Page 45 of Twisted Magic

“Have you been watching me?” she asked, wishing she could take back the words when he blanched.

“No! No, not like that. You’re just about the only person who doesn’t try to smuggle snacks into the library,” he added, sounding pleased to have hit on what had to be an excuse. “Besides which, your magic is very thin. When was the last time you replenished from a familiar?”

“I don’t know.” She really didn’t remember, which bothered her more than she wanted Cillian to know. Like she needed someone else in her life beating her up about wearing her magic thin. “One of the practicums,” she said, as that sounded likely.

“At which point you used up everything you got to perform whatever dog and pony trick the professor required, no doubt.”

“You don’t know.” Her annoyance gave her fuel to yank her arm away, finally.

“I do know.” he sounded equally aggravated. “I graduated from Convocation Academy, too. Just because I can’t do combat magic and hurl fireballs or summon ninety-seven non-burning fire elementals to light my way doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly how much the coursework, especially the practicums, of which you have three, as I recall, exhaust everything you’ve got and then some. Speaking of which,” he added as she gaped at him, “you should release some of those elementals. They’re only draining you more and we hardly need them to show us what’s not here. Come with me.”

He took off at a brisk stride, Alise hurrying to catch up and belatedly releasing the fire elementals. Not that Cillian was correct and not that she felt immediately better to have done so. He’d taken down the silence bubble, too, so she held her tongue on the several barbed remarks she’d like to offer on his unsolicited opinion.

“Where are we going?” she hissed as she caught up with him at his desk, where he gathered up his book and a few other supplies—including what looked to be an empty bag of snacks—and traded good mornings with a Harahel wizard librarian who now sat behind the desk.

It was morning already? Her admittedly tired brain finally registered what he’d said about dinner being twelve hours before. They’d apparently worked all night.

“I’m feeding you breakfast,” he answered, as she caught up with him at the library doors, which he held open for her. “And finding you a general-use familiar.”

She didn’t bother to explain that she didn’t like bothering the familiars who were bonded to no one and worked for the Convocation. Too much time in Meresin with their different ways of thinking, and with Han and Iliana, and Quinn, all familiars and her closest friends. Not to mention Nic, her own sister. She’d become squeamish about using a familiar’s magic when it didn’t feel freely given. Something nigh impossible to explain to anyone solidly part of Convocation society.

“I can feed myself,” she confined herself to saying, then wondered why she was following him so obediently and slowed at the juncture to the dining hall.

“That’s in question,” he replied acerbically. “Not that way; this way.”

Streams of students and faculty flowed in increasing volume, unusual for this early in the morning, their morning chatter subdued. “The dining hall is the other direction,” she objected. Of course, he knew that.

“I know that. I have better food in my chambers.”

They passed an El-Adrel clock on the wall, ticking away the relentless truth. Shit. It was even later than she thought. “I have class,” she said, the sleepless night abruptly slamming into her as if the giant clock had fallen on her head. It would be a really long day.

“I’ll send a note to the Provost excusing you.”

“You can’t do that.”

He glanced at her, surprised. “I can. I’m technically faculty.”

“I mean,” she corrected, “you don’t have to do that.” Why would he do that?

Shrugging one shoulder, he pointed the turn in the labyrinth of hallways, heading toward the faculty quarters where students weren’t allowed without invitation. “I want to. Besides, how can we pursue this fascinating mystery if you’re stuck in class?”

Grateful for his discretion in not saying aloud what the mystery involved, she grappled with his question. “We?” she finally repeated, aware that her tired brain wasn’t at its sharpest.

“Of course. You asked for my assistance. I have not yet fulfilled your very reasonable request for help as a library patron.”

“You don’t have to help me further,” she said, coming to a halt as he did, outside one of a row of ornate doors facing an open arcade on the other side, the second floor archways overlooking the central quad. The sun poured in, golden with autumn light, sweet with a chorus of birdsong.

“What we miss being inside the library, huh?” he asked, pausing to look and listen, also. “Come on in.”

He pushed the door open for her and held it. “Don’t mind the mess. The housekeeping elementals handle the dirt, but I’m afraid I’m not terribly tidy.”

That was an understatement. Alise peered around the modest quarters: a small sitting room with glassed-in windows giving onto one of the back courtyards, an open door leading to a bedroom, a compact nook near the front door with a food preparation area. And every possible surface piled high with books, scrolls, papers, small figurines of various monsters—mythical and real—and absolutely nowhere to sit.

“Just move anything,” Cillian said. “Wait, not that.” He darted in front of her as she went to move a pile of books smugly occupying a large armchair. Taking the topmost with reverent care, he moved it to a high shelf, then scrutinized the pile, extracted several and stacked them on the desk already piled teeteringly high with more books. “It looks like there’s no system,” he said apologetically, “but I know where everything is.”

“That makes sense.”

“It does?” He set a kettle on the burner with a tiny fire elemental bonded to it, ticking it to heat with a lick of magic. Then he began extracting items from a House Frigere cooler.

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