Page 28 of Reluctant Wizard

Then she stepped up and kissed him lightly, cupping his cheek and giving him a radiant smile, and the conflicting emotions nearly wrenched him apart. He wanted nothing more than to pull her close and kiss her senseless. He also couldn’t allow this to continue. Taking his willful romantic longing firmly in hand and shoving it behind a locked door, he pursued the most important course of conversation and dumped metaphorical ice water on the situation. “Now, tell me about Gordon Hanneil and what he did to hurt you.”

~14~

Alise had thought she’d dodged that arrow, but found it lodged firmly in her heart, piercing it through. “I can’t,” she told Cillian, aware she sounded more pleading than firm.

Cillian’s face hardened and he smacked his hand down on his files as if she’d tried to peek and he wouldn’t let her until she gave in. Well, he was wrong. She didn’t want to know any more about Gordon Hanneil or whoever he really was. “Enough, Alise!” he nearly barked at her. “Don’t be a fool. Let me help you.”

She set her teeth. “Don’t call me a fool,” she warned him.

“Then don’t be one,” he fired back. “From what I’ve discovered, this is no game.” He tapped the stack of documents meaningfully. “This guy is bad news. Not someone to take lightly.”

She probably deserved a medal for not kicking Cillian for explaining the obvious to her.

“I know,” she ground out, dancing around the margins of the mental compulsion, trying very hard not to think about Gordon, though a headache already throbbed around the periphery, like the oppressive feel of a storm about to break. She didn’t know what would happen if she tried to actually speak of Gordon instead of just thinking about it. Would she just be unable to or would something worse happen. An even more distressing possibility—would Hanneil be somehow alerted and come find them?

She shuddered at that horrifying prospect. Unfortunately, the keen-eyed Cillian picked up on that.

“Are you cold?” He set hands on her arms, bared by her short-sleeved top and rubbed them briskly. Then stopped. “No. You’re shaking from fear, not cold. What did he threaten you with?”

Gordon’s vile threats rushed back in full force and Alise gazed into Cillian’s lovely, concerned face, wishing she could speak past the lump in her throat. Maybe if she said it fast? The compulsion flexed, a headache spearing from temple to temple. Well, that answered that. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head, wildly trying to think of something, anything else. Focusing on Cillian, that kiss, how he was everything good and kind and all Gordon Hanneil was not. “Cillian…” she said, trailing off helplessly.

Understanding dawned across his face, such a brilliant transformation, she understood the metaphor with perfect clarity. “You can’t say,” he breathed, striking his forehead with the heel of his hand.

She released her own breath, not at all sure what this revelation would alter, but glad to have gotten that across to him. Hopefully, as clever as Cillian had shown himself to be, he’d figure out the rest without her needing to assist.

“Your head obviously hurts,” Cillian mused, “so I’m going to guess he used psychic magic to lay a compulsion on you. I’m also guessing you won’t see a healer about this? Yeah, you’re that predictable,” he said to her frantic headshaking. “Don’t look so panicked. I won’t make you—not until we get to the bottom of this. But I am going to point out that a Refoel wizard with potent psychic magic and training in mental healing can likely remove this compulsion. Ah ha—see? You didn’t think of that. This is why you need my help.”

He tapped her on the nose with gentle affection, looking so pleased with himself that Alise didn’t even mind that he’d treated her like a well-behaved puppy. “From what I know of these things,” he continued, “which isn’t reams, as much of it is ancient history, and obviously still should be as this sort of fuckery is extremely illegal—not that it would matter to this guy—it’s best if you don’t speak at all. Don’t attempt to talk or to confirm or deny. I’ll be able to read the truth in your expression.” His gaze traveled briefly over her face, and he seemed to be about to say something more, then changed his mind.

“All right,” he continued, “so, the rest is easy to put together, especially knowing this information.” He laid a proprietary hand on the stack of documents. With the thawing sense of relief that Cillian would no longer try to make her speak—she would never tell him of Gordon’s worst threats, no matter what—she at last found her curiosity stirring to know what he’d discovered about her tormentor.

Noticing her interest, Cillian nodded and pulled out the lone chair for her to sit. “I won’t bore you with my methodology. No, no, don’t give me that wide-eyed, innocent face. I know you tolerate my worst foibles in discussing library arcana. It’s all right. Sometimes I bore myself.” He laughed wryly. “Meet Tarin Tausa.” With that declaration, he flipped open a binder emblazoned with the House Tausa crest, to a marked page with a portrait of a younger Gordon—no, Tarin—looking somehow both smug and dissatisfied. Cillian put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly, and Alise realized she’d flinched.

“He is of House Hanneil lineage, a by-blow of a side branch, one that typically hasn’t produced high MP-scoring children. I can show you my research verifying that, but it’s really not all that relevant except as background to young Tarin’s early life. As you can see here, his psychic magic potential scored through the roof even as a toddler.”

