Page 6 of Strange Familiar (Warriors of Magic #2)

~6~

A lise rode in the elemental-powered carriage through the heavy snowfall, glad of the runners that let it function as a sleigh, through El-Adrel cleverness. Though she’d buried herself in the furry blankets, she couldn’t seem to get warm. A cold, numb core of herself refused to thaw.

She couldn’t bear to contemplate Cillian’s hurt when he discovered she’d left. But what could she have done? Cillian’s grandmother hadn’t even allowed her to leave a note. She could hardly stay at House Harahel without Lady Harahel’s permission, in the face of her express instruction to leave. Though Alise might not care if House Elal got called upon to make reparations for an intrusion by one of their own, she would care if House Phel got in trouble because of her. Nic and Gabriel had already gone out on a limb by taking her into their house, paying for her education at Convocation Academy—which she’d screwed up, yet again—and being so forgiving about Maman’s death. She couldn’t possibly jeopardize everything they’d struggled to build and protect by adding to House Phel’s already too-long list of enemies.

Leaving had been the only thing she could reasonably do. The current problem was, she didn’t know where to go.

She couldn’t return to Convocation Academy, not yet. Maybe not ever. She certainly wasn’t going to House Elal. She could live her entire life without returning to those spirit-infested halls. There was only one place she could feasibly go, the place she’d wanted to go in the first place and probably should have, even if she might not be wholly welcome.

So, she programmed the air elemental—one perfectly tamed and bonded, exactly to House Elal factory specs, as Lady Harahel had indicated—to take her to the only real home she had anymore: House Phel.

Then she tried to sleep, though she didn’t think she’d be able to, with her mind racing and her heart breaking. Exhaustion must have caught up with her, however, sending her into sleep at some point, because she jarred awake, steaming hot and sweating, at the jolting of sleigh runners on rocks. Hastily, she halted the air elemental’s single-minded—if you could call it a mind—forward progress and stepped out of the carriage, shedding blankets like the fur of some stinking mammal after hibernation. She felt greasy and filthy, unable to recall when she’d last bathed.

Worse, her shoes, adequate for the heated halls of Convocation Academy, sunk ankle-deep in muck when she stepped out of the carriage. “Welcome to the swamps of Meresin,” she announced to herself, spreading her arms and smiling maybe just a little. She didn’t have much humor in her, but the moment made her think of Nic and her sister’s unrelenting needling of Gabriel over Meresin being one big swamp. It wasn’t, of course, but much of the place did sit at or below sea level, with wildly prevalent wetlands of all varieties.

It was also warmer in Meresin, in these more southern and western climes, though not actually warm . In truth, the pervasive moisture generated a chill that penetrated to her bones in a way the frozen weather hadn’t. Of course, it didn’t help that she stood outside in her shirtsleeves, sweat cloying on her skin after being buried in the furry blankets.

Alise supposed she was fortunate the snow had given way to this waterlogged excuse for a road, rather than dry ground. As it was, the sleigh runners looked a little chewed up. In the exigency of their midnight escape from Convocation Academy, Alise had “borrowed” the plush House Elal carriage from the storage facility. Maybe she was having a hard time breaking the childhood habit of worrying about what her father would say or do, but she was relieved that she hadn’t actually broken the cursed thing. Finding the button to trigger the El-Adrel mechanism, she watched as the clockwork devices extended wheels and withdrew the sled runners. Not ideal for the swampy ground of Meresin, but Nic’s joking suggestion of carriages that could convert to boats had yet to be taken seriously, let alone implemented.

With the carriage on wide rimmed wheels that only sunk partway into the muck, Alise sat in the open door of the passenger compartment and pried off her mud-soaked slippers, then knocked off as much of the gunk as she could before setting them in a far corner inside. Pulling on a more judicious blanket or two, she set the elemental into motion again, sorry to find that the earlier speed over snow had slowed to a boggy crawl. The carriage lurched and heaved as it hit a rock one moment and a water-filled hole the next.

