Disclaimer: It ain't mine, people.

So sorry, guys, I know this took ages! I can honestly say-for once-that I've been dying to write and truly haven't had the time. This one is a little shorter than normal, but it seemed like a good place to stop. Thanks for not completely abandoning me (yet:)! Of course, you're completely justified if you do.

Anyway, here she is, my lovelies. :)

"He's blind."

The silence that followed the nurse's statement was long and profound. I could hear every tick of the clock on the wall behind my head. Finally I whispered—a whisper was all I could manage— "But it's only temporary, right? I mean, you can fix it."

"After that kind of blow to the head?" My guilty stomach squirmed. "I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. He's only lucky he didn't lose his memory as well."

"Did he…remember what happened?" I asked cautiously.

"Well…" She scrunched up her face in confusion. "It's all very strange. He says he was pushed, but that there was no one nearby when it happened. It's almost like…"

"Almost like what?" I said quickly. My mouth was paper-dry.

"Well," she hedged, "I certainly hope there are no witches on campus, but who can say for sure? I won't be surprised if there's some sort of investigation after this. And you know, I've heard stories…" She glanced discreetly from side to side and beckoned me closer. "I've heard stories of a witch in the village, a really nasty old woman. No one can prove it, of course, but I say she's out there, lurking. Word has it she's taken an apprentice, though nobody can seem to say who."

"Is that so?" I said faintly.

"Yes, and what's more—"

"Hilda!"

The nurse jumped a little. "Oh, that's me they're asking for. I'd better run." She gently peeled my fingers from their death grip on her arm—though I couldn't remember putting them there—and patted my hand before disappearing back inside. Dazed, I stumbled backwards until the backs of my knees hit wood and buckled, and I collapsed onto a small bench.

It had been three days since the accident. Perhaps because I wanted so badly to forget, I could only vaguely remember rushing down the steep bank into the water and watching it run red. I had almost no memory of getting Fiyero to the school hospital, though I knew it had involved a levitation spell. The last few days had all run together in a blur of worry and pacing and mind-numbing guilt. Had it been someone else's fault, I wouldn't have lost a moment's sleep. But the fault wasn't someone else's—it was mine.

There had been a bit of an uproar when the school had found out that its most popular student was unconscious in the hospital wing. The first day, people came in droves—gaggles of crying girls and groups of secretly overjoyed boys. By the second day, nearly everyone seemed to be over it.

A conversation I'd overheard that morning explained why:

"Well, I don't want him with that ugly gash on his head," one girl whispered to the circle of friends that huddled around her. "It'll scar for sure."

"And I heard that he's blind!" said another.

"Imagine trying to sleep with a man who can't see what he's doing…"

"Ew!" the girls squealed in unison. Shuddering, they began drift in the other direction, but not before I heard one say dismissively, "No matter. I always thought his friend Avaric was better-looking anyway." The rest dissolved into giggles, and Fiyero was forgotten.

It seemed that, like it or not, Fiyero was going to get what he'd told me he wanted—he wouldn't have many friends left once all this was over.

One person, however, out of the entire student body had surprised me with her loyalty—Galinda. Twice I'd run into her in the hospital; the first time I hid before she saw me and the second I lied and said I worked there. She visited dutifully, lacy embroidered handkerchief in hand, and when she came home every night she was quiet and subdued; I had to concede that perhaps the ice queen had a heart after all.

Perhaps—but only a small one.

At any rate, I had bigger problems than Galinda Upland. It was Friday. That night I would have to face Yackle. I would have to explain to her that I no longer wanted anything to do with magic.

….If I decided to go.

A strange sort of mental itch nagged at me all that day. I lay wide awake in my own bed at midnight, growing more distressed by the second and ready to give my right arm to know what was the matter with me. I knew full well that I was breaking my promise to Yackle by not showing up, and that doing so was bound to make me antsy, but this was something different. My skin crawled, my legs twitched, and it was all I could do to keep from leaping out of bed and bolting outside in my nightgown. Yackle lived south of the university—in the same direction as my only window, which was beginning to take on a frosty kind of glow. An invisible force dragged me out of my bed towards the glass, like a magnet, and as I pressed my hands against it, something happened. One moment I was gazing out onto the dying lawn, resisting the urge to jump straight out the window and go to my mentor, and the next I felt my resolve begin to slip. A thick haze clouded my thoughts…and then, in the blink of an eye, I found myself standing dazed on Yackle's doorstep. And then my arm shot out of its own accord to grasp the doorknob. And then my legs were carrying me inside.

She was waiting. And she he did not look pleased.