“Ugh, what happened?” I groan when I wake up.
“Best I can figure is that you ran out of Sir Tiergan’s room, and your head met a pole.” Elwin says. “What were you thinking?”
“I… ugh.” My head hurts twice as much now, from the headache, and where the bruise from knocking myself out is. It appears that it’s on the side of my forehead. Where I could cover it up with my hair, but it would be easy for someone to see if the hair covering it moves at all. Then it starts happening again. My vision getting blurry, snapping back to how it should be. Snapping to blurry again, and fading back to normal. It makes it impossible to focus on anything. “I can’t- I- I don’t know how to say it. It’s like my vision is going back and forth between being blurry, and almost sharper than it normally is.”
“What?”
“New symptom?”
“I guess. I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”
“I’m done with this!” I shout.
“Calm down.”
“No, the reason we’re waiting for the ability reset is because you want me to get better first, right? Well, I’m not getting better. In fact, I’m getting worse.” I close my eyes so I can’t see anything getting blurry or sharper.
“What are you saying?”
“We should do the ability reset tonight. I can’t live like this, and that’s probably the only thing that will fix it.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“Just know that Magnate Leto is the one who needs convincing, not me.”
“If he has doubts, just send him in here, and I’ll talk to him.”
“Oh, you think I’m going now? No. I’ll go durring study hall. I need to take care of that bruise.”
“Fine. Can I at least take something for the headache?”
“Wait another half hour. The chimes will sound, and you’ll be good to take something else.”
“Do I have to wait that long?”
“Well, if you don't, the medicine from before will wage war with the new one in your gut.”
“Fine. I’ll wait.” He puts a few different balms and ointments on the bruise, and we have to let them sit. “By the way, how did you find me? I was unconscious.”
“Sir Tiergan found you. He said you shouted something in the middle of his lesson and sprinted out the door, so he ran after you, though you had a head start. He saw you unconscious on the ground and freaked out. It may have caused a bit of a scene. Then he carried you here.”
“Great. Two scenes in 24 hours.”
“What? What happened yesterday?”
“Uh, people were talking about me, and someone said something about how I’m probably like how I am because I have a secret twin, and I sort of snapped at them about how dumb that stereotype is, and all the multiple birth kids in the school came to listen to me defending them.”
“And that’s bad because?”
“It’s not. I don’t regret it. But there were already rumors about me, so that just made them way worse. I can’t imagine what they’ll be like now.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll die down soon.”
“Not if I keep causing scenes.”
“Hopefully it’ll all stop after the ability reset.”
“Hopefully. Someone should get Dex and the group.”
“I will, since you can’t open your eyes.” The chimes sound, and he hands me a small bottle to drink and hurries off. I chug what’s in the vial, and the headache eases up a little, but doesn’t go away.
“Lori Ruewen, what did you do this time?” Sophie’s voice says, storming into the healing center.
“Nothing! Well, my vision sorta started getting blurry and snapping back to normal and stuff, and I sorta freaked out, and ran out of class, and ran into a pole, and knocked myself out…”
“What?! You call that nothing?”
“Do the others know I’m here?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Oh! Right. Let me just send a message to them… done.”
“You can still just send a quick message to eight people at once in about two seconds.”
“Hey, hopefully by tonight you’ll be able to do that again too.”
“Yeah, hopefully. What’ll I do if it doesn’t work?”
“We’ll reassess the problem and find a solution.”
“LORI, WHAT HAPPENED?!”
“Hi Biana. I don’t want to explain it eight times, so can you just wait until everyone else gets here?”
“Fiiiiiiiine. But are you ok?”
“For some values of ok. With those values being ‘not currently dead’ and ‘not in a coma’, though I might be a little too close to the second one for comfort.”
“Soooo… you won’t just faint in front of us after you start talking?”
“I make no promises.”
“Why are you keeping your eyes closed?”
“It’s complicated, and very related to the story of why I’m here, which you will get while everyone else arrives.”
“Sophie, you need to give a little more than just ‘Lori is in the healing center, you’re all excused from study hall to come see her’ next time she has an emergency!” Stina says.
