The One

Holding on

"Agh!" Bentley cried out in spite of himself—anyone would do the same if two people suddenly landed in their room. He jumped back to see that Feray and Izar had landed right next to him, missing him by a hair.

"...sorry," said Feray. In her arms, Izar looked to be unconscious. "Are Mom and Dad home? Are our rooms still here?"

"They won't be home these couple weeks. Your rooms are still there, clean." Bentley answered as quickly as he could. All he knew right now was that this was an emergency—as for the why and how, he had no idea.

"Take him to Waylon's room." Saying thus, she let go of Izar.

He was about to do so when Feray coughed into her hand. She steadied herself by leaning against the wall. When she removed her hand, blood could be seen on it.

"What—" he was about to ask, but she gave him a dismissive wave: do as I say.

And so he did.

In the hours that followed, Feray sat up in bed, not daring to lie down lest she should cough again. She was alive, at least—that was something to be glad for. Given the gap between herself and Izar, if she'd slacked off for even the slightest bit, she might have died performing the magic that she did. Right now, she had about...two problems: she'd temporarily lost all of her magical energy, and she was physically very weak. Aside from that, she was probably injured as well, but of that, she wasn't entirely sure.

Feray placed a hand on her chest. Her heartbeat was stable, though more faint than what she was used to. She felt her own forehead. At least I'm not sick...not exactly anyway. Other than that, she didn't quite know what else to check for. Because of that, she closed her eyes to get some rest.

She woke to the sound of a soft knock on her door. She hadn't closed it when she came in, and after that soft knock, Izar entered her room—the gesture was merely to announce his presence. He came with a glass of water, which he placed on her table. Without a word, he pushed her chair aside and knelt by her bedside. Izar lowered his gaze for a moment, melancholic, before looking up again.

"Did you use dark magic to get us out?" he asked.

She nodded.

"You..." He bit his lip.

"I'm weak, drained of magical energy, and probably injured. I know," she said. "But you can help with most of those things, right?"

Izar waved a hand over her forehead. "Fortunately, it's only temporary," he said. "I'm not bringing you back to Refica before you regain all your abilities to use everything you used to...and I'm not bringing your brother here to heal you either. In fact, I'm not going anywhere until you can use magic again."

A dark shadow seemed to be looming over his eyes as he spoke. Alert, Feray placed her hand on top of his on the bed—as if that would stop him from going astray. "Why not?" she asked.

"Do you know what Odessa's official statement was?"

"That I revived Nasr, probably," she guessed, "Unless she overthrew her own stories, a thing I believe she'd never do."

He nodded. "She said that she suspected that someone revived her brother, and that she didn't go to the department store in response to the threat so that she could find out who it was. The statement was released half an hour ago."

"Then...? It would take only under two minutes for you to get Waylon."

"It takes only a split second for Odessa to come here. It makes no sense for you to be in Refica when you can't use magic—the teleportation might hurt you too—and I can't put you at risk while you're here."