Gabriel set his teeth. “We are in a rebuilding phase. I believe House Phel’s missive inviting junior wizards such as yourself to apply for a contract specified as much.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Jadren replied, stroking his neatly trimmed beard, trying to appear nonchalant, though his jaw was tight.

Ah, yes. Lady El-Adrel had decided for her son. “You are, of course, welcome to go,” Gabriel commented mildly. Nic observed him closely, knowing that tone for what it was. “You have not yet signed a contract.”

Jadren’s eyes flashed with anger. Gabriel could see how the wizard-black could be intimidating, though the El-Adrel wizard didn’t concern him. Especially as, he realized, that anger wasn’t directed at himself. “You agreed to my mother’s terms, Lord Phel,” Jadren gritted out. “We are both trapped in this arrangement, so we might as well go forward. If it’s agreeable to you, I’ll sign the contract after dinner.”

“It includes a nondisclosure agreement,” Gabriel mentioned, taking another roll and smearing it with butter fresh from the dairy. It was simple food, yes, and not exactly bountiful due to Nic’s careful budgeting, but it was nutritious, satisfying, and tasty. Farm food, he supposed, was not up to the elegant standards of House El-Adrel. “You’ll have to sign that before you can see the contract.”

Jadren’s eyebrows rose, and he stared stonily across the table at Nic, who had her head lowered over her plate in a pretense of meekness. The El-Adrel wizard had said something to her earlier. Nic had brushed it off, refusing to tell Gabriel the details, but he’d sensed her unhappiness. “An unusual gambit,” Jadren noted. “One that smacks of Elal guile.”

Nic didn’t react, so Gabriel said nothing. Ostensibly, and according to Convocation norms, as the wizard heading House Phel, he was the final—more correctly, only—word on house policy. Jadren shouldn’t expect Nic to have a role in those decisions, so Gabriel wouldn’t take the bait in that particular trap, no matter what the El-Adrel scion, and spy, suspected.

Asa, seated beside Nic and across from Jadren, had been listening. “I’ve signed both the NDA and the contract,” he told Jadren. “I had no issues with either, if that’s any reassurance.”

“It isn’t,” Jadren replied shortly, with an unfriendly glower. “House Refoel is hardly known for its political savvy.”

Asa smiled thinly, black eyes glittering in his dark face. “And yet we manage to make ourselves of critical importance to the Convocation, regardless.”

Gabriel sensed Nic’s amusement in her magic, the scent of roses blooming lightly in the air.

Jadren apparently chose not to address that argument, turning pointedly back to Gabriel. “Let us stick to conversation not covered by your NDA, Lord Phel. Might I have the key to the workroom in the north wing?”

Gabriel sipped his wine, aware of Nic’s sharpened interest, along with the alert expressions of the wizards nearby. Not that the existence of the locked workroom at the end of the north wing was a secret, but he was somewhat surprised that it seemed to be common knowledge. He and Nic had not yet had the opportunity to revisit the large room in daylight, to discover if it held anything more than empty space.