Gauche slammed another stack of books down on the table in front of him with a loud thump, knocking the glass of water he'd been drinking onto the floor.

"… ay?"

He jumped and looked over at Gordon, startled. He'd totally forgotten the other man was there. The other day, after finding out that Asta might never use his arms again, the entire squad had made the decision to make sure the rambunctious runt got them back. After all he did in the Underwater Temple, where he'd damaged them so badly, even Gauche had to admit that Asta deserved all the help they could give him. Besides, his darling Marie would be sorely disappointed if the bastard couldn't swing her around like an ape anymore.

Gritting his teeth, Gauche ignored Gordon and dropped to pick up the glass he'd knocked over before sitting down at the desk with a frustrated sigh. Even thinking the name Marie had been setting his teeth on edge and after two days of having to deal with that, he was starting to lose his mind.

Mariela still hadn't been back to the hideout to pick up her things—not that Gauche had been watching out for her or anything. Which was technically true; he'd been spending all his time with Gordon in the capitol library looking for anything that could possibly help break the curse on Asta's arms. That also meant that Gauche hadn't had the time to go visit her—or even see if she was still bedridden. He knew that she recovered quickly, but he also had never seen her so worn down. After all the healing she'd had to do on the beach, she hadn't even been able to stand, and she'd had more than one blood transfusion as her body mellowed itself out. Gauche's fists clenched involuntarily as he remembered the conversation they'd had while she'd gotten the last one, right before he'd left Mariela to go back to the hideout.

"If I learn how to control this, I won't have this sort of problem anymore, probably." She'd said it with a weak smile, her face still pale but no longer looking just shy of death. Gauche hadn't even been able to look her in the eyes, had instead stared at the hands she'd clasped together in her blanketed lap.

"You can't just accept this curse."

"Gauche." When he'd finally met her eyes, Mariela was no longer smiling. Softly, she'd said, "There may not even be a cure for my curse—who knows? I can't worry about it anymore. I'm tired. If I can be more useful like this, then this is how I'm going to stay."

"But—"

"If I can accept it," she'd firmly cut him off, "then you can, too."

That was the problem, though. He couldn't accept it. The more Gauche thought about Mariela never being free of the curse that had caused her so much misery, in fact, the more frustrated he felt.

"… che?"

Gauche jumped again, nearly falling out of his chair. Looking up wildly, he met Gordon's dark, concerned eyes. The other man was watching him intently, and it made the hair on the back of Gauche's neck rise involuntarily. "What?" he snapped. Gordon didn't even flinch at the rude tone.

"… are… is… ela?"

"What?" Gauche snapped again, ready to throttle his squadmate. "I can't understand you Gordon, dammit, speak up!"

Gordon opened his mouth but closed it before saying anything. After a brief hesitation, he opened his mouth and tried again.

"You've seemed sad," it was barely above a whisper, but Gauche could finally make out the words if he focused enough. "Are you okay? Is this something to do with Mariela?"

"What do you know about her?" Gauche narrowed his eyes on Gordon, suddenly suspicious. For the first time, the mage's eyes widened in response to the sudden hostility.

"We're just best friends," he whispered, holding his gloved hands up in front of himself. "I know she's your girlfriend."

Feeling his face get hot, Gauche hissed, "She's not my girlfriend."

"Really?" Gordon asked, lowering his hands with a confused look on his face. "I'm sorry, I thought she was."

"My angel sister Marie just likes her," Gauche mumbled, looking down at the dusty tome opened in front of him. It was a book old enough that he had to be careful turning the pages, which hadn't been much of a problem thus far as he'd barely touched it. His last round of gathering books, in fact, had been mostly because if he sat still for too long he was sure he'd lose his mind. Without looking back up, Gauche added, "You still haven't answered my question. What do you mean you two are friends?"

"She's my best friend," Gordon repeated, making Gauche's hackles rise once again. When he looked up at his squadmate, however, Gordon still looked confused. Fishing in his pocket, the curse mage pulled out a little wooden doll. "She made this for me, and we've been best friends ever since."

Gauche narrowed his eye on the doll, trying to figure out what about it seemed so familiar. "Let me see that." The second Gordon put the little thing in Gauche's hand, he knew exactly why it looked so familiar. Turning it over and over in his palm as he stared at it fixatedly, he asked, "She made this for you?"

