The weekend was relaxing. I stayed at home the entire time, napping and sleeping whilst Hannah studied away. After the rain passed, she ventured out without me to get more paper. It was healthy to wander a little every now and then.

The landlady visited whilst Hannah was out. Upon noticing the mess on the dinning table and the still hanging up clothes from Friday, it was like someone switched a lever in her head, and she immediately began tidying up. Humming the entire time, she neatly folded the dried clothes, dusted the counters, stacked Hannah's research and papers and organised her pantry. Before Hannah had even returned she'd left with a satisfied look on her face.

When Hannah did get back, the new look of her house gave her pause for just a single moment before she shrugged and went back to work. Such a strange landlady.

On the last day of her weekend, in the last hours of light she could work with, she looked particularly determined. Her arms made progress in healing. None the less, working instead of resting was not helping.

I'd learnt over the years that there was very little practical advice or help I could give to my caretakers. Once, a long time ago, one of my caretakers was having relationship problems. He was an overworked and timid middle aged man frightened he'd die alone. I told him he should quit his job to make more time for romance.

It didn't end very well.

The next caretaker I had was a young girl who had trouble studying. She just couldn't seem to work up the motivation to do any house chores or help with the family business. I suggested it was because she was trying too hard and she should take a long nap to get her energy back.

She was caught slacking off for the last time and they struck her off the family inheritance in favour of her younger brother.

So in a sense, I had two really good reasons not to get involved with my caretakers. First, the advice I could give them would make me culpable in their failure. Secondly, humans being humans do stupid stuff and it made me feel bitter.

Nonetheless, time moves on and when Monday morning came around I was jerked awake from my pile of dish clothes. “Wake up Adam, you're coming with my to the academy.”

“Whu...” Groggily I left myself up off the floor and begin stretching life back into my joints.

“Don't give me that look.”

“Buu whaa bout breakfast?” I yawned.

People needed time to properly wake up. Breakfast was an important ritual of the day which helped nudge this along. “Well you should have woken up earlier.” Was Hannah's final verdict on the matter.

Oh gods no. Not again. Would I go days without breakfast once more? I was ready to beg but the sharp look Hannah gave me clamped my mouth shut.

“I don't have time for your jokes.”

Then leave me behind you heartless bi-

“Get in the bag, Adam.” Hannah pointed towards the satchel.

Resigned to my fate, I marched like a forlorn soldier into her satchel.

We took off and went straight for the Triolo. Merchants were still coming and going. The festival would happen that weekend. The same caravans that were importing the food bought by the ruling lord of Kasper had also brought travelling peddlers selling household goods and tools.

The morning market was bursting with activity. The wide open streets were now lined with stalls. Villagers from the rural communities around Kasper made up the bulk of buyers that day. This provided an excellent opportunity for them to exchange in their old tools for new ones or have them repaired.

The Triolo in comparison was calm and quiet. It was business as usual, if not slightly quieter with the faculty and students sometimes escaping to the city for entertainment. Apprentices were still using the practice fields and students were still heading towards lecture halls. Hannah's first port of call today was the Nurse's office for a check-up on her arms.

Eager for fresh air, I jumped out of her satchel as soon as the office building was in sight. She paused only for a moment to look at the nearby training field with a mixed expression.

Apprentices were yelling at eachother in protective gear. A strange ball was being propelled across the field by contesting invisible forces. Two teams in different colours were trying to intercept the ball every time it moved in their direction, forcing it back the other way with their magic. As soon as a player got hit, they stood off the pitch resigned and defeated.

The goal of the game, smash the enemy team to bits with the ball.

It seemed odd to be playing this game so near to a building. There could easily be an accident. That being said, on closer observation it looked as though the players worked in tandem to get the ball moving. One player didn't have enough power to push it that hard with their magic. Accidents in this had to be a concentrated group effort in the making.

“None of them are using any crutches.” Hannah sighed. “And they are around my age as well.”

“Crutches?” Could the players get away with touching the ball if they hit it crutches? The idea seemed funny to me.

Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the student watching from afar, muttering to her cat. Maybe someone would assume she was there to cheer on her crush or something. How cliched. That being said, who would bring their cat to watch this?

Most people knew about the strange lady who was followed by a black cat. They mostly steered clear and made up fun rumours. Nothing Hannah found disrespectful of course. She'd gained an almost joking reputation as a witch. A joking reputation because it was someone who was magically lame claiming to be a witch. They said she would put curses on people who looked at her funny using hairs of 'bad luck' from her black cat.

“They aren't using wands, or staves, or anything with a physical patent to help them use magic.”

