Lucky Rabbit

“How is it possible I didn’t know?” Lian said, for once looking no older than his fourteen years. He was slumped in a chair beside Thaniel’s bed, where his little brother was finally sleeping thanks to a draught provided by Mistress Rose. Pandy was tucked beneath the blanket beside the boy, since Thaniel had panicked when they tried to separate her from him, so she could see and hear the self-loathing that permeated the older boy’s every word and motion.

“He was obviously adept at hiding it,” Mistress Rose said, far more gently than Pandy had thought her capable of. “The question is, what is it, and how did it happen?”

The small infirmary felt even smaller with so many people crammed into it. Lian was a recent arrival, having been brought by carriage after Augustus sent a message to his counterpart at Kestrel. Even before he arrived, Mistress Rose, Timon, Augustus, and, briefly, both Professor Beeswick and Pandy herself – as Ms. Wellington – had been here. When Thaniel started calling for Bunny in a kind of delirium, the dragon had insisted that he and ‘Ms. Wellington’ go to search for the boy’s pet, which had allowed Pandy to escape. Professor Beeswick returned a short while later with Bunny and the excuse that Ms. Wellington was with the other students in her Small Group.

Lian bent forward, driving his fingers through his curls. “When Mother died,” Lian growled. “It has to have happened then. Father was many things, but he never would have experimented on Thaniel, so he must have done it to save his life.”

Looking up, he saw the questions on their faces, and sighed. Closing his eyes, he spoke with great reluctance. “Mother and Father argued. About what, I don’t know. But the next morning, before Father rose, Mother had the servants gather a few days worth of clothes and toiletries for us, and took the carriage. She told me we were going to meet some of her family, and Father would join us later.”

When he opened his eyes, he stared down at his hands, which were now clenched together in his lap. “I don’t know if that was true or not. I was just happy to be going on an adventure. We’d never met anyone in Mother’s family before. But-”

He swallowed hard, “Something happened. It was a cold morning, so perhaps the carriage slipped on ice, or maybe a horse stumbled, but the carriage tipped. One moment I was curled up on my seat, reading, and the next I was lying in the grass by the side of the road. My leg was broken, but otherwise I had only a few scrapes and bruises. Mother and Thaniel…weren’t so lucky.”

Looking up, he stared pleadingly at Professor Beeswick. “I tried to get to them, but my leg…” Absently, he rubbed his right thigh. “Then I heard Mother scream from inside the carriage, and it caught fire.” He shook his head. “There wasn’t so much as a lantern in that carriage. I’m certain. But it went up like kindling. Mother screamed once more, like…like…”

Lian was white as a sheet, clearly unable to properly describe that sound. “The carriage just…exploded. I was thrown back again, and I hit my head. When I woke, I was in my own bed, at home. Father came, and he,” the heartless villain of Gacha Love choked back a sob, “he hugged me, and told me Thaniel had been hurt, and Mother was…gone.”

Lian bit his lip fiercely, but his blue eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “It took weeks before I could walk. Father refused to have a healer come in. I didn’t think much of it at the time – he never liked to have other elementalists visit, and he was half-mad after Mother’s death. But now-” he glanced at Thaniel, who lay still beneath the white sheet, the scars on his chest now pale pink rather than an angry red.

“You think he did something to save Thaniel, and any healer would have reported it,” Professor Beeswick said. Lian had gone straight to the librarian when he arrived, and there was obviously a bond there, one which shouldn’t have been a surprise to Pandy. Lian and the dragon both loved books, so it made sense that the boy would have spent a lot of time in the library over the past few years. She was willing to bet he’d even been one of Professor Besswick’s fifth-year helpers.

Lian nodded. “But I have no idea what. How is that even possible?” He gestured at his brother, and the black rock that seemed to have been fused with the boy’s ribcage.

Augustus and the professor exchanged a glance that Lian definitely wouldn’t have missed if he wasn’t so focused on Thaniel. They knew something, but they also weren’t willing to tell Lian what it was. Was that because he was so young, or because they would be overheard by everyone else, including Pandy?

Mistress Rose was also staring at Thaniel, but more with the look of someone presented with an unexpected and fascinating puzzle. “I’ll do some research,” she said. “I know a few people who might-”

“No!”

This exclamation came from Lian and Augustus at the same time, though Augustus was a little more firm, while Lian sounded almost panicked. Lian glanced at the older man, but quickly added, “If anyone hears about this, they’ll want to take him away – to study, or perhaps simply because this is unregistered Dark magic. Thaniel would be miserable. And what if they can’t separate the stone from his body without killing him? Some people might say he should be locked up, in case there’s a Dark elemental involved.”

Augustus and Professor Beeswick both nodded. “Admirably stated, Killian,” Augustus said. Turning to the healer, he said, “You are aware that my position here is contingent upon matters that are not public knowledge. As such, it wouldn’t do to have any more attention drawn to the school or one of its students at this time. The events of the last week have already been more than certain, ah, highly-placed persons would prefer.”

He lifted his brows, and Mistress Rose nodded, albeit rather grudgingly. “All right then,” she said, eyes narrowing. “That means I’ll be solely responsible for Thaniel’s care, correct?”

“So long as he remains stable,” Augustus told her. “The boy has done surprisingly well in his classes, especially given his relative lack of education before this. I don’t want the education he is finally getting to be disrupted. There’s no indication that this thing is harming him, other than possibly interfering with his magic, and no one will be allowed to do anything that might change that.”

“Of course,” Mistress Rose said, sounding almost insulted. “My job as a healer is to help people, not harm them, Chancellor. I would never risk the health or safety of one of my patients.”

