Twilit Mage

Chapter 24: Coach

"Do you think she's all right?"

Regina looked up from the medical files she had been going through, peering over the screen of her laptop to glance at her husband. "Who," she said, "Mercury?"

Gabriel gave her an uneasy look. "Who else?"

"Hmm. Why should she not be?" Regina turned back to her files, checked off the one she had just finished, and went on to the next one. "She hasn't said anything special in her texts."

Gabriel tapped a finger on his desk. "That's why I'm wondering," he said. "If she doesn't say anything special, she might be hiding something again, might she?"

"Gabe, stop it." Regina gave a snort. "You're such a worrywart! Mercury will be fine, she's not a baby anymore after all!"

He didn't look convinced, but Gabriel didn't answer. Regina went back to work, going through the files in silence except for occasional sympathetic hisses or disapproving sighs. For some time they both sat in silence, then finally Gabriel spoke up again.

"Do you think anyone will recognize her?"

Regina didn't even look up. "Of course," she answered drily. "Unless Sullivan has amnesia–"

"Not him. Other people." Gabriel made an awkward gesture, staring into the distance as he tried to remember distant faces. "Like your sister...or that girl you were mentoring, if she's still there."

"Soldier? No way. With her degree she's way overqualified to be a teacher." Regina laughed, but her eyes glazed over with a fond nostalgia. "Speaking of her, I never even found out what became of her after I left. I bet she's a famous researcher now."

"And your sister? Isn't she a teacher?"

"Oh, Al." Regina sighed. "Yes, she is. Or was when I saw her. But I don't think she'd do anything if she recognized Mercury, she's just a stranger to her now."

Gabriel smiled. "Maybe you should ask her how they're all doing."

"You know, and maybe you're right about that." Regina laughed. "We should give her a call sometime, if she's up for it."

Gabriel nodded. He still wasn't entirely sure Mercury would want to talk. After all, she had always been a bad liar.

~ ~ ~

Mercury kept working. At every chance she got she kept on trying to detect magic, staring at air until her eyes hurt, and every minute she could afford she went off to the library, trying to search for tricks to be able to sense it better. So far none of them had worked. Most books contained only very shallow advice, and the few techniques that sounded more effective had proven to be anything but.

Was there anything she couldn't see? Anything she hadn't tried? What was she doing wrong? She looked through book after book and found nothing. She typed through all the search engines and ended up on dubious sites that were visibly not created by mages. Still nothing.

She had no idea how Raoul was still so patient with her, or maybe he was just pretending, she couldn't tell. Anyone should have lost their patience long ago. More and more often memories started flashing through her head, memories of classmates lashing out at her to stop being stupid and hurry up, memories of teachers scolding her for being too slow in front of the entire class. No good. She had to hurry up. She had to get better soon, or she'd be disappointing Raoul and holding him back like she had once held back her classmates.

"You're stressing too much."

Mercury paused, looking up from the stray bit of nail polish she had forgotten to remove. Bonnie smiled back at her, leaning back in her chair, arms crossed, her expression friendly and compassionate and lacking the usual mischievous edge. After yet another wasted day of research Mercury had caved and come to her for advice, but Bonnie looked like she wasn't at all surprised by this turn of events.