Noah took a moment to gather himself. He was sitting in a bed, but the last thing he could remember was dying. The room around him was strikingly green, and the bed’s covers were made from surprisingly soft intertwining vines.
When did I get moved? How did I get here?
The burst of energy that had shaken Noah awake evaded him as the adrenaline started to fade. A wave of weakness passed over his body and he groaned, flopping onto his back. Even though the headache was faint, it felt like a thick layer of familiar fog had once again set in, obscuring his thoughts and making it difficult to reason.
I swear I recognize where I am, but I can’t remember where it is. Am I back in the Linwick Estate?
Noah bit his inner cheek. His head pulsed faintly and he cast his thoughts inward, not really expecting to be allowed into his mental space. To Noah’s surprise, the familiar darkness bloomed around him, Runes dotting it all around him.
But not all was as he had left it. Thick cracks of white void ran all throughout the ground and up along the walls of his soul like a massive glowing spiderweb. They pulsated faintly with energy, small glowing motes rising out of them.
“Oh, shit,” Noah muttered, stepping over one of the cracks. He knelt, peering into the void. Mercifully, nothing stared back out at him, but that didn’t change the fact that his soul had been shoved into a metaphorical blender and set to purify. “That’s not good.”
Noah inspected his Runes, but they were the same as they’d always been. There didn’t seem to be any less energy in them than before – on the contrary, they’d all grown, probably from the energy he’d gained killing the Inquisitor.
He blinked and opened his eyes in the bed once more. Noah’s hands felt like sticks of lead at his sides. In the few seconds he’d been awake, he’d managed to burn through almost all the remaining strength in his body.
With a grunt, he forced a finger to curl and drew on a little bit of Combustion’s power. A tiny spark popped from his fingertip, failing to combust anything and curling away.
No impact to my actual magic, then. Just a shreddified soul. Bad, but could definitely be worse. I should probably be prepared for hallucinations, though. More monkeys? Or am I going to get plagued by visions of some ugly ass Inquisitor?
The door creaked. Noah tried to muster the strength to sit but failed. He settled for glancing in its direction, and he finally remembered whose room he was in.
Moxie stepped inside, carrying a plate of food. She closed the door behind her, not paying much attention as she walked over to the desk and set the plate down. Moxie turned toward Noah, then froze.
“Vermil?”
“Hello,” Noah replied, mustering a weak grin. “I appear to be in your bed.”
“Damned Plains,” Moxie said, letting out a relieved laugh as she sat down in her chair, running a hand through her hair. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to wake up.”
“Same here,” Noah said. His fingers twitched and his lips pursed in annoyance. “What the hell happened to me? Wait, forget that. How are Todd and Isabel? And Lee? Are they okay? What about Br–”
“They’re all fine,” Moxie said, raising a hand to stall off any more questions. “Slow down. Do you have any memory loss? What’s the last thing you remember?”
Dying.
Noah didn’t respond for a few moments. “Where are Todd and Isabel? How do I know you’re not just telling me that to keep me from panicking?”
Moxie snorted. “Relax, Vermil. You killed the Inquisitor, and Brayden said the other one ran off. Lee is fine as well. Everyone made it out okay – other than you.”
“I’d say I look pretty good.”
All he got in return for that was a raised eyebrow. Moxie took a piece of bread off the platter and held it out to him. Noah stared at it. His stomach rumbled, and he tried to reach out to grab it. His arm didn’t budge.
“Looking great,” Moxie said dryly. “You sound hungry.”
“Now you’re just tormenting me.”
Moxie flicked a hand and a vine slithered out from her robes, winding around Noah’s shoulders and squeezing gently. Before he could ask what she was doing, it pulled him upright and pushed him back into a seated position.
Then she stuck the bread into Noah’s mouth. He took a bite out of it, grateful that he actually still had the energy to chew and swallow.
“Thanks,” Noah said. “Do you happen to know what happened to me? And why am I in your room? Your bed is very comfy, by the way.”
“I’m glad you enjoy it. It wasn’t purchased with plans to share, but Brayden insisted that your own room wasn’t safe.”
