"I just think—"
"Shut up, Gordon," Gauche snapped for what felt like the thousandth time, ignoring the sigh of resignation Gordon gave from across the library table. Ever since he'd told Mariela that they would find a way to wake Marlin up last week, he'd been tearing through the books they'd been collecting since starting their research. And, ever since they'd met back up at the library to start working together again after that lunch, Gordon had been trying to talk to Gauche about the same thing that he had been refusing to acknowledge.
"I just don't understand," he tried again, making Gauche grit his teeth in frustration.
"I miss not being able to understand you," Gauche grumbled, trying to focus on the text in front of him.
"I just think that we can look for a cure for him first, and then—"
"Out of curiosity," Gauche cut him off, finally losing his patience and slamming the book in front of him shut, "which do you think would be less of a wild goose chase: trying to wake a small boy who's been in a curse-induced coma for over a year now, or trying to fix someone's ability to channel mana?"
"Gauche—" Gordon started.
"That's what I thought," Gauche cut him off, blind grabbing another book from the pile on the desk and opening it. "It isn't like we're not going to find a way to help Marlin. We're just starting at the easiest place. Besides, whatever we find to help Mariela is bound to help him, too, so it isn't even like we're really lying to her."
"But she doesn't seem to want to get rid of her curse," Gordon pressed. "And we have no way of knowing that one curse is connected to the other without knowing what kind of mage fire the cultists were using. I know you care about her—"
"That's all irrelevant," Gauche snapped. "And we won't know until we find some answers. If you want to focus on Marlin, then you should do that. I'm not stopping."
Gordon opened his mouth like he wanted to argue but closed it again with another small sigh of resignation. "I'd need to see him to really know what I'm looking for," Gordon whispered, reopening the book he'd been reading to the page he'd stopped at. "And I don't know why you're so set on finding a way to break Mariela's curse, but I trust you as my best friend, Gauche. So, we'll find a way to break Mariela's curse together, just like our friends found a way to break Asta's in the Witches' Forest."
The team had come back from almost being decimated by a surprise attack from the Eye of the Midnight Sun on one side and the Daimond Kingdom on the other a day before, and they'd managed to not only survive but get Asta's arms back. 'Miracle' as a descriptor almost didn't seem to cut it, from what Gauche had heard of the battles. While they—and everyone else—had been taking the time to relax and recover now that Asta was out of immediate danger, Gauche had basically started living at the library and Gordon had, inexplicably, stayed by his side for the ride.
Over the past week, Gauche had managed to more or less convince himself that he was doing the right thing—he hadn't bothered to lie to himself about it, but it was easy to believe that he was going about things in the right order. The truth was that everything was as straight forward as it could get: Gauche cared more about Mariela than he did about her brother. And the longer she got used to the idea of never breaking her curse and learned to work around it, the less likely she was to ever break it if a way suddenly appeared… regardless of what that might mean for her in the long run.
"Just tell me one thing," Gauche had asked Gordon after the curse mage had asked for the first hundred times why he was so set on—Gordon had initially used the words 'obsessed with'—breaking Mariela's curse. "Is there any way that Mariela's curse isn't physically hurting her?"
Instantly uncomfortable, Gordon had answered quietly, "That isn't an answer I can give you."
"But?" Gauche had prompted.
"But," Gordon had responded reluctantly, "it's not… unlikely that there are other physical effects, seeing as the curse is already effecting her physically. But I'm not—"
"That's what I thought. If there was a way to fix Asta, there's a way to fix her, and I'm going to find it."
Mariela was having a bad day.
Which felt kind of unfair—if she was being honest with herself, she hadn't had a bad day since starting to train under Owen. Just a lot of long ones. Mariela had no idea how the doctor managed to keep up with his workload before he'd had an assistant—it was now making a little more sense as to why he'd been so eager to have her work and train under him—but they worked late nights and early mornings, and she'd spent every other moment she wasn't sleeping reading all the information on forbidden magic she could get her hands on.
So, she was tired. But, today, that wasn't the problem. No, today the problem was that she was finally reaching her limit on optimism.
When Gauche and Gordon approached her last week about finding a cure for Marlin, she'd been over the moon. It felt like whiplash, finally being able to help Marlin after so long praying and begging and hoping that she'd even have the chance one day. But after almost a week, the three of them had yet to find anything—and she was already through half of the books Owen had given her.
"Mariela?"
