“Are you sure?” he asked Selly tenderly.

She nodded vigorously. “I am part of House Phel, too,” she said very seriously. Jadren, standing nearby, watched her with an inscrutable look on his face.

It was true that Selly was as much a member of House Phel as he was. Enfolding her hand in both of his, Gabriel reached for her magic, finding part of himself tense with apprehension. But this was nothing like the previous time, when her stagnant magic overwhelmed him, swept him up, and dragged him under to drown. Selly’s magic was like his, and also not like. Pure water and pristine moonlight, deep as a mountain lake and brilliant as the full moon on a clear night. He drank her magic in, the transition to his own magic without flaw or hesitation. Where Nic was his mirror, compensating for what he lacked, Selly was like another face of himself. No wonder the Byssan sisters made such an effective team.

A spirit popped up just then, closely followed by the sound of running feet as Alise burst into the room. “They’ve been spotted! Hunters hard on their heels.” She bared her teeth in a flesh-eating smile, disconcerting in her youthful face. She was all Elal in that moment, determined to win at all costs. Spirits swirled visibly around her, emitting a high-pitched keen of battle rage.

“We’re ready,” Gabriel replied. “Let’s give them a solid House Phel welcome.”

~ 17 ~

Nic paced the round, windowless chamber. It was comfortably appointed, all the furnishings the very finest, as they were at House Elal. The preponderance of black was a bit off-putting, but there were all the conveniences one could wish for, including fire elementals to heat the room, air elementals to provide oxygen—necessary without windows—water elementals for grooming and earth elementals to dispose of her waste. That also meant there was no bathtub, no cheerful fireplace, nothing that wasn’t strictly serviceable. All very efficient and completely joyless.

It was a prison cell, after all.

Troubling most of all, it was also not Convocation Center.

She didn’t remember falling asleep. Probably Sergio had used something to knock her unconscious, because she didn’t remember much beyond getting in the carriage and watching House Phel recede in the distance. She’d awakened in this prison cell of a bedroom and known immediately that the Sammael siblings hadn’t delivered her to the Convocation at all.

Given the over-the-top aesthetic of the décor, they’d brought her to House Sammael.

The room reminded her uncomfortably of the tower room she’d occupied at House Elal for those four months until Gabriel arrived as her unwitting rescuer. Indeed, she strongly suspected this room served as the House Sammael Betrothal Trials chamber, and she pitied the familiars of this house who spent their sequestration here. Unlike her old tower, this one had no books, no puzzles or crafts to occupy her hands. She supposed the claustrophobic boredom of the place gave them a powerful motivation to be compliant and conceive quickly. As if that was under their control.