“Love. Freedom. Working to better the lives of others,” she answered with painful honesty, hating how her father curled his lip in contempt.

“Lies and illusions,” he repeated. “Don’t tell me you believe you love your wizard master?”

She said nothing, able to obey that command the way he phrased it, but he plowed on, face going hard with ruthless delight.

“I arranged that,” he informed her. “What you experienced as the Fascination. It’s an Aratron potion crafted in secrecy and shared with only a few. You will, by the way, never speak of that to anyone.” He reinforced the command with an agonizing stab of Hanneil wizardry. “I’m only telling you this for your own good. I made you feel the Fascination for Gabriel Phel, just as I made my precious feel it for me. Did you know she thought to escape me?” He shook his head, hatred briefly flaring in his eyes as he gazed at Maman. “You familiars have a distressing tendency to think of yourselves as autonomous human beings, fatally unable to resign yourselves to the bare fact that your brains are inferior. We allow you to believe you love your wizards. We deliberately incorporated that into the bonding spell, because that makes everything easier for us, but it’s not real.” His face lit with manic glee. “And, with my discovery, it’s not necessary. Precious does everything I say now, holding nothing back, even more purely than before. Once you are properly bonded, you will do it for Sergio, too. After you reveal where the House Phel arcanium is. Enough of these games. Tell me everything you know about the arcanium.”

She screamed at the increased pain—and began babbling. She’d been kidding herself that she was dodging her father’s questions, thinking she fooled him with her evasions. Now she indeed told him everything she knew. Where the arcanium was. How to get there. She described its properties for him, and he voraciously drank in every detail of the stored power there, his magic glittering with excitement. He only sobered when she explained the access spell.

“It has to be water and moon magic?” he demanded, frowning.

“Yes.”

“Applied in what way?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, the truth a relief. “I’m only a familiar.”

No one would blame her for savoring how he ground his teeth in frustration. “Apparently we’d best not assassinate Lord Phel just yet,” he bit out, and Nic’s battered heart leapt with hope. Her father studied her thoughtfully. “Fortunately, I have the leverage I need to make him do my bidding. Does he believe he cares for you?”

“Yes,” Nic answered reluctantly.

“Soft-headed, the pair of you,” he grunted. “And you carry his heir, which is also useful. It seems I must see to it that he wakes up. Fortunately, I’m in possession of the perfect bait. You wait here,” he told Nic, smiling at his joke. “I suggest you play nice with Sergio, as he will be your eventual master. If you want to have influence over your wizard master, then you will find sweetness gets you much farther than sarcastic words and dour moods.”