Page 9 of Twisted Magic

“No surprises there. The secrets surrounding my magic are ones she weaponized against me. They enabled her to wield power over me. She knows I want that knowledge to escape her grasp.”

“Is this implying that she will share that knowledge if you go home?”

Jadren barked out a laugh, short and bitter. “Even if that is the bait so temptingly dangling from this hook, I’m not so much of an idiot that I’ll bite on it. My memory isn’t that short. My mother never met a promise she didn’t break.”

“So, that could be what a lot of this repetition is—promises to protect you, to defend you against all the allegations against you, that they can fulfill all of your needs.” When he didn’t comment, letting his head fall back again, she continued scanning for potential clues. If Fyrdo had embedded a code, she couldn’t discern it. “He uses the phrase ‘come home’ three times. In old stories, three times is a charm.”

“The old stories, as you so quaintly put it, knew shit about how magic actually works,” Jadren replied wearily, his eyes closed, face lined with grief. “The only rule of three I can think of is this thing where… no, it’s silly. A private joke, in a way.”

“Tell me,” she coaxed, aching for him. She’d had her troubles, but at least she’d had a good family who loved her. “A private joke would be part of a code.”

“Not this. It’s not even a joke. It’s just that…” He trailed off, his eyes popping open to bore black holes in the ceiling. “When I was little, Maman didn’t like it when Fyrdo told me he loved me, so he would tap me instead, three times, for I. Love. You.”

A frisson ran down her spine. “That’s a definite code then.”

Jadren cracked one eye open, glaring at her balefully. “Don’t get all sentimental. If it is a code, it tells me nothing I didn’t already know. He tapped me three times like that when he helped us escape. It’s sweet, but all the I love you’s in the world won’t protect either of us from her.”

“But what if he—”

“This is pointless,” he snapped out. Moving fast as a snake, he sat up and snatched the letter from her hand. “I know what Maman wants: me, back in her control, and you with me. It’s not going to happen. You should’ve let me burn the thing.” Scanning the letter, he mumbled under his breath. “Terribly concerned, reportedly lost, disinclined to take action. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” He paused. “The only interesting bit is this: “We are reassured that you did not take drastic measures there, as an Elal might. Possibly in reference to you. Any idea what that might mean?”

“Not at all,” she answered. Then the meaning hit her, lodging further words in her throat.

“No?” Jadren pinned her with a glittering black stare to her. “You seem like you thought of something.” His voice remained smooth, but she caught the edge of suspicion in it.

“No.” The denial came out as a squeak, as Selly fought to look puzzled, even as her mind raced. Surely they weren’t referring to Alise Elal’s newly discovered ability to sever the wizard–familiar bond. That was a secret, one only a few in House Phel knew about. Gabriel had offered the solution to Selly when Jadren abandoned her, an offer she’d adamantly refused. The bond was one of the few points of leverage she had on her wizard. If Jadren knew severing the bond was possible, he’d snap up the option, sacrificing himself to free her of him. She couldn’t let him find out.

“Are you sure?” he prodded. “You mentioned that Nic taught you all about being a familiar and she’s an Elal by birth. Maybe she said something relevant.”

“But how would anyone at El-Adrel know about anything Nic taught me?” How could they know Alise’s secret, for that matter? Except that Alise had used that skill to separate Lord Elal from his familiar, saving their mother from his vengeance. Selly didn’t know enough about it, but she did know that Alise had been able to do the severing as part of her Elal magic, being a wizard who could bind spirits and otherwise manipulate them. Obviously Alise and Nic’s father—sent back to House Elal wounded, missing an eye and a familiar—would know the bond had been severed and would likely guess how. Put that on top of Jadren’s suspicion-bordering-on-paranoid-certainty that Elal had been collaborating with El-Adrel to bring down House Phel, and it seemed quite likely that Lord Elal had recovered enough to tell Katica El-Adrel about the severing.

“You’re thinking awfully hard, poppet,” Jadren observed, getting to his feet and moving with liquid grace around the table. Standing behind her, he shifted her drying hair back from her shoulder, then trailed his fingers down the side of her throat. She shivered, both at the arousing touch and the feel of his magic sliding under her skin. Could he read her mind? Sometimes she wondered, though he denied it. “You can tell me,” he coaxed.

“There’s nothing to tell,” she said, croaking slightly, and swallowed hard. She tipped her head back to smile up at him, and he slid his fingers along the grooves of her throat, twin pressures of thumb and forefinger, light but firm. Under the thin robe, her nipples peaked. She shouldn’t find the possessive way he touched her so erotic, but she did. “Nic only taught me what I’d have learned at Convocation Academy if I’d attended. Nothing secret.” There, that was true.

“I didn’t say anything about a secret, nor does the letter,” he mused, feathering fingertips over the hollows of her collarbones. “Why did your mind immediately go to a secret?”

“I—it didn’t.” She swallowed hard again, and he smiled, bracketing her throat with his hand. “Because we thought there might be a code, in the letter, and…” She couldn’t think.

“Nic told you a secret,” he prompted. “I can feel it in you.”

“She didn’t,” Selly gasped, concentrating on sincerity. It was true. Nic hadn’t told her; Gabriel had.

“Seliah,” Jadren crooned. “I think you’re lying to me.” He eased the robe off her shoulder, baring one breast, her nipple going almost painfully taut. Still holding her throat, he traced the round of her breast, descending concentric circles that tantalized her, never quite touching her nipple, which ached for more. He stopped. Placed a flat palm over her heart. “Your pulse is pounding. What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not,” she denied, voice shaky, body trembling. “It’s desire.”

He pursed his lips, studying her, nudging the robe open to bare her other breast. “Oh, Seliah, you are such a terrible liar.”

She was. It went against her nature to be anything but her authentic self. She’d spent too much time not knowing who she was to risk losing that again. And with Jadren… she loved him to an agonizing degree. Keeping anything from him was painful, but if she told him this, she could lose him forever. That mattered more than any of the rest.

“I’m not lying,” she lied, the words acid on her tongue. Meeting his gaze boldly, she made herself stare him down. “You can torment me all you like, but I can’t tell you something I don’t know.”

He stilled, cocked his head, then dipped his chin in a nod. Removed his hands and stepped away. “So be it,” he said, his voice clipped and cool. “We should sleep. Liat will be at us early tomorrow.”

Stunned, feeling more than a little abandoned and considerably sexually frustrated, despite having literally passed out from his attentions earlier, Selly sat there a moment longer, listening to him prepare for bed. Then, as if suddenly unfrozen, she pulled her robe together and stood, finding him across the room, turning down the covers. “That’s it?” she demanded.

He threw her a perfectly neutral glance. “That’s what, pet?”

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