observed.

That would have been infinitely preferable to arriving without invitation in the pre-dawn hours with Cillian’s cold, limp, and unconscious body. Better than his corpse, but barely. She didn’t kid herself that anyone at Harahel would be pleased to see an Elal on their doorstep. House Harahel wasn’t exactly an enemy of House Elal, but neither were they allies.

In truth, given the way her father ran business, Elal enjoyed very few allies—and the ones they’d had seemed to be meeting with reversals of late. Fortunately, a couple of those had converted to allies of House Phel, where she owed her loyalty, but unfortunately, the bulk of the Convocation didn’t know that. To most everyone she was heir to House Elal, her father’s daughter, and with every indication of being as powerfully gifted with magic and as unprincipled with it as the head of the house of her birth. She didn’t blame any of them for being wary of her.

At the moment, she was pouring every drop of that powerful magic into pushing the air elemental to maximum speed. She’d enlarged and empowered the simple creature, giving it as much fuel as she could from her dwindling reservoir, while using the lion’s share of it to keep Cillian’s spirit in his body. She had no experience with doing such things, but his essential self kept attempting to tug away, to rid itself of the drained flesh it seemed done with occupying. Alise refused to allow that to happen, no matter the cost to herself.

If she had a familiar available to replenish her magic, she’d promise them anything in exchange. But she didn’t and the nearly deserted landscape en route to House Harahel offered no possibilities to find a familiar, even if one had been willing to help. All she could do was hold onto Cillian, physically and magically, hoping to warm him with her body and keep her mental hooks in him with her wizardry.

She bitterly regretted promising to take him to Harahel and repeatedly reconsidered the wisdom of capitulating to Cillian’s wishes. Him and his cursed integrity. She knew full well that’s why he insisted on House Harahel, because of the archives he carried, the archives currently killing him. Obdurate, high-minded Cillian, so determined to prove his integrity and honesty after that awful Szarina Sammael used him so brutally and tainted his reputation.

Well, regardless of how Lady Harahel received Alise, hopefully they’d take care of Cillian and someone there would be able to relieve him of the burden of carrying those archives. She privately had her doubts. Cillian himself had said that he didn’t know of any wizards, library-magic-gifted or not, who’d managed to perform the monumentally difficult feat that he had. At this point, she didn’t even care if the archives survived the procedure; she only wanted Cillian to live.

Alise counted the minutes until their arrival at House Harahel, which didn’t help much as she had no idea how much longer it would take to get there. Feeling as if she held herself together with mental fingernails, she periodically diverted a sliver of attention to the air elemental, prodding it to determine if she could get it to go even a little faster. Full of fierce glee at the unprecedented freedom and power she’d bestowed on it, the creature had gone almost feral. That was partially her fault. In order to strip away the enchantments constraining the elemental’s size and power, she’d gone for the quick and dirty method of unbinding the entity entirely—which meant removing the spellwork cast by whatever Elal factory wizard had manufactured it—and rebinding it to her own specifications.

Because she’d been working fast, she’d performed the bare minimum required to keep the elemental leashed to her will instead of haring off on its own. The lax binding had also served to allow her to inflate the elemental’s size and propulsive force, so that the carriage hurtled along on its skids, practically flying over the snow-covered road. Left to the elemental’s instinctive desires, and if not for the constraints of gravity, they might have become airborne. As it was, they were fortunate the recent winter storm had left everything deeply buried. Otherwise the barely controlled elemental would have crashed them. The instructions she’d embedded kept them on course and following the markers buried within the road by the builders, but without those, nothing would have stopped the elemental from dragging them through any obstacle in its programmed path, living or not.

Checking on the creature, she noted the fraying strands of her control, barely keeping it tamed to her will. Given time and opportunity—and more magic than she currently possessed—she’d rebind the elemental and do it correctly this time. She could just imagine the horrified expression on the face of her Professor of Manipulation and Control of Noncorporeal Entities upon discovering her slapdash methodology. But reworking the binding would take time and energy she couldn’t afford. Also, with the air elemental so swollen on her magic and glutted on unaccustomed freedom, Alise had to consider she might not be able to bind it again. It might wrest free of her and then she’d have to gather up a new elemental. They were ubiquitous and she could do that, but—again time and energy. Therefore, she left it as it was and hoped.

Hoped the elemental wouldn’t break free.

Hoped they made it to House Harahel in time to save Cillian.

Hoped she hadn’t destroyed everything that mattered to her before she’d even had a moment to savor it.

Hope. Hope. Hope.

So it was that, sometime later, they flew at blazing speeds onto the grounds of House Harahel. Alise had expected to be stopped at the Harahel border, or at the very least at the boundary of the grounds of the house itself, but apparently Harahel didn’t employ shields or guards. The Elal in her blanched in horror, deeply uncomfortable with such lax security. No one could cross the borders of the extensive lands belonging to Elal, not without being admitted by a border guardian. Even Houses El-Adrel and Sammael, who flaunted their supreme confidence—and general lack of interest in the safety of their populations—by leaving their borders open, closely guarded the approach to the houses themselves.

