Page 22 of Twisted Magic

“Do you realize this tower of yours is interfering with House El-Adrel defenses?” Katica prodded, narrowing her obsidian stare. “It’s irresponsible of you to the point of catastrophic carelessness. Undo it.”

Selly turned up her hands and shrugged. “I don’t know how.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Katica barked out a laugh. “The house has never produced anything like this before, in all my life, and in all the preceding history. What did my son teach you?”

“If the house has never done this before, then Jadren wouldn’t know to teach me how to do it,” Selly pointed out, very reasonably, she thought.

“Don’t you dare think you can thwart me, Familiar,” Lady El-Adrel snarled, advancing on her, magic booming silently through the air. Selly put her back to the railing, wondering if the house would save her if she jumped. Or was pushed. “Have you already forgotten how I can make you suffer?” the wizard demanded.

Selly lifted her chin. “You won’t damage me. You need me to lure Jadren back—and to be his power source once he arrives.”

Katica smiled, a thin, cruel slash of crimson in an alabaster face that would be lovely if it held any trace of humanity. “I can cause you considerable pain without damaging you beyond repair. I’d think you’d have learned that in my testing labs.”

“Then why am I here and not there?” Selly gestured to the pretty rooms. Prettier now, as it appeared the house had continued the transformation, changing the floor to a mosaic tile showing blossoms native to the Meresin marshes. A painting hung on the wall of a graceful white manse, with a wide porch and tall columns, framed by old trees with spreading limbs. It looked like House Phel, but could it be? Selly shook away the thought as a distraction and focused on her current problem. “If you planned to torture me, why dress me up and set me up like a guest instead of the prisoner we both know I am?”

Katica rolled her eyes, shaking back her glossy hair, and struck a pose. Selly was abruptly reminded of Ozana—before Jadren red-misted her—and how like her mother Ozana had been. And yet, Katica didn’t seem to be grieving her daughter. Of course, Katica never seemed to evince much emotion at all. “So dramatic,” she said. “You belong to House El-Adrel, Familiar. You’re not a prisoner any more than this chair is. “It was obnoxious of you to have House Phel make that pitiful legal bid, accusing us of stealing you.” She made a gesture of incredulity, laughing derisively, then cutting it off with a snap. “None of you understand power. Convocation law is what I say it is.”

“I’m sure the Convocation Judicial Council would be surprised to hear that, not to mention the other high houses.”

“Believe me, you ignorant fool, they know who holds the power. Now, let us return to the subject at hand. Instruct the house to return your apartments to their previous shape and position.”

As she issued the order, the wizard woman watched Selly with keen attention, enough to give Selly pause, tempting her to play stupid. If Katica wanted to compare her to a chair, then Selly would demonstrate all the cleverness and sentience of a chair. Except that Selly had a bit too much temper to playact effectively. “It’s your house, Lady El-Adrel,” she said instead. “And you hold all this power. You fix it.”

Katica regarded her coolly, displaying all the regal reserve Selly lacked. “You will do as you’re told.”

“Demonstrably, I won’t,” Selly replied cheerfully, and plopped herself on the chair in question. Summoning a fragment of caution, she refrained from saying ‘make me.’ “Isn’t that your job, anyway? Jadren told me that the head of House El-Adrel must be able to control the house itself. I’d expect you to have that ability. That, what was the word? Oh yes: the power.”

Some of Katica’s composure frayed at the edges. But she still didn’t take action to instruct the house to undo what it had done, which Selly found most telling. Clearly Lady El-Adrel didn’t want to reveal how very little actual control she possessed over her own house. If she instructed the house and it didn’t obey—or potentially, not even respond—she’d reveal weakness, a lack of power and control, which would be anathema to a woman like her. Worse, if Selly could do something Lady El-Adrel couldn’t with her own house… well, that would not go over well.

