[MAGGIE'S PoV]

I squished my face between my hands as I walked away from Kindle, trying to calm the burning blush that colored my cheeks. "Remember you're still mad at him," I muttered to myself. I climbed the stairs to the roof, thankful for the cool air there. "You're still mad at him, and he has a girlfriend."

I went to my easel, a gift from Faye, and began setting up for the day's painting session.

Girlfriend? Would that be the right term for... whatever his relationship with the queen was? I wasn't sure, but regardless, thinking about it made me want to gag. What in the world did he see in her? And then there was the fact that the queen was married, which was a whole other can of worms that I especially didn't want to touch. Kindle's business was his own.

"...What are you muttering about...?" Carlyle asked as he materialized to my left. He was difficult to see in the bright, late-afternoon sunlight.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the stupid blush from returning. "Nothing," I answered, maybe a bit too defensively. But it wasn't like I could just say "Oh, y'know, Kindle and his relationship status."

Carlyle would get a kick out of that, and use it as blackmail fodder for weeks. Obviously a ghost who could only communicate with two people didn't have much of a use for blackmail, but seeing as one of those people was Kindle, I couldn't give Carlyle the chance.

"...Well, I could find out if I wanted to... but I'm too nice..." Carlyle said with a wink.

I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, but then again he was a ghost, there were probably lots of things he could do that I didn't know—or wouldn't want to know.

I took the lids off the paint jars and mixed a few drops of oil into the colors that were starting to stiffen, then I pulled the canvas out from under the chair, where I stored it in case of rain. "Where were you all day?"

"...I um... places..." Carlyle answered hesitantly.

I raised an eyebrow. "That sounds pretty secretive for a ghost."

"...I suppose it doesn't matter if I tell you..." Carlyle ran a hand through his floating ginger hair. "...I was keeping an eye on Lydia for a while, but all she did was play piano and read romance novels... it's very boring to watch..." He wavered in place, maybe the ghost version of shifting nervously from foot to foot. "...So I watched Seraphim for a while instead... he looks like his normal self when he sleeps... and today his dreams were so peaceful..." Carlyle put his face in his hands.

I set down my brush and frowned. "His dreams?" I asked, but then his first statement registered and I found a more pressing question, "Wait, why were you 'keeping an eye' on Lydia?"

Carlyle moved his hands. "...For Kindle... Speaking of, I should probably go make sure everything is okay..."

Before I could ask him to elaborate, he vanished before my eyes.

With a sigh, I turned my attention back to the canvas and continued carefully filling in the shadow of Kindle's jaw. I tilted my head to examined his eyes, still unpainted pencil, since I was saving them for last. He didn't strike me as the creepy type that would have an invisible person keep tabs on his girlfriend, so what did Carlyle mean?

I started to mix a new shade of brown for Kindle's stubble (he really needed to shave) when—

"...Maggie, come quick...!" Carlyle's shout came from the bottom of the stairs.

The fear in his tone got me off my stool in an instant, and I raced down the stairs to meet him. "What, what is it?"

"...It's Kindle, hurry, follow me..." He floated swiftly down the hall and I ran beside him.

When we turned the corner, I saw what had him so worried: Kindle laid motionless in the center of the corridor, his brown skin so pale it looked almost gray.

My heart thudded. "Kindle!" I slid to my knees at his side and shook his shoulder violently. He was breathing, thank God, but it was shallow, and his eyes remained closed. "Kindle, wake up!"

My thoughts were in a whirlwind of panic. I knew what I needed to do, the question was how. Kindle laid face down with his arms sprawled, like he'd been crawling when he collapsed. I had to move him, but he was probably a good sixty or seventy pounds heavier than me.

I sat back on my legs, trying to steady my frantic heart. "Calm down, Maggie. Calm down, calm down."

With a bit of effort, I flipped Kindle onto his back, then I stood and grabbed his legs. I pulled, but he didn't budge. He was too heavy, or I was too weak, or some combination of the two. Regardless, I had to figure out some other way to move him.

Kindle opened his mouth and let out a small, pained sound.

Time's up, get moving. I braced myself for the awkwardness of the situation as I dropped back to the floor and swiftly removed Kindle's belt, followed by my cloak. I wrapped the cloak around his upper torso, under his arms, and secured it tightly across his chest. My hands trembled as I put the belt around my own waist and tied the other end of the cloak to it.