Alise didn’t realize they’d reached House Harahel itself until the air elemental slammed to a stop, throwing her hard against the thankfully padded backrest. At first, she feared they had collided with something. Pulling aside the heavy, insulating curtains, she gazed out the carriage window in considerable surprise.

The house loomed directly overhead, a few warm lights in its many windows. They’d pulled up in a circular drive directly in front of a wide wooden porch, not unlike the design at House Phel, which also seemed far too inviting and lacking security to her. Alise should have been able to predict that House Harahel, like Cillian with his relaxed and friendly ways, would be open and approachable.

In the pre-dawn half-light, the edifice seemed to be mostly gray and black, but she suspected it would be colorful in the light, with its fanciful gables, ginger-breaded eaves, and slender towers ringed with wide windows and peaked roofs. Spindly silhouettes of whirling things topped several of those conical peaks, glinting with a metallic shine as the sun tipped its rays over the hilly horizon.

No one had emerged from the house, for which Alise judged them with edged anger. Noses in their books, no doubt, while one of their own—no matter how lowly Cillian’s rank might be within House Harahel—lay dying on their doorstep. Well, she would get their attention.

The spurt of righteous rage leant her a bit of magic from her nearly empty well, and she summoned a spirit to pound on the big doors of the manse and send up a banshee wail while at it. She stayed inside the carriage, unwilling to unwrap Cillian and expose him to more of the chill, but she did kick open the carriage door so they’d see her within.

It took far too long for anyone to emerge and, when the doors finally creaked open, it wasn’t a guard or servant who peered out, but an ancient fellow in a robe and slippers, a striped stocking cap dangling crookedly from his head, a lantern in his hand containing an actual candle and not a fire elemental. Alise was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes, instead keeping them fixed in demand on the old man who peered blearily past the circle cast by the feeble lantern light.

“Eh, someone out there?” he asked. A book fell from where he’d clearly tucked it under his arm to open the door and he bent to pick it up, wedging the door open with his body. A cat ran out, bounding into the snow. Dark arts protect them all.

“Get help right now,” Alise called out in a firm voice, abandoning any pretense at correct etiquette. “I bring Wizard Cillian Harahel, in dire need of immediate assistance from the house of his birth.”

“Cillian, ah?” The man, book retrieved, shuffled onto the porch, slippers sliding on the sheen of ice from overnight, and peered sharply at her. “Young Wizard Cillian is to be at Convocation Academy, not screaming through the night in a carriage run by an altered air elemental in the company of an Elal Wizard. Piers Elal’s daughter and heir, too.”

Alise bit back her impatient frustration at the delay, cautioning herself against further assumptions. How this frowsy-looking man discerned so much about her with barely a glance, she didn’t know, but she’d best tread carefully. It wasn’t easy to see in the growing light, but it seemed he sported the black eyes of a full wizard. “All true,” she conceded, “and I’m happy to explain, but—please—summon help for Cillian. There’s no time to waste.”

“A statement that elicits many thoughts and is highly debatable, beginning with the definition of ‘waste,’” he observed, coming down a couple of steps without holding onto the railing. “Once we’ve agreed on what is a waste, which would likely take doing, as I imagine you and I have very different priorities, then we could move on to a discussion on the mutable nature of time itself.”

Why hadn’t she gone to House Phel? Alise dragged in a breath with the last crumb of her patience, barely restraining a scream of frustration. “I beg of you, Sir Wizard, summon help for Cillian and I’ll submit to all the debates you like.”

“Now there’s a good bargain.” He cackled in glee. “Not many sharp-minded youngsters want to sit and debate the nature of time with the likes of me these days.”

Alise set her teeth, scraping up the last vestiges of her magic to find another spirit to summon someone besides this venerable obstacle of an old wizard. But she didn’t have enough to even fetch an elemental. “With all due respect,” she grated out, “please fetch someone to help Cillian!”

“Not as patient as you’d like to appear, eh?” He perched on the middle step, swaying a bit. “I think you’ll find that’s a character flaw you’ll want to remedy young Alise. Impetuosity leads only to trouble.” He cackled again, well pleased with himself.

She was opening her mouth, maybe to release that scream of sheer frustration and to alert the household that way, like a mundane human with no magic, when the doors burst wide, expelling a horde of people with blankets and a stretcher.

Before she could blink, she and Cillian had been extracted from the carriage with gentle, but urgent hands, separated, and Cillian carried off into the house. Alise teetered there uncertainly, with one blanket still wrapped around her, having been divested of the others, the old wizard still on his step watching her with chiding amusement, a vibrant older woman at his side holding his arm and regarding her with interested, wizard-black eyes.

“Alise Elal on my doorstep at a winter’s dawn, bearing my grandson on the verge of death by magic drain,” she observed. “Seems like a bad omen. I’ll have to consult the oracles.”