Noah’s gaze darkened.
That almost certainly means that Brayden suspects Father arranged this. I suppose it could have been Dayton as well, though. Unless someone somehow spied on our conversations? Given how paranoid Father is, I doubt that’s the case.
“Did he say why?” Noah asked.
Moxie held the bread out again, giving Noah another bite before speaking. “He said it was family issues, and that you’d know what he meant.”
Father it is. But… if Brayden suspects that, doesn’t that mean he’s in danger as well? It sounds like he fought off the other Inquisitor, and if Father called them in, then he directly disobeyed him.
“Where is Brayden?”
“He’s gone,” Moxie replied. “Left right after he dropped us back off at Arbitage.”
Noah grimaced. “I see. You’re taking these questions surprisingly well. I thought you’d be asking more.”
Moxie gave him a short shrug and held the bread out once more. Noah sucked the last of it into his mouth and Moxie rolled her eyes. “I know how it can be with things like this. More secrets than truth.”
Noah swallowed. His stomach clenched at the word secret. If he’d come back to life, than Todd, Isabel, and Brayden had all seen it. There was a non-zero chance they’d figured out it was related to the gourd as well. Probably a pretty decent one, now that he thought about it.
“Bread go down the wrong pipe?”
“No, just thinking. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Moxie said. “Everyone was pretty worried about you when you got back. But… not worried enough.”
Noah scrunched his nose. “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, Moxie.”
“You somehow survived a fight with someone a Rank higher than you that’s specifically trained to hunt demons,” Moxie said. “But you come out of it in a strange coma and stay that way for three weeks.”
Three damn weeks? I guess I was out the whole trip back to Arbitage.
“I’m lucky to be alive, I guess.”
“And yet, as worried as your students were, they seemed completely confident that you’d be okay. There’s a difference between blind confidence and stupidity. They seemed more concerned that someone would stab you in your beauty sleep than you wouldn’t come out of the coma.”
Noah watched Moxie silently. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to answer the line of questioning, even though he knew where it was going.
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“That’s fine,” Moxie replied with a sigh. “I’m just talking. Try not to get yourself killed, Vermil. Whatever the reason those kids have so much faith in you is, don’t let them down.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Moxie glanced down at the plate of food. “Want anything else?”
“I wouldn’t want to take too much of your meal.”
“I already ate.”
Noah blinked. “You brought this for me?”
“How did you think you’ve avoided starving? It’s been a bit since you got back to the school, you know. Brayden kept you fed by using your hand to kill monsters during the trip, but there aren’t exactly a whole ton of those roaming around Arbitage’s grounds. I guess there used to be skinwalkers, but they suddenly stopped attacking a while ago and there hasn’t been news of them since.”
“You’ve been feeding me?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. I’ve been keeping you alive.”
Despite himself, Noah felt the tips of his ears redden slightly. “Oh. Thank you. I can’t imagine you’ve got a lot of time in your schedule, so I appreciate you keeping me from starving to death.”
“It’s not all that different from when you’d show up at my door at random hours,” Moxie replied with a half-chuckle. “And Lee volunteered to do it first, but about three quarters of the things she brought in for you to eat weren’t actually edible.”
Noah cleared his throat. “Yeah. She’s got an interesting palate.”
“Corpses.”
“Yup.”
They fell silent for a few moments. For once, Noah found himself at a remarkable loss for words. Moxie had done much, much more than what she’d needed to, and he had absolutely no idea why. There wasn’t really any combination of words that he could think of that would appropriately allow him to express himself or any questions he had.
“Why?” Noah finally asked.
“Why what?”
“Everything,” Noah replied. “You didn’t have to do this.”
Moxie didn’t reply immediately. She took another loaf of bread – she’d gotten quite a few of those, Noah noted – and took a bite out of it. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really have a good reason. I just wanted to. It was that or leave you to Lee’s care. And, as well as she meant, I don’t think you would have survived that.”
Noah snorted. “Well, thank you. I owe you.”