Owen's voice from behind her made Mariela jump, scattering the notes she'd been holding tightly in one hand all over the desk in front of herself. "Sorry," she said quickly, scrambling to grab the papers and move her chair over to give the mage some room at the desk they shared in the library.
"You're not getting enough sleep," he observed in a worried tone. Mariela smiled at him weakly.
"You never get enough sleep," she pointed out, but he just shook his head.
"This has been my life for years. I'm sorry that you came on board here at such a difficult time. I know that I haven't gotten a chance to help you with your research." The doctor sighed but looked over the top of his glasses at Mariela with a look that made her perk up. "I have some time right now, however, and it's looking like the rest of the afternoon is going to be light enough to move things around. What do you think about going and seeing Marlin so I can finally take a look at him?"
Mariela's face broke into a wide, eager smile and she nodded excitedly. "I would love that! It's been too long since I've seen him, it really has. I can go right now if you're ready!"
Owen gave her a kind smile and stood, putting his hand on her head briefly in a very fatherly manner. "I didn't think you would take much convincing. Come on, we can have Marx open a portal for us." Owen made a face. "I hate riding brooms."
Mariela was on her feet immediately, nodding again eagerly. "That would be amazing, thank you!"
"It's so nice to see you, dear," Sister Theresa smiled at Mariela and Owen warmly when she opened the door to the church. Behind her, the children chattered happily, and Marie found her way to the front to look up at Mariela with a huge smile.
"It's been too long," Mariela said as she knelt to give Marie a big hug. "How are you doing, sweetheart?"
"You didn't come with Big Brother the last time he came," Marie pouted as she pulled back, but Mariela just blinked at her in surprise.
"Your brother has been here since the last time I came with him to see you and Marlin?"
"I chased him away twice," Sister Theresa waved a hand and nodded to Owen in greeting. "Hello, Owen, it's been far too long. How has the capitol been treating you?"
"Oh, you know how it is," Owen laughed, "all just a part of the job. I've got to say, it's been a lot easier to handle the workload now that I have an assistant."
"You're working with Owen, Mariela?" Sister Theresa exclaimed, looking down at Mariela in surprise. She beamed back at the nun.
"He's been letting me shadow him while he works; I don't know how much it could really be called working with him, I'm sure that I give him all the trouble back that I could possibly be alleviating."
Owen tsked loudly, reaching down to pat Mariela on the head in mock disappointment. "She sells herself short."
"Yes, she certainly does," Sister Theresa agreed immediately. Mariela just shook her head and stood, bringing Marie with her and settling the little girl on her hip. The nun patted Mariela's cheek affectionately and winked. "But it's good to hear that you've been doing well, dear."
"How has Marlin been?" Mariela asked, reaching her limit on being able to wait to ask the question. As nice as it was to see Sister Theresa, and as guilty as she felt about interrupting Owen and the Sister's reunion, Mariela wanted to get to her brother's side. "Has he been doing okay? You've been receiving the money that I've been sending for the healer and anything else he may need, right?"
"Yes, we've been getting the money," Sister Theresa nodded, but the look on her face was troubled—and that made Mariela's stomach start to sink. "Marlin's been… doing fine."
"What aren't you telling me?" Mariela asked immediately, panic rising in the back of her throat and starting to choke her. Sister Theresa shook her head quickly, but averted her eyes.
"Mariela—"
"Sister, please, what's going on? Is my brother okay?" She rocked to her tiptoes to look over the nun's shoulder and try to see her brother, but couldn't see anything past his blanketed feet. "Is he not intaking the nutrients, anymore? If that's the problem, I can come out here to replace the healer, it isn't—"
"Mariela." Owen put a hand on her shoulder, cutting her off long enough for Mariela to realize she was starting to shake. Carefully kneeling down, she put Marie on the ground and patted her head apologetically. When she stood, Owen and Sister Theresa both were staring at her in concern.
"I'm okay." Mariela took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly before looking again at Sister Theresa. "Please. What's wrong with Marlin?"
"It isn't that anything is necessarily wrong," Sister Theresa started, but her tone killed any comfort that her words could have possibly given Mariela. The nun looked at Owen before moving aside and waving them both in. "Why don't you come in? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you both out at the door like this."
