That gave her pause. “What will happen to my hair?”
“You don’t know?”
“Of course not,” she answered his surprise with considerable impatience. “I have no idea what this ceremony entails.”
“Right.” He shrugged. “I suppose you’ll find out soon enough.”
“Or you could tell me.”
“And ruin the surprise?” He lifted a brow in false astonishment.
She pressed a hand to her curdling stomach, shoving her plate away. “Please don’t tease me about this. I don’t think I can take it, I’m so nervous.”
“I apologize.” He grabbed a chair and sat beside her, looking solemn and uncharacteristically compassionate. “I’m nervous, too,” he admitted, “and I’ve never witnessed a bonding ceremony, so I only know what I’ve been told. I’m not sure where Maman plans to hold it. I obviously don’t have an arcanium and she obviously won’t let us anywhere near hers—which is just as well because I don’t want to think about what a thoroughly magical room in an already rogue magical house would be like.” He shook his head and considered. “She might make it public, just to see if I’ll fail to manifest enough power to do it properly.”
“Is that a problem?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Worried about me having performance issues already, darling?”
“It happens to everyone,” she reassured him.
“Funny girl. No, I should have plenty of magic, thanks to your boost, to do the job, even with an audience.”
“Is it…” She hesitated to ask, bracing for his mockery. “Is it sexual?”
His auburn brows flew up in true astonishment. “No! Well,” he amended, “not overtly, but it is… intimate, is the word, I suppose.”
“Thus the audience,” she commented drily.
“Exactly. That’s Maman for you.” He paused. “You do have to be naked.”
Um, what? Her stomach tightened into a fist. “We have to be naked?”
“Not me—just the familiar,” he said, rueful gaze on her. “It’s tradition—symbolizes that the familiar comes to the wizard with nothing, that the wizard, or the wizard’s house, will provide for them forever after.”
“In point of fact, pretty much everything I have now is from you.”
“Extenuating and temporary circumstances.”
She thought about it. “I don’t want to belong to House El-Adrel.”
“No, you don’t. Which is why, as soon as Maman is satisfied you’re properly bonded to me, and as soon as I’ve satisfied her current curiosities, we’re getting out of this place. Phel will make sure El-Adrel can’t ever lay claim to you.” He smirked slightly. “He has a penchant for stealing familiars from other houses, after all.”
She hated everything about this. “Just tell me the rest.”
“The short of it is that we’ll enter a power circle, I’ll set wards, you’ll kneel—”
“I won’t kneel,” she interrupted.
“You have to.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Seliah.” He breathed her name on a sigh, then turned her entire chair to face him, scooting closer so their knees bumped. Raising his hands slowly, as if making sure not to startle her, he threaded his fingers into her hair, combing it back from her face. “It will be only for a moment, but it’s a ritual that must be conducted in particular ways. If you don’t comply, I’ll have to force you, to the point of wrapping you in chains. Maman’s chains are particularly evil. I’m begging you not to put us both through that. It won’t mean anything.”
She should shake him off, but his touch soothed her. “If it doesn’t mean anything, then why do I have to do it?”
“It won’t mean anything to us,” he corrected. “This is how it goes: the naked familiar kneels, you vow to be mine, I’ll bundle your lovely hair like so.” His hands slid through her long locks to gather it together at the base of her neck. “I’ll cut it off with a blade, and the binding will be complete.”