I stood and looked down at my contraption. It wasn't glamorous, but it would serve its purpose. My nerves buzzed with electricity as the stress and adrenalin pooled in my gut. I took a deep breath, then started walking.

The cloak kept Kindle's head off the ground, and I was able to drag him slowly but steadily this way. My legs burned, but they had always been stronger than my arms. After what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than I few minutes, I managed to get Kindle to his room.

There was no way I was getting him up onto his bed, though, so I moved carefully to my knees to lower his head back to the floor. There was a quiet gasping sound, and I looked back at Kindle to see him shaking, his eyes open wide, staring at nothing.

"Kindle!" I said firmly, trying to get his attention. I gripped his face between my hands—God, he felt like ice, why was he so cold? Kindle was never cold.

His unseeing eyes welled with tears. Their usual fire was dimmed to near black. His mouth moved, the same shape over and over, the sound so soft I could barely make it out. But after a moment, I did. A name. "Katia."

I had no clue who that was and at the moment I was too concerned to be curious.

Faye. I had to get Faye. She was a healer, she'd performed surgery on someone who had been stabbed and from what I'd heard the person pulled through just fine. Faye would know what was wrong, and she'd be able to help him.

"Carlyle, watch him, okay?" I said, breathless, then sprinted down the hall to Faye's workshop and pounded on the door like a mad woman.

"Magpie? what is it, what's wrong?" Faye asked, her eyes flicked down to the belt and cloak that were still around my waist. She had a long stretch of midnight blue velvet draped over her shoulder.

"Kindle... collapsed in the hall..." I panted, "he's breathing and I got him to his room but he's not responding and—and—"

Her gentle eyes hardened as she reflexively tied her hair up with the leather strap she wore around her wrist. "Go back to his room, I'm going to grab my med kit and meet you there."

I nodded, turned on my heel, and hurried back to Kindle's room. His eyes were closed again, but he was still shaking, and he still mumbled unintelligible words under his breath.

I sat on the floor and wrapped my arms around my knees. My heart felt like it would pound out of my chest with worry. What had happened to him?

"...He'll be okay, she didn't give him enough to kill him or he'd be dead already..."

Before I could ask Carlyle what he meant by that, Faye rushed into the room.

She took one look at Kindle and nodded to herself. "Magpie, help me lift him onto the bed. We need to get him covered." With the two of us both lifting, we managed it. Faye pulled Kindle's blanket up to his chin. "This is too thin, go get the blanket from your room as well—the shock from the venom dangerously dropped his body temperature."

I did as I was told.

"Venom?" I asked when I returned, "what are you talking about? Like a snake?" My blood went cold. "Did Jakoby do this?"

She took the blanket from my arms with a puzzled expression, but then her face softened. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting your realm is different. Venom is a type of magic unique to fairies."

I gaped as the implication of her words registered. "You mean Lydia did this to him?"

Faye covered Kindle with the second blanket. "This won't be enough, its extremely dangerous for him to maintain this low of a temperature. Do you know how long he was in the hall before you found him?"

"...Not long, I had only just left him with Lydia before I came to talk to you..."

"Not long," I echoed Carlyle. "But I don't know the exact amount of time."

"We need to warm him quickly." She glanced around the room. "I wish he had a hearth in here, but I suppose he wouldn't need one when he usually is one."

My head snapped up in one of those stereotypical lightbulb moments. "Human space-heater, at your service."

"...well somebody's eager..."

My face immediately flared bright red at Carlyle's words and I registered just what I'd so hastily and stupidly suggested.

But Faye nodded eagerly. "Actually, that's perfect. If you don't mind, please get on the bed. You don't have to get under the covers if that makes you uncomfortable, but lay as close to him as you can. You are still cooler than he needs to be, but if we can get him to your body temperature he'll at least be safe."

I swallowed and felt my face get somehow even hotter. Well, no backing out now, I'd done this to myself. Probably looking as awkward as I felt, I climbed up onto Kindle's bed and laid along side his shivering form.

Faye pulled the arm chair from the corner of the room closer and sat down. "Once his temperature regulates you can get up. I'm going to stay here to monitor him."

"Okay." I shifted myself a little bit closer to Kindle, hoping to warm him quickly so I could end the embarrassment.