Mariela moved past her and into the small church quickly, rushing over to Marlin's side and dropping to her knees beside him. Immediately, she could tell something had changed—just as Sister Theresa had said, it didn't seem that anything was necessarily wrong… but something had definitely changed. Marlin's skin wasn't as sallow as it usually got when he'd gone too long without receiving nutrients; there wasn't the hollow to his cheeks or eyes that Mariela would have recognized, either. But the thick, grey woolen blanket that he'd been under since he'd gotten to the church had been pulled up to just under his chin, and there was something about the way the blanket bulged that confused her. Carefully, Mariela took a corner of the blanket that had been tucked under the pillow under his head and pulled it back to just above his waist—and dropped the blanket it surprise at what she saw.
"Sister, what's going on?" Mariela choked out, staring at her brother in horror. His neck was wrapped in thick white bandages, as were both his arms. His wrists had been bound to the bed with what appeared to be torn white bed sheets, and Mariela didn't need to pull the blanket down any further to know that his feet had been bound as well. She didn't know what scared her more: the bandages or the bindings. So she just stared back and forth between it all with wide, horrified eyes.
"Mariela, don't worry," Sister Theresa said immediately, hustling up behind her and taking her hand. Somewhere in the back of her head, Mariela realized dimly that she had started to shake again—or maybe she'd never stopped. Either way, she let the Sister pull her back gently and guide her into the chair by the bed, her eyes never leaving the angry red marks that peaked out from beneath the bindings at her brother's wrists.
"How can you tell me not to worry?" Mariela asked, her voice thick with tears. She tore her gaze away from her brother and looked up at Sister Theresa with wide eyes. "What is going on here?"
"I'm going to check a few things," Owen interjected, making Mariela jump. She'd completely forgotten he was there, and looked up at him with the same wide eyed look of desolation she'd given the nun. Owen looked back at her with concern writ all over his face, but nodded down at her brother. "I'm going to start checking some things, and I'll take care of these fabric burns at his wrists. Why don't you take your time talking to Sister Theresa outside, and get some fresh air?"
"Thank you, Owen," the Sister said quickly, and pulled Mariela gently to her feet. Like a ghost, Mariela followed her out through the room and out the door, not even registering any of the children as they vied for her attention and Sister Theresa waved them off.
"Please tell me what's happening," Mariela whispered as soon as the two of them were alone outside. Sister Theresa took both her hands in her own and waited until Mariela met her eyes.
"He started having fits a few weeks ago," Sister Theresa started, her tone strained, "and at first, I thought that it might have been a good thing; he was moving on his own, almost as though he was starting to respond to dreams he was having. It became clear quickly, however, that if he was responding to anything, they were not dreams—they were nightmares." She gave Mariela a pained look. "Marie was the first to realize that he was scratching at himself, and no matter what we did, it only got worse. Even now that we've tied down his arms and his feet, he still manages to get free at times. Every time he does, he scratches every inch of skin he can get to except his face. I'm not sure why he doesn't scratch his face, and the healer that comes to see him doesn't have any ideas, either."
"The healer has been by to see him since this started?" Mariela asked, then immediately chuckled darkly to herself. "Of course the healer has been by to see him, Marlin would be dead otherwise, wouldn't he? It isn't like I've been by to see him for weeks, now."
"Stop that," Sister Theresa said sternly, putting a wrinkled hand on Mariela's shoulder and giving her a firm look. "This is not the time for self-deprecation. Yes, the healer has been by to see Marlin twice a week since the last time you came by and gave him his nutrients. And the healer has assured me that Marlin is still intaking all his nutrients just the same as always. There is no reason to be concerned in that regard." Her face softened and she gave Mariela a pat on the cheek. Mariela was stunned to realize that Sister Theresa was wiping a tear—she hadn't even realized she'd started to cry. "Don't be afraid, dear. It looks much scarier than it is. You can't let yourself lose hope."
"I'm so tired," Mariela whispered, and realized that the tears had started to stream down her cheeks steadily. Embarrassed, she hurried to wipe at her face with her hands and took a second to collect herself. When she looked back up, she gave Sister Theresa a shaky smile—the nun did not return it. "Sister, what if I moved back out here? I have some money saved, maybe I can find a room—"
"That's out of the question," Sister Theresa cut Mariela off firmly. "Do you know why you haven't been back here to give Marlin his nutrients? It's because you've found yourself a job and a direction since leaving this little town. You've found a place that you obviously belong in, dear—don't waste that, especially not when you're helping Marlin as much as you possibly can by continuing down the path you've already started on."
