Page 61 of Reluctant Wizard

“It’s true. I don’t understand,” Alise said. “But I want to.”

Cillian took a painful breath, willing himself to explain. The words that would damn him forever in her eyes refused to come. He couldn’t bear to have her look on him with the inevitable disappointment. “I just… can’t,” he finally got out. “I can’t do something unethical like that. Not again, not even for you.”

“Ah.” She nodded, a sympathetic smile twisting her lovely mouth. “‘Not again.’ By that I assume you’re referencing what happened with Szarina Sammael.”

He’d expected many replies from her, but not that. Grappling with his shock, his crawling shame, he couldn’t look into her face. “Who told you?” he asked, voice hoarse. And how long had she known?

“Brinda Chur.” Alise nodded, wrinkling her nose as his astonished gaze flew to her compassionate one. “That’s only one reason she is no friend of ours.

“But…” He had to clear his throat, seeing none of the contempt and disgust he’d dreaded. “But if you know, then…” He couldn’t finish.

“I know you, Cillian,” she said, softly but firmly. “Whatever you did, I’m sure you did for the best of reasons, if perhaps not the wisest ones.”

He couldn’t help smiling at her gentle teasing. “I don’t know about that. I was a fool.”

“Well, I want to hear the whole story—no doubt the real story—directly from you, but let me put it to you this way.” She gazed at him with a level of trust, of earnest faith that rocked him to the core. “Preserving those archives, analyzing how they were tampered with and why, that is your calling as an archivist. You wouldn’t be doing this for me. You wouldn’t even be doing it for House Phel. It’s for the integrity of these archives, which belong to all Convocation citizens. Something you believe in before all else.”

She was good. And he had no defense against her. Wouldn’t have, even if her rationale hadn’t made sense. He hadn’t been able to refuse Szarina either, but he could at least count on the fact that Alise would never use and betray him. “You’ve presented an argument too slippery for me to counter,” he allowed. “I may not be the better debater, after all.”

“Elals are known to be deft politicians for a reason,” she answered glibly, though her deliberately cocky attitude faltered. She worried so much about becoming like her father.

“You’re using your powers for good, though,” Cillian told her with firm conviction. “I only hope that history paints me that way, too.”

“If anyone dares to write otherwise, we’ll just alter the archives,” she responded with impish glee, grinning when he choked on his shocked reaction. “Oh, come on—that was a joke. I wouldn’t really.”

Yes, she absolutely would. Alise possessed a different moral scale that way, one that drove her to protect the people who mattered to her, no matter the objective right or wrong. They would discuss further. For the moment… “All right, cloak us,” he told her. “And I’ll bring the Phel archives with me.”

He was pretty sure he could do it. The hidden stacks hovered there, neatly parked where he’d mentally bookmarked them, so bringing the folded-up space with him required something of a hook, not unlike picking up a stack of books instead of leaving them on a table. A bit unwieldy, and it required some mental balancing. He worked on it while Alise summoned her cloaking spirits. Once he had a feel for the thing, he could carry the weightless burden just fine.

Holding Alise’s hand—mainly to stay close within her range, though the contact with her soothingly warm and rose-scented magic helped steady him—he walked along with her toward the exit and safety.

Getting through the enchantment with his burden in tow would take more finessing. Alise was right, however, that any Harahel wizard trained by the house and who’d worked any length of time in Convocation Archives could likely pull this off. That came as a reassurance that perhaps a Harahel had not been involved in concealing the Phel archives. Why go to those lengths if smuggling the stacks out of the archives entirely was an option? Surely Alise wasn’t the first person to think of that possibility. Yes, it hadn’t occurred to him, but that was because the ethical breach was essentially unthinkable. Leave it to a wily Elal to come up with that, a sneaky voice suggested. He ignored the voice, knowing better than anyone how vicious and damaging and outright false such gossip could be.

Regardless, it didn’t matter—yet—who’d done the expert work of hiding the Phel archives. They would investigate that later. He needed to focus on the exigencies of the moment.

In the end, however, bypassing the rather basic enchantment didn’t take anything extraordinary. Without realizing it, he’d been practicing for this moment practically every day as he checked out allowed materials, ensuring that anything removed from the archives had been recorded to the person taking it, adjusting the enchantment to let them pass, reestablishing it when the materials were returned. This monumental theft came far too easy.

When they reached the door, Alise glanced at him and he nodded. They walked out unobserved—and would have been regardless, as no one was about. Likely anyone awake had gone chasing the alarms. He and Alise walked right out, taking the Phel archives with them.

And walked straight into Gordon Hanneil.

~28~

For a wildly hopeful moment, Alise thought her cloaking spirits would save them. Gordon Hanneil seemed to stare right through both Cillian and her, his wizard-black gaze narrowed menacingly on the doorway to the archives.

Then his expression cleared, a smile that could only be called triumphant lighting his face as he focused exactly on her. “Oh, Alise.” He tutted sorrowfully. “You didn’t imagine you could fool a psychic wizard with a stale party trick like draping yourself in ghosties, did you?”

She didn’t answer, mouth dry, her panicked thoughts groping for the morning’s lessons, which now eluded her with all the thorough agility she could wish she could wield to get them out of this.

Gordon heaved an irritated sigh. “Come out already. You and the besotted archivist. I grow bored with this charade and you won’t like what I get up to when I’m looking for entertainment.”

The cloaking spirits were draining magic she might need to battle Hanneil anyway, so Alise let them go—though she kept them close by. She would use every trick she could muster. “What do you want, Proctor?” she demanded coolly, figuring she might as well take the offensive.

“Why, I want what you have,” he answered easily. “What you stole. I know you broke into the archives that I explicitly instructed you to leave alone. I don’t know how you found them.” His gaze rested on Cillian, a hint of quizzical irritation in his expression, as if he hadn’t thought the quiet librarian had it in him and he didn’t enjoy the surprise. “But I can read in your mind that you have somehow extracted them from the Convocation Archives, which turns out to be terribly convenient for me.”

“Stay out of my mind,” Cillian ground out, his hand clenching hers.

Gordon dimpled. “Make me, pretty boy. Oh, boo.” He mock pouted. “You can’t, can you? How sad for you. One bad decision after another, all for gorgeous wizard-girls far beyond your value. You do reach high, I have to give you credit there. But one day you’ll have to learn it does you no good to reach for what you can’t hold on to. Give me the archive and I’ll let you both go.”

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