Chapter Ten: Justice

All he could smell was blood, and he was going to throw up.

The problem was that it was a difficult to communicate that, and he'd be damned if he was going to throw up and have anybody know about it. The pain was blistering, his spine felt hammered out of molten iron, all his bones white hot and his flesh melting off of them like candle wax. He was floating, being carried actually, through an open doorway and into the dark. They stretched him out on a bed, divested of its top covers, and he felt his arms being straightened out and an annoying pricking pain in his elbow joint that faded as suddenly as it appeared.

He heard someone, calling out for boiling water and cloth; the snip of bloodsoaked fabric being cut away, the metallic shuck of the drapes being snapped open to provide more light.

"The first bullet went right through." He didn't recognize the voice. It dipped in and out, and he couldn't see. When he opened his eyes, it was like looking through dirty glass, everything mottled and indistinct, like the reflection of a face in water. Every breath was screaming torture, and all he could do was choke on the misery that welled up in his throat and begged him to cry out.

"This one, though." He felt a prod on his side, near the bottom of his ribs, and he sucked in a sharp breath at the spike of pain, which only made it worse. "That one's still in there. We'll need forceps."

A steaming cloth was pressed against the gaping hole in his chest, just above his heart, pressing hard to contain the pulse of bright blood that tumbled freely like unrolling ribbons down his chest and he felt a pained hiss bubble up out of him at that more than he actually heard it. The heat of the cloth made him realize how cold the room was; how cold he was when only minutes ago he could barely think past the searing hellfire in his veins. Seemed weird.

"Can't you heal the wounds, Master Hartia?" That young voice sounded distinctly stressed. He couldn't see who was speaking, but the pitch of the voice was familiar. Komikron? Why would Komikron call Hartia a master of anything? No, no. Besides, this kid sounded much too nice, and Komikron was an arrogant, bossy little fuck that was always trying to outdo him. Wasn't he?

"I hope to…" The sound of tearing fabric. The scuffle of shoes on the floor around him. "But we don't want to close them around a bullet, Majic; and the spell won't take without—God—they have to get this bleeding to slow…"

The voices were garbling up; shrinking and reverberating like they were walking far down a long tunnel as they spoke, and the longer he lay, he dizzier he became, the more he felt like vomiting, and the more he couldn't remember how he'd gotten in this mess in the first place.

He thought maybe it'd had something to do with a girl, but that didn't seem right. Since when would he go get himself shot for some woman? He had more sense than that. He'd be willing to admit he didn't always think things out properly first, but he certainly wasn't that big a goddamn fool. Unless it was Azalea, he guessed. And he was pretty sure it wasn't.

Then what was it he was so troubled about? Why did he feel so panicked to get out of here? Where was here? And why was it so cold?

Krylancelo couldn't remember what it was, and as a cold metal point dug cruelly into the wound in his side to pry out the bullet (Bullet, was it a bullet? Had he been shot? Who would shoot him?), he slipped soundlessly under the black surface of unconsciousness.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Honestly, Majic couldn't stand the sight of blood, much less the blood of someone close to him; someone who was the closest thing he'd ever had to a brother. Despite a bright disposition and an affinity for making friends, he had never been close to many people. He was an only child, his mother having been lost to a weakness of the heart when he was only a young boy, and somehow opening himself to anyone after her death had just left a bad taste. It seemed unwise. Dangerous, even. Like it was only a matter of time until they left him too. And it was times like these that reminded him just how true that really was.

He hated the sight of his Master's face so white and unresponsive, his blood so bright on the sheets and towels and bandages and floor that it almost hurt his eyes. Healing his injuries had presented its own set of challenges, and by the time Hartia's mending spell had finally succeeded in closing the wounds, Orphen had nearly bled to death and Majic had almost passed out. Even hours later, Hartia, reclining in a worn olive green armchair by the fire, was still exhausted and magically spent; yet had not seemed to drop off for one moment of sleep, something which Majic only knew due to his equal inability to rest.