If only Elle were here to see this. The two of us used to always share a bed during sleepovers, until ninth grade when she decided she'd had enough of being roasted to death every night and started sleeping on the floor. She would tease me, saying that I was doomed to sleeping alone forever. But here I was, in bed next to the most beautiful guy I'd ever met.

Completely different circumstances, of course, but still—Haha, Elle.

Faye hummed a soft tune and carefully unwound the leather cord from her hair.

I cleared my throat. "So what you said earlier... about venom..?"

Faye returned the cord to her wrist and frowned. "Fairies are a petite and delicate species. The tallest I've ever met is an Order member named Isidor, and he's still several inches shorter than me." She coiled one of her curls around her finger as she spoke. "For self-defense purposes, a fairy naturally generates a special type of magic unique to their kind. I can't pronounce the Noxian word for it, but the Luminization is 'venom.'"

I sat up, interested. "What does it do?"

"Venom exists within the fairy, and when they reach maturity each fairy develops a way to transmit the venom to another—for Isidor, it's a touch with his right hand. For Lydia, it's her lips."

"That's why you told me not to let her kiss me the day she invited me to tea," I realized.

"Yes, I'm sorry I didn't clarify then." Faye's lip curved into a sheepish smile. "I often forget just how unfamiliar with the norms of this realm you are."

I waved my hand. "Sorry, I interrupted."

"Ah, well the question of what exactly it does is hard to answer. That depends on the power of the individual fairy, and even a bit on their personality." Faye's tan skin paled ever so slightly. Her voice softened and trembled.

"Lydia is very powerful. Given her status, I would say she's probably the most powerful fairy alive at the moment. Her venom can cause anything from a pleasant numbness to extreme pain, probably worse, and she can twist memories as well—that's how she got ahold of..." Faye took a shuddering breath and shook he head. "Kindle," she finished weakly. It felt as though she had intended to say more, but her posture told me it would be best not to press her on it.

I focused instead on Kindle's place in all this. "What do you mean, got ahold of him?"

"It's really not my place to say, especially considering that I am not aware of all the details but... are you familiar with the war against Lumina?"

I nodded quickly. That was one thing about the Realm Under Twin Shadows I was well acquainted with, having played through the game equivalent of it too many times to count.

"Kindle was twelve when it happened and he lost everything. Everything." Faye said. "All of us in the Order suffered loss, but none more than him, and he carried a lot of weight for such a long time. Through Lydia's venom, Kindle found a way to cope with that but..."

I looked down at Kindle's sleeping face, his eyes were clenched tight with pain. "Has she ever done this to him before?"

Faye shook her head. "Never this bad. My guess is that she's upset with him for something."

Disgust washed through me. "This was a punishment? She'd do something like that?" As soon as the words were out I realized how stupid they sounded. Of course she would, I'd only met her a couple of times and she wanted me dead just for interacting with 'her things.'

Faye laughed humorlessly. "Oh Magpie, there is very little Lydia would be unwilling to do in order to have her way."

~*~

I didn't remember what my dream was about, but I knew I'd had one. I also didn't remember falling asleep in the first place. I woke to the sound of Kindle's heartbeat against my ear, and his feverishly warm arm wrapped around me.

I gasped and looked up. The candle had mostly burned out and the room as dim now, but from what I could see his facial expression was softer than it had been earlier. Maybe whatever pain he'd been dealing with was gone. His temperature had definitely returned to normal.

I wormed myself out of his grasp and off the bed as gently as I could so as not to wake him. Faye was sound asleep in the chair. I didn't know what time it was, but it was probably late, and also probably best for me not to be in Kindle's room if Lydia decided to pay a late night visit. I didn't want to make things any worse for him.

"Faye," I whispered and shook her shoulder lightly. "I think Kindle's okay now, I'm going to go back to my room."

Faye cracked her eyes open and nodded sleepily. "Okay Magpie, goodnight. I'll leave once I double check that everything is okay," she yawned.

Once in my room, I flung myself onto the bed and buried my face in the pillow. I so desperately hoped that Kindle had been asleep the whole time so we wouldn't have to have the awkward conversation of why I'd been sleeping in his bed. And on his chest, apparently.

"...Well that was cuuute..." Carlyle giggled from somewhere nearby.

I shook my head and fought the urge to scream into the pillow.

I had always wanted adventure, a life like my sister. I probably should have been more specific, because murderous fairies and sassy ghosts were so not what I had in mind. And clearly, there was so much more going on than I could ever hope to understand.