Mags hesitated. Should he leave? He had no right to listen to this.
But he couldn’t seem to make his feet move.
“I didn’t—”
“Bah, don’t tell me that, I know you, I can read you like a Mindspeaker. Even you think you killed him!” There was steel in that voice, the steel of someone who was absolutely certain he was in the right, and no one was going to tell him any differently. “It’s time you stopped mucking about with potions and accepted your responsibility to the family. You are coming home and getting married. If you want to spend your time dosing animals when you get there, fine. But no more of this ‘herbs can replace a Healer’ idiocy. Good gods, that medicine chest notion—that is appalling! How many more people do you want to kill with that?”
“They’d die anyway,” Bear shouted back. “At least this way they have a chance!”
“You don’t know that! In fact, it’s far more likely that they wouldn’t die without all those leaves and roots, because they would be wise and send for a Healer right away, instead of mucking about with beans and flowers until it’s too late for a real Healer to save them!”
“The Circle—”
“The Circle will see it my way after this,” the brother said, scornfully. “Killing a patient tends to make them wake up and take the blinkers off. So you just resign yourself to doing what you are told for a change. And start packing. There’s going to be a wedding at Midsummer if I have to drag you to the altar tied up.”
Silence, the slamming of a door, then the sound of something breaking.
Slowly, carefully, Mags approached the door to Bear’s conservatory. He tapped gingerly on the window.
Bear opened the door, and glared at him. “I suppose you overheard all that,” he snapped. The young Healer Trainee was disheveled and red-faced with anger. His hair looked like a bird had made a nest in it.
“I gotta think yer whole Collegium overheard thet,” Mags said tentatively.
Bear snorted.
“I—” Mags hesitated. “I dunno what I kin do t’ help—”
Bear exploded. “Well you should have thought of that when I first told you about it. You should have gone to Herald Nikolas and gotten him to help me! But no, you selfish pig, all you could think about was being a Kirball hero and how persecuted you are, and making everyone feel sorry for you.”
That was so unjust it took Mags’ breath away.
Bear had clearly worked himself up into a towering temper. “It’s all about you, isn’t it? It’s always all about you, the incredible savage mine-orphan who now gets invited to private Bardic concerts and hobnobs with the King’s Own! The big champion of some stupid game that somehow makes him a hero!” Bear’s eyes were dark and furious. “And now here you are, all so hurt and persecuted because a couple of idiots have a bad dream, and a couple more idiots believe it, and now everyone feels sorry for you and tries to make you feel better and they don’t give a hang about what’s happened to the rest of us while you mope around feeling so sorry for yourself!”
Mags could only stand there, stunned, his chest getting tight, and his throat getting choked.
“Meanwhile, people who are actually running themselves ragged doing things to try and help people are told they’re useless and fools, and they’re going to kill people, and they just have to come home and stop mucking about with mud-pies and take care of sheep and goats, because no one cares if a sheep or a goat dies!”
Mags opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His words felt cut off in his throat. Bear glared at him, and the look in Bear’s eyes was very like hatred.
“The hell with you!” Bear shouted. “You can’t even be bothered to help a friend! I hope—I hope—oh bah!”
He slammed the door in Mags’ face.
Mags blinked, feeling a welter of emotion rising in him. Anger, because nothing about that was true or justified. Indignation.
But mostly grief. Now even Bear had abandoned him. How alone did that make him?
He wanted to wrench the door open and give Bear back as good as he’d gotten—but he couldn’t think of anything to counter what Bear said. You don’t know what I’ve been trying to do for you—well, yes, but there was only his word for that, and it was pretty clear that Bear would just think he was lying. I never wanted any attention—well, Bear clearly didn’t believe that now, and saying so wouldn’t change anything.
How long had this been festering inside his friend? Or... not friend anymore.
He wanted to turn to Dallen for comfort, but what if Bear was right? It didn’t feel to him like Bear was right, but how would he know? And would Dallen actually tell him, or just make soothing noises?
Amily wouldn’t talk to him now, except about commonplaces. His teachers were avoiding anything but their subjects with him. The team never talked about anything but Kirball around him. Now Bear—
And Nikolas. Had Nikolas really vanished? Or was he only “invisible” to Mags?
He had to think the latter.
That meant the only real friend he had left, apart from Dallen, was Lena, and now that Lena knew her father had only used her to get to Mags, how could she ever want to stay friends with him? Worse still, once Bear told her that Mags hadn’t lifted a finger to help him stay, why would she want to stay friends with him?
She wouldn’t, of course.
Who would?
:I would.: The depression in Dallen’s mind-voice took him aback. :Mags, you are not a bad person. I believe that there is a good explanation for what the Foreseers saw. I do not believe that you would ever harm the King, or anyone that didn’t try to hurt you or your friends first. I believe that you have done all that was in your power to help Lena and Bear, and all your friends. I believe that.:
:You’re ’bout the only one, then,: Mags couldn’t help but respond.
There was a long pause. :Unfortunately... you may be right.:
Chapter13
THERE was no practice today, and the members of the team had scattered to the four winds to enjoy their free day in picnics and trips to the market in Haven and other enjoyable pursuits.
Bear was not speaking to him. At all. Last Mags had heard, the Healers’ Circle had not bent to the will of Bear’s brother nearly as readily as that worthy had assumed they would, but there were certainly some questions about Bear’s dosages and skill with herbs and willingness to call in help. And a thorough investigation was underway concerning the Lunatic’s death. Of course, none of this satisfied Bear in the least, or did anything to keep his brother from insisting that he was going back home.
Amily was nowhere to be found. She had not shown up in the Archives for three days running, and when Mags had dared to try the quarters that she and her father shared, the servants said she had been gone for that long. She often went to stay with Lydia when her father was absent, so they told him. But at this point he was not at all certain of any sort of welcome at Master Soren’s house either, so he didn’t even try to find her there.
Lena, so the disapproving proctor said, had closed herself in her room again and wasn’t speaking to anyone. Mags couldn’t tell if the proctor disapproved of him, of Lena closing herself off from everyone and half-starving herself because she was unhappy, or felt he was to blame for her behavior. Maybe all three.
Right now, less than a candlemark to sunset, Mags was standing on the stone bridge over the Terilee River, watching the water rush by beneath him, and wondering despondently if drowning hurt very much. Drowned people looked peaceful. Well, except for the staring eyes.
:Yes,: Dallen said, interrupting his morose thoughts. :Yes it does. Very much.: