The woman picked the entirely wrong things to be stubborn about. “You could be in danger.”

She shrugged that off, squeezing his biceps and fluttering her lashes. “My big, strong wizard will protect me.”

If he could. “I would feel better if you were safe in the arcanium.”

“I would feel better if I’m at your side, where I belong, in case you need my magic.”

“I could make it an order.”

She gave him a steady green glare. “You could, but I wouldn’t forgive you.”

“You like it when I give you orders,” he coaxed, lowering his voice to a seductive purr.

“Sexy orders, yes. But unless you plan to strip me naked and chain me up while you stay to do dastardly things to my helpless body, I will not be pleased with you.”

He grumbled low in his throat, firmly setting aside the enticing image she evoked. “You will be the death of me,” he said, resuming the walk to the closed front doors.

“Possibly, but you’ll die happy,” she chirped, then she lost some of her bravado. “Can you tell… is it Jan?”

The Elal wizard enforcer had nearly captured Nic in Ophiel when they first made landfall. He concentrated. He was getting better at using his wizard senses at a finer level of detail, but he had a long ways to go. The exercises Asa had shown him would be helpful, but they also made his head hurt. Using power in broad sweeps the night before, instead of painstaking and meticulous increments, had been almost a relief.

“I don’t think so,” he finally answered. “The wizard is recognizably Elal to me, but not someone I’ve ever met. I feel sure. The magic, though…” Robust and fiery, richly redolent of summer roses and sun-warmed wine. “The magic feels a lot like yours, though definitely belonging to a wizard.” And wasn’t that interesting that he could discern the difference so decisively now? “But a wizard more like your flavor of magic than your father’s.”

Nic’s Magic faltered infinitesimally. “It couldn’t be…” she murmured under her breath. Before he could ask, she asked more loudly. “A lone wizard, no familiar companion?”

“Oddly enough, there are two familiars.” He concentrated a bit more. “Neither bonded to the wizard, I’m quite sure.”

“You can determine that from this distance?” He’d opened the door for her and stepped out onto the wide front porch behind her, while Nic scanned the long road that circled the lake and ended at the house. Mist rose from the still waters and wafted over the lawn, thick enough to shroud anything beyond a certain distance. “I don’t see anyone yet.”

“I don’t think they’re coming up the road,” he said, looking off to the orchards lined in their neat rows past the north wing.

“Hmm. That’s a bit odd.”

“Everything about this is odd.” And he didn’t much care for it. He took her hand, partly to be ready to access her magic in case of an attack, but also to keep track of where she was—and the better to thrust her behind him, should that be necessary. “But yes, now that you taught me what to look for, I’m much better at discerning the wizard–familiar bond.”