Page 7 of Rogue Familiar

“Yes, I know we hadn’t filled you in on the details. I’m telling you now. This is one of the reasons House Phel is in difficult financial straits. It’s a considerable amount of money, a large part of which is intended to redeem the cost of Gabriel applying for me in the Betrothal Trials, plus I’m owed important tangibles like grapevines from Elal stock.” She rolled her head on her neck, deliberately relaxing herself, and continued. “As for my relationship with Papa, in retrospect, I can see now that, in some ways, he’d already disowned me in his heart when I manifested as a familiar instead of as a wizard, when it became clear I could never be the heir to House Elal as he’d trained me to be.”

“But that wasn’t something you could control,” Selly burst out, appalled. While Jadren’s mother was clearly a monster—he, himself, had said she was incapable of love—it seemed Nic’s father was not much better.

Nic raised a single brow. “Are we admitting then that it’s possible to feel bad about letting people down even though something wasn’t our fault?”

Oh. “Yes,” Selly agreed on a breath of a sigh.

Patting her hand, Nic continued. “Just making a point. Anyway, there’s bad blood between me and Papa, trouble that goes back longer than my ill-advised escape attempt, as I’m beginning to understand. Has anyone explained alternate form to you yet?”

The apparently abrupt change of subject took Selly by surprise. “Yes, actually. Jadren explained it. I thought—when I saw Gabriel turn you into the silver phoenix—that wizards could do that sort of thing to anyone. You know.” She wiggled her fingers in demonstration. “Turn people into toads.”

“Ah, no. That unlikely creature is simply my alternate form, which lies hidden away inside every familiar until their wizard releases it. It’s one of the reasons to be bonded, by the way, as it’s only via that bond that you can take your alternate form.”

“How can I know what mine would be?” Selly asked, fascinated despite herself. Jadren liked to call her a half-feral swamp creature and, in truth, she’d always loved the idea of becoming an animal.

“You don’t know until you take it,” Nic answered ruefully. “Imagine my surprise at mine.”

A small laugh burst out of Selly. “Not what you expected?”

“Not even close,” Nic acknowledged drolly, then let out a sigh. “See, Maman is a cat in her alternate form and, while these things don’t necessarily run in families, I figured mine would be something like that, too, or perhaps a nice, neat peregrine falcon or some such. Nothing goes as one imagines when Gabriel Phel is involved.”

“Does the wizard have an influence then?”

“Nobody knows. There are theorists in Convocation Center who collect the data and research that sort of thing, so there are some who think the wizard’s magic has an effect but…” She shrugged.

“I can’t help noticing your alternate form is silver.” Like Gabriel’s moon magic.

“Exactly.” She waved that off. “Anyway, what I’ve been working around to is that a wizard can force their familiar into alternate form and keep them there as long they please.”

“They can keep them in animal form—as in, forever?”

“Yes, though most wizards don’t put their familiars in alternate form much at all, because they can’t access the familiar’s magic while they’re animals, and accessing the magic is the whole point of having a familiar to begin with. Still, my papa, may he be clawing out his remaining eye in misery, kept Maman in feline form since my escape. As a punishment.”

“Oh.” Selly could see not being able to control your own body as a punishment. She worried about Jadren’s father, Fyrdo, who’d been kind to her and who’d helped them escape. What punishment had he suffered at the wrathful hands of his wizard, Jadren’s awful mother? Being an animal didn’t seem all that bad, compared to the things Katica El-Adrel came up with. “Did she not like being a cat?” she ventured.

Nic smiled grimly, but with a hint of wistfulness Selly suspected was for her naivete. “We don’t know of a precedent for a familiar being kept in animal form that long,” Nic answered, “but no, it’s not good for the human intellect to be forced into the shape of an animal brain for more than a few hours or days, let alone this long. In fact, Maman has yet to recover, which is why she’s in seclusion. Also why we made the decision to sever the bond without her consent.”

“In the hopes that it would help her.”

“And hurt him. I’m not sure which I wanted more,” Nic replied in a hard voice Selly hadn’t heard from her before. In that moment she glimpsed something of who Nic might have become, had she manifested as a wizard and become her father’s heir. It was that same ruthlessness the high-house heads Selly had met all seemed to share. Lord Sammael and Lady El-Adrel both had that fiercely regal determination. “You hate him now,” Selly realized.

“With the fire of a thousand suns,” Nic agreed calmly, still with that murderous glint in her eyes. “I told Gabriel not to kill him—though he could have, and probably should have—which is why we instead sent my father back to House Elal missing an eye and a familiar.” She sighed, staring past Selly at something only she could see. “I’m regretting that decision now.”

“Because now he knows the bond-severing is possible.”

Nic took her attention off whatever middle-distance preoccupied her and gave Selly a quick nod. “Exactly. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Also, though he was an enemy before, we humiliated him. I know him well enough to predict he won’t stay down for long—and when he rises, he’ll want revenge. I haven’t decided yet what to do about House Elal, but rest assured, if House Phel doesn’t take care of this problem, Elal will come for us. You should know that, too.”

Selly nodded, not sure she quite grasped all the implications, but determined to get there.

A reluctant smile broke through Nic’s militant mien. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“You didn’t.” And she hadn’t. Selly wasn’t afraid. She was… excited. “Whatever we need to do, I want to help.”

“Good girl. A great deal happened while you were away.” Nic gestured at the documents piled on the twin desks, the Ratsiel couriers collecting on the beams above like ghost versions of all sorts of strange creatures, waiting to deliver their missives and take away the replies. “Things are heating up.”

“Jadren thinks Elal and El-Adrel conspired with Sammael in your abduction,” Selly said in a rush, uncertain if she was betraying his trust and at the same time kicking herself for not saying so before.

Nic didn’t seem at all surprised. “Certainly my father was working with Sergio Sammael, but does Jadren suspect Lord Igino Sammael, too? And what has he said of his mother?”

---