They both sat silently by the fire, listening to the rustle and crack of the burning wood; exchanging words every once in awhile, taking turns to check on Orphen, still passed out cold after the morphine injection the Doctor had administered before the impromptu surgery. The whole scene had made Majic whoozy and nauseous, through he hadn't taken his eyes away out of some strange superstitious self-righteous paranoia that told him his Master would die if he didn't somehow make sure everything went well. Not like he could do anything even if it didn't.

And so, while Orphen slept, Majic buried himself in a rune text, trying to concentrate and only finding himself reading the same lines over and over by accident, and eventually closing the book in defeat and grinding his palms into his eyes to clear away the images of the entire day that had started with one shock and ended with another. Of course, his thoughts throughout the evening had irrevocably turned to Cleo as well; inexplicably taken by Leticia by order of the Kimurak Church, which was strange and disturbing and utterly beyond his comprehension. The raw, grieving sound of her scream for Orphen had resonated deeply with him, even more so because of what he'd seen transpiring between them such a short time before. He couldn't help but think of it: of what they could want with her; of what they might do to her; of how afraid she must be. Orphen's usual resolute confidence in a ring of battle had been noticeably shaken to the ground with the addition of a dagger to Cleo's throat, and had Majic not accidentally seen what he had the night before, he may not have thought as much of that perceptible stumble. Likewise, when he'd taken a desperate stab at fighting them, he'd been vicious with his magic, using far more energy than he usually would, even brandishing a weapon; he'd killed more than just a few, which was something that was still causing a stir out in the streets of Alenhaten. The authorities had already come and gone quietly, preferring to focus on the looming shadow of unrest that the Church's vulgar display of power had cast over the city, than the single victim of the violence.

Hartia crossed and uncrossed his legs restlessly, and Majic looked up to see him peering at the mantle clock. The hour had grown late, the rain slowed to an intermittent crawl, and Orphen had barely twitched a finger since before sunset. Still, his blood loss had been significant and magical healing of such injuries, as Hartia had explained in detail, was not an exact art. Supplementary means were often necessary to ensure the spell's effects took hold, and rest and medicine would still be required for the next day or so to ensure the wounds didn't reopen.

Unfortunately, if he knew his Master at all, when he came to, they'd likely have to tie him down to get him to rest.

And, almost as though he was reacting to those thoughts about him accumulating like smoke in the room, there was the rustle of shifting bedclothes from the dark edge of the room, followed by a choked grunt that brought Majic's eyes up to Hartia, who looked up over the edge of a dog-eared comic.

Raising his eyebrows, he gave a vague upward nod at the boy. "Your turn."

Majic set his closed text on the floor and stepped over it, rushing to the bedside to look down on his Master, lying inert and pale, his torso wound in white bandages, only the edges of violet bruises that ringed the gunshot wounds peeking out from under the scraps of cloth, livid even in the half-light of the dwindling fire. Though there seemed to be a grimace on his face, acknowledging the pain for the first time since he'd lost consciousness, he hadn't yet emerged from the morphine induced twilight.

It all made him extremely uncomfortable. He was just too still, too pale, and looking just a little too dead for the boy's comfort. Anxiously, he watched him for another moment before turning and returning to the fireside, where Hartia looked up as though for a progress report. Majic shrugged tiredly, slipping his hands into his pockets just to have somewhere to put them instead of wringing them together as he felt apt to do.

"He's not awake," he sighed, looking back over his shoulder with apprehension. "I wonder how long it will take for him to come out of it."

"It's not uncommon for someone to be out for hours after a trauma like that. He's doped to the gills." Hartia recrossed his legs and returned his attention back to the comic in his lap. "He probably needed the rest anyway."

The blond boy focused on the fire with a distant stare, finally returning to his seat. "He did."

"Oh?"

"Master hasn't been sleeping much, it seems. For the last few days I've noticed it."

The comic was laid down again, flat across his knees so that Majic could see a brightly colored, upside-down illustration of some sort of explosion lit up against a night sky with sound effects written in dramatic block letters that were too out of focus to read from his angle. "Did you ask him about it?"