It pleased Alise to see that her sentries remained in place, notifying Lord and Lady Phel of her incipient arrival. Or so she was extrapolating from her tests of the entities’ responsiveness. To be certain, she’d have to check the messaging system she’d set up at House Phel for timeliness and accuracy. And, while there, she’d also inspect and refuel the other imps and elementals she’d set up for Nic, though her sister, while a familiar and not a wizard, still had a knack for coaxing the creatures along. Nic possessed considerable Elal magic, though she couldn’t wield it directly.

Midday was a propitious time for arrival at House Phel, the early spring sunlight warm on the gracious manse with its long wings, large windows—only Byssan glass used in the restoration, so all gleamed flawlessly clear in their white-painted, wooden frames—and the wide porches and balconies. The more temperate climate allowed the vast lawn to remain evergreen, studded with tufts of colorful spring flowers. The rolling lawn surrounded the perfectly still lake that mirrored the graceful lines of the manse. With the soft blue sky above, barely touched with a few fluffy white clouds, the whole scene was an idyllic portrait of gentle, rural splendor.

Alise released a long sigh of relief and sorrow, twined indelibly together. House Phel felt like home in a way Elal never had—and apparently as Harahel never would. She couldn’t get over the sinking sensation that she’d let Cillian down by leaving. She knew he’d wanted her to see the house of his birth, to meet his family. It was just like him to blithely assume that his family would embrace her, not to mention “forgetting” to mention that the grandmother he’d portrayed as a sweet old lady spending her days baking and quilting was in fact an intimidatingly sharp dragon of a wizard and actually Lady Harahel. Seriously, Cillian couldn’t have warned her?

Knowing him, he probably thought it wasn’t important. And, knowing him, he wouldn’t understand why she’d been compelled to leave. He’d be hurt, upset, possibly angry. And knowing that simply exhausted her. She’d been clear from the beginning that she couldn’t give Cillian what he wanted and needed. He possessed the heart of a true romantic. With his particular aspirations for a good and quiet life, he could afford that kind of softness and vulnerability where she couldn’t. Plus he possessed that dragon of a grandmother to protect him, which Alise could heartily agree he needed. Lady Harahel was wrong about Alise, but her logic was impeccable. Were the situations reversed, Alise wouldn’t let herself near Cillian either.

Which served to prove, right there, that their relationship shouldn’t be. She’d been deluding herself about that, seduced by cinnamon rolls and sweetness, and it was time to stop.

During her morose musings, the carriage had circled the lake and slowed to a halt before the manse, the echo of her arrival at House Harahel a bit unsettling. But, where that moment had been dark, cold, and desperate, the house there like something out of a gothic romance, this arrival was the exact opposite. The sunshine, flowers, birdsong, the lovely white manse with its sparkling windows—and an incredibly pregnant Nic coming slowly down the wide steps, a huge smile on her face. Her black curls bounced around her high-cheekboned face, emerald eyes brilliant.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d get the message in time,” her sister exclaimed, hugging her, the embrace made exceedingly awkward by Nic’s enormous and enormously hard belly protruding between them. Then it rippled. Nic gasped, and Alise leapt back. Nic’s forest-green Ophiel gown clung lovingly to the rounded surface, magically adapting to even the large mound of her pregnancy like a second skin. Skin that rippled like a wave.

“You’re in labor?” Alise demanded.

“Yes.” Nic laughed, an hysterical edge to it. “Finally! Isn’t that why you’re here? And what in the dark arts happened to you? Barefoot, mud-spattered, and you smell like you haven’t bathed in days.”

“I love you too,” Alise responded sourly, figuring that answered that.

“This pregnancy,” Nic explained. “I can smell anything rotten or unpleasant from a league away.”

“Even better. Should you be standing out here on the steps if you’re in labor?”

“No,” Gabriel Phel said, emerging from the house, his magic billowing around him like a cloak in a high wind. His startlingly white hair contrasted with his tawny skin, the lone black streak at his temple matching his snapping wizard-black eyes. “Hello, Alise. Good to see you and I’m glad you made it in time.” He gave her a hug that was quick, perfunctory, and felt so much like what a brother—a real brother, not her actual turd of a one—would give that she nearly teared up. “Now,” he continued, turning to glower at Nic, “do me a favor and make your obstinate sibling go lie down.”

