Page 32 of Strange Familiar

“Giving up, however,” Han continued, gazing down at her and placing a soft kiss on her forehead, so she opened her eyes and smiled at him, “is defeating yourself before you even engage the enemy. Like plunging the dagger into your own heart rather than face your opponent. It could be they’ll win, that they’ll strike to your heart, wounding or even killing you, but you don’t need to do the job for them.”

Iliana nodded a little against his shoulder. “I think that’s what decided it for me, back when it looked like Sabrina would win. If we went along with her plan, we’d suffer. If we rebelled, there was a chance we’d lose our bid for freedom and suffer—but knuckling under ensured we would. It was worth the risk—and now look what we have.”

Han smiled at her fondly, but looked to Cillian, frowning at whatever he saw in Cillian’s face. “No?”

“I worry that…” Cillian said slowly, plucking at the documents Han had brought over. The pages weren’t finely cut, but slightly uneven, and bound with tape. Not House Calliope printing, but something done by an archivist, possibly even at Convocation Archives, given the meticulous work. Judging by the age of the paper, the documents had been bound a couple of centuries before, but the tape had held, looking only somewhat brittle and lifting barely at all. Of course, the null space tended to preserve texts better, being somewhat timeless. Usually, however, documents like these—often committee meeting minutes and similar records—were only temporarily perfect bound like this. After a sufficient accumulation, they were sent to Calliope for a more permanent binding into a collection. Likely this little batch hadn’t made it in with its brethren because it had been secreted away.

“You worry what?” Iliana prompted.

So much easier to think about all things archival than his deepest fears. Maybe he should ditch thoughts of romance and stick with books. No doubt his grandmother would be delighted. But he made himself face the painful truth. “I worry that, even if I find something to take to Alise, that she’s… happier—” He almost couldn’t say the word “—at House Elal. That, for her, this isn’t some choice between a dire fate and supreme happiness. Arguably, she’s where she belongs, where she shines. She’s always been meant to be Lady Elal.”

“But you’re in love,” Iliana protested.

“I am,” Cillian said on a sigh, “but Alise isn’t.”

“Just because she hasn’t said so, that doesn’t—”

Han interrupted Iliana with a quiet shushing sound.

“I think that, if she knew, she would have said so,” Cillian explained to Iliana and to himself. “But our relationship is so new and we both understood it to be temporary, an alliance of the moment and circumstance. She’s young and she shouldn’t have to know what she wants yet.”

“But—”

“No, Iliana,” Cillian felt more certain now, Iliana’s arguments solidifying his own. “Alise is a generous, warm-hearted person. I don’t want her to feel she needs to accommodate my feelings.”

Both Han and Iliana sat silent, the mood glum. “So, how do you want to proceed?” Han finally asked. “Do you want to declare the search of the folded archive done with? We can complete the inventory of its contents and make decisions from there. Begin the comparison list to the Harahel archives. You don’t have to go to House Elal and use the favor to make contact with Alise.”

No. No, he didn’t have to go to Alise. Giving that up might be the most generous move he could make for her. He could ask his grandmother to let him send a courier to Alise with the inventory. If he swore to give Alise up forever, Lady Harahel might lift her sanctions. And then perhaps someday they could return to his original fantasy, the one where he visited her at House Elal, her trusted friend and advisor. As Lady Elal, she would welcome him and they’d talk fondly over their escapades back in the day and exchange news over Bria and other children. Perhaps Alise’s children, too—though he couldn’t bear to think of that, so he firmly banished that image. He would bring her interesting books, discuss archival trivia, and…

His gaze focused on the bound documents he’d been idly studying. Committee meeting notes. Why would those have been hidden away? Cillian always got a tingling sensation when he hit upon what he’d been searching for. Whether plain old intuition or his wizard senses, when he used his magic to index books, looking for the text a patron had described in terribly vague—or horribly incorrect terms—he’d get that feeling that he’d found it, even before he verified.

That tingle roared into excitement as Cillian flipped open the text. Minutes from the Committee for Verification of Research Results. This was it. This had to be it. “Dark arts,” he whispered.

“I was about to shelve those,” Han commented, sounding uncertain. Maybe sounding like he thought Cillian might be losing his mind. “They’re minutes from some committee meeting two-hundred and fifty years ago. Lots of Wizard Bumble-Dumble opining on control groups.”

“Not just any wizard,” Cillian murmured, paging through the notes, his wizardry racing ahead to search for the terms he hoped to find. “The one suggesting that experiments were conducted without proper controls is Wizard Moore Elal. And here.” He stabbed at a point on a page, heart racing. “Here is Wizard Anciela Phel’s rebuttal. She…” He trailed off, reading. “Dark arts,” he whispered.

“What?” Iliana nearly screeched, tearing herself out of Han’s loose embrace and bouncing with excitement. “What did you find??”

Cillian looked up at them, in wonder and horror. “House Phel had been conducting independent studies with familiars. They’d found a way to trigger the change in familiars.”

“Change?” Han asked, with marked urgency.

Cillian nodded. “To make them into wizards.”

~ 17 ~

The three of them sat in stunned silence for a very long time.

“But…” Iliana breathed the word, then licked her lips. “That means—”

“That means they knew hundreds of years ago that familiars weren’t doomed to be this this way,” Han filled in, a deep and long-buried rage in his voice. “That our inability to wield magic isn’t a natural state of being, but instead a correctable malfunction. Do I have that right?”

Aching for them, Cillian nodded. “According to the data Wizard Anciela Phel presented to the committee, yes.”

“And they buried it,” Iliana said, face and voice hollow.

“They contested the results,” Cillian corrected, feeling pedantic.

---