The receptionist called Steff a smartass when she gave the answer “gnome-related trauma” for the nature of the injury. She also called Steff by name before she filled out on the form. Considering Steff’s hobbies, that wasn’t really too surprising. I thought Steff was close to blowing her top at several points during the unnecessarily protracted intake process, but when I looked closer I realized she was crying.

Frustration? Pain? Both? Maybe she’d got so used to instantaneous healing… I couldn’t really say, and she had enough questions to deal with. She did get healed, and we headed off.

“Hey, do you think it’s about time we got some dinner?” Steff asked, starting to divert in the direction of the union.

“Kind of, but don’t you think Amaranth might turn up back at the dorm?” I asked. “And Dee’s going to be expecting me.”

“Oh, that’s easy for you to say… you don’t have mortal stomach pangs.”

“Steff, if I can manage a few apologies, so can you,” I said, trying to put some Amaranth-like steel into my voice. It didn’t work. I think I just sounded shrill. The fact that a nymph could come off sterner than I could… well, it was kind of depressing.

“But I’m not sure that I did anything wrong,” Steff said. “If Hazel’s so damned dainty that she can’t stand a little salty language… well, she isn’t that dainty. Trust me. I’ve seen her feet.”

I’ve seen her feet? I decided to stay on-topic… that would be something to puzzle out later.

“Well, Dee had a good point,” I said. “For all we know, in gnomish culture…”

“What culture? They just sit on porches and blow smoke rings!” Steff said.

“Steff, you shouldn’t talk shit about them like that.”

“You’re right, we could be walking past a group of them and never know,” Steff said.

“That isn’t why.”

“All culture is bullshit, Mack,” Steff said. “Look at human culture: slavery, homophobia, misogyny, and all this talk about ‘intrinsic rights’. Look at elven culture: screw your head off for a thousand years or two and then snuff yourself because life is so terribly dreary. I do think all cultures should be given equal consideration, but not because they’re all so great.”

“What about ogre culture?”

There was an uncomfortable pause, during which she actually stopped walking to think… I had thought I was the only one to do that.

Finally, she said, “It’s bullshit, but spread a lot thinner.”

“Well, leaving out what you think of their culture, I think gnomes are a bit more… rustic… than humans,” I said. I hugged my coat around me more tightly now that we’d stopped moving. “They came over at the same time, as near as anybody knows, but they’ve been pretty much ignored and so they’ve just done their thing while humans modernized. Their values are a lot more traditional, which probably means that respect for parents is more important.”

“But, again… and I can’t believe I have to keep pointing this out… ‘motherfucker’ doesn’t actually mean ‘you fuck your mother’. It’s just a generic insult.”

“Okay, but it was an insult,” I said.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t warrant…”

“But it was still an insult,” I said. “So, you owe her an apology, and she owes you one. If you apologize and she doesn’t, that’s… well, it’s a moral victory.”

“Whoop-de-doo, what do I win for that?”

“I don’t know… respect?” I said.

“Mack, I don’t want the respect of anybody if it’s contingent on me bending over and kissing someone’s ass when I don’t want to,” she said. “That includes you.”

“What about self-respect?”

“You know, my next mental healing appointment isn’t until tomorrow, but thank you very much for the attempt at therapy,” Steff said.

“Well… just try apologizing to Hazel, okay?” I said. “If she apologizes back, I bet you’ll feel better, and if she doesn’t you get to feel a sense of smug superiority.”

“Khersis, Mack, what is it with you today?” Steff asked. “I mean, where’s this stuff coming from?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe Amaranth’s influence is wearing off on me?”

“Considering you were getting frisky with Feejee? Seems likely.”

“There’s just so much fighting on our floor,” I said. “All the little groups… the Leightons have their clique, and the skirmishers…”

“Not this weekend,” Steff said. “Away match!”

“I guess that’s why the dorm’s so quiet,” I said. “But, anyway, I just think that if we can get along with each other, then maybe we should.”

