“Exactly.” He waved a hand in noblesse oblige. “Continue.”
Now she didn’t want to, but she’d started down this road for a reason. She hadn’t told Gabriel about this, not wanting him to worry. She certainly hadn’t been able to tell her parents, who had hovered excessively as it was, and who didn’t understand magic anyway. Probably she needed some kind of professional help, but she didn’t know what it would be or even how to begin going about finding out. Perhaps this cynical and supercilious wizard, for all his faults, could at least offer some insight. “Whatever the stagnating magic did to me, it messed with my perceptions. There’s a lot about the last ten years that…” She hesitated to say, but Jadren—rather uncharacteristically—didn’t interrupt this time, only raised a brow at her. “Well, I’m not sure what was real and what wasn’t.”
He didn’t respond for so long that she’d begun to bitterly regret the admission. Though maybe he was offering the courtesy of pretending he hadn’t heard her embarrassing confession.
“There’s not a lot of precedent for your situation,” he said finally, and not altogether unkindly, to her surprise. “Familiars are too valuable to be let go to seed like you were. It was shockingly irresponsible, what they allowed to happen to you. So, while there are documented cases of familiars like you going nutso from magic stagnation, I suspect you’d be the subject of an entirely new textbook on the topic. That is,” he continued cheerfully, “if your brother allowed the Convocation researchers to get their intellectual claws into you, which he won’t—being the obstinate renegade he is—and for which I hope you’ll have the wit to be appropriately grateful. You’re a powerful familiar but they’d gleefully sacrifice your magic for the sake of experimental science, a life I can promise you would not enjoy.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” she ventured, fully expecting a grim and unilluminating ‘you have no idea’ in response.
“Yes and no. It’s a long story and not one I’m inclined to share, with anyone, ever. Suffice to say that I do understand.” He was silent so long again that she glanced over to see if that was all he’d say. Since he was being unusually forthcoming, she didn’t want to make the mistake of diverting him if he was composing some sort of salient remark. But no—his jaw was clenched tight, his wizard-black gaze focused on some distant point only he could see. “I know about having your magic twisted against you,” he said in a much quieter tone, as if sharing a secret. “I understand what you mean about not being able to trust your memories and perceptions. To know that your own mind is the last thing you can count on to tell you the truth is… horrifying.”
“Yes,” she finally replied when he said nothing more. “I’m sorry,” she added, feeling like she needed to acknowledge his obvious pain in some way, “for what you’ve suffered.”
He laughed, no humor in it. “A sad and pitiful day for a scion of House El-Adrel when an untrained and half-insane baby familiar feels sorry for him. Save your pity, little girl. Along with sympathy, there’s no room for it in the Convocation. You’ll need to get a lot harder and sharper if you’re going to survive.”
A day ago, even hours ago, she might’ve been hurt by his callous words. Now she felt as if she understood something about the enigmatic wizard that she hadn’t before. “Thank you for the advice, Wizard El-Adrel,” she said. “But I should clarify that I’m likely more than half insane.”
Unexpectedly, he grinned, the smile making his usually cruel and brooding face boyishly handsome. “That’s my girl.”
~ 3 ~
“Where the fuck is this river anyway?” Jadren snarled, hours of agonizing trudging later. He’d never imagined his feet could hurt so much, closely followed by the rest of him. Recovering from injuries only worked if one didn’t keep inflicting damage.
Selly raised her dark brows, amber gaze bland. “I imagine the Dubglass River is exactly where it normally is.”
“Funny girl,” he retorted. He had to give it to the skinny minx—she had spirit. Not many people, let alone mind-rotted and forlorn familiars, could stand up to him. She took his acerbic remarks and returned them with extra. He couldn’t believe himself, that he’d spoken even that much to her about his bitter, twisted past. What he got for feeling sorry for the chit. She’d met him pity for pity and hadn’t that stung? “I mean,” he clarified in an exceedingly patient tone, “that we should’ve gotten to it by now. It’s a big fucking river and we didn’t ride all that long going the other direction before we got to the overlook across from House Sammael.”
She shrugged, unconcerned. “Horses go much faster than people.”
“I know that,” he snapped, though he had to admit, if only to himself, that he had no idea how to compare. Half a day’s journey for horses came out to what for people? “If we don’t get to the barge in a reasonable amount of time, they’ll leave without us,” he explained, still trying to exercise a modicum of patience. Surely even an inexperienced lass like Selly understood that much.
“You truly believed we’d catch up with the others in time?” she asked with considerable astonishment.
“Wasn’t that the plan?” he bit out. “I heard you say that if we rode fast, we could meet them before they take the barge upriver.”
“‘Rode’ being the operative word,” she countered. “That was a possibility when we thought we still had horses. There was never any way we’d catch up with them in time on foot.” She cast him a disparaging look. “Especially with you going so slowly.”
“This stuff is heavy. And don’t you dare reiterate that foolishness about how I should’ve left these supplies behind.”
“Or what?” she demanded. “Will you incinerate me with that fire magic you don’t have?”
This again? “Look, poppet. I—”
“Don’t call me that. I am not your puppet.”
He stopped. Upon consideration—and in resignation to the inevitable—he dropped the packs he’d been carrying so diligently to the point that every muscle and sinew in his body protested. They might as well take a rest break since catching the others at the barge was apparently out of the question. It would’ve been nice of Selly to mention that before—though probably he should’ve figured it out for himself. “Paah-pett,” he said, facing her and drawing out the word very slowly, exaggerating the vowel sound. “Not puhh-pett. Paah-pett. It means a sweet and pretty little child.”
“Oh.” She shrugged her braid over her shoulder, which did nothing about the dark curls that had escaped to plaster themselves to her temples and the sides of her throat where sweat gleamed. Absurdly, he wanted to stroke those tendrils away for her, perhaps with his lips. She grinned, feline and canny. “Still not very accurate.”
He blinked at her, scrabbling his thoughts back from their untoward direction.
“A sweet and pretty little child,” she clarified, puzzled by his confusion, “doesn’t describe me well.”
“From the mouths of babes,” he conceded, then sat heavily on the twisted root of a tree, leaning his back against it and reminding himself that Selly might appear to be a beautiful, sensual woman, but mentally she was truly a child. Dark arts, he was tired. Even though walking out the healing helped, it still drained him. He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to make himself think. This was a shit situation and Phel really would have his head if something happened to Selly. “If you knew we’d never catch that barge, what did you figure our plan was?”
She crouched, picking up a stick and scratching at the dirt road. “Well, for a while I thought we might get lucky and come across the horses grazing down the road. Then, when that didn’t happen, I figured…” She shrugged. “We’d walk.”
“Walk,” he echoed, his throbbing feet protesting the concept. “All the way across Meresin to House Phel.”