"Yes. It's amazing, isn't it?"

It was a little wooden bull, twisted out of thin, flexible vines—exactly the same way that the doll Marie had was made. "How does she make these?" he asked himself idly out loud, still turning the little figurine this way and that.

"Her magic."

"Her magic?" Gauche asked, finally looking up and holding the wooden bull out to Gordon. "What does that mean?" The vines looked a little like the vines he'd seen her make… if they hadn't immediately produced the flowers she'd used to transfer her own life force to her little brother. Those vines had been alive and had looked like they could devour someone—or maybe he just felt that way because he'd basically seen them devour her. Somehow, he couldn't imagine that magic creating something so small and delicate.

"Yes, I watched her do it." Gordon smiled down at the little bull warmly before slipping it back into a coat pocket. "She molds the little vines together by hand with her magic. It's really very pretty to watch."

Out of nowhere, fury hit Gauche like a punch to the gut. He grit his teeth and closed his eye to take a deep breath and let it out in a huff, and when he reopened it, Gordon was still staring at him curiously. "What?" he asked defensively.

"You seem upset. You can tell me what's wrong, Gauche, you're my best friend."

"What?" Gauche leaned back in his seat in surprise, caught totally off guard. "I thought you said that Mariela was your best friend? You know what, I don't care. I'm not upset." Gauche paused, before mumbling, "I just. Want to help her."

"Why does she need help?" Gauche raised an eyebrow at the tone in Gordon's voice—he sounded like he was truly concerned, his pale white brow line creased in concern. After searching the other Black Bull's face for a moment, Gauche finally let out a frustrated sigh. He hadn't had anyone to talk to about any of the things that had happened between himself and Mariela—what harm could it do to talk to the one person who no one could understand, anyway?

"She… she's cursed," Gauche mumbled, staring at the book in front of him and not seeing a single word. It wasn't like she'd told him to keep it a secret or anything, but it still felt… wrong to be talking about her without her present like this. Even if he also undeniably felt relieved to finally be able to say any of this out loud. When Gordon didn't respond, Gauche continued, "And because she doesn't think there's a cure, she's just going to stay like that."

"She doesn't even want to look for a cure?"

"Well," Gauche added grudgingly, "She thinks that she can use the curse to enhance her magic. So, between that and the effort it would take to find a cure that might not exist, she's given up on trying to find one at all. So, she's just going to live like that. For the rest of her life. However long that might be, because living with curse magic so thoroughly integrated into a body can't be good for it, especially when it starts at a wound that's still raw and bloody even after the year she's had it." By the end of his mini tirade, Gauche felt almost winded, his chest just barely heaving as he tried to get his breathing back under control. Gordon was staring at him with wide eyes.

"Does she know what kind of curse it is?" he finally asked after a long pause. "Has she seen a curse mage about it?"

"No," Gauche started, then stopped, staring at Gordon with wide eyes. A curse mage. She needed a curse mage. How had he not thought of it before? "You're a curse mage, aren't you, Gordon?"

"Well, my family—"

"I'm going to figure out how to cure her," Gauche interrupted, reaching out and grabbing Gordon's wrist. "And you're going to help me."

x

A knock on the door made Mariela jump, jarring her out of the book she'd been immersed in. Standing, she hurried to open the door to Owen's small medical library and was met with what appeared at first glance to be a floating stack of books.

"Need some help?" she asked with a laugh. She reached out and grabbed what she gauged to be about half the stack, revealing Owen's tired face. Mariela hurried to move out of the way so he could come in and put all the books down. When he straightened, the doctor gave an audible groan as he put his hands on the small of his back and stretched. Mariela moved back to the desk she'd been sitting at and poured Owen a cup of tea from the thermos she'd brought with her. She held it out to him with a sympathetic smile, and he took it with a grateful nod before sitting down heavily in one of the office chairs.

"Still working those long nights?" Mariela asked as the healer took a deep drink.

"Well," he said finally, putting the emptied cup down on the desk next to him, "on top of the damage that some of the Golden Dawn took while out fighting off the Diamond Kingdom's invasion, about half the Crimson Lions needed immediate treatment after the dungeon they looted." Owen shook his head. "I don't think they've recovered as a Magic Knight squad from the loss of their Captain."

