Diamond headaches and spinning tapestries

If I took the craziest thing I’d ever done in my life... (which was probably the time I tried to turn myself into a Herzarldan Monk by eating nothing but autumn leaves and drinking fairy sweat...turns out they’re born being able to subsist on such things and all I did was make my mother thrilled with how thin I became.  I know, I know...It was very nearly a Siren-ish thing to do, but I digress).  ...If I took the craziest thing, and multiplied it by ten and then added a doubling spell, it wouldn’t even come close to how I felt being summoned through the halls of St. Hernadine’s.  I just hoped that like my ill-fated attempt at piety, I wasn’t destined to some how crash and burn in such a way that delighted only my mother.  

At the rate I was going, there was a fair chance I might actually end up ironically turning into a halfway decent siren.   Oh the hilarity.   Too bad I wanted to be… well really anything other than a siren right now.   Last week I would have been thrilled at someone even half suggesting I might be beautifully charming, but it was too late...I’d tasted the forbidden fruit of maladical magic and now I wanted nothing more than to be running through foreboding stone halls in a green robe with a vampire and half demon.  

Cristina came to a screeching halt in front of me.  “No way. “  She said.  

“What?” Victoria and Tad asked.  They were both out of breath.  That’s what they got for being witches and wizards who had things like house brownies to do their running for them.  

“It’s Meritabulous.”  Lox said. “...Like our study, except where all the greatest minds of St. Hernadine’s come to relax and hash things out.”  

“You mean the room with the pillows?”   Here I’d thought I’d stumbled upon a secret haven next to my room, I hadn’t realized I was supposed to go in there, but it made sense that this place would intentionally lure you in with pillows and then get you stuck elucidating like a stuck cornish pixie with a few drinks under his belt.  ...or in our case, arguing like a whole roomful of said cornish pixies.  I gave the floor a little stomp just to let it know I was onto its tricks, and then I immediately felt stupid for being sassy to a floor.

“Should we go in?” Cristina asked, she bit her bottom lip and hesitated.  

“I thought vampires weren’t scared of anything.”  Lox said, pushing the door open as if to prove demons...er, half demons were far more brave than paltry vampires.    I noticed his arms were trembling a little though.  Apparently my coming from a small village had at least one advantage.  The entirety of our gossip about St. Hernadine’s could be summed up under the category “the only place you want to be if you’re dying” which  ensured I didn’t get nervous about the lofty unattainableness of unknown places like “Meritabulous”.   I’d thought I was super smart to be lusting after the library.  

“Good morning, I trust you all have had a good night’s sleep.”   

It was Master Dartor.

Everyone chuckled, the room was chalk full of blurry eyed people wearing green robes a size too big for them.   The laughter was the nervous kind bordering on delirium...but what else were you supposed to do when the Chief of Maladical Medicine was talking to you?  

“I’m going to do something new with you guys.”  He said.  “I’m going to ask the new kids for help.”  Behind him was Dr. Groats and a whole line of other Presencers.  They didn’t look as thrilled as Master Dartor about this new development.  I wondered if they were as exhausted as we were, or if you got used to it after awhile.    “We’ve got a very important patient, and right now she’s a mystery.  Reverse spells show nothing, potion panels show nothing, yet she’s dying with no visible cause.  She’s a ticking clock and she is going to die if someone doesn’t make a diagnoses.   This is where you come in.  These esteemable Dr.’s apparently can’t do it alone.”  

Master Dartor smiled like a benevolent father as he gestured to the imposing line up of black robes behind him.  They looked like one giant rebellious thundercloud.   And that’s when I gave up and joined the ranks of Lox and Cristina, feeling totally and completely unworthy to be standing in this room.

“I know you’re tired.  I know ‘exhausted’ has taken on new meaning, so I’m going to keep this short.  Whoever finds the answer gets to join Dr. Cargill here in treating her.  If there’s an advanced magical spell that needs to be done, or a complicated potion, you’ll get the chance to learn it as if you were a fourth year student.”  He said.  “I have her Missive right here.”  He tapped his wand in the air.  A million diamonds burst forth and formed briefly into a portrait of the patient.