“Hello Stina.” Sophie’s eyes are still closed, but I can hear the eyeroll in her voice.
“Are you alive?” Stina asks me.
“Currently.” I’m not thinking about it, and I open my eyes. The strange sensation of the world fading in and out of focus makes me want to throw up.
“You good? And why are you keeping your eyes closed like that?”
“It’s a long story that I’ll explain when everyone’s here so I don’t have to tell it eight times. But basically, if I open my eyes, I can’t focus on anything.”
“Here.” She ties something around my eyes, which feels like a bandage. “Now you won’t be tempted to open your eyes, since there’s no view anyways.”
“Thanks.”
“Uh, why is there a bandage on her face?” Keefe says, walking in.
“I’ll explain in a minute when everyone’s here. Who are we still waiting for?”
“Just Bangs Boi, Linh, Fitzy, and Dex. I’m surprised he’s-”
“I’M HERE!” Dex shouts, running into the room. “I got stuck behind a bunch of really slow prodigies.”
“It’s fine. And before you ask, I’m ok adjacent, and I’ll explain why I’m here when Fitz, Tam, and Linh get here.”
“Well, looks like you can start.” Linh says. I assume she’s smiling. She’s always smiling.
“Me and Tam are here too.” Fitz says. “You probably can’t see us too well with that bandage over your eyes.”
“Ok, so my eyes started doing this weird thing where my vision got all blurry, then it got like sharper than normal, and then blurry again, and it kept doing that, and I sort of freaked out and ran out of my class and knocked myself out by running into a pole.” Everyone just sits there in stunned silence for a minute.
“So you have to keep your eyes closed because you can’t deal with everything blurring in and out?” Keefe says.
“Yeah. It’s super weird, and kinda makes me dizzy. So I’m keeping my eyes closed until I can get an ability reset.”
“But, didn’t Elwin say you aren’t cleared for that for like another few days?” Sophie asks.
“He did, but since I’m obviously getting worse, I’m going to try to get Magnate Leto to do it tonight.”
“Good luck with that.” Stina says. Elwin comes back into the room.
“Magnate Leto’s coming here after the chimes sound to talk to you.”
“How long will that be?” I ask.
“About 10 minutes. And he’ll probably want everyone else to leave. Just a heads up.”
“Come on. We were literally there fighting to keep the Neverseen distracted when she was kidnapped, but we can’t help try and convince him to let her be able to see again?” Marella asks.
“I mean technically he never said that, but just based on what he’s said in similar situations, that would be my guess. And you’re certainly welcome to try to convince him to let you stay.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Calm down. I’m just saying that he likes his privacy.”
“Whatever.” Ten minutes go my really fast. Stina, Fitz, and Biana all have to go home, so it’s a slightly smaller group when Magnate Leto comes in.
“I assume if I try to get you all to leave, you’ll just fight me on it?” He asks.
“Yes. Yes we would.” Marella says. He sighs.
“Very well. Just try not to interrupt.”
“I make no promises. It all really depends on what you try to say.”
“Fine. You want to get the ability reset tonight?”
“I do. My head is so screwed up right now, I can’t open m eyes without feeling sick. I can’t live like this.” Dex grabs my hand and gently squeezes it.
“Elwin wasn’t going to clear for another few days.”
“Well, that was in the hope that I could recover partially on my own, but that isn’t happening, Every day I’m getting worse. It’s not like I could go to school or do anything else.”
“You do understand how risky-”
“I know it’s risky, but it’s the only thing that might work. If it doesn’t…”
“Yes, I know. But we really shouldn’t rush something like this.”
“Livvy should already have everything ready. It was supposed to be Saturday.”
“She is ready to do it, but-”
“But what? If she’s ready, and I can’t live without this, why are we waiting?” He sighs, and is quiet for a moment.
“Fine. We’ll do it tonight. Here. I’ll hail Livvy.”
“Thank you.” He leaves and everyone starts celebrating. It’s not often we can get Magnate Leto to change his mind on something.
“Everything will be better by tomorrow.” Dex says, squeezing my hand again.
“Yeah. It’ll all be over soon.”