“Wizard Qaya, the midwife House Gaia sent me,” Nic explained to Alise, “says that it could be hours and hours and that walking is good for me.”

“Nic,” Gabriel grated, sounding like a wizard on the edge. Silver sparkled in the air, the humidity condensing into tiny silver specks, transformed by Gabriel’s water and moon magic, Alise realized. He’d clearly been working on blending the two kinds of magic, but not with perfect control.

“Mind your magic, my only love. Go terrorize the minions or something,” Nic told him impudently, patting him on the cheek and giving him a kiss. She looped her arm through Alise’s. “My sister will walk with me.”

“Don’t upset her,” Gabriel instructed Alise.

“She can upset me all she likes,” Nic retorted. “I’m bored of being treated like I’m breakable. You stay here and practice being calm. This is all your fault anyway.”

Gabriel actually made a growling sound under his breath, the palpable surge of his magic causing the once-fluffy clouds to gather into heavy-bottomed threats of rain.

Alise eyed the gathering storm with unease. “I don’t think your cautions are working,” she said sotto voce to Nic.

Her sister shrugged that off. “We could use the rain. And it would help him to blow off a little steam, as it were.” She cast a coquettish glance at Gabriel over her shoulder, fluttering her lashes. “One day my wizard will learn I only like it when he bosses me around during sex.”

Startled, Alise blushed. Nic rolled her eyes. “Oh come now, you’re an adult now and—dark arts!” she suddenly exclaimed, startling Alise. “I forgot your natal day. I’m a horrible sister.”

Alise laughed. “You are not.” In truth, with all that had been going on, she’d practically forgotten it herself.

“I don’t suppose our father acknowledged it.”

“Does he ever?”

“No.” Nic let out a sigh. “And now I’m no better.”

“It’s all right, Nic. It really is.”

“All right then. Then tell me this, what’s with this whole ‘Cillian Harahel is looking after me’ thing?” Nic squeezed her arm. “You had to know that your missive would only pique my interest. You and the shy librarian wizard a romantic item now. Tell me everything.”

Alise really regretted having put that in her letter to Nic.

“He’s not shy, really. He’s—” Alise broke off when Nic’s grip vised on her arm as she bent over, propping her other hand on her knee, blowing out her breath rhythmically. “Nic! We should go back to the manse.”

“No, no, no,” Nic panted, straightening and waving a hand in the air. “They’ll just all hover, which you know I can’t bear, as it really will be hours and hours of this, and besides Wizard Qaya did say that walking is good for me. I need a distraction. Tell me more about adorable Cillian. Did you have sex with him yet?”

“Nic!” Cheeks scalding, Alise tried not to choke.

“Oh, you have ,” Nic crooned. “Tell me every little detail.”

“No.”

“It’s your job to distract me. I’m in pain,” Nic wheedled.

Alise sighed. “You’re just nosy is all.”

“Exactly so,” Nic replied jauntily. “Tremendously curious. Insatiably so. Only a dense recitation of every intimate detail will satisfy me. So: spill.” She’d turned them on a pretty path leading around one of the wings of the manse, far away from any eavesdroppers.

“There’s really nothing to tell,” Alise said, deciding this was a ripe opportunity to set the record straight regarding Cillian and her, and to cement what she knew their future must be. It was over between them, no matter how the thought pained her. Denying reality any longer would serve nothing. Not only couldn’t she and Cillian ever be; they shouldn’t have ever been . She might as well make it official.

“I apologize that my wording made our relationship sound like more than it was. I only meant that Wizard Harahel had been assigned as my independent study mentor and that he was safeguarding me against any troubles. Not that there were any,” she hastily added. “But in your letter you mentioned vague fears about me being in danger, so I thought I should address those.”

“Mmm hmm.” Nic’s ostensible agreement sounded more skeptical than anything.

As Nic also said nothing more after that, Alise plowed on. “I mean, some things did happen that I’ll share with you and Gabriel as you’ll need to know about them.” She was digging herself into a hole. Nic would be upset by the entire truth—information she and Gabriel needed as Lord and Lady Phel—but wasn’t it bad for a woman in labor to receive bad news?

