Page 19 of Reluctant Wizard

Gordon Hanneil slithered into the classroom with a stark smile and shut the door behind him, putting his back against it and making it clear Alise would have to go through him to escape. Soon, however, other students and the professor would arrive, she reminded herself, rather desperately. He couldn’t trap her in there forever. And surely he couldn’t make good on his threats, with witnesses imminent.

But Cillian had looked right at Gordon and hadn’t seen him. What could Gordon force her to do while others looked on, smiling blandly and chatting, noticing nothing?

“I didn’t break your rules,” she blurted at Gordon, feeling like a small, panicked bird cornered by a cat.

“You certainly shouldn’t be able to,” he said agreeably, but with iron beneath. “Not after our previous conversation. I’m wondering what failed to stick to your addled brain.” A lance of psychic magic stabbed at Alise’s mind, painfully slicing her thoughts into helpless disarray and piercing her will.

And yet… She wasn’t taken as unawares as the day before. Now that she’d experienced this sort of psychic attack once, she could better observe the parameters of what he could and could not do. One very important discovery: he’d thought the compulsion he’d implanted in her would prevent her from more than it had. That was promising. After all, she might not want to own her Elal origins, but they were known as one of the most powerful families of wizards in the Convocation for a reason.

House Elal had been one of the leaders in the war that defeated House Hanneil and imposed the sanctions on them. She might be a baby wizard, but she was from a tough and ancient bloodline. In that self-knowledge, she found that not all of her mind and will lay vulnerable to the unscrupulous man. Part of the psychic manipulation, it seemed, was making her believe that he controlled her.

“I… I haven’t worked on the project at all,” she stammered, trying to sound pleading, giving herself time to think. And for people to arrive. She couldn’t see the El-Adrel clock on the wall from where she stood, but surely it couldn’t be that long until first bell.

“Ah, but you were discussing the project with that Harahel archivist, your independent study lead. He certainly seemed to believe you were continuing the work.”

“I have to tell him something,” she whined. “The provost herself assigned the study. If I fail, I won’t graduate.”

“That’s your problem. Tell me what he discussed with you.”

So, Gordon didn’t know everything. Alise shoved the intense relief at that realization down deep, far below the surface thoughts, so the proctor wouldn’t read it in her. A non-wizardly trick she’d known how to do for years.

That was a perhaps unintended consequence of Convocation Academy’s pervasive use of Hanneil wizards as proctors to monitor student behavior. Even as young uncats, the students learned to mentally duck the proctors and find ways to conduct illicit activities under their noses without detection. One didn’t need brilliant psychic defenses to pull it off, just a level of mental agility and strong motivation.

Getting away with shit in school had incentivized many a clever student to find ways to fool the proctors. Alise recalled those early lessons now, something she’d been too rattled to do on her first encounter with Gordon. She didn’t need major psychic shields or battle magic, just a bit of student cleverness. To amplify the feeling of whiny, put-upon student, she said, “I don’t even know what that boring librarian was maundering on about. Blah blah blah with cross-referencing I don’t know what.”

The Hanneil wizard narrowed his snake-black eyes, his magic rudely probing her mind. She wanted to vomit from the violation, but she held her pose of pitiful vulnerability, pretending to be unaware of his invasion.

“I’ve heard that you and that low-level wizard-archivist have a special relationship,” he crooned, curling his voice lasciviously around the words. “Is he your boyfriend, Alise? You can confide in me.”

“No,” she breathed. “He’s old and boring. A low-level wizard with no future except the same as what he’s got right now.”

Gordon didn’t move, but his magic wrapped around her with slimy familiarity. “That’s not what I heard.”

“From where?” she scoffed. “My so-called friends in the student population? They’ll say anything to make me look bad, to kick the underdog while she’s down. I’m sure the provost would be thrilled to hear some rumor that I’m diddling a faculty member instead of doing my best to graduate. That kind of thing might get me finally expelled.”

Gordon tsked at her. “Silly little Elal. You forget who you’re dealing with. I can read minds and that Harahel boy is head over heels in love with you. Even if you don’t return the feelings,” he added with less certainty, his magic picking away at the layers of thought her stunned surprise had liberated from hiding.

She scrambled to squelch them again, throwing her very real shock and confusion to obscure what he could read in her. Cillian… in love with her? No, it wasn’t possible.

In fact, it was so impossible that Alise realized Gordon had said it only to manipulate her. Effective approach. But still, she didn’t want the Hanneil wizard’s attention on Cillian, who couldn’t defend himself, magically or politically.

“You didn’t know,” Gordon murmured, a pleased smile crawling across his loathsome face. “But what is this I sense? You’re protective of him.”

Dark arts take her. She needed to fix this fast. So, she curled a lip and shrugged. “You think he’s lusting after me, a student? Maybe he’s more of a social climber than I gave him credit for.”

“Everyone is a social climber, baby Elal. Some just hide it better than others.”

She’d argue, but in Convocation society, status and power were everything, so Gordon had a point. Except that she knew Cillian and he only cared about books and baking. Maybe those game figures he collected. But all as harmless as it got. He deserved to enjoy that kind of life, far away from the kind of power-struggles she’d been born into and likely would never escape, not even in far Wartson.

“You will stay away from the librarian,” Gordon informed her, apparently coming to a decision. “The next time I detect any communication between you, I will take action.”

“I can’t refuse to communicate with my independent study advisor,” she contested hotly.

“Figure it out,” he shot back. “You’re so clever.”

“Cutting off contact would look suspicious. It would attract more attention, and you don’t want that, do you?”

“I can handle that part,” he sneered, waving off her argument. “Don’t forget who I am.”

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