Page 21 of Twisted Magic

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know. I was lightening the mood. In point of fact, Jadren wasn’t wrong. I know you thought at the time that he was setting you up for betrayal, but—regardless of the clandestine nefarious activities of the high houses—the Convocation does run on surface manners. Which means we need to take a couple of days before we can leave, to inform Convocation Center of our plans.”

“In case, when bearding the lioness in her den, we are eaten by her?”

“They can write in our memorials that we were in the right and the law, not to mention etiquette, was on our side.” She simpered at him, and he shook his head.

“Sometimes your dark sense of humor worries me.”

“Take heart, my only love.” She linked her arm through his. “This will be fun.”

“That’s not the word I’d have chosen.”

“Better than staying home and teaching amateur moon-magic wizards?”

“That is absolutely true.” He bent to kiss her. “Have I mentioned today how much I love you?”

“You have, but feel free to say so as often as you like.”

“I love you, Nic. I’d be lost without you.”

“I love you, too. And I am literally lost without you as I have no idea how to extract myself from this maze.”

Chuckling, he patted her hand. “Allow me to rescue you, my lady.”

With a dreamy sigh that wasn’t at all pretense, Nic let him lead the way.

~8~

Seliah paced around the pretty apartments, the very same she’d been installed in on her first “visit” to House El-Adrel. While she understood the reasons for the lack of windows—because the house moved about and reshaped itself with enough frequency to disconcert the human occupants when the view outside abruptly changed—she still violently disliked the sense of being trapped indoors, with no way to get out. She felt much like a tasty tidbit packed into some interior compartment to preserve freshness, waiting to be consumed.

They’d prepared her for the part, too. As before, a cadre of servants had converged to dress her up, apply makeup, and style her hair, all very fancy. She looked fabulous, the quintessential high-house lady, but to say that she resented Katica El-Adrel’s tactics was putting it mildly. It worried her that no one had spoken to her, not even to issue threats or the sort of taunting Katica seemed fond of. But, other than the groomers, who reminded her decidedly of stable hands not particularly interested in the horse they readied for show, she hadn’t seen anyone at all.

Selly had been hoping for a visit from Fyrdo, as had happened before, and which was really the only reason she’d gone along with the program so far. Not that she’d had a choice when El-Adrel’s automatons appeared from nothing, grabbed her and whisked her away from Refoel. They’d hit her with some sort of paralysis spell, too, that had prevented her from moving or speaking. She supposed it was a mark of how far she’d come, how much Liat’s mental healing and Maya’s gentle counseling had helped her, that she’d been able to take the immobility more or less in stride. But everything since they’d unfrozen her after depositing her in these rooms… well, she was doing her best to keep calm, knowing that—no matter what else happened—Jadren would soon arrive.

That was obviously the point of this whole enterprise. That letter hadn’t worked to bring him hurrying home. Holding her hostage absolutely would. She hated that she was being used as leverage; she also knew that Jadren, even as badly as they’d left things, would come for her.

That was love in its truest form, she supposed. Not the spontaneous romantic love of novels, but real, enduring love, the kind that survived all the arguments and disappointments and thoughtlessly angry moments. She and Jadren would never be the epically romantic couple like Sylus and Lyndella, nor would they be like Nic and Gabriel, with their mutual adoration. No, she and Jadren were like two broken halves of a whole. They completed each other, but not seamlessly. Their jagged edges would always rub up against the other in uncomfortable ways, occasionally drawing blood, but never out of cruelty. They were able to be that for each other: the person who didn’t mind a few bumps and bruises because they understood that neither of them was perfect.

She wouldn’t trade him for anyone else in all the world. They’d get through this, just as they’d gotten through everything else together. She just needed to be patient and have faith in him. Patience had never been her strong suit, but her utter faith in Jadren more than made up for it.

“I just really wish I could at least see outside,” she muttered aloud.

There wasn’t a sound, exactly. But a sense of movement, of that distinctive, oiled-metal feel of El-Adrel magic, briefly furled and unfurled. The air of the room shifted, as if someone had opened a window in a distant room, and a cool breeze wafted in. Selly turned in a slow, suspicious circle, feeling as if she used her familiar’s passive senses to sniff the air. At first, nothing seemed to have changed… Except that there was an odd sensation of movement, as if she rode in a carriage.

“House?” she asked aloud, not sure how else to address the structure. Jadren seemed to waffle on just how sentient the house was. He went from referring to her as an occasionally malicious and often interfering bitch, to denying that the odd and ancient manse was anything more than the product of generations of wizards specializing in creating enchanted artifacts tinkering endlessly with various parts of the house to the point that the layers of spells had somehow conglomerated into something larger and unpredictable.

Selly leaned toward the house being a thinking creature with her own agenda—one that favored Jadren and possibly also herself, by extension.

Nobody replied, but Selly could swear the house heard her. A soundless rumble vibrated through the room, and suddenly sunlight flooded in. Not only did a skylight appear above, but also floor-to-ceiling windows opened on three sides, with glass doors leading to a semi-circular balcony. Selly nearly ran out the doors in her delight, gripping the railing with fervor, and inhaling deeply of outside. Somehow her interior room had been elevated to the top of the house, giving her a splendid view of the shining rooftops made of many-colored metals, the glint of arching atriums, and cascading wings, all graceful with architectural splendor.

Here and there, too, the house was in motion. A copper fan unfurled in a seemingly endless cycle, disappearing into a roofline before appearing again. A long series of glass-roofed greenhouses snaked outward, opening into a beautiful garden Selly wouldn’t have suspected of existing. In another direction—still below her—a series of turrets sported enormous bows mounted horizontally to some sort of cog and wheel device. Armed guards surrounding them pointed at Selly’s new vantage, talking intensely and waving their arms.

The outer door to Selly’s apartments banged wide, admitting Katica El-Adrel. Hooray, a visitor at last—and the last person Selly wanted to see. She edged just inside the open doors to the balcony. If it came to it, she’d jump over the railing and take her chances, rather than face the certainty of abuse and torture.

Tall, slim, and imposing, with a sheet of silver-threaded black hair that cascaded nearly to the floor, Lady El-Adrel carried herself with effortless grace and the unconscious poise of a woman who expects the instant obedience of everyone around her. Possibly in the entire known world. Fanning her hands on her hips, her long, gilded nails decorated with the El-Adrel lightning bolts that also zig-zagged from one shoulder of her form-fitting white pantsuit down her long thigh, she dragged a slow gaze around the transformed room, eying the balcony and altered view in particular, before settling her wizard-black eyes disdainfully on Selly. “What in the dark arts have you done?” she drawled, managing to make Selly sound like a naughty child in need of correction.

Stung, Selly nearly answered that she didn’t do anything, then closed her mouth on the words, refusing to be thrust into the role of defensive miscreant.

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