by Hannah Wick
“It’s happening, again, isn’t it?” I asked.
“What is?” the healer replied, putting her hands on her hips.
“The students. They’re weak, despondent, and fatigued.”
The two healers shared a look, and one of them walked past us and shut the door.
“What do you know about it?” she demanded.
“Nothing, not for sure,” I said. “But we saw what happened to Sally last time.” I paused, wondering if I was about to make a very stupid mistake, then pressed on, anyway. “And I know she wasn’t right when you let her leave.”
“Do you?” she said, arching a brow at me. Oh well, too late to worry about accusing them of incompetence now.
“Yes. There were five students in here, and they were all drained. I saw the tests you did, and they should have been healthy, but they weren’t, and anyone could see it. And…” I took a breath. “And their auras were almost non-existent.”
“You were working magic in my ward?” she snapped, and for a moment I thought she was going to throw me bodily through the door. I didn’t care. This wasn’t the time for worrying about people’s egos. There were lives in danger.
“Yes, I did. No-one else was doing anything to help. Sally’s aura was barely an outline of what it should have been. And she was still in a daze after she left here. Until I gave her the potion.”
“Potion? What potion?”
“You gave her a potion without checking with us first?” the other healer demanded, her voice cracking around me like a whip. “Do you have any idea what that could have done? Foolish witch!”
“She was helping,” Rose objected, an indignant look on her face. “It’s more than you were doing.”
“She could have killed her. What if she had allergies? What if it had clashed with whatever was suppressing her aura?”
I swallowed. Shit, she was right. I should have known better.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” I chewed my lower lip and tried to keep the bile churning in my stomach from escaping. I could have killed Sally. “I just wanted to help.”
Abruptly, the healer’s face softened.
“I know. And the sentiment was admirable. Tell me what was in the potion.”
I slipped the half-empty flask from my bag and passed it to her.
“I used dandelion root, lavender, and buckwheat. She only had one mug… but you’re right, it was reckless.”
“Yes, it was. But you made a mistake. One I’m sure you won’t make again?” She arched a brow and I nodded. I would never do something that stupid again.
She passed the flask to one of the other healers, who unscrewed the lid and sniffed the potion, then held her hand over the top of it. I tore my eyes from her and back to the healer in front of me.
“Is it the same this time?” I asked. “With the other students?”
She sighed and nodded.
“Yes. The symptoms are the same. Unresponsive, weak auras, and no medical reason for it.” She glanced over my shoulder at the other healer, and the woman nodded.
“I think this might work,” she said. “The magic feels stable.”
“You’re… you’re going to use it?”
“I believe it may indeed help.” She paused, then seemed to reach a decision. “Come. You may watch.”
She led the two of us into the main ward room, where eight students lay in beds, all seemingly completely unaware of our presence. We followed her to the nearest bed, where a guy with short blond hair lay, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t blink or move, and if it wasn’t for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, I’d have thought he was dead.
“This is Oliver,” the healer said. “He is one of the worst affected, and my greatest concern. We’ll try him first.”
She put one hand behind his head, lifting it slightly and supporting it as though he was a young child, and still Oliver didn’t react. She touched the flask to his lips and they parted – the first movement he’d made. The healer tilted the flask, allowing a trickle to flow into the student’s mouth. He swallowed, and she gave him the rest, then laid him back.
The seconds ticked passed slowly while the four of us stared down at him, waiting for any sign that the potion was having some sort of effect. Just as I was starting to think Sally’s reaction had been some sort of fluke, he blinked a couple of times, then worked his tongue around his mouth.
“Ugh, what was that? It tastes like death.”
“The opposite,” the healer said, giving me a quick smile. “You’ve been very lucky. We’re glad to have you back with us.”
“Did I go somewhere?”
“Very almost. No, don’t try to get up, just stay there. Rose will fetch you some water.”
Rose looked like she’d have something to say about that, but then turned on her heel to collect a jug from the other side of the room.
“Now,” the healer said, “let’s check his aura.”
“You think it would have improved that quickly?” I asked. She blinked her eyes back into focus.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?”
That seemed like a good idea, and since apparently this time I wasn’t in danger of being thrown through the nearest window for using magic in the ward, I allowed my eyes to slip out of focus, and let my gaze shift to the air around him. Already I could see it was stronger than the faint outline Sally’s had been – and she hadn’t been as bad as he was.
“Whoa,” I breathed.
“It’s still weak,” the healer said, “but it’s double the strength it was. Well done… what did you say your name was?”
“Kiera,” I said. “Kiera Thorne.”
“Well, Kiera, I’d like you to show me exactly how you brewed that potion. You can tell your herbology lecturer that I’m recommending it counts as extra credit. And, reckless behaviour notwithstanding, you should be very proud of yourself.”
I flushed. I wasn’t great with praise at the best of times.
“Um, thank you. I’m just glad it could help. That’s what I want to do when I graduate, you know. Help people. Heal them.”
