I woke up, of course, in a hospital bed.

“Good,” Kuracar Malas said. “You’re awake.”

“Is Mira – ”

“She will recover. To confirm, you, Kylie and Instruktanto Miratova were the only people present in the room?”

“Yeah.”

“Then everybody will be fine.”

“I cast the spell! It helped me get her out! Without it, I never could have – ”

“That is good to hear. I need to check on your burns.” He put a finger to my forehead and closed his eyes.

“I’m fine. Nothing even hurts.”

“Yes, that is because you are on quite a lot of painkillers.” He opened his eyes, pulled back, and checked the IV bag that I was just realising was attached to my arm. My arms were, of course, covered in patches of the doctor’s blue magic. “The good news is, you will be fine; your burns are a lot lighter than they could have been, and will heal perfectly fine without surgical intervention. There may be some light scarring on your legs and arms, or there may not be. We shall have to wait and see.”

“How long will that take?”

“Sometime from a week to a month. But there appears to be no muscular damage as a result of burning. You tore up your shoulder, but it will heal.”

“So I can go?”

“Yes, you can go.” He pulled the line out of my arm. “But I want to see you every day for the next week, just so I can make sure there’s no ongoing damage from possible poisoning.”

“And Miratova?”

“It’s fine,” a slightly raspy voice said from my right. “I’ve had worse.”

Instruktanto Miratova stared up at the roof as she spoke, her eyes slightly glazed over. She didn’t look that injured, but that was probably because all I could see of her was her face.

“You have not had worse!” Malas snapped. “You could have burned to death!”

“But I didn’t.”

“And you know you shouldn’t lie on your back!”

“Why? You got all the metal shards out, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes; that makes it perfectly fine, I’m sure! No need to listen to the most powerful magical doctor in the world, I’m sure he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, what with all those magical accident victims he’s patched up over the years! Let’s just lie back and relax and let our lungs fill with whatever fluids we want!”

“For such a supposedly great doctor, your bedside manner could use some work.”

“If you make me sedate you, I will. Don’t test me.”

“Like I haven’t heard that threat before.”

I left.

I was, I decided, completely fine. So long as I walked in a perfectly straight line at a very steady speed, I didn’t even fall over. The ward was just out of sight when Kylie came barelling around the corner and nearly knocked me into a wall.

“Kayden! I saw you were out.” She tapped her tablet. “Are you okay?”

“Are you stalking me with the location app?”

“You can turn it off if it bothers you.”

“You know damn well that the instant I do that I’ll get trapped somewhere and nobody will be able to find me. That just seems to be my luck these days.” I put my hand against the wall so I could keep track of where it was. Kylie watched me with some concern.

“Uh, should you be up? You passed out, like, an hour ago. I’m pretty sure you should be resting.”

“Malas said it’s fine,” I said, which was only mostly a lie.

“That doesn’t seem… wise. Most hospitals – ”

“Yeah but most hospitals don’t have staff who can magically scan you for all problems at once. If I had that spell, I’d probably be less cautious about keeping people for observation too. I’m fine, really.”

“And Instruktanto Miratova?”

“Well enough to sass the doctor, when I left. How are you doing?”

“Well I didn’t run into a fire, so…”

“Yeah, fair point.”

We walked in silence for a bit.

“I’m sorry,” Kylie said, out of nowhere.

I frowned at her. “What?”

“For that whole… I mean, it’s my fault we were there.”

“What the hell are you on about? You are literally the only person in that situation who isn’t to blame for why we were there. I decided to go in, remember?”

“Yeah, but I was thinking about it, and, well, you wouldn’t have done it if I’d prophesied this danger, right?”

“Obviously not, but – hey, did you have a prophecy about this and not tell me?”

“What? No! But that’s the point! I didn’t prophesy, so you thought it was safe, right? I never explained that I don’t see every danger. There are a lot of things I don’t foresee, and thinking back over that scenario, it’s very clear that it’s something my prophecy would never mention, but I never explained that to you. So of course you thought it was safe.”

“Kylie, don’t take this the wrong way, but your curse played absolutely no role in my decision. I actually forgot about it. I thought that place was safe because it was a laboratory run by a very overcautious and overprotective mage who would’ve trotted us right back out if she knew of any danger at all. She screwed up and I screwed up, and that’s it. And I’m glad we were there, because if we hadn’t been, she probably would’ve burned to death. You saved me by pulling me out of that room, then I saved her, then you saved both of us by summoning all those weird people in brown, and here we are. Who were they?”

“You mean the janitors?”

“The what now?”

“I’m sure you know what a janitor is.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know we had any.”

Kylie stared. “This is a massive school. How do you think it stays clean and maintained? Magic?”

“Well, yeah. It’s a magic school.”

Kylie just shook her head and kept walking.

“I’m just saying, I’ve never seen anyone cleaning anything.”

“You’re not supposed to see them. They cook and clean and stuff behind the scenes and mostly pretend not to be there.”