"Of course not. I assumed he was sitting up thinking about what was happening in Meverlenst…"

Hartia gave a noncommittal shrug, leaning back into the armchair and stretching his arms over his head. "You're probably right about that. Though he left the tavern before I did last night; he had to have caught up a bit."

Majic shifted uncomfortably. "I guess."

"Though I know I've had trouble not focusing on it all. Since I haven't been able to return to the Tower, I've felt something has been awry. And the debacle today just confirms that."

"That the Tower attacked the city?"

Hartia's face took on a look of uncharacteristic furor that looked misplaced on his good natured features. "Of course not! That the Church is behind this!"

"But the Bishop has been given all authority in place of the Parliament, that's what Leticia said…"

"Gah, Leticia, don't remind me." He dropped backward in the chair again, scowling. "The Church is behind this, they're a revolting lot of power hungry opportunists, and they're lunatics to boot. Whatever they're up to, they're trying to pin it on the Tower. I wouldn't be even all that shocked if we found out it they were the ones that orchestrated the attack on Meverlenst."

Hartia paused meaningfully before his expression grew grave." I don't know what they could want with Cleo, but I tell you, it can't be anything good. I'm genuinely worried about her safety."

The boy's green eyes turned over to the dark corner where Orphen lay indisposed. "Me too. When Master wakes up, he's going to be furious."

"Krylancelo? I thought they didn't get along."

Ugh. Majic didn't want to go down this path of conversation, mostly because he was a horrible at hiding things and was even worse at lying, but also because he was worried sick about her as well, and talking about it made it worse. If Orphen was like a surrogate brother, certainly Cleo had a place in his heart as the older sister he'd never had; bossy and unreasonable as she could be. Talking about it just made him think of all the things that could be happening to her. He averted his gaze back to the fire, just trying to find something to look at.

"They don't," he said. Which was true. Mostly.

Hartia looked at him a moment. "Well. Krylancelo's peculiar approach to personal relationships never did quite make sense to me. Not like it's any of my business, but I guessed that he must not despise her as much as he lets on, since he's let her tag along with him for what…like two years?"

Majic could already feel his face burning. He hoped the low light could veil it. "Something like that."

"Is there something going on with them?" He said this with an almost scandalized tone, as though he'd have never thought of it in a million years; as though the possibility hadn't been about the most obvious thing in the world.

Majic almost choked. The truth was that he was dying to talk about it with somebody; but somehow it didn't seem right to do so. Not right now anyway. Maybe he was just afraid his Master would wake up just in time to hear him admit to what he'd seen.

"I think it'd probably be obvious if there was," he said evasively, hands now fists in his pockets, leaning back as far into the spine of the armchair as he could, trying to look relaxed. "I can't imagine."

He hadn't said no. It wasn't really a lie.

Now it was Hartia who cast his eyes over to the dark, silent bed, as though checking for any movement. "I guess so," he said. "Though I suppose I also understand how he'd be upset at her having been taken like that. He is sort of responsible for her safety."

Ah, a light at the end of the tunnel. Majic nodded. "Master takes that sort of thing very seriously."

Hartia scowled suddenly. "Sure. He also has a terrible tendency to blame himself for every single unfortunate thing that happens around him, whether he could have done anything or not. If something happens to her…"

The boy frowned, fire shadows flickering on his face. "I know…Master Hartia…do you have any idea at all what they could want with Cleo? Of all people, why…why her?"

"Well, to be honest, I really can't tell you. Nothing obvious comes to mind in the least. Daughters of Parliament Lords would be one thing, I guess, but to seek out Cleo just for coming from a noble line…"

"Cleo's father was a Lord of Upper Parliament before he died."

"Indeed, Margrave Everlasting. I remember his assassination. Poisoned, I think he was; or at least that was the rumor. That was about, what, four years ago though. I can't see why bloodline has any import over political ties. If her father was still alive, I'd expect it was a leverage ploy, some kind of blackmail, that kind of thing. But there's no leverage there. I don't mean this in a mean way, but there are no major players that are affected by Cleo being held captive; and the Church already has Parliament in their pocket besides…" Hartia gave an irritated shrug. "I don't know. I guess I'm just thinking aloud. I just don't know what to think."

