The first thought that crossed Bagsy's mind when her eyes opened was whether she'd dreamt her second year at Hogwarts and had only just escaped from the blood eyed beast through the endless staircase after Mezrielda had used the thorned gauntlet to save her.
Looking around, Bagsy knew she hadn't been dreaming. Her legs were held at an upwards tilt by white bandages attached to hovering metal poles above her bed. She remembered the beast biting down on her calves and feet and winced in terror at the thought.
She allowed herself a few moments of open weeping. She usually hated how much she cried, but she felt pretty justified in that moment. As her vision blurred from her tears, she had a suffocating feeling she was inside a small, dark, red space, and didn't know how to shake the sensation away. She could barely comprehend what had happened. The events clustered around in her mind, unordered and messy. Bagsy wasn't sure what had happened first, and what had happened last, but she felt like her skin was covered in a thick, red substance, and fought the urge to scrub at her arms.
Nurse Jones must have noticed she'd awoken, as he rushed out of the room, his feet as quick as a drum roll, and re-appeared with Professor Fitsimmons a few moments later. Bagsy wiped her eyes and sniffed, trying her best to rid herself of the lump in her throat. It took her a few more minutes but, eventually, she managed to keep herself quiet.
Fitzsimmons summoned a stool next to Bagsy's bed and sat down, placing two wands, one walnut and one hornbeam, on the bedside table. 'These were recovered,' they said. 'I believe they are yours.'
Bagsy sat silently. She looked at her walnut wand that for the briefest of moments she'd been able to cast spells with, and then at her bandaged legs. Spots of red poked through to the top of the dressings.
'Mezrielda and Tod are safe,' Fitzsimmons informed Bagsy gently, 'as is Horba, the elf, who insists that he owes you his life.' Bagsy nodded numbly, looking at her legs. 'You were very brave, Bagsy,' Fitzsimmons said carefully, 'and it was my failings again that caused you the sufferings you have experienced.'
'No,' Bagsy murmured, not looking at them, her voice suddenly rushing. 'I was stupid. It was my fault.'
'That's not-'
'I remember now. The worms. They said that the beast can't kill anyone else until she's killed me.' Bagsy didn't need to hold back her tears then, there were none; she felt empty. 'When I went to the beast I put everyone in danger. If it had killed me it could have killed everyone. Horba doesn't owe me anything. No one does.'
Fitzsimmons frowned. 'The worms?'
'Yes,' Bagsy said, still looking at her feet. 'The worms were trying to warn me, but I didn't listen. I was lied to. I was stupid.' She narrowed her eyes hatefully. 'Cora's right. The beast made a mistake. It shouldn't have marked me – it won't gain anything by consuming me.'
'You know about the mark, then,' was all Fitzsimmons said.
Bagsy nodded. 'Why didn't you tell me?'
Fitzsimmons looked down, inspecting their shoes, before returning their large eyes to Bagsy. 'I thought it would upset you. Marking is one of the more horrid sides of magic. The necklace I gave you kept you safe, or so I thought. I decided there was no need to alarm you.' They stood up, walking to the end of the bed where Bagsy saw the quilt her sister had made for her was folded neatly. 'If you'd rather know the truth, then I shall tell you the truth. I've spent this year trying to kill the beast.' Bagsy finally looked at Fitzsimmons, noticing all the scars and injuries they'd gained. 'When yourself and Mezrielda used the gauntlet last year, it made a weak point between the beast's world and ours. The professors and I have been keeping an eye on the beast, ensuring it wouldn't escape. When my strength would return from the previous attempt, I would enter its world again to try and vanquish it. Unfortunately, this proved nearly impossible. Even with the help of other, highly competent, professors the beast could not be slain. It simply sat in one corner of the other Hogwarts, hunched over something I now realise must have been Horba, ignoring our attacks and, on occasion, hitting back at us with its clawed arms.' They paused. 'Are you aware of the power Professor Starrett holds at her fingertips?'
Bagsy shrugged stiffly. 'I remember someone mentioning something about it.'
