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The man on the floor groaned, and his eyes blinked open while his head moved back and forth, trying to get his bearings.
“Wha…what happened?” He sat up to lean back on his elbows.
“I used magic on you.”
His eyes took on a faraway look before turning haunted. His pale complexion turned ashen before he grabbed his stomach and ran for the bathroom. The sound of him being sick made me ill—I was a sympathetic puker—but I made myself stay put. I’d done this, and he was alive.
The sounds continued for a longer time than I’d anticipated. I stood and walked to the bathroom. No one answered my knock against the door, so I let myself in.
The bathroom was under the balcony beyond the stairs, behind the living room. It was light yellow and held a vanity and a toilet. Space was an issue, and I decided to leave the door open to give us more.
I’d never seen anyone look so pitiful in my whole life. Jeff was laying his head on the toilet, not even caring about germs, not that I’d actually seen anyone use this bathroom yet. His eyes were open, staring ahead, unfocused.
A tiny linen cupboard was in the corner opposite the toilet. I grabbed out a washcloth and wet it. The man let me wash him up without fuss. The smell of burnt flesh hit my nose, and I looked back at the burn hole in his shirt. It was just above his abdomen and the size of my palm. What I found beneath the shirt was blistered, oozing flesh that had been burnt by my magic.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have used magic on you.” I tried to help him stand, but he’d become coherent and held up a hand to stop me, scoffing at my apology.
“Like mother, like daughter.”
My temper wanted to rise, but I pushed it down, remembering where it had gotten me before. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked back at me when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “You seriously don’t know?”
“No.”
“Then you need to have a talk with Nathaniel in the morning.” The long use of my mentor’s name didn’t bode well. Jeff always called him Nate. “I’ll be in bed if you need me. No other alarms are going off tonight. Oh,” he turned back, “Noodles, you might want to clean up before you come back to bed.”
There was a slight upturn to his lips before he slowly made his way into the room.
“Noodles?” At that moment, a noodle fell from my hair onto the floor. Oh. Noodles.
There wasn’t a lot of time to sleep once I’d cleaned up all the noodles and water Jeff had thrown at me—a little bit funnier of a trick had it worked out better—but I still crawled into bed to grab a few more minutes of rest. Jeff didn’t stir, and I wondered how long it would take him to heal. Someone should tend to him. Maybe Nathaniel could in the morning. Or we could grab a healer at Mount Pickett.
The tone of Jeff’s alarm had changed when it went off in the morning. It was relaxing music instead of a shrieking, high-pitched beep.
“Time to rise and shine, Noodles.”
Groaning, I rolled to look at him. His eyes were closed, phone in hand.
“Are you going to call me that all the time now?”
“’Fraid so.” He replied without emotion.
Great.
“Go shower and then talk to Nate. This needs to end. Wake me when you’re out of the bathroom.”
I sat up and leaned over him, pulling down the covers. He still didn’t open his eyes. “I’m fine, Tessa. Just need some rest.”
The injury did look better, but it was still raw.
“Go shower, Tessa. We’re running out of time.”
I obeyed, going through the motions without really noticing what I was doing. Outfitted in another maroon dress, I woke Jeff and left the room when I was sure he was awake.
Nathaniel stood at the stove cooking up some eggs. Had it really only been twenty-four hours since Jeff had eaten his poisoned cookies? That felt like ages ago.
I sat at the table, emotions weighing heavily on me. My mentor and father figure looked over and assessed my mood before turning off the stove and dishing his plate.
