“You’ll see when the sun burns through,” he replied. “And this is far enough away from everyone that you can yell at me and vent whatever has you wrapped around your own axel without anyone overhearing you.”

She gaped at him with no idea where to start with that. “Wrapped around my own axel? What does that even mean?”

Folding his arms, he frowned at her. “The metaphor is obvious.”

She set her teeth. “It is the wrong metaphor, Gabriel. What I am is trapped in the back of a runaway wagon, careening off a cliff, and you’re urging the elemental on and laughing as you do it.”

His lips twitched in a quickly suppressed smirk—which was a good thing, as she couldn’t have vouched for her behavior if he’d displayed actual amusement at that. “Why is letting those three stay so terrible?”

“Now you ask? After you countermanded me?” She grasped for words, sputtered, then turned her back on him, clenched her fists by her sides, and let out a bloodcurdling shriek at the unoffending fog. Vale snorted, lifting his head from grazing, long grass draping from his muzzle as he eyed her.

“Feel better?” Gabriel asked.

“No!” she shouted, whirling on him and advancing.

He stood his ground, imperturbable. “Are you angry because I countermanded you or because I did it because I decided you were wrong?”

“Both! And I am not wrong about this. Letting Han and Iliana stay was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Worse than abducting Narlis by several orders of magnitude.”

“I don’t regret liberating Narlis.”

“Just because the results weren’t an utter disaster—and we don’t know that it still won’t come home to roost like a Ratsiel courier with bad news and a wait-for-reply command—doesn’t mean it was a good idea.”

“Your sister brought Han and Iliana to us. Alise knows what she’s doing.”

“Alise is a child.”

“She’s only a few years younger than you are.”

“She’s been spoilt and protected and she has no idea what kinds of consequences she’s facing.”

“Funny,” he retorted, “that’s almost word for word what the Convocation proctor said about you.”

“And she was right!” Nic hurled back at him. “I didn’t know. I was stupid and naïve and selfish and foolish and—”

“No, you weren’t. Stop saying those things,” he bit out.

He didn’t understand, and Nic didn’t know how to get it through his stubborn head. Changing tone and tack, she tried to explain rationally. Alise wasn’t the point here. “Han and Iliana are valuable familiars who have gone rogue. House Phel is now harboring valuable stolen property, and I can promise you that House Sammael will not be as easy to deal with as Iblis. You just made a powerful, perhaps devastating, enemy.”

“House Sammael was already our enemy. This is just one more offense to add to their ledger.”

“They better not be our enemy, because we cannot stand against their might. And now you’ve baited them for no better reason than, what, sympathy?” She sneered the word.