“Eventually,” she added, “after the baby is born and you’ve recovered.”

“Don’t do that,” Nic warned, her tone falsely mild. They’d entered an orchard with tiny, bright green leaves starting to unfurl on the gracefully twisted limbs of the ancient trees. “I’m pregnant, not addle-brained.”

Alise belatedly recalled Nic’s letter mentioning her threat to stab Gabriel with a fork for calling her emotional. “My point is that, to answer your question, no, I’m not romantically involved with Cilli—Wizard Harahel. He’s a friend. And mentor. Only.”

“I see,” Nic replied amiably. “So, despite the difference I sense in your magic, which includes a wealth of feeling that’s quite palpable, you didn’t have—let’s protect your delicate sensibilities, shall we?—ah, intimate relations with that adorable boy?”

“He’s older than you are,” Alise pointed out, irritated with both of them. How in the dark arts could Nic sense all of this in her?

“Is he?” Nic sighed rubbing her belly. Alise side-eyed the substantial mound, checking for more ripples. “I feel so much older than you lot these days, so much has happened.”

Alise understood that feeling, very well.

“But,” Nic continued in a brighter tone, “I observe that you have twice dodged this question and therefore conclude that you did have sex with the delightful librarian wizard and I of course happen to know this was your first sex, so… How was it?”

Wonderful. Amazing. Soul-shatteringly intimate. She’d never felt so loved and adored as when Cillian had made love to her. And now it was gone. “I think I liked our relationship better when we weren’t speaking,” she griped.

“That good, huh?” Nic murmured, squeezing her arm. “Does the fact that you’re here—clearly surprised to discover I’m in labor—without your beloved and smelling like a five-day old slaughtered pig mean that—”

“Enough with the stink remarks already.” Alise extracted her arm and stepped a good two arm’s lengths away. “As a matter of fact, no I haven’t bathed in several days and I’m covered in muck because the roads here in Meresin, if you can dignify them with that title, are actually shallow bogs. I travelled here from House Harahel after Lady Harahel—who just happens to be Cillian’s grandmother , a fact that adorable librarian boy forgot to mention—threw me out for being a filthy, stinking Elal, and I don’t know if Cillian is even all right because he found the hidden Phel texts in the Convocation Archives and it nearly killed him to extract them and carry them to House Harahel where they’ll be safe because House Hanneil sent a spy wizard to try to stop me, which was horrible , and—” She dragged in a breath, finding she simply couldn’t around the rock lodged in her chest.

Nic regarded her solemnly, both hands rubbing her belly. “That’s a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” Alise managed to get out, pressing her fingers on either side of her nose, willing herself not to cry and discovering it was too late. “I’m not supposed to upset you.”

“Gabriel can tough it out if I can,” Nic said, her gorgeous emerald eyes welling with sympathetic tears. “You should have told me your heart was broken.”

“It’s not. I’m just tired and… And Cillian, he…” A sob tore out of her.

“Oh, honey.” Nic opened her arms. “Come here you little stinkbomb.”

Needing the embrace, Alise let Nic hold her, weeping on her big sister’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I sm—sm—smell bad,” she sobbed.

Nic patted her back. “It’s all right. Nothing a small herd of grooming imps can’t cure. You must have been right out of your head that it didn’t occur to you to summon some. Let’s go back to the manse and you can tell me the whole story, including who at House Hanneil we have to kill for daring to hurt you.”

“He—he’s already dead. Or as good as. Provost Uriel took care of it. She wiped the floor with him. She’s actually a terrifyingly powerful wizard. Did you know that? And Morghana Seraphiel tutored me in the dark arts and then told me to tell you that House Seraphiel stands ready to assist, and I’m forgetting more.”

“Definitely a story we need to hear.” Nic patted her back. “Unfortunately, it will have to be later.”

“What?” Alise pulled back in alarm. “The baby?”

“It seems so. Help me back to the manse, sweetheart, or I’m going to drop this baby on her head in the orchard and I’ll never hear the end of it from Gabriel.”