Fitzsimmons shook their head ruefully. 'Starrett is perhaps the strongest witch I know, and she could barely scratch the monster. Her spells simply rebounded off its hide.' There was a long silence. 'When Horba, the elf, apparated you out of that world and into this one, the weakness between that world and this one grew even weaker. It was enough for the beast to break through. A beast so powerful I, Professor Starrett, and Professor Blythurst couldn't defeat. And yet, Bagsyllia, you managed to defend yourself, and your friends, from that fiend. All without casting a single spell.'
Bagsy blinked at Fitzsimmons.
'You are a truly remarkable child, Bagsyllia.'
Such a compliment would have made Bagsy feel dizzy before. Now, she just stared blankly ahead. 'Cora – Mistress Foncée,' Bagsy corrected herself, 'she was working with the beast.'
Fitzsimmons nodded solemnly. 'Yes. We discovered her body in the underlake yesterday, amongst a horde of worms.'
'She was the one who stole the items,' Bagsy rushed out, feeling finding its way into her body after what felt like ages. 'It wasn't Mezrielda, please don't expel her, professor, she'll be taken from her parents and-'
Fitzsimmons held up their hand. 'I have realised she didn't steal the items. Mistress Foncée's magic revealed itself when we inspected her body. The wings were quite the give-away. It seems her minions, corvids, have a liking for taking trinkets here and there.'
Bagsy nodded, settling back down into the bed, the numbness finding her again.
'Bagsyllia, you have been through something truly horrifying,' Fitzsimmons stated, sitting back down on their stool. 'I cannot imagine how you are feeling, and let me assure you, there is no right wayto feel after an event like you've experienced. Some people feel very strongly after a shock, some feel very little, some find themselves in-between the two. Wherever you find yourself on that spectrum, Bagsyllia, you have every right to it. Remember that.'
Feeling a little better, Bagsy nodded.
'When you are ready, you have many visitors.' Fitzsimmons turned to leave. They hesitated, glancing back at her. 'Bagsyllia, I've decided you need not take any exams this year.'
Bagsy nodded quietly, looking back at her legs again. The announcement only served to remind her of how magically inept she was, even if she had managed one spell in a moment of desperation during the few moments she'd been able to call on the power of the corvid family. She'd been given a free pass for her exams last year, and now she'd avoid them again this year. She was beginning to wonder if she really deserved to be at Hogwarts at all. Other students didn't get the leniency she did. It didn't seem fair.
Fitzsimmons must have left as the next time Bagsy looked up she was alone in the large infirmary again. Her heart almost instantly sped up, her eyes darting about. She'd thought she'd been safe this year. Fitzsimmons had given her a necklace to block the mental powers of the beast and had been trying to slay the monster. None of the protective measures had worked. The only thing that calmed her was the fact the beast was gone.
Just as she was forcing her breathing to slow down, and accepting that she was alone in the room, there was a pop, and a small man appeared at the end of her bed. Bagsy looked at him with wide, frightened eyes, her heart instantly picking up again.
'It's okay, miss, it's okay,' the small man assured her, glancing around with his large, orb eyes.
'You're Horba,' Bagsy realised. Horba, the elf, nodded. 'You went missing.'
'Yes, I did, miss,' Horba nodded again, wringing his hands together. 'That thing took me, miss, that thing which I can only call the blood eyed beast.' Bagsy kept nodding, not sure what to say. 'You saved me, miss, you did. Thank you. Horba owes you greatly, he does.'
'Honestly, you don't,' Bagsy tried to insist, but Horba wouldn't hear it. Not only was she remaining at Hogwarts despite her lack of magic, it seemed she was now also being praised for heroics she hadn't performed. Bagsy's fear was only matched by her annoyance with herself.
'No, miss did save me! I couldn't use my magic, or vanish and appear, while it was holding me. Something in that creature blocked my magic, miss! But when miss told it to let go, I could do so again! But, I must be off now, miss,' Horba rushed on. 'Lots of cleaning to do, yes, now that I is back. Lots of cleaning. No one else can clean quite like Horba, miss, no one.' Horba clicked his fingers and disappeared with a small pop. Bagsy stared at where he'd been, wide eyed and confused.