“So we’re just supposed to ignore them? That sounds kinda rude.”

Kylie shrugged. “All I know is what the intranet says.”

“I mean what is this, Victorian England? ‘Oooh, we don’t speak to the help’. That’s bullshit. Everything about this place is top-top lord-it-over-the-little-guy bullshit.”

“If you say so.”

“What, you don’t think it’s bullshit?”

“I don’t know enough to have an opinion.”

There was no point in pushing the issue.

As soon as we got back to our dorm, I changed into some clothes that weren’t all charred and burned. Despite the clothing damage, I wasn’t burned all that much at all; little patches of blue magic mottled my skin here and there, but none were larger than a 20c coin. If my previous injuries were anything to go by, they probably wouldn’t even hurt under the magic once the painkillers wore off.

My right arm was another story. The shoulder and upper arm was just one massive black-and-purple bruise. What the hell had I done to it?!

Oh, right. I’d used it to bust through a door. The spell hadn’t protected me from that, it seemed; how had things gone? I’d… lashed out with it to open the door, and then it had started to protect me, after? Or did it only protect me from fire? I couldn’t be sure I was remembering the order of events correctly. Everything had happened very fast, and I hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly. Or maybe I’d been thinking too clearly, far more clearly than normal.

Anyway. I’d have to experiment, find out what it could and couldn’t do.

But maybe without a fire, next time.

I poked at the bruise. I felt nothing. That would probably change when the painkillers wore off. I lifted my arm, trying to see how far it spread, and found I couldn’t raise my elbow above shoulder height. That seemed… concerning. Did Malas know about that? Presumably he’d found whatever I’d done to my muscle, right? But he hadn’t warned me about it, and he certainly hadn’t fixed it.

Well, I had to see him tomorrow, anyway. I’d ask him about it then.

I’d barely finished dressing when Max walked in. He stared at me for a few seconds, then cleared his throat. “Kayden. About – ” his gaze flicked to a spot of Malas’ magic on the back of my hand. “Did you hurt yourself again?”

“It’s nothing.”

Max glanced at Kylie for confirmation, but she just shrugged. “Right. Well. About the spell/curse thing.”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have flipped out at you. Sorry.”

Max looked surprised. “Oh. I, uh, I was going to say I was sorry, actually. I’ve thought about it, and it occurs to me that it was lazy of me to simply assume you would know these things and leave you to deal with them on your own. When it became clear that you didn’t, and how important it was to you, I certainly shouldn’t have gotten so defensive. You helped me with the party, and I should have been looking out for you, too.”

“That isn’t your job, though. This place is full of stuff we don’t understand. What was I expecting you to do? Quiz us on every facet of the magical world just in case there’s something important we don’t know? Just because you’re High King of the Ubernerd Guild doesn’t mean you have to be a teacher.”

“Exactly!” Kylie cut in. “You should go and yell at Instruktanto Cooper instead!”

“Are you just hoping he’ll give us money every time I yell at him?”

“… Maybe.”

“Anyway. Sorry I flipped out like that.”

“No, no; I get it. I apologise for being so inconsiderate.” He glanced at my hand again. “Now, your hand?”

“It’s just a tiny spot. What’s the big deal?”

“A tiny spot that you had to see Malas for?”

“Maybe I’m one of those people who freaks out and takes any injury to the doctor.”

“Show me your arms, Kayden.”

I sighed, and took my jumper off.

“Kayden, what the hell?!”

“He broke Miratova’s door,” Kylie interjected.

“I actually broke it? I didn’t imagine that?”

“Yeah, you were pretty forceful. Seemed excessive. Wasn’t locked or anything.”

“Why do you two always end up like this whenever I leave you alone?”

“Hey! In my defense, I was like this before I ever met you or Kylie.”

“How long has it been since you’ve gone more than two weeks without nearly dying?”

“I don’t have to answer that question.”

“It wasn’t his fault this time,” Kylie said.

“What happened?”

“Well, we were in Intruktanto Miratova’s lab – ”

Instantly, Max’s demeanor changed. The annoyance and worry drained out of his features. His eyes widened. “She showed you her lab?”

“We followed her in,” Kylie said,. “She was too busy to make us leave.”

“You – ?! You can’t just – She’s Alania fucking Mira – no, look, it doesn’t matter. What was it like? What was she doing?”

“I don’t know. Looking at things and writing down readings, mostly? And she had this huge cauldron of red liquid that she heated up and dropped in a vial of black stuff. Before the explosion.”

“Black stuff? What kind of black stuff? How much?”

“I don’t know. This much?” I held my fingers up to indicate the amount. “Just thick black stuff.”

“Ichor?”

“Probably? I remember her using the word ‘ichor’. Right before everything exploded. The fire and shrapnel was kind of distracting.”

“Okay, ichor. In red liquid; so she’s probably using Berthold. I don’t understand why she does that on preserved samples when everyone knows she uses holly root preservation. Berthold is suppressed by holly water! Everyone knows that!”

