As if there was nothing that Mags could possibly say or do that would contribute in any meaningful way when Nikolas was being so totally uncommunicative.
Dismissed, that was the word. Mags had been dismissed.
Did I fail? he wondered bleakly. Hev I so messed up thet there ain’t no possible way I kin get back t’ th’ way ever’thin’ was?
But... he hadn’t influenced those children. He knew he hadn’t! Why would he ever even think even in his most fearful fantasy that the Agents had people planted here?
But . . .
But if not, what could the explanation possibly be?
Is’t me? I mean, it was me, list’n t’ their thinkin’. Mebbe it weren’t them thinkin’ it, but me thinkin’ it was them thinkin’ it . . .
Now his head was splitting, trying to second- and third-guess himself.
::I’m not any happier about this,:: Dallen said fretfully, startling him. ::I trained you. I gave you my training, and it is the best. I’ll stand by it. I cannot imagine any way that you could either have misinterpreted the children, or influenced them.::
::Then what?:: he replied in anguish. ::How? How kin it be true an’ not-true?:: He pressed the heels of his hands into his temples and tried to think. It was tempting—so tempting—to just give in on this one. He wasn’t in disgrace. No one blamed him for anything, and certainly no one suspected him of trying to make trouble. And no one was accusing him now of being some foreign agent himself . . .
When he opened himself to the stray thoughts up here, there was none of that suspicion and accusation there had been before... although there was a lot of heavy shielding going on that was new. It was harder to shield emotions, though, and he wasn’t getting any animosity under all the shields.
Think. It ain’t th’ end uv th’ world.
It was like he’d told Bear. What did he have before all this started? He was still a Herald Trainee. He had his classes, he had Lena and Bear and Amily, he had the Kirball team. He had Kirball itself, and he had plenty of things he was good at. He could just let things... be things.
After all, he was only a Trainee, he wasn’t supposed to be able to do the same things as a Herald. He didn’t have the experience, he didn’t have the knowledge... wouldn’t it just be smarter to let it all go and let other people deal with it?
Of course it would... .
He sighed. Problem is, I ain’t very smart... .
. . . and I ain’t gonna let it go.
After a long and restless night, he still found himself with no appetite at all. And since the Dean had not given him his new class schedule—only the third one this quarter—he found himself feeling a little sick, very headachey, still wracked with guilt over what he had put those children through, and with nothing to do.
He stared at the ceiling, as the light in his room grew. He felt the breeze die, and the air become heavier with heat.
Well... he might have nothing to do, but that just meant he could go see someone who could at least do something about the headache.
He got up, washed under the pump—the water was lukewarm—and got dressed in a fresh set of Grays. The headache wasn’t any better. In fact, it was a little bit worse.
He did not expect to see Bear on the path approaching him as he left the stable, however . . .
Bear looked as if he had spent a similarly unhappy night. Mags looked him up and down for a moment, taking note of the dark-circled eyes, the pinched look to his face. “Iffen I look like you—”
“You do,” Bear said abruptly. “Lena’s coming here in a bit. She’s not doing real good either.”
He sighed. He had hoped that at least one of them was managing to get along without problems.
Faint hope, evidently.
“What’s wrong wi’ Lena,?” he asked.
Bear rolled his eyes. “There’s... a rumor. Something someone says someone they know heard someone they know say Marchand said.” He looked as if he had bitten something sour. “I hate gossips. I really, really, hate, loathe, and despise gossips.”
“What this time?” Mags’ irritation with Bard Marchand rose. Sometimes it seemed as if every problem Lena had could just be solved if Bard Marchand would get hit by a runaway cart.
Bear looked away, and flushed a little. “Marchand thinks he may not be Lena’s father.”
Mags felt his mouth dropping open. “ ’E akchully said thet? Wi’ ’is own mouth?”
Bear waved a hand in irritation. “I don’t know! All I know is the rumor started, and Lena is taking it predictably. One moment she’s crying because she’s a bastard, the next she’s sure everyone is looking down on her, and the next, she’s thinking about leaving the Collegium because she’s here under false pretenses.”
Mags shook his head violently. “Now thet is plain stupid! It’d be false pretenses iffen she was pretendin’ she ’ad th’ Gift an’ didn’t—it ain’t yer name that gets ye in, it’s what ye got!”
“I know, I know, and we all managed to make her see sense on that one, but she’s still all in knot over this.” Bear’s jaw tensed. “And I haven’t heard anything back on the field trials of the first lot of the healing kits. I mean... nothing. It’s summer! People get hurt in summer! People get sick from bad food, people eat the wrong mushrooms, people fall out of trees, chop off their own hands—you’d think by now I’d be getting reports back! But... nothing!” He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I keep thinking... I was wrong. M’father was right. People are too stupid to be trusted with something like that. What if the reason I haven’t heard anything is because people are killing themselves with it? What if they’re killing other people with it? What if—”
“What if you share some of that headache medicine you promised to give me if I got out of bed?” Lena asked, coming around the side of the stable and looking every bit as miserable as the two of them. “You are the cruelest person in the entire world, Bear.”
“Maybe,” Bear retorted. “But you aren’t crying, and you’re out in the sun.”
“Which is stinkin’ hot, an’ we all have wuss headaches an’ prolly none of us et,” Mags interrupted. “How ’bout we take thet medicine an’ all go someplace cool an’ play ‘my life is miserabler than yours’?”
“I could do that,” Lena said, snatching one of the potion bottles from Bear and downing it on the spot.
“I know jest th’ place,” said Mags, doing the same. “Le’s go.”
Bear swallowed the last bottleful and left the empties on the side of a stall, as he and Lena followed Mags.
“Miserabler?” Mags heard Bear say to Lena. “Is that even a word?”
Chapter 12
There was no one in the grotto. And it was blessedly, blessedly cool in there. They all flung themselves down on the moss—Lena with a sigh, Bear with a grunt, and Mags utterly silent. It felt good to lie on the cool, soft moss, the three of them forming a sort of triskele with their heads in the middle, not quite touching.