But Alise… She was Papa’s heir. His perfect wizard daughter, gone and absconding from Convocation Academy and fled directly to the black-sheep daughter, already such a disappointment to him. Just contemplating Papa’s rage had her feeling sick and sorry.

It made her teeth ache that they’d all been so foolish. Or maybe that was from biting down so hard on the words she wanted to unleash on the lot of them, including her idealistic idiot of a husband, who was enabling them in this doomed escapade. Nic’s own foolishness at least had been confined to her fortunes only—well, and Maman’s, and look how that had turned out—but it was as if her impulsive flight were a virus. It had sickened her, tainted the lives of many people who were still recovering from that contamination. And now it was spreading.

The Convocation wouldn’t fail to notice. And their reprisal would be dire. That wasn’t even considering what House Sammael, well known for their brutal vengeance, would do. They’d all come after her, after Alise and her numbskull friends, after everyone in House Phel, and worst of all: they’d destroy Gabriel for this.

Her heart hurt so hard contemplating it that she couldn’t seem to take a full breath.

“What have we here?” Asa said, entering the room alone, without Laryn, as Nic had hoped when she’d specified the injury was minor. Even with the NDAs, the fewer people who knew about the criminals House Phel was currently harboring, the better. Not that it would save them, but maybe the measures would give her time to think… of something.

Somehow, Nic managed to make the appropriate introductions without sounding crazed, and also discreetly omitted the more dangerous details. Though Asa was no fool. The appearance of an academy-age wizard—no one graduated at Alise’s age—in the company of two unbonded familiars was highly suspicious.

But Asa only set to work on Iliana’s injured ankle, cheerfully inquiring about how it had happened. She described the treacherous path through the swamps, at least clever enough not to say why the three of them had been trekking through a trackless land far from where they were supposed to be. Han and Alise jumped in to aid in telling the tale, all of them laughing in camaraderie, which made Nic feel small and mean.

She didn’t want to hear the story of their adventures. She wanted them out of her home, far away from this fragile thing she and Gabriel had barely started building. Every once in a while, Alise caught Nic watching, her good humor fading as she gave Nic an assessing glance, reminding her painfully of all the unspoken words that crowded between them. Worst of all, Gabriel stood on the other side of the little group, studying her with wary black eyes, a tinge of damp disappointment to his magic.

Well, fine, then. Let him be disappointed! He was the noble fool here, with his ideas about familiars being equal. First trying to court Nic and make her into a partner, then liberating the aged familiar Narlis from the Iblis wizard—an offense that still hadn’t been fully settled with House Iblis—and now this. This final doom that would put an end to the hope she’d begun to nourish like a tender seedling in an early spring, pretending to herself that the winter storms were over when the worst was yet to come. She couldn’t bear it.