Twilit Mage

Chapter 43: Precious

Raoul didn't budge for a very long time. Kneeling on the mattress, he clung to Mercury, refusing to loosen his hold or even move his face from the fabric of her shirt. Mercury let him. It was cramped and a little awkward, but Raoul was warm, his embrace comfortingly tight, reassuring her of his presence after all those hours of worrying. Smiling, she brought up a hand to ruffle his hair, and when he sighed happily she wrapped her arms around him to hug him back. "It's okay," she said over and over. "I'm not leaving, don't worry."

In the end Raoul calmed down, letting go of her back just long enough to make her let down her guard, then he grabbed her again and pulled her with him onto the mattress. "Man, I'm glad," he said cheerfully. "I thought I was never gonna keep any friends. But you're a keeper." He laughed. "Get it? 'Cause you keep me."

Mercury smiled back. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Uh, you know me?" Mercury glared at him, and Raoul laughed. "Just kidding. It was a pretty good reason for most people, though."

"But not for me."

"I know." Raoul's voice turned more serious. "But that's not what you came here for, right? You said there's something I gotta know."

Mercury nodded and swallowed, and then she started telling Raoul everything. All her observations from the day without him, everything Georgiana had noted, and the failed journey to Paige & Turner in search of the archive. She told him all about the fake Turner and the battle and how, in the end, they had been forced to come back with nothing.

Raoul listened in silence. His expression didn't give away anything, although his eyes grew wider and wider as she talked about Nero's role, and when she finished he flopped down backwards to stare blankly at the ceiling.

"Huh," he muttered, sounding more like he was talking to himself than to Mercury. "So you think it was the old man who did all this to you?"

Mercury nodded. "It looks like it," she said. "And that means it can't have been you this time...but still, why him?" She gave a frustrated sigh. "I trusted him and my mom trusted him and, um...I don't know what to do..."

"Wait a sec."

Raoul sat up, scrambling over to the nightstand and groping around until he found his glasses and put them on. "Mercy," he said, "if it was really him and that's why he didn't want you guys to find out, then why'd he try to stop you like this?"

Mercury stopped short. "Uh...what?"

"I mean, he sent his familiar." Raoul made a vague gesture. "And when you guys noticed it wasn't the real Turner, that hound thingy just dropped his disguise? So basically he would've let you know it was him when he was trynna stop you from finding out, right?"

Mercury frowned. She hadn't thought about it this way at all.

"But..." she ventured, trying to defend what she had seen and heard. "We saw the reflection, so there was no point in hiding it...I think..."

"Then why didn't the old man just erase your memories or something? Why do you still remember when that's the thing he didn't want you to know?"

"That's–"

"Yep. I dunno what he's up to, but I don't think he's behind the thing yesterday." Raoul took his glasses off again, twirling them in his fingers. "But I found a thing in the lab last night that's kinda weird too."

Mercury simply looked at him in surprise. Raoul rose from the bed, making his way over to the hoodie he had worn yesterday lying over a chair, reaching into its pocket and pulling out a book he held out towards Mercury's face.