A week passes.
At the end of the first week, I hear voices coming from the dining room in the middle of the day. I walk into the dining room, and see my father sitting at the table, across from a stranger wearing a grey mage cloak. The stranger's voice is hoarse, and very serious. A large wooden suitcase rests beside his chair.
Despite the man's cloaked appearance, I can sense no magic coming from him. I cannot even sense from him the faint mana pool of earth that all non-mage humans are supposed to have. But after he casts an ice spell and then describes a healing spell, he convinces me that he is, in fact, a mage of Water, and my inability to sense his magic is a symptom of my unexplained illness.
Ironhand tells me that he has come to my house because my father had told him about my strange illness, in spite of his obligation to treat the wounded battlemages returning from the front.
I tell him my mana pool has been completely drained since last week, when my time in Maplefall began. I had attempted to use magic several times while awake, by tapping into the fundamental vital energy that keeps me alive, but each time I tried to, my magic would transform grotesquely into spiteful voidfire, retaliating against me, lacerating my hands with more glowing silver cuts whose pain seemed to burn beyond my perception of my body.
Ironhand scribbles loudly with a flint pen into his notebook to record my story, then asks to take a look at my wounds.
When he takes off my bandages and sees the wounds on my hands, his eyes widen in shock. To the extent of his knowledge, the wounds are impossible. They could only be caused by the catastrophic failure of the mana pool of an Arch-Mage, he claims. And it is impossible for such wounds to appear on the hands because the hands are the locus of agency.
He then asks my father to speak with him in private. I secretly listen to them speak in my parent's bedroom from behind the door. I suspect from their conversation that Ironhand plans to report my injury to the military. He suspects my master did something illegal, but is vague about the details of his alleged crime. At the first sign of motion, I sprint back to my chair in the dining room.
I try very hard not to show my nervousness as my father shows Ironhand the door. I hope my lie about my master being Arch-Mage Waystream will eventually lead to a dead end.
"Glory to Cantor," my father says with meager hope, as he neatly seals and locks the foyer door.
The next week passes slowly. When I am not spending time outside, I help my mother to take care of Rose and maintain the house. Sometimes, an occasional military shipment passes through town, carried in hog-driven carts. My mother and other residents of Maplefall approach these shipments wielding weapons and armor. They stop the carts and inspect the supplies. It seems that, even though my parents have not been drafted in the war, they are both deeply embedded into the war effort.
This dream is different from the others. I am floating in an endless, grey expanse with nothing else around me. I hear no sounds, detect no movement, and feel nothing, with the exception of an unbearable, overwhelming guilt. Then, I feel something sifting through my mind, resurfacing memories of the previous day, and slowly working its way further into my past, one day at a time, flitting through my memories like a pair of fingers flipping through pages of a book. I try to wake myself up, but every attempted thought feels like it is dragged back to where it came from, like a memory being forgotten.
I am floating upright in nothingness, paralyzed and hopeless, as the presence continues to probe my mind.
Even though the experience is terrifying... I am excited. I am ready to return to my master. I am eager for him to cure my strange void illness so I can use magic again. And I am ready to finally accept the void as my own.
The presence seems to linger on these thoughts, as if acknowledging them.
Finally, the presence fades away, and my mind darkens, as if the dream world itself is requiring me to sleep within it.
I feel my thoughts returning. The sun shines brightly on the backs of my eyelids. My body feels cold and bare; the blanket must have fallen off of me when I was asleep. I open my eyes and see Rose to my left, her feet on my pillow and her hands tugging my blanket. I sigh deeply. Why she migrated from my parents' bedroom is an unpleasant mystery to me.
I sit up in my bed, slide over the covers, and lean my weight upon my feet. I walk out the door of my bedroom and into the dining room, where a candle at the center of the table eternally flickers. My mother enters the room.
"Oh, Iris," my mother says with relief. "I am glad to see that you're finally awake. Good morning."
"Good morning," I reciprocate. I can tell my mother has something on her mind.
"There's still some left-over spiced bread left, if you'd like some... Can we talk?"
"Sure."
I sit down. My mother sits beside me.
"Your father didn't come back last night," my mom says. "I don't know what happened to him."
A horrible feeling of dread pools in my stomach.
"Perhaps I sensed that something like this was going to happen," my mother continues. "I had a terrible nightmare last night. I was barely awake in my bed. You were in the room, aiming a bow at Rose. Perhaps that was the dream's way of expressing that I was about to lose someone close to me," my mother rationalizes. She looks at me with a mix of happiness and sadness. "With the front approaching closer, we won't be able to stay here much longer. It is possible we may have to leave him behind."
"Mommy?" I hear Rose's voice squeak in a rising tone.
I feel a flash of anger.
My mother laughs. "Oh, Rose, I'm not your mommy. I am Violet." My mother pinches me accusingly. She smiles at Rose. "Did you sleep well?"
"I rested okay," Rose says.
"Okay, why don't you help make the bed and I'll make something to eat?"
Rose complies and runs across the dining hall into my parent's bedroom. Of course she would make my parent's bed instead, after leaving my blankets in such a mess.
My mother frowns toward me. "Get a hold of yourself," she whispers. "You are not the only person in this house."
I nod agreeably but secretly resent my mother's words. At least my master is in Maplefall now. I hope he will take me back soon.
My mother lifts a pan of stuffed dough from the counter and slides it into the furnace. She lights the coals and shuffles them, before closing the furnace door.
As I eat some slightly stale yet still sweet spiced bread, I quickly smell the delightful meal cooking in the furnace. The smell is almost too perfect, as all WOC-sanctioned cooking recipes are. After living with Kenneth for so long, I became accustomed to his imperfect and improvised cooking. He tried to avoid using WOC-sanctioned crafting when possible. He taught me the WOC's restrictions are a way of controlling people. By going beyond the crafting norms that everyone else followed, he strengthened his willpower and his mind.
Sarah did not care about whether a recipe was sanctioned. That was why her food tasted better. Perhaps she knows the divine force she serves is far more powerful than the WOC.
When breakfast is ready, Rose eagerly joins the table. My mother cuts into the meat-stuffed bread and sets it on our plates.
I take a bite. It is not too hot and not too cold. And it is nourishing.
I hope my father is still alive.