Cillian ran his finger down a list of repeated testing over the years and Alise marveled at the thoroughness of the records. Was there one in the archives with similar detail about her? There must be, as she’d been tested at House Elal by the in-house Hanneil wizard, and their oracle head, at regular intervals throughout her childhood. In fact, one of her earliest memories was of staring in fascinated horror at the mummified, barely animated and gilded head resting in the decorated tabernacle whispering numbers through its carnelian-inlaid lips. She kind of wanted to see her file and also not.

“As you can imagine,” Cillian continued, “the ruling family of House Hanneil plucked Tarin from his parents and raised him with a number of other children of similarly high scores, monitoring them closely. It’s possible that Tarin and his cohort were subjected to various attempts to enhance and cultivate their magic.”

At her inquiring glance, he grimaced. “I went down a bit of a research rabbit hole there, truth be told, but all knowledge is worth having and the information may come in useful before we’re done. Also, it was fairly easy to correlate dates and find other individuals in this cohort who’d been tested at the same time. I can’t hurl fireballs or summon spirits, but library magic is excellently useful for collating data and making connections between seemingly disparate sources of data. If you’re wondering how I drew the conclusion that House Hanneil experimented with enhancing these children’s magical potentials from the way scores fluctuated in predictable ways and how low-scoring children were removed from testing. None of that is really relevant.”

“Except that all knowledge is worth having,” she murmured.

“Exactly,” he replied, clearly pleased. “Anyway, to sum up, Tarin was top of his class, basically the sole survivor of a rather ruthless pruning process that leads me to wonder what else he was taught. He completed the minimal coursework at Convocation Academy, graduated with remarkable haste after manifesting as a wizard—I do wonder what they’d have done with him had he turned out to be a familiar, but I imagine they had a plan to make him useful, regardless—and then disappeared from sight until recently. When he reappeared, he turned up with a falsified record, a new face, and the name Gordon Hanneil. Whereupon he was hired as a Proctor here.”

“When?” Alise breathed the question, as if saying it quietly would evade the compulsion.

“The day you and I left for House Harahel,” Cillian answered just as quietly, nodding when she glanced up at him, his expression sober. “Thus, the puzzle is easy enough to put together. He obviously does work for House Hanneil, but as a clandestine agent with considerable ability for psychic manipulation, to the point of being able to disguise his presence entirely, at least from a low-level wizard like me. Hanneil mobilized him to stop you from completing the petition to House Harahel and determining what became of the House Phel records. He waited for your return, threatened you to the point of terror—don’t bother to argue, it’s obvious to me—to stop your investigation and laid on compulsion on you to prevent you from speaking of it.

“Did he also threaten my safety if you didn’t play nice? Ah, I see he did.” Cillian sighed, then crouched before her where she sat, taking her hands in his, studying them as he stroked his thumbs over the backs of them. “I want to be able to tell you that you shouldn’t worry about me, that I can take care of myself, but I’d feel the same way if our positions were reversed and you’re a far more powerful wizard than I and much more capable of defending yourself.”

She made a noise of protest, the compulsion flexing with painful strength before she even mentally formed the words. “It’s true,” he insisted, “and I’m at peace with that. I’m happy with who I am. I must apologize to you, however, that this… person,” he spoke the word with profound distaste, “was able to use my feelings for you as a lever in such a terrible way.”

Alise threaded her fingers through his hair, savoring the silky texture, her heart aching for him. His feelings for her. Was it true then?

Cillian rubbed his head against her touch, like a cat loving to be petted, then met her gaze with his gentle black one. “I didn’t want you to know,” he said softly. “I wasn’t ever going to tell you. I know it’s inappropriate in so many ways and you’ll never return my feelings. No, don’t try to speak because I can see how it pains you. As soon as we’re done here, we go to the healers, no arguments or detours. I can deduce that the thoroughly unprincipled Tarin Hanneil—Actually, we should probably continue to call him ‘Gordon,’ lest we slip and reveal that we know his true identity. Anyway, he read my mind, didn’t he? And then told you of my… strong feelings for you. I’m deeply sorry he burdened you with that and I want you to know—despite my unfortunate lapse in kissing you a bit ago, an incident I promise I shall never repeat—I won’t bother you with my nonsense. I’m fully aware of the disparity in our social and magical echelons. I lost my head, it’s true, but it won’t happen again.”

“Are you finished?” Alise asked drily when the river of explanation and declaration finally ran out. “Good,” she said when he nodded. “I can speak regarding this, so stop trying to shut me up,” she told him pointedly. “I already said I liked the kiss. I don’t want your apologies.” She didn’t know what to make of the paradigm shift in how she regarded Cillian, but things had absolutely changed between them and she wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. She’d failed to protect him by staying away. Therefore she’d do it by staying close. “I also don’t want your assumptions about, well, any of the things you’re assuming. We need to discuss this thing between us and what we’re going to do about it.”

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