“You’ve already said that,” Moxie said. She nodded to the edge of the bed, but Noah couldn’t see what was there. “I’ve got all your stuff there as well. All safe from someone stealing it, since I’m pretty sure Brayden thinks assassins might come after you.”
“Doesn’t that mean you’re in danger too?”
“I can defend myself. You’re in bigger danger than I am until you can move again.”
“Fair. Well, whatever you do, don’t drink anything out of the bottle in my bag. The fancy one full of wine.”
Moxie tilted her head to the side. “Why?”
“It’s probably poison.”
“What in the Damned Plains were you doing at the Linwick Estate?”
“Trying to find answers that I never got. Stuff related to Lee – and me. Turns out, my dad’s a real piece of shit.”
A smile flickered across Moxie’s face, vanishing as quickly as it had come. “Tell me about it. By the way, I’ve let Lee take over Emily, Todd, and Isabel’s classes for the past few days. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do before the survival exam.”
“We’ve still got time. We’ll figure something out,” Noah said.
And it sounds like the demon that Vermil originally summoned still hasn’t done anything. What’s it waiting for? I don’t understand. The more I learn, the less I actually get.
A yawn slipped out of Noah’s mouth before he realized it. Moxie chuckled at his surprised expression.
“Looks like your body’s telling you its time to sleep again. Try to keep it shorter than three weeks this time, okay?”
“No promises, but I’ll do my best.”
A vine snaked out, grabbing Noah by the foot and pulling him back down. Moxie caught his head before he could drop the last foot, then lowered him to the bed and snorted.
“You’re like a sentient plank of wood.”
“Thank you,” Noah said. “I’m glad to see you’re enjoying my acting abilities. I think I make a very convincing plank.”
Moxie just shook her head and stood back up. “Try not to let yourself get killed in my bed, please. It was expensive.”
“Noted,” Noah said, his eyes fluttering. Now that his head was on a pillow again, he could feel the call of sleep beckoning to him. “I’ll do my best.”
As exhaustion took him away, Noah’s last waking thought was that Moxie’s bed really was quite comfortable.
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Noah took a moment to gather himself. He was sitting in a bed, but the last thing he could remember was dying. The room around him was strikingly green, and the bed’s covers were made from surprisingly soft intertwining vines.
When did I get moved? How did I get here?
The burst of energy that had shaken Noah awake evaded him as the adrenaline started to fade. A wave of weakness passed over his body and he groaned, flopping onto his back. Even though the headache was faint, it felt like a thick layer of familiar fog had once again set in, obscuring his thoughts and making it difficult to reason.
I swear I recognize where I am, but I can’t remember where it is. Am I back in the Linwick Estate?
Noah bit his inner cheek. His head pulsed faintly and he cast his thoughts inward, not really expecting to be allowed into his mental space. To Noah’s surprise, the familiar darkness bloomed around him, Runes dotting it all around him.
But not all was as he had left it. Thick cracks of white void ran all throughout the ground and up along the walls of his soul like a massive glowing spiderweb. They pulsated faintly with energy, small glowing motes rising out of them.
“Oh, shit,” Noah muttered, stepping over one of the cracks. He knelt, peering into the void. Mercifully, nothing stared back out at him, but that didn’t change the fact that his soul had been shoved into a metaphorical blender and set to purify. “That’s not good.”
Noah inspected his Runes, but they were the same as they’d always been. There didn’t seem to be any less energy in them than before – on the contrary, they’d all grown, probably from the energy he’d gained killing the Inquisitor.
He blinked and opened his eyes in the bed once more. Noah’s hands felt like sticks of lead at his sides. In the few seconds he’d been awake, he’d managed to burn through almost all the remaining strength in his body.
With a grunt, he forced a finger to curl and drew on a little bit of Combustion’s power. A tiny spark popped from his fingertip, failing to combust anything and curling away.
No impact to my actual magic, then. Just a shreddified soul. Bad, but could definitely be worse. I should probably be prepared for hallucinations, though. More monkeys? Or am I going to get plagued by visions of some ugly ass Inquisitor?