“Ah, that's what you meant by crutches.” I wasn't sure why the first thing that came to my head was players hitting the ball with crutches. I wasn't that dense, surely. “Well, looks like one of them smashed a window.” Something, likely a ball, had shattered the window to one of the offices on the first floor. I could just make out someone moving around inside.

“That's Riker's office.” Hannah muttered. “We should go and check it out.”

I was doubtful this had anything to do with us but Hannah resumed her journey to the office building, a diversion from her original goal planned. It would at least be an opportunity to get into Riker's good books if something bad was nipped in the bud early.

We got to the hallways outside Riker's office and once more an ever so familiar paranoia brushed against me. I looked to the display cabinet, the empty space beneath which could hide a cat like myself, empty as expected. The plant beneath a still open window had a few broken leaves. The door to Riker's office was clamped shut. No Mathers, thankfully.

Hannah stopped outside the door to Riker's office. There was no glass to peer through, no plate with a name bolted to the door. She gave a hesitant knock and received no answer. Her hand hovered over the door knob for half a second before she pushed open the door.

The office, quite unlike Jean's, was messy. There were tables with metal bits and pieces heaped onto them. All of odd shapes and sizes, all presumably components to a much larger device. Sitting still at Riker's desk, looking rather dazed, was a boy dressed in protective gear minus one helmet.

The helmet probably would have come in handy as well since he was bleeding from a cut on his head.

“Uhhh...” Hannah had not expected this.

“Good morning.” He smiled with eerily vacant eyes.

He was concussed, that much was clear to see. He was dressed like the other players on the training field. One of the balls they trained with had been left on the desk. There were several things wrong with this situation. Perhaps even alarming would be he was struggling to stop swaying even when sat down.

“We need to get you to the Nurse's office.” Hannah sprung from the entrance. “Something to stop that bleeding on your head first would be good. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Whilst Hannah tended to the boy, I looked around for anything that could be used as a bandage. From a simple glance I could tell the kid was having trouble sitting upright. He laughed off Hannah's questions with jokes and deflection. He never answered straight how he ended up this way in Riker's office.

The desk didn't have anything useful. Just dossiers of paper. Behind Riker's door there was a coat. In a pinch tearing it up for strips would be a good way to get bandages. The boy wouldn't have the strength to do it and I'd be here all day if I tried. No doubt Riker wouldn't be all that happy. Sort of invalidated the whole plan to get in Riker's good books when we destroyed her coat.

Nonetheless, if I had to chose between bandaging a head wound and someone's spare coat, the right choice was obvious. And yet I wasn't the one choosing so we destroyed the perfectly fine coat that could be used as a bed in favour of helping one of countless humans overpopulating the world.

Getting Hannah's attention wasn't difficult. I meowed in her general direction and circled around the back of the door. She must have forgot I could actually meow because she looked almost frightened when I did it.

“Stay there.” She commanded the boy.

“Ah damn, and here I was warming up to run a marathon.”

Hannah tore up Riker's coat. These improvised bandages would stop further bleeding but now it was time to get him to the Nurse's office. The sooner she did that, the better he'd be. I circled near the door, waiting. However Hannah had something else in mind.

“How did you end up in here?” She asked very gently.

“I used the door. I couldn't fit through the window you see. Head too big for my own good, apparently.” I could hear genuine bitterness in his voice. Why were humans so weird?

This was hardly the right time to get a story out of him either. Whilst there was positively no chance of this boy dying or anything extreme like that, he was clearly a job for the Nurse. There must have been some sort of urgency to throw this trouble onto someone else. Maybe even a duty of care, perhaps?

“Did this ball break the window?”

“Nope. The balls an inamin... imaninite... The ball can't move on its own.”

“Did you break the window then?”

“Well the ball bounced off my skull so there's a thin degree of separation between me and the crime.”

If the ball had been fired with such force that it hit his head and then bounced from the training field through that window, we would be dealing with a dead body not a concussion. He probably had his helmet on at the time.

“So you went into the office to get the ball? On your own with your injury?”

The boy fell quiet and shrugged, giving only a half-arsed reply. “Maybe.”

It seemed unlikely he had come here on his own. Other people wouldn't let him go alone, surely. There'd be a professor going along or a group of trustworthy students. I turned towards the hallway. It was empty. Besides a strange scratching in the walls of the office and the ambient noise I had expected, I couldn't hear anyone else.

The pieces began to fall into place in my mind. I was glad that Hannah had realised there was something off about this situation far sooner.

The boy had not come alone, however the ball had bounced off his helmet with probably some minor injuries. The teacher had not come. A group of students had come with him. Judging by various other scrapes on his person, I felt confident I could guess the kind of relationship between this boy and the other students who went with him.