“How far does it go?” Steff said. “You forgave Sooni pretty fast. Are you going to pal around Puddy and Belinda next? With… with Leda?”

The mention of Leda stuck out. To my direct knowledge, Leda hadn’t done anything except be reclusive and snotty, but something had obviously happened between Steff and her. This was as close to an open acknowledgment of that as I’d heard from Steff… I would have pressed her on it, but she was right: I wasn’t a mental healer.

“I didn’t forgive Sooni anything,” I said. “I just… recognized her limitations and cut her some slack for them. I think she can become a better person, but that won’t happen if nobody gives her a reason. Same thing with Feejee. I mean, it’s been working for me.”

“Wait, what’s wrong with Feejee? Other than her boyfriend being a trog.”

“Uh… well… she says she hangs out with the Leightons because nobody else reaches out to her, you know?”

“Oh, whatever, Mack… you’re such an awful liar,” Steff said.

“That’s true, though!”

“But it isn’t the whole truth,” Steff said.

“It isn’t like we don’t have secrets,” I said.

“Not from each other,” Steff said. “At least, I thought so.”

“This is all getting way off the point,” I said.

“What is the point?” Steff said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe that I’m trying to make better decisions with my life?”

“You mean better choices than me?” Steff replied, her voice full of scorn. “And feel free to take that either way.”

“I love you, Steff… and I don’t regret, you know, the whole thing of our date,” I said. “I just… I think I’m making too many decisions based on feelings and not enough by thinking. I mean, when I started out here I couldn’t really do anything else, because as soon as I tried to think about what I was doing my brain just got stuck in a giant circle… and you guys have both really helped there… but I think now that I’m starting to get over some stuff, it’s time I started using my head more.”

“Oh? And what was your little assignation with Feejee, then?”

“I don’t know!” I said. “A couple steps forward and a couple steps back? We’re college students, Steff… we’re works in progress. I’ve changed so much in the last month… who knows how much changing I’ve got left to do? I’m growing as a person here, or at least, I’d like to be.”

“I… I see,” Steff said. I thought that she was angry, but again, I was surprised to see that she looked to be near tears.

“Steff?”

“You’re outgrowing me, in other words,” she said. “That’s what this is about… why you’re siding with Dee, and… and…”

“No!” I said. “Oh, fuck no… a thousand times no, Steff! I don’t think I could do this alone, and I wouldn’t want to do it without you. You, and Amaranth.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, rubbing a hand up by her eye and sniffling.

“Steff… what’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know… call it the ‘Loser Curse’,” she said.

“You’re not a loser.”

“I was, though,” she said. “All through high school… and ‘once a loser, always a loser’. That’s the curse. Or maybe something about taking the loser out of high school but not the high school out of… no, that doesn’t really work. The point is, the more awesome friends I get around me, the more I think something’s going to happen and they’re going to find out I’m not a confident queer badass knife fighter but a scrawny, dorky faggot who gets… beat up.”

“Look who you’re talking to,” I said. “I’m not confident, I’m barely badass…”

“Oh, honey, you aren’t even barely,” Steff said. “Not in that coat.”

“I can light myself on fire!” I said.

“I can, too,” Steff said. “Once.”

“Whatever,” I said. “So I’m not badass… the point stands. I’m the one who should feel like she’s sneaking into the cool kids’ club.”

“I’m not… I don’t go around worrying about this all the time,” Steff said. “But, Hazel went off on me, and then Dee… and you…”

“I wasn’t trying to side against you,” I said.

“Well, it didn’t feel like you were on my side.”

“I don’t want to see you lose friends,” I said. “Or even have a bunch of bad blood with Two’s friends. Is that so terrible?”

“I guess not,” Steff admitted. “I mean, on some level… I don’t want to do it because I have this image in my head of Hazel telling me to fuck off. In some charmingly rustic fashion, of course. Part of it really is that I don’t think I did anything that bad, but I just… I don’t want to give her the satisfaction, or maybe… maybe I don’t want to leave myself open.”