“Do you now?” She looked at me speculatively, and nodded. “I’ll speak to the dean and see about making sure you get recommended for advanced healing magic when you start your second year.”
“Thank you,” I said flushing red again. Everyone knew that was one of the hardest courses to get into.
“Right, now, let’s get on with this potion. Healer Sienna has gone to gather the ingredients and should be back any minute. We’ll wait for her in the potions room, just through that door at the end.”
I started towards the door then realised Rose wasn’t following. I turned back to her.
“Are you coming?”
She shook her head.
“No-one knows what’s causing this, right?” she said, directing the question as much to the healer as me. The healer shook her head.
“And healing the sick students is all good and well, but if we don’t find the source, we’re never going to stop it.”
“I agree,” said the healer. “But there aren’t many of us here, and we’re all tied up trying to keep the sick students alive.”
“I know,” Rose said. “That’s why I’m going to the library. Maybe I’ll find something. It’s a long shot, but all I know is I can’t sit around waiting to see who’s next.”
“Good thinking. I’ll join you, just as soon as we’re done here.”
Chapter Ten
One by one, the students began to awaken from their zombie state. I let out my breath, and shared a grin with the healer.
“It’s working,” I said. “I can’t believe it’s actually working.”
“You should be very proud of yourself,” she said, and then frowned, looking me up and down. “And you should get some rest. You look about ready to drop.”
“Can’t. I need a cup of the potion. Cassandra is still sick. This should help, right?”
The healer nodded, handing me a small bottl
e. “Don’t forget to rest yourself, as well.”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks,” I said, taking the potion. I headed for the door, knowing that there wasn’t much chance of me getting rest just yet. Instead, I headed to the dorm room, and shook Cassandra awake. She groaned, and her eyes tried to focus on me.
“You’re going to be fine,” I told her. “Drink this.”
I tilted her head and trickled some of the potion into her mouth. She swallowed and groaned, her face twisting in disgust. Her eyes fixed on me more steadily, and I breathed a sigh of relief, then turned towards the door. I couldn’t rest yet, there was still something I had to do.
“I’ll be back soon. Get some sleep.”
I made for the library, where I found Rose slumped over a pile of books.
“So, what’s your leading theory?” I said, moving half a dozen books from a chair and dropping into it.
“You mean other than Jo’s lessons just draining everyone’s will to live?” She spun a book round and pushed it toward me. “Some sort of energy vampire. Like, not an actual vampire, but someone or something that’s draining their energy.”
“Well, that would explain the auras,” I agreed, frowning down at the book. “Don’t suppose you’ve nailed the culprit?”
“Nope. Don’t suppose you brought coffee with you? I think we could be here a while.”
“Sadly, no.”
“How’s Cassandra? Is she feeling any better?”
I sighed. “Her fever has broken, and I’ve given her some of the potion. She should be all right by morning.”
I ran my eyes over a paragraph in the book she’d put in front of me.
An energy vampire refers to an object or entity capable of draining energy from a living subject. The siphoned energy may be employed for many uses, such as to sustain the vampiric entity’s lifeforce or power a spell, or it may be stored and used at a later date.
I glanced up at her. “Are you thinking person or object?”
She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I mean, I haven’t seen anyone who looks like they’re suddenly full of energy, but they could be hoarding it, right?”
“Yeah. We need to know more. Maybe there’s some way of tracing the stolen energy?”
“Well, if there is,” she nudged a pile of books, “I haven’t found it yet. And we have a bigger problem.”
“We do?” I raised an eyebrow, because from where I was sitting, a vampire loose in the academy – even if it wasn’t a literal vampire – was a pretty damned big problem.
“Yeah, we do. Because whatever’s doing this is damaging the person’s aura. Their energy should be able to naturally replenish. Either someone is trying to kill these people, or they don’t know what they’re doing.”
I shuddered. She was right. And frankly, I wasn’t sure which was worse. All I knew was that whoever was doing this needed to be stopped, and fast.
“Maybe we should take this to the dean,” I said, but Rose shook her head.
“We can’t. All we have are theories.”
“Dammit.” She was right again. Even the healers hadn’t believed this was anything more than students overworking themselves until the second lot got ill. If we turned up at the dean’s office and told her we thought vampires were responsible, we wouldn’t even get as far as explaining – she’d laugh us out of the academy.
“Well, at least we’re in the right place, I suppose.”
I eyeballed the pile of books and sank further into my seat. This was not the way I’d imagined my evening going.
An hour later, I was starting to regret getting involved in this. Two hours later, I was starting to regret being born. Three hours later, Rose elbowed me in the ribs.
“Huh? What? I’m not asleep,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s why you’re drooling. Anyway, shut up and look at this.”
She shoved her book towards me while I surreptitiously wiped my hand across my mouth. I was so not drooling.
I ran my eyes over the page, frowning at the words until they started to make sense. It took longer than I was proud to admit. After a moment, I jerked my bleary eyes up to meet her excited ones.
“Wait, you mean we can track the vampiric object – I mean, if that’s what it is?”
