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“Hello, Kerrigan,” he said soothingly.
“Hi.”
“I heard about your dilemma. Shall we get started?”
She nodded, and he gestured for her to lie down on the divan against the far wall. As soon as she was seated, he drew a blue ball of glowing light into his hands. Her eyes widened. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to that. Healing magic didn’t work this way. It was supposed to be a bridge between the magic of the healer and the magic of the injured. It would take time and energy to fix things, but with Amond’s light, he could heal injuries that normally took hours in a matter of minutes. She had no idea how he did it.
First, he drew the glow down her body, scanning her for injuries. He frowned when he reached her center and then continued.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Well, nothing seems to be wrong,” he said thoughtfully.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Except…”
He paused and then returned to where he’d hesitated. He pushed the glowy ball down into her gut. Just as the last time, it felt as if bugs were crawling around under her skin. It didn’t hurt, but it was unpleasant.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“Tell me about it,” she said with a soft laugh.
“It appears you have magic sickness.”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “That’s what Helly said too.”
“You’re so young.”
“I know.”
Amond frowned. “I’ve treated magic sickness in older Fae before. It doesn’t have a cure, but there are some things I can do that will ease it. You said that you had been experiencing blackouts. Tell me about that.”
She described the feeling of her magic enveloping her and then draining away. How she would black out and that everything only happened when she was stressed out. And no, there was no option where she wasn’t stressed. He listened curiously, moving the blue blob around all the time.
“I see,” he said quietly. “What happens with magic sickness is, the unused magic slowly poisons the blood, causing mental instability and eventually death. However, here, it doesn’t appear that your magic has moved into the blood at all. It looks like it’s just gone. Which should be impossible.”
“I love being one of a kind,” she muttered.
He laughed softly. “Typically, I’d drain away the excess magic, and that would help for a time. Truthfully, I’m not certain what to do here.”
Kerrigan groaned. “Great.”
He removed the blue light. “If you have time, I would like to run some more tests. They might take a while. I could keep you here most of the night. Just because I don’t have a solution, it doesn’t mean that one doesn’t exist.”
“All right,” Kerrigan agreed. “As long as Dozan doesn’t care.”
“Dozan doesn’t care,” he said, appearing in the doorway. “You may remain the night. I never minded before, did I?”
He grinned that licentious look at her. She almost laughed. At least he was predictable.
“Then, we will begin.”
Hours later, with the sun rising on the horizon, they were no closer to an answer than they had been at the beginning. Kerrigan promised to return for more testing when she could and stumbled blearily back to the mountain in the early morning light. She had, at most, an hour before she needed to report for dragon training. She had neither slept nor ate. Today was going to suck.
She stepped into the mountain through the hidden entrance. She wanted to catch at least an hour of sleep in her room. But as soon as she crossed over, she realized she wasn’t alone. Her instincts were null from lack of sleep, so she could do nothing as the guards rushed her.
“Take her,” Lorian said with a sick, twisted smile.
Kerrigan gasped. “No, wait, please…”
But it was all she got out before the butt of a sword hit her in the back of her head, and she collapsed forward, only half-conscious.
48
The Council
The last few hours were a blur. Kerrigan had succumbed to unconsciousness by the time she was dragged to an iron cell. She woke, shaking. The iron couldn’t touch her the way it did full Fae, but it still left her feeling unsettled and disoriented. It certainly did nothing for the lack of sleep from the previous night. The only comfort was that she wasn’t back in magic-dampening manacles.
No one came to see her. Not even Lorian. Not even Helly.
She would have demanded information from a Society Guard if she’d seen one. But iron did enough to keep the guards away as much as it kept the prisoners within. When no one came for her, she lay back down to try to sleep. Only just after she managed to finally relax enough, a contingent of guards appeared before her.
“Stand up,” one grunted at her.
She realized that she recognized this man. He was one of the guards who had herded the protestors into the street. He was the one who had “disappeared” when the Red Masks showed up.