The door creaked. Noah tried to muster the strength to sit but failed. He settled for glancing in its direction, and he finally remembered whose room he was in.
Moxie stepped inside, carrying a plate of food. She closed the door behind her, not paying much attention as she walked over to the desk and set the plate down. Moxie turned toward Noah, then froze.
“Vermil?”
“Hello,” Noah replied, mustering a weak grin. “I appear to be in your bed.”
“Damned Plains,” Moxie said, letting out a relieved laugh as she sat down in her chair, running a hand through her hair. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to wake up.”
“Same here,” Noah said. His fingers twitched and his lips pursed in annoyance. “What the hell happened to me? Wait, forget that. How are Todd and Isabel? And Lee? Are they okay? What about Br–”
“They’re all fine,” Moxie said, raising a hand to stall off any more questions. “Slow down. Do you have any memory loss? What’s the last thing you remember?”
Dying.
Noah didn’t respond for a few moments. “Where are Todd and Isabel? How do I know you’re not just telling me that to keep me from panicking?”
Moxie snorted. “Relax, Vermil. You killed the Inquisitor, and Brayden said the other one ran off. Lee is fine as well. Everyone made it out okay – other than you.”
“I’d say I look pretty good.”
All he got in return for that was a raised eyebrow. Moxie took a piece of bread off the platter and held it out to him. Noah stared at it. His stomach rumbled, and he tried to reach out to grab it. His arm didn’t budge.
“Looking great,” Moxie said dryly. “You sound hungry.”
“Now you’re just tormenting me.”
Moxie flicked a hand and a vine slithered out from her robes, winding around Noah’s shoulders and squeezing gently. Before he could ask what she was doing, it pulled him upright and pushed him back into a seated position.
Then she stuck the bread into Noah’s mouth. He took a bite out of it, grateful that he actually still had the energy to chew and swallow.
“Thanks,” Noah said. “Do you happen to know what happened to me? And why am I in your room? Your bed is very comfy, by the way.”
“I’m glad you enjoy it. It wasn’t purchased with plans to share, but Brayden insisted that your own room wasn’t safe.”
Noah’s gaze darkened.
That almost certainly means that Brayden suspects Father arranged this. I suppose it could have been Dayton as well, though. Unless someone somehow spied on our conversations? Given how paranoid Father is, I doubt that’s the case.
“Did he say why?” Noah asked.
Moxie held the bread out again, giving Noah another bite before speaking. “He said it was family issues, and that you’d know what he meant.”
Father it is. But… if Brayden suspects that, doesn’t that mean he’s in danger as well? It sounds like he fought off the other Inquisitor, and if Father called them in, then he directly disobeyed him.
“Where is Brayden?”
“He’s gone,” Moxie replied. “Left right after he dropped us back off at Arbitage.”
Noah grimaced. “I see. You’re taking these questions surprisingly well. I thought you’d be asking more.”
Moxie gave him a short shrug and held the bread out once more. Noah sucked the last of it into his mouth and Moxie rolled her eyes. “I know how it can be with things like this. More secrets than truth.”
Noah swallowed. His stomach clenched at the word secret. If he’d come back to life, than Todd, Isabel, and Brayden had all seen it. There was a non-zero chance they’d figured out it was related to the gourd as well. Probably a pretty decent one, now that he thought about it.
“Bread go down the wrong pipe?”
“No, just thinking. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Moxie said. “Everyone was pretty worried about you when you got back. But… not worried enough.”
Noah scrunched his nose. “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, Moxie.”
“You somehow survived a fight with someone a Rank higher than you that’s specifically trained to hunt demons,” Moxie said. “But you come out of it in a strange coma and stay that way for three weeks.”
Three damn weeks? I guess I was out the whole trip back to Arbitage.
“I’m lucky to be alive, I guess.”
“And yet, as worried as your students were, they seemed completely confident that you’d be okay. There’s a difference between blind confidence and stupidity. They seemed more concerned that someone would stab you in your beauty sleep than you wouldn’t come out of the coma.”
Noah watched Moxie silently. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to answer the line of questioning, even though he knew where it was going.