“Yeah, look.” She tapped her finger on a passage. “There’s a spell here, but it’ll only track an object, not a person. And we have to do it in the witching hour.”
“Of course we do.” I rolled my eyes. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Just after midnight. That gives us plenty of time to get everything we need. You’re better with plants than me – can you grab these ingredients? And I’ll find something we can use as a scrying amulet. Meet back here by half past two?”
I jotted down the list, grabbed my coat, and headed into the communal gardens. Plants were always best harvested fresh, and the closer to the witching hour, the better. If the spell failed, at least it wouldn’t be due to stale ingredients. It might, on the other hand, be due to me falling asleep halfway through, if I didn’t get a grip on myself. At least the bracing night air helped with that – not to mention sneaking along corridors that I suspected I wasn’t supposed to be using late at night, and which were filled with long shadows and the echoes of my own footsteps. By the time I made it back to the library, I didn’t think sleeping was going to be the issue. For about the next decade.
“Did you get everything?” Rose asked. I nodded and dumped my haul onto the table, trying not to get mud over any of the books. She put a small steel token, set with a blood-red, mottled stone, on the table next to them.
“It’s garnet,” she said, pre-empting my question, and making me realise I needed to pay more attention in mystical geology class. “The book said that any object used as an energy vampirism charm would need to contain garnet. The spell works by creating a connection between two gems of the same type.”
“Just as long as it works,” I grumbled, tucking my hands under my armpits. “I still can’t feel my fingers.”
Rose rolled her eyes at me, and started reading aloud from the book.
“I cast this spell on the witching hour, to find what we seek. We call upon the ancient power, to find the magic that is dark and unique.”
The tracker charm vibrated on its chain, then cast a shimmering orange glow.
“It’s working!”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” she said, with what might have been a bit of smug satisfaction.
“Yeah, and do you happen to have an instruction manual for this thing lying around?”
“Uh…” She spun the book round and scanned the page again. “No?”
I turned round, and as I did, the orange glow dimmed to yellow.
“Huh.”
I turned back, and it brightened to orange again.
“Well, a garnet is red, right?” Rose said. “So maybe we just follow it until the glow goes red?”
It was as good a guess as any. I held the charm at arm’s length, letting it dangle from its chain, and took a few steps in the ‘orange’ direction. The colour deepened a fraction.
“Let’s go.”
We headed out of the library and along the corridor, pausing every few steps to turn the charm in a different direction just to be sure. By the time we’d made it halfway across the building, the charm was glowing a bright, burnt orange. We rounded one more corridor, and the colour tipped over into red.
I glanced around. “What’s down here?”
Everything looked so different in the dark. Rose’s expression was grim.
“The medical ward.”
I blinked and looked round again. She was right. Whoever had created the vampire charm had hidden it in the ward, right near the sick students. No wonder their auras hadn’t been recovering. I hurried down the hallway.
“Where are you going?” Rose hissed.
“Where does it look like? To find the vampire charm.”
“The medical ward is off limits to anyone who’s not sick dur
ing the day – what do you think they’re going to do if they catch us sneaking around there at half past three in the morning?”
I flashed her a grin, and stuffed the charm in my pocket.
“Thank me for checking on my patients? Come on.”
I eased the door open, trying to make as little noise as possible, because, joking aside, I didn’t think that story was going to hold up well in the middle of the night, and besides, I really didn’t want to disturb the patients. But if the vampire charm was there, they were just going to get sick again if we didn’t remove it.
The lighting in the ward was dim, and the charm shone bright red in my pocket. I clamped my hand over it and looked around.
“Now what?” Rose whispered.
“Start looking around for anything with a garnet set into it.”
We crept round the room, ducking down to look under beds, and checking the tables beside them. At least the room wasn’t cluttered, or this search would be a nightmare. I drifted over to the far wall, checking the window sills as I went. Suddenly, the charm in my pocket vibrated, startling a yelp from me. I clamped my hand over my mouth and scanned the room, making sure I hadn’t woken anyone, then turned to the window. I lifted the curtain a fraction, and a flash of red caught my eye. More precisely, a small red stone set into a silver disc, with dozens of ornate symbols carved round the edges. If I hadn’t known better, I might have mistaken it for a healing charm. But there was only one thing it could be, and the vibrating in my pocket proved it.
“Rose,” I called, as quietly as I could. “It’s here.”
Rose hurried over. She reached her hand out to it, and I grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“No, don’t touch it. It’ll sap you, too. We need to use a cloth or something and find a way to cleanse it of the hex.”
“Who do you think put it there?”
“I don’t know. But the only other person I can think who might know about it is Devron.”
“It’s not Devron,” Rose replied, folding her arms. “We would have seen him do something.”
“But I did see something. He was standing by the windows, when I got that rash from the writtle weed. He came to the ward with me and Cassandra, remember?” I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was even thinking like that. Devron was our friend. Well, kinda. “Besides, I didn’t say it was him. Only that he might know who it could have been.”