Majic leaned his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together. "The Kimurak Church…you really think it's some kind of setup?"

"Absolutely. I don't claim to understand what's happening and what they're doing, or why for that matter, but there are some things I do know about the Tower and its place in this world, much as Krylancelo would like to believe that I'm utterly brainwashed and deluded, and the Tower would never have so blindly attacked a city like that for political reasons. No regard was paid for human life. Parliament Lords and mothers, children, noble wives, beggars…they all paid the same price for living in that city. And whether I'm believed or not is of no consequence. I know it."

He turned his face to the fire, abandoning his worn magazine across the arm of his chair. "I know in my soul that as questionable as the Tower's actions have been in the past, this is not their work. Call me biased if you like, Majic, but I told you this morning, the Church capitalizes on fear and submission, and I don't trust them. The more I heard they were in charge of occupying the Tower, that all emergency authority has been vested in the frigging Church in this crisis…the more it just cements it for me. It's a power play. It's deep corruption in the fucking system. Oh! Sorry!" Hartia's hand came up against his mouth at his unexpected curse with a shocked expression, the anger draining from his face in a blink.

Majic made no mention of Hartia's supposedly objective view of the Church that morning. The boy smiled, waving a hand as though to clear the air. "Used to it."

"Of course. I guess that's right…Krylancelo certainly has acquired a colorful vocabulary these last few years." He sighed; seemingly keen on changing the subject to something that incited a little less rage for the time being.

"I can't imagine him any other way," the boy laughed softly.

"That's funny, I'm still getting used to it a little. He used to be so quiet. Although he's definitely calmed down since—"

Another groan sounded from the dark edge of the room, followed by a sharp intake of breath.

Their eyes turned toward the dark again, and Hartia gave a relieved wink. "Well, you know what they say about speaking of the devil…" he said, rising from his chair and making his way to the bedside.

If Majic had disliked the pale countenance of his Master earlier in the night, he found he liked the look of him even less after he'd awoken. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, depthless and black like patent leather, his brow pinched, his pallid skin dewy with sweat that glittered in the flamelit dimness of the inn room. His gaze sank over to them as they came into his field of view, a feverish, feral flash in his eyes that reminded Majic of a wild animal caught in one of those claw traps his father used to use in the garden behind the tavern. Bagup Lin had caught more than his fair share of vegetable patch prowlers, all snared painfully and gory in snapping steel teeth. Oftentimes they were still lurching and struggling in the snare when they found them in the morning, all of them with that same glossed, black, frenetic glitter in their eyes that Orphen had now.

He blinked in slow motion up at them. "It's cold…" he rasped, his voice just a burned out husk of its normal pitch.

Hartia soundlessly reached down and laid the back of his hand on his forehead, and Orphen jerked away from it.

"What the fuck!?" he snapped, turning his head to the side, listlessly bringing up a hand as though to shield himself from any further invasion. Obviously, he was a little jumpy.

Majic stood by, wringing his hands together and Hartia turned away, leaning close to the boy and speaking in a low tone. "He's running a pretty high fever. It's fairly normal after using sorcery to heal wounds of that severity. Think of it like the body fighting off an infection, working overtime to mend tissues, that kind of thing. I'm going to go down to the kitchen and get a basin of cold water." He rose his eyebrows a bit, laying a hand on his shoulder. "You talk to him a bit, ok? Keep him awake if you can."

With that, Hartia was out the door, leaving the boy to interact with that wild animal look that somehow made him feel more uncomfortable than he really wanted to admit. He really didn't know why. He supposed it was just that Orphen didn't seem quite himself in an unnatural, delirious way, which was unnerving no matter how he looked at it.

"M…Master?"

His head turned towards the sound of his voice, his eyes snapping to him almost as though he hadn't seen him standing there. "Uh?"

