A forbidden thrill passed through Aaron, and he immediately tried to stamp it out. He’d made his peace with this. He knew he should object. He knew he should reason with Alex. He knew it wasn’t right. But the tiny thrill wouldn’t die. Instead, it grew.
Aaron’s grip slowly tightened around the robe. His hands began to sweat, and his pulse pounded in his eardrums. He stared at Alex, feeling his body sort of hovering outside itself for a moment, as if he were split in two pieces—inside and out. He watched his own hand slowly withdraw, still clutching the robe, and he heard his own voice say almost breathlessly, “Are you sure?” The silky fabric sizzled and sang luxuriously beneath his fingertips.
“I’m sure,” said Alex dully. “I’ll make the announcement in the morning.”
The Longest Night
Alex refused to stay in bed once Aaron had gone back to his room. He had too much on his mind to sleep. The magical medicine had worked quickly and done its job to take away the pain, leaving only his bandaged left arm hanging numb and useless at his side. Henry reluctantly agreed to let Alex get up, and fashioned a sling for him. Soon Alex was moving gingerly around the mansion, trying to get a grip on his thoughts.
Outside, the friendly dragons were protecting the island overnight, but there was little to worry about now. No enemies remained. The atmosphere throughout the sleepy mansion felt lighter somehow because of it, and Artimé’s residents benefitted greatly from it as they enjoyed their first delightfully deep sleep in several days.
By now, all of the Warbler parents had reunited with their children and were only in need of rooms of their own to sleep in. As Mr. Today had often said, there was plenty of room for all who wished to be in Artimé—all Alex had to do was extend the hallways a bit.
He managed that much right-handed, for it was mostly a verbal spell. He wasn’t entirely useless, which gave him a bit of comfort. But it wasn’t much.
He taught the Warbleran parents how to access their new rooms, and he promised to take off their thornaments as soon as he was able so they could experience true freedom from Eagala’s reign, like their children had. But first he had to work up the courage to try it with his right hand. Secretly he hoped Claire would heal quickly so he could ask her to do it instead. He didn’t trust himself to be steady with it.
As Alex prowled the hallways, he ran across Florence, Talon, Simber, Ms. Octavia, and Fox and Kitten working through the night to clean up the glass and repair all the windows. It was quite amazing what Ms. Octavia and Florence could do magically to make things feel like home again. Kitten wasn’t much help at all, but she played her tiny triangle and sang a little song for entertainment, which amused at least one of the others.
After surveying the damage to the mage’s living quarters, Alex knew no one would be sleeping in there for a few days. Clive’s remains had been removed, but the apartment was still a mess. Alex packed up a few necessities and made his way to his old room in the boys’ hallway, where he’d soon be living permanently.
Alex cleaned himself up the best he could in his old room, but he didn’t stay. It was too quiet in there, which only reminded him that Clive was gone. He didn’t want think about how empty his life would be now without Clive. Without his art. Without his job as head mage. Instead he returned to the hospital ward, where he felt less alone among the disfigured.
Seeing that Henry was running on fumes, Alex worked alongside him and the nurses until all the injured were stable.
When everyone was quiet in the hospital ward, Henry finally sent the nurses to bed, and at Alex’s urging, he sat down to rest in a chair between some of the most critically injured—Claire Morning, whose head was wrapped in bandages, and Thatcher, whose face Henry had stitched up, but who had lost a lot of blood and hadn’t woken up yet.
Alex kept busy, awkwardly rolling bandages and refilling medicine bottles, watching Henry as he did so. The young healer didn’t take his eyes off Thatcher’s face until slowly his lids drooped and closed, and he slept.
Lani was across the room. Surprisingly, after having taken that spectacularly awful hit in the back from a pirate, she was awake, but completely unable to walk and had no feeling in her legs. No one knew how long that would last, or if she would ever get better. As with Alex’s arm, Henry didn’t have medicine that could fix that.
Alex and Lani exchanged heartbreaking looks from afar, but neither could stand to talk about their fates—not yet. So Alex stayed a safe distance way. Samheed slept in a chair on one side of her bed, holding her hand, and her father slept on the other. Henry and Carina had done all they could for her. Now they had to wait and see if she healed.
Eventually Alex found comfort in going quietly from bed to bed, assisting those who stirred and perhaps needed a sip of water or an encouraging word. Alex wasn’t the only one facing difficulties—that was obvious. They’d struggle together.