Page 1 of Strange Familiar

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Alise was worried about Cillian, which was a major role-reversal and one she didn’t care for. She’d been helplessly fretting over him for several hours as the elemental-powered carriage glided through the cold winter night, and as the magical burden ate away at him. Now she was starting to get angry. From the beginning of their quasi-friendship that had progressed to this undefined romance—despite her best efforts to define it—Cillian had been the one to fret over her, with his nourishing affection and baked goods.

To herself, she could admit how much she’d liked that. Being taken care of felt special and lovely. It was certainly unprecedented in her life as the daughter of a high house. Her father, the very Lord Elal considered by many to be the most-powerful—or at least most terrifying—wizard in the Convocation, hadn’t been much of a nurturer. Quite the opposite, in fact. Piers Elal didn’t believe in coddling his children, instead raising them to be forces of power and influence in Convocation society. Not that this was unusual for the scions of high houses. Wizards in the Convocation, and by extension the houses they ran with iron fists and oppressive magic, continually maneuvered for position, all aiming for total supremacy, even if they paid lip service otherwise.

Well, not all high houses, Alise mentally amended, eyeing Cillian who pretended to sleep on the plush seat of the carriage opposite her. The librarian wizard hailed from House Harahel, one of the few high houses dedicated to the service of their calling, rather than the rapacious acquisition of wealth and power. The wizards of House Harahel focused entirely on books, archives, and maintaining the records of the Convocation to be as factual and as free of political bias as possible. They remained in the background of the often fierce and usually lethal conflicts of Convocation society. As a result, and as Cillian had cynically noted, Harahel possessed little wealth or influence.

Alise, a true child of House Elal whether she liked it or not, had a difficult time understanding that life. One part of her—the side newly awakened by Cillian’s quiet enjoyment of simple joys—rather envied the sheer peacefulness of being a nonentity. It must be nice to grow up with a grandmother who gardened and baked and to live in a house full of people who cared only about books. And it must be rewarding to be a wizard talented enough to score a position as a librarian in the Convocation Archives, but not possess the sort of power useful only for spying, controlling, and destroying people’s lives.

But the other side of her, the part that made her exactly the kind of wizard born and bred to ruthlessly run a high house and serve the interests of Elal above all else, privately held House Harahel in a bit of contempt. She’d never confess it to Cillian, but she found it hard to understand their house policy of observing from the sidelines, of endlessly recording events and never stepping in to influence them. Wasn’t it a form of cowardice, in the end? A kind of hiding away from the world and avoiding the sharp edges of the conflicts it brought.

Just as Cillian was doing at that very moment. He wasn’t truly asleep. She’d know that even without her finely tuned wizard senses reading the alertness of his spirit. As an Elal, Alise possessed unusual proficiency with spirit magic, and the spirits inhabiting human bodies were subject to her abilities as much as any disembodied entity or lowly elemental. Maybe “subject to” was putting it too strongly. The simpler an entity, the easier they were to contain and manipulate. Spirits sufficiently complex to inhabit human bodies—not to mention human brains—presented immense challenges. Which was fortunate as those powerful and unprincipled types like Alise’s father would skip the intermediaries and go straight to controlling people with wizardry. Not unlike the methods employed by the psychic wizards at House Hanneil, in particular Gordon Hanneil, the saboteur who’d telepathically wrested Cillian’s will from him for a short time.

That little battle outside of Convocation Archives—small only in the sense of numbers and not at all the epic levels of wizardry slung about—had traumatized them both. Alise’s nerves were still strained from the terror and tension, her heart jumping unevenly at the least sound or movement. Shouldn’t they be commiserating, cuddling, comforting each other? Not ensconced on separate benches with him so obviously pretending to sleep that even a mundane human with zero magic would detect the deception.

