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“Yeah, um, okay.” Lina did not look like she knew what to do about all of those magical tools. And she kept looking directly at Sora with this perplexed expression, as if not sure what to make of him, either.
Gunter had always wondered just how mages saw each other. It must be illuminating, in one way or another, as Lina looked a little awed by the mages. Sora especially, for some reason.
“Hey, Sora, I brought your witch hazel.” Tori stopped in the doorway, eyes snapping to Lina, and he let out a low whistle. “Well, well, what do we have here?”
Apparently, word hadn’t quite gotten around the castle yet. Gunter stayed on guard next to her, just in case, as Tori had definite opinions of the Jaeggi. “This is Lina. She’s defected from the Jaeggi Clan and has come to us for help.”
“Has she, now.” Tori seemed to wrestle with that for a second before visibly relaxing, his shoulders coming down. He came around to stand at Gunter’s other side, watching Lina carefully. “And why would you do that?”
“Because I want my magic fixed,” she said readily, eyeing him in return. “And I don’t like how they drain other mages for magic.”
Tori liked that answer. He thawed a bit more. “Your clan attacked me several times, trying to drain me. They did get hold of my clanmate at one point. I’m glad to see not everyone in your family is an asshole. Sora, I take it you’re looking her over?”
“We’ve always wondered what was wrong with the Jaeggi’s magical cores,” he commented absently, pulling spell ingredients together. “I might have an answer to the question shortly, thanks to Lina. Lina, what I’m about to do is a diagnostic spell. It will overlay on your skin and clothes in red lines, telling me internally what is going on. Much like a CAT scan, if you’re familiar with those.”
“Oh, cool.” She sat very still, intrigued.
Sora spoke the spell, weaving it together, then stepped back for a moment and watched as lines of red drew themselves into numbers and letters all over her. They made no sense whatsoever to Gunter, but apparently they said quite a lot to Sora. His eyebrows steadily rose as he read her lines from head to toe.
“First of all, we really must get your anemia under control,” he said into the taut silence. “Your iron deficiency is deplorable.”
Lina’s jaw dropped. “You can see that?!”
“There’s absolutely nothing health-wise he can’t see,” Tori drawled. “Trust me. But don’t leave us in suspense, man. What’s wrong with her magical core?”
Sora opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. “I’m not sure…how to explain what I’m seeing. It’s…hold on.”
Yuki chose that moment to walk in, her dark eyes sweeping over the room, taking it all in. “I’m not too late, I see. You’ve just begun the examination. Hello, child, I’m Abe Yuki.”
“My mother,” Sora explained with a wave at her. “Kaa-san, this is Lina. She’s already given permission to have you examine her as well.”
“Excellent.” Yuki slid past Gunter to come and stand at her son’s side, her eyes sweeping over the red lines as if reading a new, interesting novel. Which to her, it might as well have been. “Oh dear, we really must do something about that anemia.”
“I know, we’ll attend to it in a moment.”
Her brows furrowed. “Sora…adjust that. I can’t quite…am I seeing that right?”
“I don’t know myself. A moment.” Turning, he reached for a wand, casting yet another spell while using reflected sunlight to throw the image against a mirror standing nearby. It changed from reflecting the immediate surroundings to something else entirely.
Gunter, after a moment, realized he was looking at an internal image of Lina’s chest area—lungs, heart, rib cage—all in one frame. He had no idea Sora could even do that without a machine being involved.
Lina startled. “Shit! That’s cool!”
“It is,” Sora agreed with a twinkle in his eye. “And also helps to explain things better. Tori, could you grab that other mirror? Thanks. I need to use you as an example, if you don’t mind, so she can see the difference between her magical core and a healthy mage’s.”
Tori shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
Sora spoke the spell again, casting to the second oval mirror standing upright on the table.
Gunter was not well versed in medicine, and even he could see the difference. It wasn’t so much the physical organs but the lack of a glowing web of fibers that should have been right next to the heart cavity. Tori’s was there, spinning out like a spider’s web in all directions, connecting to the other organs. It looked like gold filament, fine and strong, glowing brightly.
Lina’s…wasn’t. Gunter had to look hard to even see the fibers, as they were translucent and dull, barely discernable from the tissue.