Owen had closed his eyes to shake his head, so he didn't notice Mariela flinch ever so slightly at the mention of the Crimson Lions. Gathering herself quickly, she forced herself to ask as casually as possible, "Do you need some help with anything? You haven't been getting enough sleep or food."

Owen waved his hand dismissively. "I'm fine, this is all just a part of the job. Anyway," he tapped the top of one of the stacks of books and gave her a weary smile. "That wasn't what was keeping me up last night, anyhow. I went through my personal library and grabbed everything I had on ancient and forbidden magic."

Mariela's eyebrows shot up as she looked over the two stacks of books. "All of this came from your personal library?"

Owen chuckled a bit self-consciously. "Well, part of why Julius and I get along so well is that we're both very… passionate about what we do. It comes in handy, though." He nodded at the books to prove the point. "All of these books have something to say about the healing of forbidden magic."

Mariela could feel her heart starting to race as the weight of what he was saying finally started to settle in. Healing curse magic… "Do you think I might find something about the mage fire in any of these? Something that could help Marlin?"

Owen put a hand on her shoulder, as if to tamp down her expectations, and gave her a cautious smile. "There might be something in these that can help, but I don't want you to get your hopes too high. Okay?"

Mariela took a deep breath and nodded. Since she'd met him two days ago after her little adventure on the beach, Owen had proven himself to be more than worthy of the position that he held as the Wizard King's chief healer. It was intimidating; Mariela still couldn't really understand why he would want to train someone like her, whose power only came from a curse of all things. But he'd also proven to be extremely kind and very patient, and she was just grateful that she was able to keep up so far. The days had been long because Owen's days were long in general from what Mariela could tell, but she'd already learned so much just from shadowing him and pouring over the books he'd been giving her. And Owen had given her a lot of books so far—but none of them had been on curse work or forbidden magic. Her hand almost trembling, she reached out and grabbed a book off the top of the pile she'd put down on the desk. Before she could say anything, however, a loud banging on the door made both Mariela and Owen jump to their feet.

"Owen? Is the healing mage in there?" A loud voice called out, and Owen immediately relaxed. Mariela, however, could feel her hackles going further and further up as she watched Owen make the short walk to the door and open it to the very determined face of Leopold Vermillion, his hand still held up and poised for another loud knock. Dropping his hand immediately, he wasted no time with asking, "Sir, why has my brother been moved?"

Owen put his hand on Leo's shoulder and answered calmly, "Because we've been getting an influx of injured Magic Knights over the past few days, and I thought it would be better if he were taken to an area that were a little more secluded so he wouldn't be disturbed by the constant moving around."

Leo visibly relaxed, the stress crinkling his brow disappearing. Finally smiling, he nodded his gratitude. "Thank you. I trust your judgement, and my family appreciates how much time you spend monitoring him." Leo's eyes flicked briefly over Owen's shoulder and met Mariela's as he finally noticed her. "Who's this?"

"Oh, this is—"

"Owen, I'm so sorry," Mariela cut him off quickly, turning and hastily picking up one of the stacks of books that the healer had brought in. When she turned back, she gave him a forced smile. "I totally forgot that I was supposed to go grab the rest of my things from the Black Bulls hideout; they're expecting me in a bit, I totally lost track of time. Please excuse the rudeness."

And, with that, Mariela hastily slipped around Owen and Leo in the doorway and disappeared up the hall without letting anyone get in another word.

x

"Is she alright?" Leo asked, bewildered, staring at the back of the woman who had practically run out of the room just then. When he looked back at Owen, however, the doctor seemed just as confused.

"She's just got a lot on her mind right now, I think," Owen said finally with a shrug.

"Who is she?" Leo had gone back to looking up the hallway after her; the woman was long gone, but there was something about her that seemed so familiar, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"My new apprentice, Mariela. Very sweet girl. I'm sure you'll get a chance to meet her soon."

"Mariela…" Leo trailed off. The name didn't ring any bells—maybe he'd imagined whatever he'd thought he'd recognized in her. It wasn't like he had gotten more than a quick glance at her on her way out the door, anyway. With a small shrug to himself, Leo put the thought out of his mind completely.