“How about this,” Lady El-Adrel said, putting on a charming smile in an about-face that raised the hairs on the back of Selly’s neck, “you tell me what you said or did to result in these changes…” She waved a hand at the still-evolving décor, face going icily still as she caught sight of the painting that looked like House Phel. It had gained a reflecting lake in the foreground, with a mirror-perfect image of the manse, except for a pair of pink horns creating a ripple in the water. Curiouser and curiouser. Katica’s wizard-black eyes returned to pin Selly like an unfortunate specimen destined to be dispatched. “In the interests of experimentation and greater knowledge. Repeat exactly what you did and said.”

“I said that I wished I could see outside,” Selly said, deciding it couldn’t hurt to say so and Lady El-Adrel’s reaction might give her some insight.

The wizard narrowed her black gaze on Selly, unconvinced. “It does you no good to lie to me. I can always torture the truth out of you.”

“Didn’t we cover this ground already?” Selly asked sweetly. “Besides, even if you do decide to end this boring, circular conversation and commence with this torture you keep threatening, you won’t get a different answer. That is the simple truth.”

Katica considered her for a long moment, seeming puzzled, not totally in control of the conversation for once. “Are you truly afraid of nothing?”

“I’m afraid of plenty of things,” Selly answered honestly, “but not of pain or suffering. I’ve already endured the worst.”

“I could make you regret those words.”

Selly shrugged. “You could try.”

Lady El-Adrel paused, scanning the room with her hard gaze, which finally landed on the portrait of the white manse. That was definitely Nathi swimming in the reflecting lake out front. “If you only expressed a wish to see outside,” Katica asked, canny gaze sliding over to Selly, “why is the room redecorating itself to reflect you? I assume that is House Phel.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Though prettified. The last time I was there, it was looking considerably worse for the wear from its long soak in the bogs.”

“I don’t know,” Selly said, answering the only actual question. “Jadren says the house likes me,” she added impulsively. Somewhere in the near distance, a sound rippled out, like wooden beams settling with soft crackles as a wind arose, like a woman laughing softly in another room, or like an immense feline purring. Selly couldn’t help smiling in response.

Katica’s wizard-black eyes narrowed to malicious slits. “Don’t be absurd. My son is a fool, but you don’t have to be. I can understand your ignorance, given your backwoods upbringing and total lack of education, but really, it’s embarrassing for us all when you spout such superstitious nonsense. You may be only a familiar, but we expect better of our people, regardless of rank. The house—even a house as old and steeped in magic as House El-Adrel—doesn’t have the ability or inclination to like or dislike anyone. I know you’re ignorant of magic, but an enchanted artifact is simply that: an object infused with magic and tasked with a purpose, by a wizard, obviously. This house, my house, is a complex, many-layered enchanted artifact, created by generations of El-Adrel wizards, but it is no more able to form opinions than my automatons are.”

Selly successfully suppressed a shudder at Katica’s reference to the expressionless, inhumanly strong, metal humanoids who’d so ruthlessly captured her. She knew enough now to sense the animating spirits within the machines, courtesy of El-Adrel’s collaboration with House Elal, Jadren theorized, but they were no more human than the hunters that had attacked her and Jadren after she’d rescued him from an early grave at the bottom of a cliff.

House El-Adrel—that was a different kind of alive. Not human, but also not a construct manipulated by another’s will. Selly could swear that she sensed the house’s interest and attention. Besides which, why had the house moved her apartments and decorated them to please Selly? She felt that she and the house shared a secret, a covert friendship. The house did like her, she knew it, and the house liked Jadren, no matter what he sourly claimed, and Selly could use that to her advantage. “I’m sure you are right,” she replied to the expectant Lady El-Adrel, as meekly as she could.

Katica wasn’t fooled by Selly’s easy acquiescence, but she also had nothing to argue with there. She tapped the toe of one elegant heel, seeming to be at a bit of an impasse. “How did your hair come to be so long again?” she asked suddenly.

Startled by the abrupt change in subject, Selly put a hand to her now elaborately styled hair before she realized it and—almost guiltily—dropped it and tucked her hand under her thigh.

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