Page 59 of Reluctant Wizard

The effect was startling. Along with the smell. The stench of burnt fur and slowly roasting canine flesh billowed out, followed by black oily smoke that stung her eyes. The fire elementals gleefully danced over the still advancing hunters, bright spots of flame in the greasily thickening shadows. Some elementals fell off into the gloom as the warrior spirits cleaved away limbs. It was all eerily silent, the hunters giving no sign or sound of suffering. As the flames penetrated their immortal flesh, however, the sizzle of fat and crackling skin became audible, turning her stomach.

Until an alarm wailed—some embedded enchantment to detect smoke or flame in the archives. Well, shit.

Quickly, Alise summoned water elementals to douse the fire, which resulted in more suffocating smoke, but hopefully preserved the materials in the nearby stacks. Cillian would never forgive her if any harm came to the archives. Recalling what little she knew about fires, she quickly summoned air elementals to disperse the smoke, to prevent that kind of damage, too, which had the side-benefit of giving her a clearer picture of the aftermath. And relieving the burning ache in her lungs she hadn’t paid attention to until that moment.

Twitching, seared, and smoking chunks of hunter laid strewn across the floor, Alise’s warrior spirits continuing on their assigned task of chopping them into even smaller bits. Fire elementals burned sullenly, squabbling with the water elementals. Black blood pooled everywhere. In the distance, shouts indicated the fire alarm had been heard and answered.

“Dark arts,” Cillian breathed, coming up beside her. “What a mess.”

She flicked him a more than irritated glance. “I told you to run and hide.”

“I did the latter,” he answered, unperturbed. “Then I came out when it was safe to do so. And I don’t take orders from you, Lady Elal. Deal with it.”

Oh, he was asking for it, he really was. Alise knotted her hands into fists. “Listen, you—”

“Better summon some earth elementals to devour the evidence,” he interrupted, “unless you want to answer a lot of questions. The less notice the better at this point.”

“Fine. We’ll argue later.”

“I look forward to that,” he murmured, setting a reassuring hand on the small of her back. “But you know I’m the better debater.”

Despite herself, she smiled. She had no idea how he could amuse her like this, especially under such circumstances.

Feeling a bit thin on magic—though Brinda’s infusion had really lasted through a lot—Alise summoned a veritable horde of earth elementals to devour the blood, ash, and remaining twitching chunks of decimated hunter. The last did give her pause. What would those unkillable creatures do inside an elemental? She didn’t know if anyone had tried that approach before. At the Siege of House Phel, Jadren El-Adrel had “healed” the hunters and returned them to their constituent animal parts. Not an option here, not without Jadren’s truly unique brand of wizardry.

Still, Cillian was right that the last complication they needed at this point was to attract even more attention—especially not knowing exactly who their enemies might be. It was bad enough that they’d inadvertently alerted whoever had hidden the Phel archives to their tampering; they didn’t need their blissfully ignorant colleagues developing suspicions, too. She encouraged the earth elementals to devour every trace, allowing the fire and water elementals to return to their own realms, and sent her personal cadre of spirits back into stasis.

The earth elementals snuffled over the floor, seeking any last traces of organic snacks. Footsteps approached, the glow of lanterns growing brighter in the dimly lit stacks.

“We should go,” Cillian said with increased urgency. “That has to be good enough.”

Using the enchantment she’d learned that very day from Professor Cixin, she put the earth elementals into an incorporeal space and sealed it. The elementals should be content enough there for a while, as they were thoroughly sated. If all went well, maybe they’d have completely digested the hunters’ immortal flesh when she checked back.

Cillian was already pulling her along as she worked mentally, deftly weaving them back through the more obscure stacks, away from the commotion. Unfortunately that meant they were also moving away from the one exit from the archives.

Finished with her magical tasks, Alise dug in her heels. “We need to get out of here,” she protested. “We’re trapped in this place.”

“I know that,” he snapped with frustration. But he stopped, pulling her into an alcove, and drawing her into his arms. “Let’s take a breath.”

She did, leaning against him as they embraced. It felt good, right, and safe, no matter what happened outside their shadowy circle. “They’re going to know it was us,” she said after a beat, pulling back to look at him. “No one else could have done this, so we’re not hiding so much as evading. And eluding,” she added, thinking of Professor Seraphiel.

“Suggestions for doing so are welcome,” he replied grimly. “There are good reasons for the archives to have a single exit, but that’s working against us at the moment.”

“I can cloak us.”

“Do you have enough magic?”

Did she? She’d used a lot, but she’d been replete at the start. “I do. Plenty to get us out of here.”

“All right.” But he looked glum. “What worries me next is how we’ll get back to those Phel texts though.”

“We can think about that later.”

“Can we though? What if this is our last opportunity to get at them? There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get in here again. You should go and I can stay.”

Alise tried to contain her exasperation. “You’re just going to hide in the archives for days or weeks?”

“Whatever it takes,” he answered with that stubbornly noble tilt to his chin. “I know these stacks like the back of my hand. I can hide from anyone.”

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