"So I'm just supposed to do nothing?" Mariela asked, trying to keep the frustration from her voice—and failing, she knew. Sister Theresa just looked at her sadly.
"I already told you, Mariela, what you're doing isn't nothing. You're helping Marlin as much as you can—it isn't your fault that money is such a driving force in this society, is it?"
Before Mariela could think of what to say, she felt a small tug at her skirts and looked down to see Marie looking back up at her, brow wrinkled in concern. Mariela smiled down at her. "Is everything alright, sweetheart?"
"The doctor wants to talk to you," Marie said, but didn't let go of the edge of Mariela's skirt. "Are you okay? You look like you've been crying."
"Oh, I'm just fine," Mariela said as brightly as she could, bending to scoop Marie up and settle the girl on her hip. She looked at Sister Theresa with a shaky smile and nodded toward the door. "Please, Sister, after you."
Just as she'd immediately known that something was different about the way that Marlin had been laying in his bed, she knew immediately walking up to him that Owen had bad news. His hand drummed against the side of his leg as he stared down at her brother intently, like he was trying to figure something out.
"What's happening, Owen?" Mariela asked the second she stopped at the side of Marlin's bed. Owen looked up at her, eyes startled behind his glasses like he had forgotten he'd asked Marie to go grab her. "Is my brother going to be okay?"
Owen opened his mouth, but closed it again uneasily. Without saying a word, he looked pointedly at first Marie, then Sister Theresa, then met Mariela's eyes again and waited.
"Marie," Mariela started, "why don't you—"
"You aren't going to send me away, are you?" Marie interrupted, face and tone clearly insulted. "I've been there for everything, you can't send me away!"
"You're right," Mariela conceded immediately. She felt a little guilty—she wasn't sure that Gauche would want his little sister being so involved in such adult matters—but Marie was right. It wouldn't be right to send her away if she wanted to stay, not after all the help she'd given them. Looking back at Owen, Mariela nodded. "Okay, Owen. Please. Tell me what's going on."
"Do you remember the first few days you were working with me, and I was still taking all those blood samples to see if there was any biological basis for how the mage fire had affected you?" Owen asked.
Mariela nodded. "You said that if there was, you might be able to create a sort of cure that could be given to my brother through an injection of some sort."
"Yes, exactly. I never mentioned it again because, well…" Owen trailed off, looking back down at Marlin. Picking up his small wrist gently, a mana-made water tentacle wrapped itself around Owen's wrist before expanding out to wrap its other end around Marlin's. Immediately, what appeared to be black ink seeped into the water of the tentacle, making it darker and darker until the mass of mana was a solid black line between the two of their wrists. Owen put Marlin's wrist down carefully; the moment he released him, the dark mass condensed into a fist-sized ball that hovered just above the palm of the doctor's hand. With his other hand, he reached out and grabbed the wrist of the hand that wasn't holding Marie up on Mariela's waist and repeated the process—as the water again turned darker and darker until it was coloured a solid, opaque black, Mariela's jaw dropped.
"That's not what happened when you took my blood samples," she choked out as Owen dropped her hand carefully and moved the second ball of inky darkness so both his palms were right next to each other. "I don't remember my blood being anything but red, and you definitely didn't take that much of it."
"This isn't your blood," Owen clarified. "This is a sort of infection in your blood that reacts negatively to magic. I wanted to see your brother first before telling you anything about this, to check my theory. Now that I know his blood reacts the same way that yours does when I separate out the magic from it…"
"There shouldn't be any magic in my blood," Mariela protested, only getting more and more confused. "I don't have any access to my magic, remember?"
"You don't have access to it because the channels in your body that allow that access have been damaged by the mage fire," Owen replied with a nod. "That's not the same thing as not having magic in your blood at all; there's no way to separate the magic in a person entirely from them, not unless you've been born without it like Asta. The bigger issue that I found was that your magic had been… infected. It confused me at first, but when I studied it, I realized that it seemed rather familiar. The infection responded very similarly to a magical disease that manifests by draining the magic from a person constantly."
Mariela felt her stomach clench as Owen paused to look down at his hands as if he were gathering his thoughts—and trying to figure out the best way to break some very bad news. And Mariela was beginning to piece together what that bad news might be.
"A genetic magical disease?" Mariela whispered. Owen looked up at her in surprise.
"Yes, a rare genetic magical disease. Rare enough that I've only ever seen it in one family line, as a matter of fact."