When the bandages were pulled from Bagsy's legs later that day she saw Stitchless Stitches ointment had been slathered on them and a soft, new layer of skin was merging with the scars below. It was like someone had drawn thin lines around the lower parts of either of her legs. Bagsy wasn't keen on how it looked, but Nurse Jones assured her the scars would fade from the ointment and time, though he did mutter to himself that her skin seemed greyer than it should be. Bagsy agreed with him for a moment, but it must have been a trick of the light, as the grey hue slowly faded.
With the aid of crutches charmed to do the work for her, she slowly made her way to the hall, her stomach rumbling. She hadn't wanted any visitors and realised with a worried pang that whoever wanted to see her may rush her all at once during lunch. With her mind still swimming in panic from a confused tide of events she was struggling to make sense off, she didn't fancy dealing with a crowd of people asking her questions.
She paused, not sure she wanted to head to the hall after all.
Mezrielda walked around the corner, holding a tray of food large enough to feed two people, and Bagsy felt the confusing waves recede into the calming flow of an ocean shore.
'You're up!' Mezrielda exclaimed, marching over. 'I thought you might want to have your food somewhere quiet.'
'Yes, I really would,' Bagsy trailed off happily.
'The courtyard is deserted right now,' Mezrielda said, leading the way.
With two casts of teporiem and the use of a bench below a low hanging tree they avoided the wind and cold and enjoyed themselves a peaceful lunch. Mezrielda wasn't very talkative, which Bagsy appreciated. She didn't feel much like talking, either.
When she'd finished her food and was looking wordlessly at the fountain, the waters within her mind began to stir once more, the horror of what she'd experienced coiling below the surface.
Bagsy found she desperately needed to say what happened, and the words bubbled out of her like an overboiling pan. 'It was Cora's trap,' Bagsy said. 'She was the one stealing the items. She wanted to lead you to the beast. It was her crows who'd been eating the worms, and she forced me to take the corvid trials.' The sentences were short and stilted as Bagsy tried to form them. Mezrielda listened patiently as she outlined everything that had happened, never interrupting. Bagsy explained the trials she'd been through, and all that she'd seen. 'She wanted me dead…' she finished, her voice cutting off as her breaths turned into the small gasps of sobs. She put her face in her hands, taking a moment to try and regulate her breathing. The words began to tumble out once more. 'There were these worms and they had a voice and the beast had you and there was an elf and he apparated us out of the other Hogwarts to the real one but the beast followed us and it was charging and we were all going to die – you were going to die – and I had to… I had too…' Bagsy struggled to explain what had happened when the beast had been charging at them, her hands falling from her face and landing softly in her lap, palms facing upwards.
'It's alright,' Mezrielda said gently. 'Tod has already told me that part.'
Bagsy nodded, finding it very hard to swallow. They sat together in silence for a few minutes more, watching the greenery of the courtyard ruffle gently in the wind, and listening to the trickle of the water in the fountain.
'You were brave,' Mezrielda said at last.
'No.' Bagsy shook her head. 'I wasn't brave. I just didn't have a choice.'
'I'm a little perplexed, I won't lie,' Mezrielda confided suddenly. Bagsy shot her a questioning look. 'The book of the beast,' Mezrielda explained. 'It told us the corvid trials were initiated by going through a shadow, a doorway of darkness, but from your description, Cora shot a feather at you and only then did you enter the corvid trials…'
Bagsy looked into the distance, equally confused. 'The feather quickly multiplied around me until it was like a shadow had swamped the world,' she offered.
As if Bagsy hadn't spoken at all, Mezrielda slapped her forehead with her palm and groaned. 'We are so stupid,' she muttered. 'I'd expect this from you, Bagsy, but I can't believe I fell for it, too.'
