Lilly didn’t hide the frightened look on her face. Rather, she cringed and looked at the ground as if she expected to be scolded. I could have used this as an opportunity to teach the young lady, and I had half a mind to give her the scolding she expected.

Instead, I clasped my hands behind my back and walked into her room. In a firm voice, I spoke one word to the young woman.

“Sit,” I ordered.

She hurried to sit on her unmade bed, a hand clasped around her wrist as if she still thought to hide it from me. I closed my eyes and took several deep breathes to calm myself and organize my thoughts. Lilly was an adult, capable of making her own decisions. That she made those decisions, for good or for ill, was something I knew would be needed for her to grow into adulthood.

I wasn’t her father, regardless of what she called me, and any authority I held over her was only that which she gave me.

Should I come across too harsh, then she may flee my tower to never be seen from again. Part of me wanted that. I already knew I cared too much. If she fled, I would be able to release my concern for her wellbeing. It was a selfish part of me, that was true. It wasn’t a big part, though, and I immediately felt guilty for even letting the thought cross my mind.

“Let me see,” I told her, as I leveled a stern gaze.

Slowly she drew one hand away to reveal the leafy bracelet that grew from her tanned skin. Tiny leaves, almost like clovers, grew evenly around her wrist. Each was no more than a knuckle tall and not more than the size of my smallest fingernail. If I hadn’t known better, it would be difficult to tell apart from a freshly woven bracelet.

I took her hand in mine and leaned close to inspect the thing using my mana sight. The leaves grew from roots beneath the skin, and all connected to a single larger root that dug from her palm up into her forearm. It looked incredibly painful, and I couldn’t tell how she wasn’t screaming this very moment about it. Worse, it was a parasite of some kind. The mana flow in Lilly’s body had shifted to feed the plant instead of circling like it should.

While I investigated it, I was still considering how I should treat the young lady. Should I come across too soft, then it would be coddling the young woman. I felt a very strong urge to sit down beside her and console her. To tell her that it was okay and that everyone makes mistakes.

A truth that rang especially true when one considered the lengths that grief can drive someone to. I couldn’t expect this young woman to have mastered the ability to shove the emotions into a barrel in the back of her mind. It had taken years for me to master it, myself.

My options weren’t those two things. They represented two directions on a road that had many intersections. I didn’t want her to grow to have either a shortage or overabundance of caution, and my reaction today could inspire each. No, I wanted her to apply forethought and consideration, but not so much that it stopped her growth.

Within the plant’s root, though, I found some oddities of spellcraft. A familiar contract. A tiny, tiny chip of amber. Green magic and blood magic were intertwined in a blunt, archaic fashion. I could remove the plant, but the familiar contract made odd chains that meant that if I did it could hurt Lilly even more than the physical pain. Familiars normally bonded to a mage in a way that helped both the familiar and the mage, yet the loss of one was almost always the death of the other. Given that not even a season has passed since Walker’s death, I feared her mind was still fragile and that killing it would break any gains she had made.

I must have poked and podded the plant for longer than she could tolerate because she soon interrupted me to speak.

“Master, please don’t kill it. I—I know I should have asked you first, but Miss Ivy said it would help. I have been feeling so melancholy that I just wanted to sleep and not awaken. It helps, and I don’t want you to take it away.” She shifted about as she spoke, as if physically uncomfortable from the very words.

“Hmmm,” I answered.

Of course, I knew that the nature elemental was the cause of this. There was no one else that I could think of who could do it. That the elemental did this to Lilly told me that the elemental hadn’t learned its lesson when I last had given one. It was a time-consuming annoyance to break a summoning like the one I had made without killing it. A day or two’s effort that could be better spent in my research.

“Please, fath—master,” Lilly asked again, almost begging.

I sighed before I answered. “Young lady, I am very,” I paused as I searched for the best word, “disappointed. Have you considered that, when your brother passed to the beyond, it is normal to feel saddened?”

Lilly didn’t answer me.

Instead, she blinked back her tears and looked away. Her uninfected hand curled into a fist and she lightly bit on her knuckle.

