Cooper started talking about plans for the Half, another tennis tournament before it became too damp to play on the lawn, a chess competition for those dark, rainy nights, and what did Fairfax think of him getting a guinea pig to keep in his room?
Titus could almost feel her grief as Cooper chattered on. She would have enjoyed all these things, the guinea pig included, in a different time, when Eton was her refuge and her link to normalcy. Without her destiny, the school was just a place with lavatories she could not use.
He left then, because he could not stand the pain in his own heart. He did not want to go see Wintervale, but he made himself head in the direction of Kashkari’s room: none of this could be blamed on Wintervale, who was as much Fortune’s fool as the rest of them.
A worried-looking Kashkari was in the passage outside the room.
“What is the matter?” asked Titus.
“I went to the water closet. When I came back, Wintervale was on the floor, unconscious. He said he couldn’t remember what happened and he wouldn’t let me send for a physician. I got him back into bed and I was just about to go down and ask you whether I should disregard his wishes and send for one anyway.”
“Better not. His mother is distrustful of physicians who are strangers to her. Wintervale takes after her in that respect.”
“But what if he has a concussion?”
“And what can a physician do if he does have a concussion?” Titus had only the most rudimentary knowledge of nonmage medicine; he hoped he was correct here.
“True,” Kashkari conceded. “But what about the possibility of cranial bleeding?”
“Let me see him.”
Wintervale was awake.
“I hear you got out of bed and fell down,” said Titus.
Wintervale looked sheepish. “I woke up and nobody was here, so I thought I’d get up and join everyone. Maybe I was just weak from hunger.”
Titus doubted it. Wintervale had mentioned mages falling unconscious in Grenoble. He had been in the vicinity; he could very well have inhaled something.
“Fairfax asked for a tea tray for you earlier,” Kashkari said. “There’s still half a smoked salmon sandwich and two pieces of Madeira cake.”
Titus shook his head. “No, nothing more taxing than plain toast.”
Kashkari was already headed for the door. “I can go get some from the kitchen.”
“Would you?” Wintervale said gratefully.
When Kashkari had left, Wintervale asked for Titus’s help to walk him to the water closet.
“Do I remember you telling me last Half that Atlantis was hunting for a mage who brought down a bolt of lightning?” asked Wintervale as he shuffled along with the gait of an arthritic old man.
“Last I heard, they are still searching.”
He maneuvered Wintervale into the water closet and waited outside. When Wintervale was done, he leaned on Titus to walk back. “Why exactly does Atlantis want a powerful elemental mage?”
“They never told me and I hope you will not have to find out.”
“So . . . what do I do?” Wintervale sounded fearful.
You go back in time. You leave that square when your mother tells you to. You never encounter the armored chariots. You never sink Atlantean ships. And you never destroy anything that is priceless to me.
“What do you want to do?” Titus said carefully. He was almost sure he did not sound bitter.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to sit at home and cower. I don’t dare ask any Exiles for help finding Mother—she always said that there were informants among the Exiles. I don’t know where our money is kept and I don’t know anyone who isn’t either an Exile or an Etonian.”
“Atlantis watches me at school,” said Titus, helping Wintervale back onto the bed. “So if you are trying to hide from them, school is not the best place for you. I can loan you the funds for you to lie low somewhere.”
Fortune shield him, he was deliberately trying to push Wintervale away.
“Let me think about it,” Wintervale said, biting his lips. “For a moment I was really happy. We were going to join the rebellion and finally I would have a purpose. But now . . . I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Titus’s chest constricted: Fairfax could have said those exact words.
Kashkari came through the door, bearing a tray with a cup of tea and a few slices of toasted bread.
“You all right?” he asked Wintervale. “Haven’t taken a turn for the worse, have you?”
“No,” answered Wintervale. “Not yet.”
Food turned out to be a disastrous idea. Wintervale began to retch almost as soon as he had swallowed the last of his tea and toast. Then he emptied the entire contents of his stomach into the chamber pot.
And just when they thought he was finished, the retching would begin all over again, until Titus was sure he must be heaving up his spleen, and perhaps his appendix too.
During a lull between Wintervale’s abdominal episodes, Kashkari pulled Titus aside. “He must see a doctor. If it continues like this, he could become dangerously dehydrated.”
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