“Well, that’s your ‘Loser Curse’,” I said. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And if you turn your back on Hazel… and Dee… instead of leaving yourself open, what are you going to do about Two? Avoid her, too?”

“No!” Steff said. She shook her head. “Fuck, no… I couldn’t take it out on her.”

“So, you know you have to do something… otherwise, you might end up resenting Two for hanging out with them,” I said.

“I wouldn’t!”

“Like you weren’t resenting me for making plans with Dee?”

“Okay, but… if I make a bunch of apologies I don’t mean in order to keep from losing friends… well… I don’t see that helping me feel like less of a loser,” she said. “Am I really that pathetic?”

“It isn’t pathetic,” I said. I knew what it was like to cling to that little bit of pride in being right when you didn’t feel like you had anything else to be proud of. It could be a real problem. I had my Amaranth to order me to suck it up and apologize, but I wasn’t in a position to do the same for Steff. I tried to come up with something else, instead. The words came to me surprisingly easily. “If you don’t want to apologize to Hazel, per se, then try explaining to her what you told Dee and me. Let her know that you didn’t mean anything about her mother, and you didn’t expect her to take it that way.”

“Seriously, Mack… where are you getting this from?” Steff asked, this time sounding a lot less snarky.

“What do you mean?”

“You sound like my mother, or something.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just… like I said, I’m trying to think things through more. Anyway, weren’t you the one who told me to get over it and talk to Amaranth after our first fight?”

“I’m not sure you insulting her beliefs and friends and her running off sobbing into the night counts as a fight,” Steff said.

“You knew what I meant,” I said, glaring. Steff had a real talent for ruining moments.

“Yeah, well… I guess advice is one area where I’m better at giving than taking,” she said. She forced a laugh. “I think maybe the reason I had an easy time seeing what you were doing is because I’ve done it myself… I knew what you had to do because I know what I should do. It’s just a matter of doing it.”

“Yeah, that’s the hard part,” I said. “Come on, let’s go back before it gets any darker… and colder. I’ll go with you to talk to Hazel, and then Dee, since we wanted to talk, anyway.”

“What did you want to talk to her about?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever just talked with her, you know? She’s our friend and she hangs out with us sometimes, sort of, but it kind of feels like she’s on the outside looking in on our conversations.”

“I know what you mean,” Steff said.

“Have you ever tried talking to her?”

“Once.”

“How’d it go?”

“It went… okay,” she said. “Kind of got cut short, by… other stuff.”

“You know, what you said to me applies the other way around,” I said. “I’m glad you’re going to the healers, but you can still talk to me, about… well… anything.”

“Not yet, I can’t,” Steff said, shaking her head. “Maybe someday.”

It was progress. I’d take it.

Faced with hours of monotony and trying to fall asleep on my own after napping all afternoon, I took the potion a little bit after nine. My sleep was untroubled, with no real dreams to speak of, and I woke up right on schedule eight hours later.

The door to my room was open, and it sounded like there was some kind of conference going on in the hall. I was considering whether I should try to clear my throat very loudly or ring the bell or something when Lynette poked her head through the door.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she said. She sounded a little disappointed, or something. Had she been hoping that I’d never wake up, somehow?

“Yeah,” I said. “Ready to let me go?”

“Probably,” she said, coming into the room properly. “There’s just one little thing we need to take care of first.”

“Do I need to get read again?” I asked.

“Yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” Lynette said. “You see, there was… an incident… in the night, with Candace.”

An incident. What was I being blamed for now?

“Well, I didn’t have anything to do with it, whatever it was,” I said. “I was asleep.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not blaming you for anything,” Lynette said. “But unfortunately, you can’t leave just yet.”

“What do you mean, I can’t leave?”

“Exactly what I said,” Lynette said. “It’s just not possible.”

“Am I under arrest?” I asked, wondering if there were guards right outside the door.

“Should you be?” Lynette asked. The question seemed to have taken her aback. “I mean, did you do something?”

“I was asleep!” I said. “I’m just trying to find out why you say I can’t leave.”

“Well… Candace warded the door.”

“What? Why would she do that?”