'Hey!' Bagsy said in offense, not realising that her friend's theorising, and mild insult, had temporarily broken her from the thoughts of everything that had happened.
Mezrielda reached into her bag and dragged out the Book of the Beast, turning to the chapter on the corvid trials. She flipped to the next chapter, and then back. 'As I thought. The chapter on the corvid trials must have been planted by Cora when she asked to look at the book. This chapter is younger than the others, see? The writing style is slightly different, also. Cora was setting a trap. This entire section is one large, obvious lie that I foolishly believed.'
'Why would she trick us into thinking this?' Bagsy wondered aloud. 'Surely it would have been easier to force us into the shadows like the suits of armour did in first term?'
Mezrielda hummed her agreement. 'True. It is most peculiar-'
'Wait!' Bagsy cut across as a thought occurred to her. 'I heard a voice earlier this year. I didn't understand it at the time. It was coming from a store cupboard or something. From the clanking noises I guessed it was talking to the suits of armour – the suits of armour that Cora herself had been asked to remove from the castle! It must have been Cora talking to them through one of her crows or something.'
'How does that explain anything?' Mezrielda asked.
'Because,' Bagsy continued, 'I heard her say that the suits of armour had been foolish and shouldn't have attacked me, because you can only go through the shadows willingly. She said you couldn't be forced to enter them. She was angry that the suits of armour might have tipped someone off to her plan, I expect.'
Mezrielda's eyes widened. 'I see. Cora was simply setting as many traps as she could in the hopes one of them would work. She tried to lure us in with the promise of more power from the corvid trials, and when that was taking too long for her liking, she made me chose between expulsion or the shadows, and you between my dea-' Mezrielda trailed off awkwardly. 'Between something unpleasant or going through the shadows,' she finished in a quiet voice.
A terrified silence stretched out between them.
'You saved me. Thank you,' Mezrielda murmured after a while.
Bagsy looked at her, then found herself smiling. 'I was just returning the favour. You saved me last year, remember?'
'So, we're even now?'
'Yup.' Bagsy beamed, eating her sandwich. Mezrielda smirked, then gave a single chuckle that turned into a cough, and a small black feather shot out of her mouth, floating to the ground. 'Okay,' Bagsy said firmly. 'You have to tell me what that's really about Mezrielda. And don't give me that 'it's just a cough' nonsense. It's not just a cough. People don't just cough feathers.'
'Some people do.'
'Mezrielda.' Bagsy fixed her with a harsh look. 'I saved your life,' she added, teasingly.
Mezrielda pursed her lips. She looked like she had just before she'd told Bagsy about her search for the thorned gauntlet during their first year. She cast a cautious look around them. 'Last year I tried to become an Animagus,' she explained. 'It… didn't go as planned. I ended up with lungs that occasionally produce feathers.'
'Woah,' Bagsy breathed. Mezrielda nodded. 'You mean… you failed at something?'
'Shut up!' Mezrielda hissed, shoving her shoulder lightly. Bagsy was feeling better by the second. 'If what you've told me is true,' Mezrielda said suddenly, 'then you cast a spell Bagsy. You bound the wood and the metal and the magical energy into a broom down in the underlake. If that isn't a spell, then I don't know what is.'
'Yeah,' Bagsy agreed, 'but I don't think it was really me.' She couldn't hide the sourness in her voice.
'What do you mean?'
'Once I beat the corvid trials it was as if… something beyond my own magic was within me. An extra power, a special reserve of skill I hadn't had before. It was that that allowed me to cast the spell. When… when Cora was…' She swallowed, not finding herself able to say it, instead thinking on how Cora had encouraged her with her quidditch training or been a comforting presence throughout the year. All those memories were now rotten. 'After what happened to Cora happened, I felt that power leave. It's not there anymore – if I tried to cast the spell again, I just know it wouldn't work.'
'I'm sorry,' Mezrielda breathed quietly. 'That must be frustrating.'