It was someone everyone knew.  Even a lowly person from Hogswallow like me knew who it was.   She was a thousand years old, but looked like she was sixteen, had lips that poems would say were made of laughter and eyes that made you think they’d been chiseled out of pure wisdom or something.  It was the Fairy Queen.  

“Your quest starts now.”  Master Dartor said as the diamonds split off the portrait and found their way into each of our heads.  The moment mine hit me, I got reams and reams of information pouring into my brain.  Height, weight, age, every spell that had been done on her, every diagnoses ruled out or hypothesized.  Even though it was just information, I staggered a little under the weight… and I was one of the lucky ones, a little blonde intern with a heart shaped face fell over and a few others like Tad passed out on the floor.  

The Centaur who did our orientation hid a smirk behind a covered cough.   Master Dartor though, was unfazed by the less than confidence instilling reactions. .  

“You are dismissed.”

A sea of green robes started awkwardly shuffling for the door.  Most of us were staring confusedly off in the distance as we were pushed forward by our comrades, blinking as if we being bombarded by an epic sandstorm, which...if you could see into our heads was mostly an accurate picture.  But a few people like Cristina were craning their necks and walking as slow as possible...taking in every elusive forbidden detail...every piece of overstuffed leather furniture, the floating urns of mysterious liquids, the tapestries that you couldn’t look too long at without feeling like you were going insane.   It wasn’t until I had safely landed in the hall again that I realized something weird really had been going on with the tapestries… it was like the threads moved at nearly blinding speed, changing the colors and patterns so imperceptibly you weren’t sure if you were on being spun around or watching the worlds slowest painter.  I felt like maybe I needed to dunk my head under cold water or something to come out of it.

Cristina caught up with me.  “Hey, you wanna work together?” She asked.  

My brain was still frantically trying to process and sort the medical history of someone who was a thousand years old, but I guess I wasn’t able to keep the completely shocked look off my face because she noticed and nodded.

“Yeah, I should apologize about what I said earlier…”  

(by earlier, did she mean one thing in particular...or basically every word that’s come out of her mouth since I met her?)

“...but I’m not.”  She said.  “We both know you don’t like meaningless small talk.  What I really want is an in with Dr. Cargill and I think you’re the ticket.”  

I laughed out loud even though come to think of it, there really wasn’t anything funny about what she said.  I wanted nothing to do with uppity wizard boy and his seduction charms that made me feel unraveled inside every time I was around him.

“You’re crazy.”  I said.  Really, she sure knew how to charm someone into wanting to work with them.  “But I think you have me confused with you.  I have zero...no less than zero desire to work with Dr. Cargill and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual.”

“Wilkes, stop being an idiot.  The fourth years are placing bets on which one of the first years has the biggest chance to figure this out, and you’re leading the odds by a long shot.  I’m just saying, I went to Lussier and was the top of my class… I could help you, I just want a chance to do at least one upper advancement spell.”  

Was she seriously giving me her resume?  Why would I care where she went she went to school?  I was the forbidden siren from a small village on the east cove.  “You’ve got the wrong person.” I said.  This conversation was making me more and more uncomfortable.

“You know I didn’t take you for the ruthless type, but I have to say... Bravo.  Bra-freking-vo.”  Cristina said.  “You really did have me fooled for a second, but I guess deep down inside you’re just as competitive as the rest of us.”  

That wasn’t fair.  How many ways did I have to say I didn’t want to have anything to do with Flynn.  And was I not allowed to be competitive for some reason?  

“Fine.”  I said.  “We can work together… BUT, I don’t want in on any of the spells or potions.  You can have them.”  

“You’re kidding.”  Cristina said, “It’s the biggest opportunity a first year intern like us will ever get. I wouldn’t count on it happening again.”  

I spotted Flynn standing up against a wall, his shoulder leaning into it, watching us as the interns milled around talking in high whispers.  There was a smirk on his face as if he knew he was Fate’s gift to the world.  I wanted to so wipe that smile off his face… was he listening to us?  

“I just don’t want to work with Dr. Cargill unless I have to.” I said. “any advanced magic is yours”  

“Really? Because…”

“Do you want to work together or not?” I asked.  

Cristina grinned.  “I’ll meet you in the library after breakfast.”