Mariela felt, more than saw, Sister Theresa go rigid beside her. In a voice that was barely audible, the nun said quietly, "The Vermillions."
Owen nodded, brow creased in confusion—then, just like that, he seemed to figure it out. He looked at Mariela, widened eyes the only sign of his surprise. "Yes. A branch family of the Vermillions developed a rare genetic disease that fed on their magic and ultimately would erode the magical channels in their bodies until it was physically painful to use magic of any sort. From what I understand, and from the medical records I was able to dig up about the family, not every member was sick—but enough were that it affected each subsequent generation's magical capacity."
"It isn't supposed to be something that you can just develop," Mariela protested weakly. "The disease is something that you're born with. It gets worse, but it's always something that you're born with."
"If you're born with it," Owen repeated with a troubled nod. He walked over to the sink in the corner of the room and carefully dropped the infection-filled water into it, then walked back over to Marlin, wiping his palms idly on the side of his pants. "That's what confused me at first—the infection wasn't exactly the same, but it was close enough that I wanted to confirm that it was in your brother's blood as well. Seeing as the two of you were affected by the mage fire differently, it was unlikely that you would both have the same infection in your blood from it—not impossible, but not exactly likely. It still confused me when he did have the exact same infection in his blood, but if I'm right, that last puzzle piece has just been cleared up for me, as well. Mariela, can I assume that you and your brother come from a certain branch of the Vermillion family that has since been… disbanded?"
"Disowned," Mariela clarified, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice entirely. Owen gave her an apologetic nod.
"So that answers that question, then. And explains why the infection is almost exactly the same."
"But it doesn't explain how we could have suddenly developed a disease that every other member of our family has needed to be born with," Mariela argued, "our mother included."
Owen nodded again, the troubled frown on his face deepening. "A direct relative, especially a mother, would explain the predisposition. You're right; usually, you would need to have been born with the disease. But when the mage fire damaged you both, it must have triggered a latent form of the disease that you'd both been born with. For you, it progressed much quicker, for some reason—I believe, and am now almost certain, that it's because throwing yourself into the fiery door exposed you more directly to the mage fire's properties. Marlin suffered more from smoke inhalation, from what I can tell—both in the mundane sense and the magical residue sense. Breathing it in damaged him in a more insidious way, it seems, but your damage has been more immediate because the initial exposure was also much more immediate. Does that make sense so far?"
"Yes," Mariela said slowly, turning the words over and over in her head and looking at them from every angle she could think to.
"But what does that mean in the grand scheme of things?" Sister Theresa asked, and Mariela looked over at her with a grateful smile—she was happy to have someone who cared as much and was as good in a tough situation as the nun on her side, especially right then.
"Right now, it just means that both Marlin and Mariela have conditions that are biological as well as magical—which means that they're conditions that are also going to progressively get worse." At the look on Mariela's face, Owen was quick to add, "It also means that they can be cured by more conventional means, Mariela. Don't lose faith just yet."
"But if it's progressive," Mariela started, voice rising in panic, "doesn't that mean that we have a time limit?"
Owen averted his eyes—and Mariela knew then that whatever was coming next, it was going to be very, very bad.
"Yes, it does have a time limit of sorts. Not one that I can gauge, but I doubt that would actually make much of a difference, in your particular case."
"What do you mean, my particular case?" Mariela demanded.
Owen closed his eyes and sighed, but when he reopened them, he met hers without hesitation. "The fact that you have been dealing with this newly triggered illness for longer than your brother means that you are further along in progression than he is, even if the mage fire's curse affected you less than it affected him. Because the curse was less impactful on you, however, you have also been able to find a way to work around how it's been damaging your body—you also don't have to worry about things like intaking nutrients. Your brother, on the other hand…"
Mariela's eyes widened to disks in horror as she realized what Owen was trying to say. "You mean," she whispered, "that if he keeps getting worse, he won't be able to take in the nutrients through the magical transfers, anymore?"
Owen nodded, a look of pain and sympathy on his face.
"How do we fix it?" Mariela asked immediately, her voice getting more and more shrill as her panic gripped her tighter and tighter. She reached out with her free hand to grab one of Owen's wrists. "Owen, there's a way to fix this, right? You need to tell me how to fix it. There needs to be a way to fix this."
"That's less the question right now," Sister Theresa said quietly, making Mariela turn to look at her, eyes desperate. The Sister just looked back at her sadly. "Mariela, if you have been dealing with this for longer than your brother has—"
"But it affects me less," Mariela interrupted, ready to argue. But Sister Theresa just kept shaking her head sadly.