Bagsy let out a rueful laugh. 'Yeah.' Her laugh faded, and a weight seemed to lock itself onto her heart. Her lip trembled, and she clenched her hands. 'Yeah,' she said again, her voice thick. She'd been trying to cast spells for so long, and for the briefest of moments she'd been able to. She knew that power was gone now though.
'I'm confused by the trials,' Mezrielda said, dragging Bagsy out of her thoughts. 'I'd like to understand it better. Let us discuss it.'
Bagsy sniffed, trying to push the memory of casting a spell from her mind. 'What is this, a board meeting?' she tried to joke, but it felt weak.
Mezrielda lip quirked momentarily upwards all the same, and it was enough to help lift Bagsy's spirits. 'From the sounds of it, the corvid trials were easier than we'd anticipated. Why? What purpose does jumping a ravine, defeating a large bird with copies of yourself, and fetching a key from a tube do-?' Mezrielda's voice cut off. 'Ah, I see,' she murmured, instead.
'What?'
Mezrielda flicked back through the book of the beast, to the chapter Cora had planted on the Corvid Trials. 'It says the greater the number of followers, the greater the power of the Corvid Queen. Of course. The trials were never meant to be impossibly difficult, they were simply testing if someone can think like a corvid. Working in groups, flying over ravines, solving the tube puzzle. It was seeing if you could think like a bird.'
Bagsy sulked. 'I like to think I'm a bit smarter than a bird.'
'Oh yes. At least a little bit smarter,' Mezrielda agreed, the hint of taunting in her voice. 'The trials are easy to pass because Mistress Foncée, the Corvid Queen, wants as many followers as possible. Followers may gain power by joining the corvid family but it seems the Queen herself takes the lion's share of the power.'
'Then,' Bagsy murmured, frowning as she kept the feeling of a dark, red enclosed space far from her thoughts, 'if it's so easy to pass why did Cora bother forcing me into the trials?'
Mezrielda closed the book. 'My best guess is to stall. You were about to escape, so she did what she could to keep you there. I imagine she planned to deal with the worms before you made it through the trials but found herself overpowered. Her corvids can't get to the underlake, after all. Unless she really did underestimate you and thought you incapable of surviving them.' Mezrielda's face turned serious. 'Tod said…' She trailed off, clasping her hands together. 'Tod said that, after you killed the beast it… it spontaneously combusted.'
'What-what?' Bagsy asked in confusion.
'It means it caught fire for seemingly no reason. Professor Fitzsimmons pulled you out with a spell and Professor Starrett made sure you were okay. Blythurst gave you a sleeping potion, apparently. But the beast? Tod says it burnt to ash, and the ash was washed away into the lake.'
Bagsy suppressed a shiver. 'So, it must be gone, then.'
'It must be,' Mezrielda agreed. 'I don't see how it could survive choking on its own blood, catching fire and turning to ash.'
Bagsy tried hard not to think about blood. She held back a gag, gripping the bench she was sitting on tightly. 'It's over, then. The beast is gone. For good.'
'Exactly,' Mezrielda confirmed. She almost sounded as if she were trying to comfort her.
Bagsy let out a shaky breath. 'Good.'
She told Ford that she wasn't going to compete in the last match of the term. Ford almost got angry with her but Greenda, who'd been standing at his side, looked ready to bite his head off so Ford had relented and let her retire for the year.
Bagsy found Greenda's company indispensable in the last week of term. Greenda may have been swamped with work, but she told Bagsy, to her surprise, that some things were more important. She found herself sitting with Greenda as she revised, listening with interest as Greenda explained all the things she'd learnt that year. It was good to be distracted by her – she never seemed to run out of things to tell her and Bagsy wanted nothing more than to listen. When she was listening, she found it easier to ignore everything that had happened.
Mezrielda was where Bagsy felt the best, though. She teased Bagsy as she always did and knew when to be quiet or noisy. It wasn't difficult to pretend nothing had happened when she was with her.
When Hufflepuff lost their final match against Gryffindor, neither Bagsy nor Mezrielda were surprised. Hufflepuff might have placed last this year, but that seemed only to spur Ford on in his quest for first place.