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“That’s fine,” Moxie replied with a sigh. “I’m just talking. Try not to get yourself killed, Vermil. Whatever the reason those kids have so much faith in you is, don’t let them down.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Moxie glanced down at the plate of food. “Want anything else?”
“I wouldn’t want to take too much of your meal.”
“I already ate.”
Noah blinked. “You brought this for me?”
“How did you think you’ve avoided starving? It’s been a bit since you got back to the school, you know. Brayden kept you fed by using your hand to kill monsters during the trip, but there aren’t exactly a whole ton of those roaming around Arbitage’s grounds. I guess there used to be skinwalkers, but they suddenly stopped attacking a while ago and there hasn’t been news of them since.”
“You’ve been feeding me?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. I’ve been keeping you alive.”
Despite himself, Noah felt the tips of his ears redden slightly. “Oh. Thank you. I can’t imagine you’ve got a lot of time in your schedule, so I appreciate you keeping me from starving to death.”
“It’s not all that different from when you’d show up at my door at random hours,” Moxie replied with a half-chuckle. “And Lee volunteered to do it first, but about three quarters of the things she brought in for you to eat weren’t actually edible.”
Noah cleared his throat. “Yeah. She’s got an interesting palate.”
“Corpses.”
“Yup.”
They fell silent for a few moments. For once, Noah found himself at a remarkable loss for words. Moxie had done much, much more than what she’d needed to, and he had absolutely no idea why. There wasn’t really any combination of words that he could think of that would appropriately allow him to express himself or any questions he had.
“Why?” Noah finally asked.
“Why what?”
“Everything,” Noah replied. “You didn’t have to do this.”
Moxie didn’t reply immediately. She took another loaf of bread – she’d gotten quite a few of those, Noah noted – and took a bite out of it. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really have a good reason. I just wanted to. It was that or leave you to Lee’s care. And, as well as she meant, I don’t think you would have survived that.”
Noah snorted. “Well, thank you. I owe you.”
“You’ve already said that,” Moxie said. She nodded to the edge of the bed, but Noah couldn’t see what was there. “I’ve got all your stuff there as well. All safe from someone stealing it, since I’m pretty sure Brayden thinks assassins might come after you.”
“Doesn’t that mean you’re in danger too?”
“I can defend myself. You’re in bigger danger than I am until you can move again.”
“Fair. Well, whatever you do, don’t drink anything out of the bottle in my bag. The fancy one full of wine.”
Moxie tilted her head to the side. “Why?”
“It’s probably poison.”
“What in the Damned Plains were you doing at the Linwick Estate?”
“Trying to find answers that I never got. Stuff related to Lee – and me. Turns out, my dad’s a real piece of shit.”
A smile flickered across Moxie’s face, vanishing as quickly as it had come. “Tell me about it. By the way, I’ve let Lee take over Emily, Todd, and Isabel’s classes for the past few days. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do before the survival exam.”
“We’ve still got time. We’ll figure something out,” Noah said.
And it sounds like the demon that Vermil originally summoned still hasn’t done anything. What’s it waiting for? I don’t understand. The more I learn, the less I actually get.
A yawn slipped out of Noah’s mouth before he realized it. Moxie chuckled at his surprised expression.
“Looks like your body’s telling you its time to sleep again. Try to keep it shorter than three weeks this time, okay?”
“No promises, but I’ll do my best.”
A vine snaked out, grabbing Noah by the foot and pulling him back down. Moxie caught his head before he could drop the last foot, then lowered him to the bed and snorted.
“You’re like a sentient plank of wood.”
“Thank you,” Noah said. “I’m glad to see you’re enjoying my acting abilities. I think I make a very convincing plank.”
Moxie just shook her head and stood back up. “Try not to let yourself get killed in my bed, please. It was expensive.”
“Noted,” Noah said, his eyes fluttering. Now that his head was on a pillow again, he could feel the call of sleep beckoning to him. “I’ll do my best.”
As exhaustion took him away, Noah’s last waking thought was that Moxie’s bed really was quite comfortable.
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