Page 31 of Twisted Magic

“We’d rather go down fighting, you infernal bitch!” Seliah spat over his shoulder.

No wonder he loved her to distraction. He cocked an eyebrow, pretending that the combined attacks of a hundred wizards from all directions wasn’t draining them both to the point of system failure. “Let’s reverse that offer,” he said, as nonchalantly as he could, even as his wards grew opaque from all the enchanted objects flying at them, his brain fogging from the effort of maintaining the rapidly thinning shield around them. “You surrender and we’ll leave, promising to never return.”

Predicably, his dear maman laughed. “You are outwitted and outmagicked. There’s no way you can stand against this kind of force. You have no allies to help you—” She broke off at the surge of magic all around them, the floor flexing with an undulating ripple beneath their feet, the walls seeming to billow like lungs taking a deep breath. “What…?” Katica gasped.

The wizards and familiars all vanished, leaving only the four of them and sudden quiet, the various artifacts and automatons leeched of power and collapsed to the floor, a few whirring sadly before they stilled. Lady El-Adrel looked about her at the junkyard of lifeless metal, Fyrdo huddled behind the curve of Jadren’s wards. She fastened her gaze on Jadren. Her wizard-black eyes held a rime of fear that he would find most satisfying if he weren’t also confused. He tried to cover it, to look confident and triumphant, but he had no idea who had intervened either. Had some wizard—

“The house,” Seliah whispered reverently. “She’s helping us.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Katica spat at Seliah. “The house is an enchanted artifact. Infused with centuries of magic, yes. Able to make decisions and act of its own volition? No.”

A flutter of sound rippled through the structure around them, a symphony of old-house noises: the creaking of wood as the temperature changed, the soft pinging of glass as leaves tapped against it, the chorus of rain on a tiled roof, the musical flexing of metal. All of it combined to make not exactly a voice, but the rumble of disagreement and an echo of derisive laughter. With prickling awareness, Jadren fully believed all of Seliah’s wild suppositions about the house. House El-Adrel was sentient. And just maybe on their side.

The big question was why? What did the house want? It might have apparently worked in their favor for the moment, but…

His mother had narrowed her gaze, the darts that had been relentlessly still boring through his wards going still as she extended her wizard’s senses to the structure around them. “I am your lady,” she informed the house, casting her gaze about, a hint of uncertainty in it, “which means you obey me.”

“I don’t think the house is interested in being commanded by someone who thinks she’s only another enchanted object,” Seliah said.

“Nobody has the slightest interest in what you think,” Katica spat.

“The house does,” Seliah replied pertly. “More, I think she’s on our side.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Jadren said to her under his breath, admiring her bold impudence and wary of how the words further inflamed his mother. Katica might have lost her reinforcements, but she remained a formidable foe. “If the house is helping us, why did it leave her here to continue to attack us?”

“Because this part is up to you,” Seliah answered, promptly and with confidence he didn’t deserve. “Isn’t that how this works? The house wants you as Lord El-Adrel, but first you must defeat the previous head of the house.”

He felt as if a lead ball dropped through his gut. “That’s only how it works in novels,” he muttered back, trying to master the queasy terror. He couldn’t be Lord El-Adrel. He didn’t want it and he wasn’t powerful enough.

“Him?” His mother squawked out a caw of disbelief, her amusement genuine. “He’s a mediocre wizard at best, with no spine, no ambition, no ability to govern. He can’t even control himself, or his familiar, apparently.” His sweet maman listed off his flaws and failings, echoing his own self-doubts. Or…maybe she’d been the source of them all along, and he’d dutifully learned to echo her. “I have news for you, Familiar,” she continued. “Your brother might have ascended to the lordship of a house, but that’s only because nobody cared about the Phels of Meresin. He got the job nobody wanted and he won’t be able to hold onto it. He’s only playing at being what real Convocation wizards and houses have honed for centuries. And Jadren, he’s inept, uneducated, bumbling, not even a citizen of the Convocation. He’s a coward. Remember how you wept and pleaded with me over that harmless little eye-socket device, Jadren?”

That lead ball in his gut rolled around queasily, threatening to erupt through his throat. “Don’t,” he managed to say.

His mother smiled, pleased to have gotten to him. In a display of control and an indication of just how much reserved magic she still possessed, she pressed her open hands toward him and—even as the darts resumed drilling through his wards—golden chains extruded themselves from her palms. Hooks dangled from the links. Large and small, all were excessively sharp to ease burying themselves in flesh and barbed to hamper their extraction. Animated by his dear maman’s magic, the hooks lifted, seeming to reach for him. “Remember these?” his mother purred, eyes alight with malice as he cringed. “You always did hate them the most. Look at how you cower. You can’t even—”

“Duck,” Jadren whispered to Seliah, even as he pulled on the flood of her reservoir of pristine water magic, infused with the argent moon magic, shining bright. Dropping the wards, he threw them around Seliah and Fyrdo, a blanket of protection, and took the onslaught of his mother’s darts—verbal and physical. They riddled into his flesh, the pain an old and familiar friend.

At the same time, he threw every bit of magic in him through the brass tube, willing the widget to work.

Katica El-Adrel squeaked, her wards collapsing all at once, and she exploded into a red mist.

Jadren awoke on his back, staring up at a cloudless blue sky. His skull pounded and every pore ached, his very bones gasping for water.

“Drink this,” a warm voice said, a shape moving in to block his view, which he realized was of a skylight. Sunlight silhouetted the person’s dark hair, picking out red highlights around the edges.

“Seliah,” he said, only it came out as a croak, barely there.

“Drink,” she urged, a smile in her voice, and he became aware of her flask pressed against his lips, the water issuing from it preternaturally delicious, purified with Gabriel’s magic.

He drank gratefully, some of the parched feeling easing, and wondered what he’d done to himself this time. Surely not another cliff…

“Now magic,” she said, laying her hands on his skin.

“No,” he protested, earning a fierce growl from her. She seemed fine—though her face remained in shadow—so whatever had tried to kill him this time hadn’t harmed her.

“Yes,” she replied firmly. “You agreed never to argue with me again about using my magic. You need it, so drink up of that, too.”

His memory had big, shredded holes in it, but he was fairly certain he’d agreed to no such thing. But he was entirely depleted, barely able to breathe, much less argue, so he sipped of her magic.

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