“And then there was a big explosion,” I tried again, louder this time.

This part of the story finally seemed to penetrate Max’s mind. His eyes cleared for a few seconds. “Is she okay?”

“Malas says she’ll heal.”

“Right. Good.” His eyes clouded again. “But if she’s getting reactions with it, then… you said fire?”

“What?”

“With the explosion?”

“Oh, yeah. The whole room was on fire.”

“That’s fantastic news!”

“… what?”

“The flammability in a Berthold result means she’s overcome reactivity for – oh. Hang on. Was it her ichor?”

“What?”

“The ichor! Was it hers?”

“Well it was in her lab. What’s ichor? What are we talking about?”

“That means little. You don’t know if it was hers?”

“Have you ever had a conversation in your entire life? Because this, what you’re doing right now, isn’t a conversation.”

“Right. Sorry.” Max rubbed his temples. Have you ever cut your witch mark?”

“Is that some slang term for a magic thing, or do you mean – ?”

“I mean literally. The penetration scar of your curse. Have you ever cut it or busted it open? Given your track record, it seems like something that might have happened.”

“What? No!”

“And you, Kylie?”

“Of course not!”

“Ah, yes, yours is in a pretty delicate place. I’d imagine people generally avoid wounds near their eyes. But if you ever do, you’ll find that that spot won’t bleed. It’ll leak ichor.”

“Whatever that means, it sounds super gross.”

He sighed. “Don’t you ever read old stories? About places that used to hunt witches? One of the ways to identify a witch, if you don’t have someone with a detection spell around – and if magic’s illegal, you won’t have – is to find their witch mark. Cursefinders would check the accused for warts or scars or similar marks and prick them, looking for the one that didn’t bleed red. They called it the devil’s milk, the place where a familiar feeds in exchange for granting unholy powers.”

My mind summoned, and immediately rejected, an image of Socks. “You’re saying that familiars…?”

“No. That was an old myth, no truer than the myths that ichor is the blood of gods and therefore those marked were the children of gods, half-blooded mortal and divine. Point is: if you have a spell, it generates ichor. Ichor is like the blood of a spell. No… more like the fat of a spell? It’s its energy, its life force. It’ll be depleted when you cast, and regenerate over time. The majority of people don’t really think about it; it’s not noticeable unless you cut yourself wrong. If you’re spellcasting by will, it’s not important to understand the details of it. But there are some niche methods of using a spell that involve the extraction and use of ichor directly, like enchantment. Or making a familiar or fetish. So what I want to know is whether the experiment that exploded used ichor from Instruktanto Miratova’s spell, or some student or volunteer’s.”

“Oh. I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“No. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“That doesn’t sound convinc – hey, wait a minute! You’re telling me this stuff gets made by the body, or spell or whatever, and gets depleted when you cast, right?”

“Temporarily, yes.”

“And you can extract it?”

“Very easily.”

“So you’re telling me I’ve spent my entire life trying to bind this curse, being terrified it’s going to wake up any moment, then hurt someone and got sent here, when all I needed to do was just drain a magic boil every now and then?”

“That is… not a recommended way of dealing with your situation.”

“Why the hell not?!”

“Because that’s not how bodies work. Kayden, do you know what generally happens to people who move up to mountain areas, where there’s less oxygen?”

“They get fantastic mountain views?”

“Well, yes, probably, but they also get more red blood cells, so that their blood can keep supplying the same amount of oxygen. And people who take drugs that mimic happy chemicals in their brain? Half of their addiction is because the brain reduced making its own chemicals, to compensate. And people who eat way too much sugar, so their body is always flooded with insulin? The body tries to deal with what it sees as a life-threatening production of way too much insulin by making the cells insulin-resistant, so they need more insulin to do anything. A human body is a mass of negative feedback systems all trying to maintain equilibrium with each other. So if you continually drain the ichor out of a witch mark? It just makes more to compensate. If you keep draining, it keeps ramping up, until you end up with a spell that is – at least temporarily – far too powerful and far too unstable. Then it burns you out, either through accidental casting or through messing up your other body’s systems, because it’s so unstable. Some people do overdraw ichor to boost their spell power, but it’s dangerous, and it certainly wouldn’t work to keep your spell weak. All that would’ve done was woken your spell up a lot faster, and probably killed you.”

“Oh. Better not try that, then.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have any easy answers for you. I know you want to bind that thing.”

“That’s okay. It’s not your job.”

Max nodded, and went to his desk. He was in the process, I noticed, of moving his stacks of books and papers back behind his force field, into his own little area of the room. Must have decided it was easier to work in there after all.

The painkillers were starting the wear off. I could feel the insistent throbbing of my shoulder. I could remember the feeling of the spell pushing out, helping me open the door, then wrapping itself around me. Because of that spell, I’d walked through and inferno and barely been hurt. Because of that spell, I’d been able to drag someone else out with me.

I wasn’t ready to tell the others yet, but I thought Max might be wrong.

Maybe I didn’t want to bind that curse any more.