Bagsy and Mezrielda were walking back from watching the game when Bagsy heard a voice in her head. Instinctually, she grabbed Mezrielda's arm, holding it tightly in fear.
'Bagsy, what's wrong?' Mezrielda asked. Bagsy breath ran away from her like a rogue train, her body feeling like it had been doused in ice. She was convinced any second horrid purple eyes would appear in front of her. 'Everything is alright,' Mezrielda consoled her. Bagsy loosened her grip on Mezrielda as her panic began to subside, and looked down, where the voice had come from. A worm was wriggling on the ground at her feet. Mezrielda followed where she was looking.
'Hello,' Bagsy said to the worm.
'Hello,' the worm said back.
Mezrielda's eyebrows shot up. 'Are you talking to that worm?'
Bagsy crouched down next to the worm. Half of her was petrified. The other was so numb with being suddenly forced to think about what had happened that she felt as if she was moving on auto-pilot.
The worm seemed to be looking at her, though it had no eyes. 'I thought I'd give you some space before talking to you,' it said. Bagsy nodded slowly, utterly lost. 'I wanted to see if you had any questions for me. I feel you deserve answers.'
Mezrielda settled on the ground next to Bagsy, seemingly not hearing what the worm was saying.
Bagsy thought on what to ask it. In truth, she didn't want to talk about what had happened at all, but she knew she'd be foolish to ignore helpful information when it was presented to her. 'Who are you? And how did you know about Cora and the beast?'
'This is difficult to answer,' the worm said honestly. 'Cora was one of the beast's apostles. A follower, of sorts. She gained much of her power, as all the apostles did, from the beast herself.'
'How do you know?'
'I was also an apostle,' the worm said guiltily. 'Or, in a way, some version of me was. It's complicated.'
'Oh,' Bagsy said. 'Why weren't you helping the beast, then?'
'I sensed the beast once more last year. The boundary… it was weakened, somehow. The beast reached out to her apostles in seek of aid. Cora answered. The rest of us… well, we all responded differently.'
'You decided to help me,' Bagsy reminded the worm. As terrible as the events had been, she knew she wouldn't have survived if it weren't for the help of the worms.
'Yes, I did,' the worm agreed. 'The beast… frightens me. I do not want her back.'
'Why didn't you just talk to me, then?'
'That necklace,' the worm spat, sounding bitter. 'It has some kind of power. I couldn't speak to you while you wore it. I tried, believe me, but it seemed spelling words was the only way. When Cora broke the necklace, I sensed its destruction, and came to find you in danger.'
'Why can you talk to me?' Bagsy asked, glancing at Mezrielda, who didn't seem to be hearing a word the worm was saying.
'I'm not entirely sure. You're marked by the beast and my powers were born of the beast. Perhaps the powers are linked.'
Bagsy nodded. Mezrielda was looking at her silently. Bagsy let out a breath. 'Thank you for your help.' As much as she knew she should pester the worm for more answers, she was starting to feel sick as she involuntarily recalled brief flashes of what had happened. Violet scars in the darkness, giant worms cleaved in half, and small, enclosed spaces of fire and blood.
'It's the least I can do,' the worm offered in return. 'Now, I feel I must leave you in peace to enjoy what remains of the school year.' With that, the worm burrowed out of sight. It had been a brief, and efficient, conversation, and Bagsy felt a bit like she had whiplash.
She looked at Mezrielda, opening her mouth to explain.
Mezrielda cut her off. 'Obviously, you can talk to the worms.'
Bagsy nodded. 'That about sums it up, yes.'
Explaining what she'd learnt from the worm was hard. Her voice kept cutting itself off, and she kept checking over her shoulder, only remaining calm by reminding herself the beast, and Cora, were dead.
By the time the end-of-year feast rolled around, Bagsy found the rhythm of Hogwarts was helping her ignore thinking about her ordeal. She'd been focusing on her inventions – replacing her lost spell-sponge gloves, updating the brooms, improving the mag-net bat and balls – and trying her best not to think about small, dark enclosed spaces that smelt of blood and charred flesh.
