Page 48 of Twisted Magic

“Do you have authorization to access those?” she asked with excited curiosity.

“Some.” He shrugged, more of a wriggle with his chin still propped on his hands. “There’s also plenty written about the houses and their many and varied conflicts over the centuries that’s not exclusive to the individual house archives. You should know that from your Introduction to Convocation History courses.”

Those had never been her favorite—dry lists of names and dates, but she regretted now not having paid better attention. She considered her options. Cillian could be helpful. He also owed his primary loyalty to House Harahel.

He watched her keenly, understanding dawning in his expression. “You think Harahel magic could be involved.”

“I didn’t say that,” she protested hastily. Great—all House Phel needed was another outright enemy.

“You didn’t have to,” he replied grimly. “I asked who had access and opportunity to remove the House Phel archives and the obvious answer is Harahel librarians would. But you lack motive. House Harahel has no reason to conspire against Phel.” He held up a hand to stop her as she opened her mouth. “If we did, or do, I’d want to know. As I said, it goes against everything we believe in. Like House Refoel, alone among the Convocation houses, Harahel remains neutral because we have a higher allegiance—to preserving knowledge. You have no reason to trust me, but you can trust in that.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, and Alise realized she did trust him. For no reason and probably unwisely, but she did.

“If it’s not Harahel,” she said, deciding to take the leap and take advantage of this walking encyclopedia, “then I look at other possibilities for access and motive.”

“Logical,” he agreed, an intrigued sparkle in his soft black gaze and a pleased smile ghosting on his lips. “You have a suspect.”

“I might. Riddle me this. How many houses have gone from high house status with a full complement of powerful wizards to no status at all?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it thoughtfully. “Over how much time?” he countered, but she sensed he was giving himself time to think.

“That’s something we don’t know for sure—more that’s been lost—but no more than a few generations. At most.”

Cillian frowned. “Some houses disappear entirely. They don’t have a family wizard so everyone disperses to other houses, for protection and income. High houses though—they’re too big to fail like that. Even if Harahel declined sufficiently—and don’t you dare say I suggested even the remotest possibility of that aloud—we’d go to tier two and hang on to our proprietary interests.”

“Has that happened often?”

“I can think of five—no, six—incidences. In all cases, however, the house in question neglected to take the basic measures to infuse magical potential back into the main breeding lines. That’s why the Betrothal Trials were instituted to begin with, you know, to provide a more civilized method for testing compatible fertility between high potential wizard–familiar couplings, to ensure high MP-scoring baby wizards to keep the house going.”

“So, is it fair to say that House Phel going from high house to non-existence, to the point of the house itself sinking from sight and the entire area of Meresin basically going wild and falling out of Convocation society is a singular example?”

She had his riveted attention. “Yes,” he breathed. “It should be a case study, if nothing else. Everyone would want to know how Phel crashed and burned so quickly, if only as a cautionary tale.”

“But no.”

“But no…” He drew out the words thoughtfully, black eyes keen on her face, a thousand thoughts racing behind them. His magic, quiet as it was, hummed palpably, sorting through reams of information. “You suspect House Hanneil.”

She didn’t bother to dissemble. “Who else might collude with the houses you mentioned—save Iblis, which is a special case—and who else has the power to make so many people forget such a salient event?” she asked softly.

He was quiet a long moment. “Now I’m wondering what else might have been disappeared from Convocation archives.”

“Seems entirely possible that more would be missing. Is there a catalog outside of Harahel memory?”

“None to speak of. Harahel memory is magically infallible, so we rarely bother, unless someone requests a list for them to use without our assistance.”

“Is Harahel memory proof against Hanneil magic?” she asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the question but having to ask anyway.

“Hanneil is prohibited from using psychic magic against other Convocation wizards without express consent,” Cillian told her, saying what they both knew and neither believed to be true anymore.

“This is what I’m thinking,” Alise said, “and I’m trusting you to keep my secrets here: Hanneil colluded with Elal, Sammael, and El-Adrel to bring down House Phel in the past and are acting against them now.”

He whistled soundlessly. “A formidable array of opponents. Why would they have it in for House Phel?”

“An excellent question. Also, why did Gabriel and Seliah pop up again with massive magical potentials, after generations of basically nothing?”

“Seliah?” he asked with a frown, and Alise realized that almost no one outside of a tight circle knew about Seliah’s very existence. All this time of barely talking to anyone had apparently loosened her lips as much as Cillian complained of in himself. Still, Seliah wasn’t a secret, so there was nothing to worry about, except her odd reaction to this quirky wizard.

“Gabriel’s sister, a powerful familiar. With probably as much magical potential as he does.”

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