Lian and Augustus both relaxed slightly, and Augustus gave a wry half-smile. “I apologize, Mistress Rose. It has been less than a year since I joined the faculty here, and my position before this was…not one that engendered confidence in the goodness of humanity.” He gave a small bow. “I will speak to a few people who need to know of this, and that will be as far as the information goes, at least for now.”

Professor Beeswick nodded. “And I will begin my own research. If anyone has ever seen or done anything like this before, there will be records somewhere.”

“Let me know what you find,” Mistress Rose insisted, and the dragon inclined his head in agreement.

“Well then,” Augustus said, turning slightly toward the door, “we’ll go and let the boy get some proper rest. Killian, I assume you’re planning to stay?”

Lian nodded instantly. “Until he wakes up.”

The doctor glanced at Timon, who held up two fingers. “We had to give him a full dose of Drowseberry draught,” she said, turning back to the others. “Along with a tincture of Passiadera to keep him calm. I doubt he’ll wake before breakfast.”

“I’ll send a message to Chancellor Farbridge, letting her know you may not be back until tomorrow afternoon,” Augustus told Lian.

The too-handsome teenager stood, almost managing to look awkward as he extended a hand toward the chancellor. “Thank you, sir. And thank you for sending for me. Not everyone would have.”

Augustus shook Lian’s hand as solemnly as if the boy had been an adult. “If my brother was sick or injured, I’d want to know,” he said. “And I have no doubt that Thaniel will want you when he wakes.”

The corners of Lian’s mouth twitched up, but he bowed, hiding his face before Pandy could see if it turned into an actual smile. Augustus and Professor Beeswick left the room, neither of them so much as glancing toward Pandy’s hiding place. That left Lian, Mistress Rose, and Timon behind, but not for long.

Turning to the two boys, Rose said, “One of the stable hands injured his ankle, and a student is complaining of stomach pain. They can’t come here right now, with Thaniel’s condition so…uncertain, so I’ll have to go to them.” She gave Timon a sharp look. “You will stay here, and send an elemental for me immediately if anything changes.”

For once, Timon looked serious when he nodded. “Of course, Mistress Rose.”

With that, the healer swept from the room, leaving the two older boys effectively alone. Lian returned to his chair, while Timon stood there, clearly uncomfortable. At last, he cleared his throat and said, “I’m going to work on these tinctures. If you need anything, I’ll be right there.” He pointed to the little desk at the far end of the room, which bore several vials and bowls.

“That’s fine,” Lian said, and he was back in full control of his voice and emotions. He flicked a dismissive glance at the other teen, who stiffened slightly. Pandy realized suddenly that while Timon was only a few years older than Lian, being perhaps fifteen or sixteen, he would have been about twelve when Lian and the others graduated. She had seen other children around that age working at the school, which meant there was a real chance Timon and Lian had met before. Did they know each other? There did seem to be some kind of tension between them.

As soon as Timon turned away, Lian took hold of the curtain that ran on a rail attached to the ceiling, and pulled it around so it separated Thaniel’s bed from the area containing the desk. It was very much like similar dividers found in hospitals in Pandy’s last life, except that this curtain was a beautiful calming gray-blue color, and decorated with birds, rather than a sterile white. While the curtain still swayed, Lian tugged at the sheet covering Thaniel, partially exposing Pandy, who stared up into ‘Killian the Villian’s’ frigid blue eyes with all the enthusiasm of a rat abruptly confronted by a tiger.

“Did you know about this?” Lian practically hissed, leaning in so close his breath tickled the fur in front of Pandy’s ear. She shivered and shook her head with great sincerity. Lian sat back just a bit as her ears thwacked his chin, his teeth bared in frustration. With a tenderness belied by the fury in his eyes, Lian moved the sheet further, revealing the dark stone.

It was a small thing, perhaps an inch in diameter, roughly oval, with the narrow end pointing downward. There was nothing about it to indicate that it might be magical. It just looked like a black rock, smoothed by time or water, except that Thaniel’s skin actually grew up around it. After Thaniel fell asleep, Mistress Rose had attempted to move it, but it was fixed in place as firmly as if it had grown there.

Lian stretched out a finger, not quite touching it, and Pandy could almost see the conflict going on inside him. On the one hand, he was a Light mage, and he had probably been told over and over again that his role was to heal and to combat Dark magic wherever he found it. But here was his brother, suffering, and with an unnatural object embedded in his flesh.

Lian’s first impulse had to be to cast every ounce of power he had into ‘healing’ his brother. But who knew what would happen if he tried it? If the stone was somehow keeping Thaniel alive, in spite of injuries that should have killed him two years earlier, then if Lian actually did manage to Cleanse or Purify it, his little brother could die.

Curling his hand into a fist, Lian looked back at Pandy. “If Thaniel didn’t love you so much, I would kill you right now, just for being near him. I know you’re a Dark creature, no matter how you resist my magic. I told you you had one chance, and now, here you are, and here he is-”

He swallowed thickly, sitting back so hard that his chair rocked up onto two legs before thumping back to four. At the sound, Timon poked his head around the curtain, eyes narrowed, then thrust the curtain aside and walked over to his patient, who seemed very small in the center of a bed that was capable of holding an adult. With careful movements, he tugged both blanket and sheet back up, gently tucking them into place again.

“He needs to stay warm,” he told Lian sternly, then softened. “We’ll do everything possible, but we need to be careful. This is unknown magic, and-”

“I know that,” Lian growled, then closed his eyes, shuddered, and said in a more normal voice, “I know. I won’t do it again.”

Timon eyed him before sighing and reaching out as if to touch Lian’s shoulder. When that shoulder jerked away, he dropped his hand and said, “Leave the curtain open.”

Lian nodded, took Thaniel’s hand in his own, and waited for his brother to wake.