“You worry too much, órlaith,” the old wizard said, patting her hand on his arm. “They’re just children up to youthful shenanigans.”

“And you shouldn’t be on these icy steps in these slippers,” she returned, gripping him tighter, never taking her probing gaze from Alise. “Well, you’re here and I’m not sending you back in your state only to have Piers Elal on my doorstep next demanding recompense for the loss of yet another heir. He’s been quite careless on that front and you’d think he’d know better by now. You’d best come inside and get warm. Come along.”

“I’d like to go with Cillian,” Alise began, “and there is something you need to know.” But órlaith had already turned her back, leading the old wizard back up the steps, and so Alise tagged along after them. As the tart woman had indicated, Alise really had no other option at this juncture. And, as Alise had accurately predicted, she noted to herself with sour vindication, she wasn’t at all welcome at House Harahel.

She really should have taken Cillian to House Phel. At least she more or less belonged there. Curse Cillian and his stubborn insistence. They’d better be able to help him—which meant she needed to explain what had happened to him and what they needed to do to relieve him of the burden he carried. She was plain exhausted, which was why she was being so thick-headed. Feeling like the child they named her, she chased after the pair, skidding a bit on the icy steps and earning a cautionary glance from órlaith. “Don’t be breaking your neck on the House Harahel steps either, Alise Elal.”

“I prefer Phel,” Alise said, catching up to them. “As in House Phel,” she explained further, when neither said anything. “My sister, Nic, is wife and familiar to Lord Gabriel Phel, and they consider me part of their house now.”

órlaith gave her a shrewd look. “Names don’t change your blood. You’re an Elal. It’s written all through you and that won’t change your content, no matter how you try to alter the title and cover.”

She really should have gone to House Phel. “Nevertheless, I’d like to see Cillian now. And I need to speak to Lady Harahel. There are things she needs to know, in order to help him.”

“I doubt that,” órlaith responded. “Harahels pride themselves on knowing everything that is knowable.”

“And a great deal that isn’t,” the old wizard added with another of his gleeful cackles.

“True enough, Uncle,” she agreed with a laugh.

They stepped into the carpeted warmth of the front hall, the space long and narrow, with high ceilings and sparsely lit, gothic-looking chandeliers suspended in the heights. Closed doors lined the hallway, interspersed with tall mirrors in elaborate frames, a table beneath each. Some held antique tomes bookended by sculptures of various creatures, others bowls of things or small chests of drawers, still others various knick-knacks and objets d’art. The place smelled of old wood, dust, and candlewax. It whispered of age, treasured histories, and a lack of coin to keep any of it in good repair. Not at all unlike House Phel in that way.

“We have to keep the doors closed,” órlaith said, gesturing vaguely at the hall, “as we avoid heating rooms in the wintertime that we don’t need to use. Expensive, you know. But the library is warm and we can talk there. I assume that’s where you were reading, Uncle?” she asked the old man, guiding him down the hallway before opening a door that allowed heat and light to spill through.

“I wake so early,” he said to Alise over his shoulder. “Even on these dark mornings. More quiet time to read.”

“Indeed.” órlaith settled him into a worn armchair by the fire, feeling the teapot on the table beside it. “I’ll send for more tea and there should be fresh pastries. You can sit anywhere you like, Alise Elal, but I suggest this settee nearer to the fire. You look cold and pale enough to see through. And painfully young. How old are you?”

“Eighteen.” Alise supposed Cillian came by his fussing and nurturing honestly. Still. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, not taking a seat, but standing tall, spine straight as her maman would have expected, “but it’s urgent that I speak with Lady Harahel. And I’d like to see Cillian.”

“Yes, so you mentioned,” órlaith replied mildly. “Cillian is being cared for and you’ll see him in due time. As for Lady Harahel…” She raised her eyes to the skies as if seeking the woman. “Well, it’s quite early in the day for her to make an appearance. Besides, she’s always getting in the way when I want to know something. I’m Cillian’s grandmother, órlaith. You’ll go through me first. Tell me this important thing.”

Alise opened her mouth to protest, taken aback at the casual dismissal of the head of House Harahel. Not something that would occur in House Elal, where her father had spirit spies everywhere and knew all that was spoken about him. At the woman’s stern look, however, Alise closed her mouth again. Cillian had spoken fondly of his grandmother.

“I greet you, Wizard órlaith Harahel,” Alise said, remembering her manners. “I realize that it’s very early and our arrival strange and alarming, but I really must insist on explaining—”

Alise broke off as a servant entered the room and the older woman turned away. Alise shook her head to herself. Manual messages, a real fire in the fireplace. These people lived as if magical conveniences didn’t exist.

“What?” órlaith turned back from giving instructions to the servant. “You think you need to explain that my grandson nearly killed himself to carry a massive folded archive to us that he stole from Convocation Center?”