Regardless, the lovely arcade deserved to be open to the elements. They could always glass it in come autumn, if necessary. If they survived that long. Still, it occurred to her to ask Gabriel, “Does it ever snow here?”

He glanced at her with consuming irritation. “What does that have to do with rampaging swamp monsters?”

“We don’t know that it’s a swamp monster,” she pointed out pedantically.

“I should’ve sensed that the water surface had been disrupted,” he growled under his breath.

“You were preoccupied,” she pointed out with a sweet smile, rewarded by a magical caress from him. “And you need to calm down. Be Lord Phel, in control of everything. You can be justifiably angry, but not panicked. Your minions will look to you,” she added hastily under her breath as they passed from the sunny arcade into the mirror receiving room of the north wing.

Sure enough, most of the junior wizards, new apprentices, and assorted familiars were gathered in the unfinished, echoing hall they intended to make into a gathering space and study area. Han and Iliana stood nearby, hand in hand. An air of frantic excitement greeted them, one junior wizard sitting on a table, bleeding through what looked like a hastily tied bandage. Costa, Wolfgang Ratisbon’s familiar, looked up from bandaging another young wizard Nic didn’t recognize. “The bleeding has slowed, Healer Asa. I believe you’re all right to defer treatment for now, but my first-aid skills are basic ones.”

“Check that he’s correct, would you?” Asa asked Laryn, and Nic marked that the Refoel healer asked it of his familiar when he would’ve ordered without thought only days before. “Then join me in the workshop.”

“Everyone else stay here,” Gabriel ordered. “You…” He pointed at the bleeding apprentice, who blanched visibly. “How many people are in there?”

“Five, Lord Phel.” The apprentice swallowed hard. “We talked Wizard Jadren into letting us accompany him. We didn’t mean to—”

“Later,” Gabriel bit out.

Alise came running into the room. “Can I help?”

“We could use her help,” Nic told him with quiet urgency before he could turn her away. “And Iliana’s.”

Gabriel quirked a brow at her but told Alise and Iliana to come along, doing an admirable job of making it sound like his idea. Han followed Iliana. Since he wore his sword and Gabriel didn’t mark the young familiar’s disobedience, Nic said nothing. By the fiercely determined expression on Han’s face, it would be impossible to keep him from defending his lover. Nic allowed herself a mental eyeroll for that.

“Why Iliana?” Gabriel asked under his breath. He clearly had misgivings about bringing the delicate, bright-eyed redhead into a potential battle. They charged down the long hall, a small parade of herself and Gabriel, followed by Alise and Asa, Han and Iliana bringing up the rear. Light and shadow flashed with the speed of their near run as they passed doors, both open and closed, that gave onto the various living spaces of the ground floor of the north wing. Most of the open ones showed rooms in their original dilapidated, barren state, their windows not yet glassed in.