Geez, what was he supposed to say? "Huh-how are you feeling?"

He felt it was a valid question, though obviously stupid. How did it look like he felt? Like doing a cartwheel? Sheez, at this rate he'd have him angry in minutes.

Orphen seemed to stare through him for a long moment before he replied. "Like shit."

He nodded his blonde head, "Sorry…"

Those feverish eyes seemed to be scanning the room behind him warily, giving Majic a paranoid compulsion to look behind him. Before he could ask, he spoke again.

"Where is she, Majic?"

He swallowed the reflex impulse to ask 'who' to stall for time. He wasn't sure it was best to discuss this now. He'd hoped to avoid upsetting him in this state when already he felt a tad ill at ease. Honestly, he'd hoped Orphen remembered that Cleo had been taken despite his efforts, so that he didn't have to be the one to tell him she was gone. Too late now, he guessed.

"She…I don't know. I don't know where they took her, Master." That seemed like a passive enough statement.

His eyes burned up at him for a moment before suddenly dropping closed, his head tilting back on the pillow. "Son of a bitch," he wheezed.

"I'm sorry, Master." Maybe it hadn't been passive enough after all.

"Don't apologize, it's not your goddamn fault, it's mine."

"No, no, really it's not." Majic fluttered his hands around. "There were so many of them and they…"

"She shouldn't have been here in the first place. She should have stayed behind."

"That's not fair. Cleo's always done exactly what suited her and no one can tell her differently. Even if you asked her…told her not to, she would have come along anyway…"

"I didn't tell her," he spat. "That's not the point. It's my fault she even wants to come along, isn't it?"

Well, that was rather honest. Majic couldn't help but be just the slightest bit intrigued with that loose lipped statement. "I suppose that's true, Master. But there's nothing you could have done about that…"

Orphen let out a peculiar, quick exhale that was eerily close to a laugh, but didn't reply right away, instead seeming to wince against the pain he hadn't mentioned but no doubt was beginning to feel. The laugh must have brought his attention to it.

"Does it hurt? Can I get you some medicine?" Majic was already reaching for the bottles on the side table, but Orphen waved a hand.

"No, it's good. I deserve it," he said through grit teeth, eyes still closed, a drop of sweat trailing down his damp temple, his dark hair wet with it.

Rather than argue, he opted to change focus. "Master Hartia is coming with cold water to bring down your fever."

"Hartia is not going to fucking sponge bathe me to wellness."

"I don't assume he would…but at least…"

His eyes opened again. "Leticia… I forgot. She said the Church had occupied the Tower. She had to have taken her there, to Taflem…"

"Master, she also said that you had better keep as far away from the Tower as you could."

"The fuck. Like I'm supposed to just obey her like a fucking dog. Traitor bitch, she's just a mouthpiece of the Church anyway. She warned them about me. Running around outside their barrier, not sealed up like the rest of the Tower, and they want me to stay the fuck out of it." He raised his eyebrows, barely sounding like himself, despite the language. "And you know, I would have—Komikron was wrong about her…"

At the abrupt tangent, the blond boy's brow furrowed. "Who's—"

The door opened again, and Hartia returned with a porcelain basin under his arm. "Still awake?" he called.

"Ah—yes..."

"Hope I didn't miss anything too important," he said with a genial smirk at Majic, setting the bowl on the table, submerging a washcloth and wringing it lightly.

Orphen had turned his head away obstinately, and lurched when Hartia unceremoniously dropped the cold compress right on his face. With a snarl, he reached up and flung it off.

"Complain all you like, Krylancelo, if you don't get that fever down I'll have to bring the doctor to do it for you. I needn't remind you how immensely you'd enjoy that."

The sorcerer shot the other a wilting glare, before snatching up the cold cloth and slapping it to the back of his neck, weakly attempting to sit up and wincing under the weight of the pain.

"You've been left a rather impressive array of medication, if you're interested."

"No," he growled, sinking back to his pillow, exhaling hard once he settled down. Hartia draped another icy towel across his forehead, and he grunted.