When Fitzsimmons announced that Ravenclaw had won the house cup the Ravenclaw table filled with cheers. Winifred received quite a few items from other Ravenclaws that, no doubt, she'd won in bets. Bagsy forced a smile and clapped for them. She wasn't sad Hufflepuff had lost, she'd expected as much, it was just difficult to enjoy the simpler aspects of school when her mind felt weighed down with thoughts she was shoving into a box at the back. As she glanced at the students around her she felt a sting of bitterness. Not a single one of them had needed to miss exams to make it to their next year of education. They could all cast spells. Bagsy added imagining how it had felt to cast a spell to the list of emotions she was not allowed to acknowledge.
Instead, as the clapping around her became a pestering noise that threatened to steal her balance, Bagsy looked towards the Slytherin table, her eyes searching for familiar sleek black hair. Mezrielda was scowling at the Ravenclaws. Clearly, she minded that Ravenclaw had won. Bagsy couldn't help the pang of sadness knowing she couldn't sit next to Mezrielda during feasts, given they were in different houses. She knew she'd be enjoying herself more if her friend were next to her. But, at least, by looking at her friend being a sore-loser as she folded her arms and turned her head indignantly to the side, she felt a small laugh and fuzz of amusement soften her self-pity.
Once the food was gone Fitzsimmons held their hands out for quiet. 'I must make an important announcement. Earlier this year, in this very hall, there was quite the bit of drama. Mezrielda Glint was accused of stealing a number of personal effects during this term. This was announced earlier but I wanted to speak now to add that, after the commencement of an official investigation, it has been confirmed beyond doubt that Mistress Foncée was the thief and had deliberately planted evidence to incriminate Miss Glint. As such, I urge all of you to make Miss Glint feel as at home in our Hogwarts family as you can. I can imagine this has been quite an ordeal for her.'
Mezrielda had seemed quite pleased after that, shooting a plethora of 'I-told-you-so's at anyone who so much as glanced her way. Seeing her friend vindicated sent a much-needed happy warmth down Bagsy's back.
When it was time to return home, Bagsy was dawdling in the dormitory, repacking things. She'd been very successful at keeping her anxious feelings locked away, and the remainder of term had been reassuringly uneventful.
Now that she was about to return home, her anxieties were banging on the door of the cupboard she'd banished them to. Unable to ignore them, Bagsy gave in and pulled down the side of the shirt she was wearing to look at the scar on her left shoulder in the mirror. Three deep indents ran across her arm just below her shoulder. Despite being a year old, they remained sore to the touch.
'That still looks nasty,' Teresa commented, from across the room. 'What kind of creature did that to you anyway?' Teresa was taking longer to pack given how many animals she had to prep for the journey. She was carefully locking up her cages or securing black pieces of fabric over terrariums. Since Fitzsimmons' announcement at the feast Teresa had forgiven Mezrielda and, in turn, Bagsy, for what had happened to her worm farm.
'It doesn't matter what did it,' Bagsy said quietly, pulling her shirt back up. 'It's dead.'
Teresa had been half-way through tying her flaming hair into a high ponytail, but she paused, frowned, and let the hair fall to the sides of her face. 'No, Bagsy,' she said. 'It can't be dead. Remember? A mark disappears if either the marked or the marker dies. So long as you still have that scar, whatever gave it to you is still out there.' Bagsy looked at Teresa silently, her voice lost. Teresa seemed to sense there was something more serious going on in Bagsy's mind. 'Unless,' Teresa offered, 'the thing that marked you works differently from other markers. Who knows, the magical world is pretty odd.'
'Yeah,' Bagsy nodded, pulling her luggage towards the door. She needed to get out of the room as quickly as possible. She didn't know where it was she needed to go, but her heart was thudding in her chest and demanding she move very quickly and find a place to hide. 'Who knows,' she breathed to herself, wondering if she'd ever be able to sleep soundly again.