"You're not thinking, dear," Sister Theresa tried again. "You need to think. This is a disease. You know how the disease works; you watched it work on your mother. It's progressive—if you've been dealing with it for longer than your brother, then you are further along in it than he is and need more help."
"This isn't exactly like my mother's disease," Mariela protested immediately. "We don't know if it will work anything like hers did, and we don't know if it'll progress the same way hers did. What we do know is that my brother can't get any form of nutrients if the magical channels he gets them through erode to nothing while we try to fix me when I don't even want to be fixed."
"Mariela." Owen's voice was stern, an occurrence so rare that Mariela looked at him in surprise, suddenly realizing that she had never let go of his wrist. Without her having realized it, he had connected them by the wrists with another mana tentacle; his other hand was holding Marlin's wrist carefully, a mana tentacle connecting their wrists as well. Owen waited until he'd caught Mariela's eye to say, "Watch closely. I need you to understand something." Suddenly, Mariela watched the water between herself and Owen turn immediately black—then start expanding, then suddenly explode, black, inky water splattering over the blanket that covered Marlin's feet.
"Hey!" Mariela gasped indignantly, but Sister Theresa placed a comforting hand on her shoulder to stop her from grabbing at the wet cloth.
"I'll go grab another blanket. Don't lose focus, Mariela; look at Owen's other hand."
Mariela, still upset but willing to admit that there were more important things than her irritation, forced herself to look back at Owen's other hand—the water between him and Marlin had turned black, and Mariela looked just in time to watch it become opaque. After another moment, the water started to expand—not nearly as quickly as it had before with Mariela, but enough to be noticeable before Owen finally let go of Marlin's little wrist. Taking the infection-filled water over to the sink, he dropped it before coming back to the side of the bed and helping Sister Theresa change the blanket with a small apology. When he was done, he looked back up at Mariela, but she just met his eyes in confusion.
"I just removed the infection from the same amount of blood from you and Marlin each," he explained. "That is the difference between the progression of it in each of you."
"But I haven't even been showing any new signs of sickness," Mariela argued, still not ready to give in. "Plus, this doesn't change the fact that you yourself said I could make my damaged magical channels work to my advantage."
"The damage to the magical pathways in your body is permanent, Mariela," Owen said with a shake of his head. "You're not understanding—except I think you do understand, you just don't want to admit that you do. Working around the damage that has already been done to your body is not something that you'll be able to avoid no matter what happens. What you can avoid is any more damage—damage that will progress into death. It doesn't matter what small differences exist between the two versions of this disease, Mariela—it's a deadly disease, and one that usually takes a lot longer to progress than what I'm seeing in you and your brother. I know you think that you haven't been feeling any more effects of its progression, but have you been having a hard time sleeping lately, Mariela? If you look back on the time since you and Marlin were both injured, have you noticed an increase in mood swings and paranoia? I know those are all also things that come with trauma—and you and your brother have experienced enough trauma that I'm sure you hadn't thought about it. But if you think back, can you say that I am incorrect in my assumptions now that you think about it?"
Mariela didn't answer—she knew she didn't need to. She could feel the answer written all over her face. Owen, not needing her to say anything, just nodded in reply.
"I thought as much. Your brother has been scratching at himself in his sleep because he's experiencing all those things while totally unconscious and incapable of stopping himself. The fact that this has just started means that the progression is just starting to pick up the pace. You, on the other hand, have likely had all those symptoms since the very beginning, and I'm sure they've been getting worse at a noticeable, steady pace."
"So what does all this mean?" Mariela asked weakly, her knees starting to shake. Sister Theresa was by her side immediately, and helped ease her into the chair by the side of the bed. Mariela just looked up at Owen with wide eyes she was sure looked as dead as she felt. "No, wait, don't answer that. I know what this means. It's a race to see what happens first—either I succumb to the illness itself as it progresses, or Marlin succumbs to the combined effects of the illness and the mage fire's curse magic. You're saying we're both dying, and we have been this whole time."
Owen opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again, seeming to realize there was nothing really to say. Slowly, he gave her a single nod of his head and a look of profound apology. "That's exactly what I'm saying, Mariela."
Mariela said nothing— instead, she reached out a shaky hand and rested it on her brother's cool forehead, firmly resolved to ignore the tears pouring down her face.