"No medicine?" Hartia shrugged. "I suppose you always were a glutton for punishment."

"Did I get any of them? The monks?"

"Oh several. Just not all of them, as you would have preferred, I'm afraid."

Majic knotted his fingers together and sat on the bench at the end of the bed, listening to the rustle of the fire, crackle of the pine logs, the occasional hiss of tree leaves outside shaking in the wind, the sound of strained respiration . It was several minutes before any of them spoke.

"We have to go back." Orphen muttered, almost as though he'd meant only to think it.

"Go back?"

He opened his glassy, fever-shine eyes and stared at his apprentice. "Back to Totokanta."

"I thought you wanted to follow them to Taflem, Master. It'll take days to backtrack that far."

Hartia stood, having finished adding wood to the stove, dusting his hands on his robe. "We could 'port there," he said, coming back to the bedside and pulling up one of the wooden chairs from the table. "In fact, now that I'm thinking straight, we could have done that yesterday to get here. Why did you have me walking through that rain all day?"

"Because." Orphen snapped, pulling the cloth from his neck and flipping it over to the cooler side before replacing it. "We were in the company of two people who are not able to teleport themselves."

"Just not willing to teleport with Cleo, weren't you? I could have taken her with me."

Orphen sat up so quickly and with such a livid expression that Majic almost threw himself between them, grateful in a strange way when his Master cringed and sucked in a pained breath; apparently having forgotten such a movement was bound to be excruciating. But he wouldn't soon forget exactly what that reaction told him. As though he didn't already know.

"Keep doing that and you'll be bleeding again in no time. Do you want those wounds to reopen?" Hartia scolded, apparently clueless that he'd just narrowly been spared.

"Fuck," he ground out. It was Orphen's expletive of choice. He used it for everything. This time it barely seemed to suffice, as perhaps Majic had just become so accustomed to hearing it that it had lost some of its initial impact. He remembered when he'd first met him he'd been sufficiently shocked at his occasional choice of language.

Majic picked up a compress from where it had fallen when he'd bolted upright; the damp cloth was as hot as if it had been steeped in warm tea, so he brought it back to the basin and submerged it. Behind him, Hartia was forcing Orphen to drink water and telling him they weren't going anywhere until the healing spell had completely taken, which meant at least late morning; about a day after he'd been wounded.

"I don't expect we have that sort of time," his Master spat, in a little more venomous a tone than he may have normally used with his friend.

"Be that as it may, you won't have any time if you don't lay back and not push yourself. Why won't you take one of these sedatives?"

"All emergency power vested in the Church. The Kimurak Goddamn Church. There's something intensely fucking rotten going on."

"You're not listening to me, are you?"

Orphen turned a contemptuous scowl at Hartia. "Fuck the medicine. The Tower being occupied by the Church? All executive power delegated to the Bishop? And they're detaining nobility with use of deadly force?" He wheezed that last part, bringing a hand up against the bandages on his chest. "Why?"

Majic handed the refreshed compress to Hartia, who wove it around a bit by its edges to cool it further by fanning it through the air before folding it and dropping it on his friend's head. "I'm as baffled as you, though I agree the inclusion of the Church in such a capacity has me extremely nervous. I suppose you'll retract your earlier statement about suspecting the Tower?"

"After today…how couldn't I? What's Leticia…that bitch, how could she? Komikron was wrong about her, you know, Hartia. Don't you remember how…blindly he defended her against Azalea?" He was speaking a little slower. A little softer.

"Yes," Hartia said quietly, almost with a placating tone. "By bringing up that she wished she hadn't been born with sorcery in her bloodline, though, it only made Azalea more pissed off at her. Strange how things turn out."

"Hunh." Orphen grunted. His eyes had dropped closed. "Yeah. Tish working as Tower Inquisitor. Azalea raising a child. And you and I…here…and Komi…" His voice sank in volume until it dropped away completely.

Silent minutes passed. The wind blew.

"…dead." Hartia finished the sentence for him.

"Mmm." Orphen agreed, half asleep, obviously fading fast now. His head was tilted to the side.