She’d only shared a bed with Cillian a few times, but she already knew the pattern of his breathing in easy sleep, the slow and even susurrus of his breath, the relaxed line of his high cheekbones and the way his lush black lashes fanned over them in rest. He had striking eyes when awake, but only in sleep could she truly study—and, all right, revel in—the sheer beauty of those gloriously long lashes. Well, and his gorgeous face in general. Cillian only wore his spectacles for reading, but he was pretty much always reading, so the rare moments of repose when he removed them felt like a special window. He didn’t look better without them, necessarily, but the spectacles tended to age him a bit, to disguise the pretty-boy face he’d been blessed with.

Her pretty boy, no matter how her fellow students at Convocation Academy had sighed over him and tried to get his attention. Cillian had wanted her before she truly registered his existence, and she’d liked that. No, to be fully honest, she’d come to love his ardent attention, even the way he badgered her to eat and sleep. That’s what really annoyed her. How dare he seduce her with his kind, sweet ways, making her accustomed to, even dependent upon, his frank adoration? Look at him, cocooned in the furry blankets, snuggled in them up to his pointed chin, pretending to sleep.

Was she supposed to likewise pretend that she believed this sleeping fakery? Cillian was her first affair, pretty much first everything, and she had no idea what the rules of the game should be. Maybe he thought she was sleeping and was being his usual considerate self, staying still and quiet so as not to disturb her. That would be in character for him and sadly also consistent with her character to be annoyed with him when he was only being kind.

Testing the theory, she shifted abruptly, scrabbling with her own furry blankets and rearranging them with unnecessary roughness. Nothing from Cillian. Eyes on his purposefully blank face—she was sure of it now—she coughed, loudly. Nothing. Tempted to kick him, to see how he’d fake his way through that, instead she heaved a sigh of exasperation and said, “I know you’re not asleep.”

He stirred, making sleepy noises—she had to roll her eyes for that bit of playacting—and cracked one lid open, blinking in an approximation of fuzziness that would convince no one ever. Good thing he hadn’t gone into the theater, really.

“Did you say something?” he asked, his words slow and vague. She should have led with kicking him.

Instead, she measured her patience, finding that she didn’t have much, but knowing any she did possess should go toward being pleasant to this man she maybe probably almost certainly loved, who definitely deserved only compassion from her after all he’d given with unstinting generosity. “I said,” she answered patiently, “that I know you’re not asleep, which means that you continuing to try to deceive me on the matter is more than a little insulting.”

Ah, some objective part of her noted. It bothers you most that he would try to deceive you.

No, it bothers me that he’s avoiding dealing with this problem, a situation we share. Never mind that she sounded defensive to her own mind.

You’re being defensive, that objective self pointed out.

I just thought that.

I know, I’m just reinforcing. It’s important to be honest with yourself, at least in your own mind, even if you’re not honest with anyone else.

I’m honest!

Are you though? It’s not really an Elal forte.

Cillian sighed and sat up, interrupting her circular internal argument, and good thing, too.

“I was attempting to sleep,” he said, emphasizing the word with a sharpness she’d never before heard from him. “You should be, too.” The concern in his words came as a pale echo of what he’d shown her before, more of a reflex, she thought, a habit. Another pretense.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she prodded. This is what he would do for her, what he had done for her, nagging and poking until she confessed the dark fears haunting her. “It wasn’t your fault that Gordon Hanneil—” She broke off when he held up a hand to stop the words.

“I really do not want to talk about it,” he said the edge in his voice not entirely disguised by his attempt to gentle it, the weak smile he offered in the muted glow of the fire elemental-fueled lanterns. “Let’s just sleep,” he added, almost pleadingly, pulling the blankets tighter around himself as if they could protect him. From her?

She really hated the thought that he didn’t feel he could turn to her with his problems. Worse, she feared he—perhaps rightfully—blamed her for those problems, that he might resent her. This was why he should be the one comforting her, telling her that everything would work out fine. This was his strength, not hers.

What is exactly is your strength? Her inner voice inquired silkily.

Brooding, acting impulsively, and causing destruction, she answered with biting chagrin.

Exactly.

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