Page 29 of Reluctant Wizard

He looked so shocked and chagrined that she squeezed his hands. “You’re right that I didn’t think of going to a healer. Let’s do that now. Then we can have that conversation.” Nudging him away, she stood and withdrew the bottle from her pocket.

“What are you doing?” Cillian looked like he wanted to snatch the bottle from her and smash it.

“I need another spirit to hide me. I can’t be seen with you.”

He put a hand over hers on the bottle. “Yes, you can. We’re not bowing to this extortion any more. I’m calling in someone to cover my shift and going with you. Openly.”

They were a pair, jostling to tell the other how it was going to be. It made her smile, which seemed to confuse Cillian. “All right,” she said. “Openly it is.”

They made it to the infirmary without incident, not in small part because midnight had long since expired and the hallways empty of much of anyone. Though Alise kept a careful eye on the swirling shadows, especially the ones that coalesced in quasi-sentient observation of their passage, none produced any more harbingers from high houses.

Maybe that part of the program was over.

A single Refoel healer, wearing his signature deep green robe, greeted them upon arrival, a question on his pleasant, dark and freckled face. His wizard-black eyes, warm with compassion, matched the shade of the darker freckles, his skin a lighter brown. “Ah, some company for me,” he said in a deep, melodious voice. He gestured to the empty infirmary. “In my line of work, it’s always bad luck to wish for something to happen, and no patients is always a good thing, but the wee hours get lonely. I am Healer Jonathan Refoel. How can I be of service, Archivist Cillian Harahel and Wizard Alise Phel?”

For some reason, it came as no surprise to Alise that Healer Jonathan used her correct house affiliation. Though traditionally neutral, sometimes painfully so, House Refoel had unexpectedly come to the aid of House Phel during the recent attack. The new head of the house, Lord Chaim Refoel, quite obviously and painfully in love with Seliah, had been persuaded that standing back and doing nothing to prevent evil amounted to endorsing it.

Cillian invoked a silencing shield, raising Jonathan’s brows. “We have a delicate situation. An unethical Hanneil wizard laid a compulsion on Alise.”

Jonathan’s brows rose even higher. “I want to say that’s not done, but you already mentioned unethical. And it’s clear even our discussion of it pains Wizard Alise here. Let me see if I can ease that first. Please sit here.” He indicated a comfortable chair, the sort that beckoned one to curl up with a book, and much preferable to the nearby table for physical examinations.

Alise sat, the pain lancing from temple to temple making her vision blur. Cillian moved to her side, taking one of her hands in both of his and giving her an encouraging smile. If Healer Jonathan thought anything untoward about the gesture, he gave no evidence, instead laying soft fingertips unerringly on the exact locations where the compulsive pain anchored to her temples. Pursing his full lips, he hummed thoughtfully. “Yes, I perceive it now. Nasty bit of work this.”

“Can you help her?” Cillian asked anxiously.

“Yes, fortunately I’m quite well-versed in healing wounds of psychic origin. That’s why they have me on the night shift.” He winked reassuringly at Alise. “We are creatures most at home in daylight and so the worst of the monsters and injuries that plague us emerge under cover of night, all the better to frighten us.”

Unexpectedly, Alise gulped back a sob, one that had leapt into her chest at the healer’s words. Though she hadn’t thought she needed Cillian’s solicitous hand-holding, she gripped tightly, trying not to writhe under Jonathan’s mental probing.

“I know, darling, I know,” Jonathan murmured in a soothing chant. “It’s painful. But it can’t actually hurt you. All bark and no bite in this one. Just hold on a bit longer for me. And… there!” With a sigh of satisfaction, he changed the press of his fingers on her temples to a glide of comfort and seeking. “What’s this then?”

“What?” Cillian demanded, earning a quelling look from the Refoel wizard.

“I won’t know unless I can concentrate,” he answered pointedly.

Flushing, Cillian muttered an apology, squeezing Alise’s hand even tighter. The worm of Gordon’s initial compulsion slithered through her mind, totally unlike the precision clamp of the silencing-compulsion, the command to go willingly to the slimeball’s bed slipped and turned around, giving not pain, but pleasure. She clamped her lips on a moan of need, swallowing it down with ruthless strength. It’s not real, she told herself.

“No, it’s not,” Jonathan said softly, gaze locked to hers in sincere reassurance. “This one is more insidious, a concocted emotion tied to a physical need and woven into your true feelings. Thus more difficult to extract. This is not your shame. Allow me in. Trust me to take care of you. It helps if you focus on what you know is real.”

Closing her eyes, she nodded slightly. She’d felt real desire in Cillian’s arms earlier, true and burning need for his body against hers, the stirring delight of his ardent kiss. She wouldn’t be fooled by the vile wizard’s faked-up version of lust. Not only was it an empty shell with a corrupted core, but even the surface showed cracks.

Gordon Hanneil might understand something of lust, but he clearly knew nothing of real connection to another person. Nothing like she had with Cillian, even if she hadn’t begun to fully explore that. Yet. Regardless of the propriety of their connection, the dubious wisdom of their feelings, what she and Cillian shared was potent and real and good.

“Yes, good,” Healer Jonathan murmured in an echo of her thoughts. “Keep focusing on that. Perfect.”

Probably she should worry that Jonathan likely saw everything about Cillian in her mind, but she couldn’t care in that moment because the Refoel wizard also found those vile and webby strands that Gordon had interlaced through her thoughts, plucking them out and discarding them like blood-swollen leeches the people of Meresin pulled off each other after wading through murky bodies of water. The sheer release of each one gone made her keenly aware of how profoundly they’d impacted her even over a few short days.

By the time Healer Jonathan declared himself done, and her mind clean of influence, Alise felt as if she could burst into tears yet again, but from relief this time. Cillian watched her with concern, not having understood Jonathan’s cryptic comments interspersing the long silences.

“Food and rest will have you back to rights,” Jonathan said. “I’ve laid in some passive defenses against psychic intrusion that should last against any cursory attempts, but I’m also going to request that Professor Morghana Seraphiel give you emergency instruction to prevent another aggressive attack.”

Alise knew of Morghana Seraphiel from all those late nights in the archives. The elderly professor passed most every night at the table unofficially reserved for her, the green-shaded elemental light focused on her rune-covered pages casting an eerie pool of emerald around her. She had the air of one of those people so singularly focused on her work that disturbing the professor’s concentration didn’t bear even considering. Not to mention the superstitious tales students whispered to one another about the terrible things the dark arts professor could unleash without blinking, simply out of mere irritation.

“Is Professor Seraphiel necessary?” Alise asked, more faintly than she’d have liked. “Professor Cixin is already teaching me to—”

“Consider this a prescription,” Healer Jonathan interrupted. “I don’t need to know details. In truth, it’s better that I don’t. What I glimpsed in your mind stays between us, protected by healer-patient confidentiality, but I saw enough to know you must take this attack very seriously.”

He turned a somber look on Cillian, who was frowning at Alise like she’d done something wrong. “You’ll address this problem with Provost Uriel?”

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