"Krylancelo, why do you want to go back to Totokanta?" He said this quietly and smoothly, almost like an incantation.

It look the recumbent figure in bed a moment to answer, and when he did, his voice was soft; speaking out of a dream. "I have to talk to Cleo's mother."

If Hartia was surprised, he didn't show it. "About what?"

"I want to know if they came looking for her there first, or if they knew to come straight to me."

"What will that accomplish?" Smooth. Water sliding over rocks.

"And I want her to know I tried to save her…" His voice was almost a whisper. "And I'm sorry…"

Hartia waited a moment before prodding him. "Krylancelo…?"

Now he didn't respond at all.

Majic approached hesitantly, a spike of panic making his heart gallop. "…Master Hartia, is he alright?"

Hartia just seemed to be looking at the floor, his brows furrowed in thought. "I put laudanum in his water. "

"Ah…oh." So he'd drugged him. He figured it only made sense. He wouldn't have taken anything otherwise. "So he'd answer your questions without getting angry?"

"Uh? No…it's just…you know him. We'd practically have to bind him just to get him to rest until morning. He could barely even stay lying down. And the pain was only going to get worse. It's just best."

"So if they knew to come straight here to find Cleo, did you tell them where to find us?"

"Nuh….no! God! You're starting to sound like him!" He pointed at the bed. "Why would I do that?!"

"You sort of sounded like you were trying to get information out of him."

In brighter light, one may have said that Hartia blushed. "Ah. Well. Not really. I was more curious to see what he might say about Cleo. You know. What we talked about earlier. But that's not why I gave him the sedative!"

With wide eyes, Majic jammed his hands in his pockets again. "Oh—that." Now it was Majic's turn to flush a bit. He couldn't even say what he was thinking. He wasn't even sure how to say it.

"Maybe. I don't know. I just had a feeling that… I just never thought I'd see the day Krylancelo went and got himself shot up trying to save someone. Someone that wasn't Azalea, I mean. Especially Cleo, of all people, who he can't seem to get along with for twenty consecutive minutes even when forced."

"Oh, so what you said about teleporting Cleo…"

Now Hartia smiled. "That was kind of interesting, wasn't it?"

The boy almost laughed, though as he considered it, his smile faded as he watched him sleep, bandaged and bruised. There was undisputable evidence in his mind that there certainly had been something going on between them, after all, he'd seen it with his own eyes. Surreal as it had seemed, he could only take what he'd seen and follow that to the most logical and obvious conclusion. He wasn't sure if the word lovers would be appropriate to describe their relationship, though that had been the word that immediately came to mind. Funny though, if he did use that description, he certainly wouldn't have been the first to liken their mercurial behavior to a pair of quarrelling paramours. One minute they bordered on flirting, the next they wanted to kill each other.

Well. Majic wasn't stupid. He'd been travelling with them a long time. One thing he'd learned in the last few years was that the old adage was true: actions really did speak louder than words in certain cases. The look someone gave another while they weren't watching could say more about how they felt for that person than if they were simply asked. His Master and Cleo were a walking, breathing example. No matter what either of them said, they didn't hate each other.

Well. It wasn't for him to say. None of his business, really. But one way or the other, lovers or not, Orphen's inability to prevent Cleo's capture on such a hopeless scale…well, it had to bother him. It had to hurt.

He hadn't been kidding when he'd told Hartia that Orphen took certain responsibilities very seriously; and his and Cleo's safety was one of those. With his penchant for blaming himself deeply for his personal failures, though often they were completely beyond his control, this would be the sort of pain the laudanum couldn't touch, pain he couldn't hide from. Not even in his sleep.

He thought about what he'd said about not taking any medication. That the pain was good. That he deserved it.

But he didn't. Cleo would hate that he was in pain. Cleo would be sitting by that bedside if she could, knotting her hands and biting her lip, looking for all the world like she just wanted to do something to help him but couldn't think of a thing. Cleo wouldn't blame him.

Majic just wished he could tell him that.