“By the way, are you really a witch? Just curious.”

“Is this the time?”

“Do you know where I could get my hand on a few curses? Asking for a friend.” He spoke with a joking tone with a little despair in there for good measure.

“And what's your friend's name?”

“Casper.”

“I think we should get you to the Nurse's office.”

“Undrestannable. Udner... Gotcha.”

Hannah checked to see if the boy could stand. He needed to be supported the way out of the room. His head wrapped in red stained strips of coat and a limp in his left leg to contend with his concussion, he none the less braved on with a smile.

I scouted ahead. The way to to the Nurse was clear of any obstacles. Would have been nice to have someone share the weight.

I felt a little bad for the apprentice. To be ganged up on and left in that state... Had he seen it coming? Was it unexpected? It wasn't my place to wonder about what happened to him but I was curious.

Not bothering to knock, we marched into the Nurse's office. The Nurse, mid lifting a sandwich to his mouth froze and watched us with a mixture of anger and frustration, likely over disturbing his breakfast.

“Sorry for intruding.” The boy called out.

The Nurse got up from his desk with a heavy sigh, leaving his breakfast behind him. “Put him down on that bed there. I'll be with him in a few seconds.”

Hannah set the boy down on the bed. He swayed a little as the nurse rummaged through the cabinet for supplies.

“He's got a big cut on his head.”

“The improvised bandages were a bit of a giveaway. Along with that dopey look.” The Nurse with his usual lacklustre enthusiasm and sarcasm took out a fresh set of bandages along with cloth, string, and a set of scissors. “Monday's are supposed to be quiet, you know?”

Hannah shrugged off the glare the Nurse gave him. “Hardly my fault.”

“Great, and this has just put me off my sandwich.” He Nurse grimaced as he looked at the boys head. “Well I've seen a lot worse I suppose.”

We stuck around as the Nurse went to work since there was not much else for us to do. Hannah had been coming here for a check up on her arms and we'd have to wait for that.

Cleaning the wound was priority one. The Nurse damped some cloth in tincture and judging by the wince on the boy's face, it hurt. The smell of distilled alcohol wafting from cloth made my nose curl. The smell alone was near enough to make me cry. Poor kid.

The boy didn't get the same treatment as Hannah did for her injuries. There were no painkillers or various liquids forced down his throat. The Nurse was fine with treating his wounds a less fanciful way.

By the time he was done, the boy was resting in bed until his concussion was over, his messy protective gear heaped at the foot of his bed. Before anything else happened, the Nurse enjoyed the rest of his breakfast, making us wait. He'd noticed other injuries on the boy however he insisted they were nothing.

Sitting there and watching that man eat his breakfast whilst I was on an empty stomach felt like a true low. Occasionally he met my hard glare and took just a slightly slower bite from his breakfast than necessary.

After he'd finished his breakfast he finally addressed Hannah. “Show me your arms.” He commanded abruptly.

She lifted her arms, sleeves rolled back. “The feeling is coming back to them.”

“Really?” He asked almost hopefully. After examining her arms he began pinching them in places. “Feel any pain?”

“It's numb. But at least I can feel that my arms are numb. If you understand.”

The Nurse leant back in his chair, arms crossed and tapping his fingers thoughtfully. “The burn wasn't as deep as it looked then. It may take a week, it may take a month. But I think feeling is returning to your arms.”

Hannah rolled the sleeves back down over her arms. “How's the boy?”

“Hopefully still breathing. If not then I'll blame dirty bandages ripped from a coat. Or lax supervision on the training fields. I'm not sure yet. Everything about this place invites trouble. Sure let's build and academy on haunted ground. Sure let's get students to hurl magic propelled balls at each other.”

“Sure let's run painful experiments on certain students.” Hannah interrupted, shutting the Nurse up very quickly. His mouth opening to speak before closing weakly. Nothing he could say could dig him out of his unethical position.

Finally he simply sighed and muttered under his breath. “If you're done, get out of my office. I can't stand being around you more than necessary.” This was unusually blunt even by his standards.

“Is that it then? Come back in a month?”

“Come back this Friday as usual. Mathers is breathing down my neck like some creepy ceiling goblin.”

The hope washed away from Hannah's face. She quietly got up and walked out the office door. I followed behind her.

She stood there, back to the door, for and uncomfortable length of time. She'd be back there on Friday. She'd carry on losing weekends. And her temper would be back to being short and fiery. Great.

“He's a dick.” I broke the silence. With nobody in the hallway to see, Hannah broke a smile.