Page 9 of Rogue Familiar

“What’s that?” Whatever it took, she would do it.

“Training,” Nic told her decisively. “Take a few days to learn what you need to know.”

She should’ve guessed. “Will you teach me?”

“Absolutely. Let’s start now.”

“Now?”

“The sooner you master a familiar’s skills, the sooner you can go after Jadren.”

“Then let’s start now,” Selly said immediately, making Nic laugh.

~3~

As a first step, Nic took Seliah to ‘meet’ Maman. If asked why, she might not have been able to explain her exact reasoning. Particularly if Gabriel had posed the question, she’d have had a hard time justifying her actions. He wouldn’t approve, she felt sure, just as he’d likely be annoyed that Nic had told Selly about Jadren’s confession. But Gabriel had a tendency to try to protect Seliah from the harsher realities of the Convocation and life as a familiar. If Nic had to put a name to the impulse for this visit, she’d have to call it a kind of tough love.

Seliah needed to know how badly the wizard–familiar bond could wreck a person. Upon reflection, maybe Gabriel would approve—as he very clearly would prefer that Alise sever Seliah’s bond to Jadren. Still, it wasn’t his choice and he didn’t truly know what he’d be asking of his sister.

For that matter, Seliah didn’t know either. She didn’t really know what she needed to in order to function as a wizard’s familiar. Jadren clearly hadn’t accessed the bond between them much. From the little Nic had gleaned, Jadren had barely tapped Seliah’s magic at all. Which was curious, and raised a number of interesting questions, but the most immediate concern was teaching Seliah what she needed to know.

Had Seliah attended Convocation Academy, she’d have witnessed—and, more pointedly, experienced—how badly wizards could abuse familiars, and not necessarily out of cruelty. Sometimes, especially with young, student wizards, it was clumsiness or ineptitude or sheer bad luck. As much as Nic had loathed some of those lessons, particularly the advanced training practicums for wizards and familiars, she could recognize now how the often painful and exhausting lessons had toughened her against the brutal ways of many Convocation wizards. Nic was just fortunate that she’d wound up with someone as relentlessly gentle—sometimes frustratingly so—as Gabriel.

A wizard like Jadren… Well, “gentle” wasn’t a word she’d ever use for the jaded, sharp-tongued scoundrel. Even if he was motivated by the best of intentions where Seliah was concerned, he was still a wizard and still an El-Adrel. His mother obviously retained considerable influence over him—and Nic hadn’t missed how Seliah had avoided answering that question—which meant he might lack the ability to truly protect Seliah. He could damage her through sheer carelessness. Or ignorance, as he also lacked a Convocation Academy education. Besides all of that, there was some reason Jadren hadn’t wanted a familiar, and why he believed he was doing the best thing for Seliah by separating from her.

While Nic was sincere in wanting to help Seliah, part of her couldn’t help wondering if severing the bond wouldn’t be the best thing. Jadren was trouble. No doubt of that. But House Phel needed all the might it could muster and Jadren brought considerable power and political leverage to the table. Gabriel hadn’t considered that aspect—and he hadn’t asked Nic’s opinion when he gave Jadren leave to go. Well, Nic did consider these things and that ability was one reason Gabriel had wanted her for a wife. And, in her considered opinion, they needed Jadren. If his feelings for, and bond to, Seliah ensured his loyalty to House Phel, then all the better.

As she and Seliah walked through the shaded arcade to the north wing where Maman was housed, Nic took in the lovely landscape out either side of the open arches and pondered her next steps. She was uncomfortably close to keeping secrets from Gabriel, something she’d never explicitly promised not to do, but that she knew would hurt him to discover. On the other hand, he had delegated affairs of familiars to her, so she could plausibly feign ignorance, or play on his previous directions that she didn’t need to ask him for permission for every little thing, much as the familiar in her—and her Convocation training—prompted her to do.

Besides, done was done. Regardless of all else, Seliah needed training and Nic would see to it that her sister-in-law at least got a grounding in the basics.

As Nic had hoped, Alise was sitting with Maman. But then Alise spent every spare moment checking on or sitting with their mother, so her location was pretty predictable. What Nic hadn’t predicted was that Alise would be asleep, her dark curls stark against their mother’s white bedgown as she lay with her head on the verge of the mattress, holding their mother’s hand, warm sunlight and birdsong streaming in the open window.

Nic halted so quickly that Seliah stepped on her heel, exclaiming in apology. Nic tried to shush her, but it was too late. Either that or the sound of their entry had awakened Alise, who sat up abruptly as if caught out, shoving back the curls compressed on one side of her head with fingers made clumsy from exhausted sleep. Alise peered blearily at them, her wizard-black eyes dull and fogged. “What time is it?” she asked, which seemed like an odd first question.

“Midmorning,” Nic answered. “When was the last time you slept?”

Alise wrinkled her nose and gestured at the bed. “Obviously, just now.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Nic replied with considerable impatience. “Look at you. You have shadows under your eyes I could hide a horse in. Your magic is thin and brittle enough to—”

“You’re not my mother, Nic,” Alise snapped, getting to her feet and almost managing to hide a wince at her stiffness. “And you don’t know about my magic or—”

“No, I’m your sister. Our mother is right there and she is also totally beyond us.” Nic stabbed a finger at the woman lying unconscious on the bed, her aristocratically handsome face sunken, skin dull. Her eyes, frozen in an uncanny feline shape, stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Nic almost couldn’t bear to look. She wanted her mother back, to give advice, or just a hug. Maman always knew what to do. And it was all Nic’s fault that she was like this. “You can’t bring her back by working yourself to death,” Nic continued, reminding herself, too. “And I do know about your magic because I’m a highly trained familiar, not an idiot, and I can feel perfectly well how drained you are.”

“Fine, fine.” Alise sagged, glancing at Maman. “I haven’t slept much. I keep thinking there’s something more I can do for her, but there’s no change. Asa is keeping her alive, but he thinks that, without his healing magic, she’d just… fade away. She’s basically catatonic, forgive the horrible pun.”

“Do you think it’s the extended entrapment in feline form that did it, or that you severed her bond with Papa?” Nic asked, nodding when Alise’s startled gaze went to Seliah, understanding dawning in her wizard-black eyes.

“You told Seliah,” Alise said with a sigh. “That’s why you two are here. Are you considering having your bond to Wizard Jadren severed, Seliah?”

Seliah’s eyes flew to Nic, who shrugged. “Everyone here knows you were bonded against your will in House El-Adrel, and yes, I know.” She held up a hand to stop Seliah, who’d opened her mouth to argue. “You just heard me tell Gabriel that familiars in the Convocation don’t actually consent to being bonded. While that’s true, your situation is more extreme than most. As the lord of your house, Gabriel should have been consulted, with proper agreements and protections set in place, and with your consent given at least as a formality. What El-Adrel did was a major trespass against us. Just because we haven’t yet demanded immediate reparations from Katica El-Adrel doesn’t mean that everyone—at least everyone with knowledge of the Convocation—in House Phel isn’t aware that you were illegally used. And now that Jadren has left you…”

Alise made a choking sound. “Jadren left? Without his familiar.”

“Sometime last night,” Nic answered to spare Seliah having to do so. “With Gabriel’s permission,” she added, thinking it best to have that information squarely out there, to put any rumors of Jadren being a pariah to rest.

“Wow.” Alise seemed unable to come up with another response. Then, to Nic’s surprise, Alise went to Seliah and hugged her. “I’m so sorry, honey. He’s a shit. Do you want help killing him or just to hide the body?”

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