I wanted to continue to explain how what she did was wrong, but, when I saw her react that way, I couldn’t bring myself to scold her further. Instead, I placed my hand on her shoulder and began to pat.

“Young lady, we will discuss this further, but now may not be the best of times. No, I won’t kill this thing you have on your arm, but some changes will need to be made.” I said calmly with a small smile.

Her golden eyes caught mine, just for a moment, before they rolled up into her head.

I leaned her back onto the bed, as my sleep spell took hold.

“Mr. Aide, if you would, fetch Eni for me. I require one of his pups, preferably one tied to the earth element,” I spoke without even looking back at the man. I trusted he had been reliably waiting outside Lilly’s room the entire time.

It was late afternoon by the time I had finished, and the summer sun was streaming through the window in the room.

The process had been much more intensive than I had originally imagined. I had to bend the spellwork for the green and the blood magic in a specific way that disconnected it from Lilly without harming her or the plant. Only then could I move it to the puppy swiftly enough that it remained intact. All while I listened to the dying screams of my nature elemental and smelt the acrid smoke that fumed from her vines. That served as yet another reminder of a personal failure. I should have dealt with the elemental sooner. Should have spared more time and attention for young Lilly.

That shame drove me to act more maliciously than I would have otherwise, I think. I could have killed the elemental quickly, but that wouldn’t have done much to show my displeasure. Instead, I slowly burnt it from the top of my tower down into the dirt where its roots grew. The thing had begged, threatened, screamed, or pleaded the entire time, but I showed it no mercy. Several times during my efforts to restore Lilly, I had paused in my work to allow for my seneschal to answer questions and concerns from others.

I assumed that the residents of my tower and the nearby villagers would have plenty of questions regarding the reason for the noise, yet I wasn’t tolerant of their worries at the moment. I should be, I knew. Rumors of a strange wizard who tortured women would undoubtedly float about for many years, but I focused on reviewing the spellwork I had crafted the last several hours. I would ensure that literature remained behind to correct such a familiar bonding should it occur in the future.

On the floor beside the bed slept three wolf pups. One was a pup with cracked rock for skin, and I used it to test the spellwork. Its skin made it unsuitable to plant the familiar on. The second was a normal wolf pup, the last resort if the parasitic plant didn’t take to the third. The third, for whatever reason, had been born with skin and fur made of mud. It dripped and dropped spots onto the floor when it was carried in. While all were dirty beasts, this one was undoubtedly the worst of the three.

Still, I hoped its muddy fur would be the perfect ground for Lilly’s familiar to grow. The transfer was a success. One of the priestesses of Elora had come by to heal Lilly’s arm. Miss Ivy had burnt low enough to the ground that no one could hear her screams any longer. It was time for me to wake Lilly.

With a wave of my hand, I stopped the sleeping spell I cast upon the young woman and waited in a nearby chair for her to wake.

It wasn’t long before she rubbed her eyes and yawned. In less than two breathes, she sat upright with a start. “Master?! What happened? We were talking and—” she stopped mid-sentence when she looked at her wrist. Then her eyes widened as her gaze fell to the pups sleeping on the floor.

Finally, they turned to look out the window. She leaped from her bed and darted to the window to stare down at the missing ivy and scattered ash.

Her lip quivered, and her eyes flashed with anger as she spun around to face me. “You killed her!” Lilly screamed.

I nodded as I answered, “I did.”

After a moments thought, I added, “She betrayed my trust."

She was so upset, her arms shook, venomous words spewed from her mouth, “And would you kill me, too? She was helping me! I agreed to it! What have you done? Off to fight in a war, and then hiding away in your sitting room like Walker’s death meant nothing!”

The accusation hurt some, but I didn’t let my feelings show. Instead, I reached down and plucked the two extra sleeping pups into my hands as I spoke, “Miss Lilly, I have some matters to attend to, and will speak with you tomorrow.” I gave her one last small smile I as left the room.

Lilly ranted and raved inside her room as I shut the door behind me. I paused to hand the two pups to my seneschal Fentworth, “I believe I will take dinner in my room tonight. We will continue my survey tomorrow.”