“‘Just in case’, she said,” Lynette explained.

“Just in case of what?” I asked. “I was asleep.”

“She didn’t really think it through, you see… we only found out because she mentioned it when I asked her how the night went. She said she was nervous at first until she thought to ward the door.”

“What kind of ward are we talking about?”

“Your basic holy protection against intrusion by evil elements,” Lynette said. “Your kind wouldn’t be able to touch the door itself, or cross the threshold.”

“So… I’m stuck here,” I said.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to say, but don’t worry,” Lynette said. “I’ve suspended her for a week.”

“You have no idea how comforting that is to me,” I said. “How do we un-ward it?”

“She really took her time and laid them down properly, so no mundane profanity will remove them… and like I told you, we’re not really great about de-sanctifying things around here, on a practical or philosophical level,” Lynette said. “Only the god himself could remove the wards before they fade… at least, in a way we’d actually condone.”

“What do you mean?”

“A diabolist could cancel the wards,” Lynette said.

“So get one,” I said.

“We’re working on it. We just have to wait for approval from the temple before we call one in.”

“I thought the healing center was supposed to be secular and independent.”

“It is!” Lynette insisted. “We are. Most of us here aren’t clerics or clerics-in-training… just lay people with an affinity for divine healing. Candace is actually the exception there. Even so, we can’t afford to ignore the source of our powers. If we invited black magicians in and let their energy mingle freely with our own, we might find our own abilities cut off at the source.”

“So what happens if the temple says no?”

“Well… we’ll work something out,” Lynette said. “I’ve made the argument that we’d actually be removing a demonic influence… I think that should prove acceptable.”

“Wait… she just warded the door, right?” I asked. “She didn’t put some kind of seal on the entire room, or anything?”

“Yes, but given that the door’s the only exit I’d say it comes down to the same thing.”

“Not really… you could just find somebody who can make a temporary door, or make part of the wall intangible,” I said. “Or just get somebody from the transportation program to gate me out of here.”

“That seems a little bit extreme.”

“You’re prepared to petition a god,” I said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Lynette said. “We’re only consulting his mortal representatives. There’s not much chance it will actually go as high as Lord Khersis himself. The Father Episcopous should have enough authority for our purposes.”

“And how long will it take to get an answer from him?”

“I told the novice I spoke to it was very important.”

My classes were still a few hours away, but I wanted to get a good, long bath—the wonderfully comfortable pads they provided me with were waterproof—and a decent breakfast, and bureaucracy mixed with theocracy didn’t sound like a recipe for lightning-fast response times.

“Look, you don’t want to have diabolists throwing their stuff around in your healing center, so what’s wrong with having somebody come in and lay down a bit of plain arcane magic?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that solve everything?”

I watched while Lynette turned it over.

“It’s really not that radical,” I said. “We’re at a magic college. There’s people with energy and expertise to spare. Why not take advantage of it?”

“No offense, you seem like an okay kid… but I can’t help feeling like I should consult a priest before taking any of your suggestions,” Lynette said.

I leaned back into bed and gave a frustrated groan.

“I just want out of here!” I said. “What, do you think I’m going to use a gate spell to open a portal to hell and unleash my nightmarish kindred upon the world or something?”

“Well, I didn’t before!” Lynette said, backing away.

“If you’re that afraid of me, just stand behind the door,” I said.

She bristled a bit at the suggestion and stepped forward.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I watched you cry over your period. I’m not afraid of you. I’m just… prudently cautious, given the forces involved.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Just get me out of here quickly, please. I’ve got stuff I want to do today. Bathing in the blood of innocent water elementals. Feasting on the flesh of pancakes.”

“You could pick smarter topics to be a smart ass about, considering,” Lynette said. “I’ll go send for a diviner so we can get you cleared to leave as soon as we’ve got the door fixed.”

“So you think I’m recovered?” I asked.

“So far as I can tell, yes… but bear in mind, that’s my professional opinion, not a guarantee,” she said. “If the diviner says your aura’s faint or sickly, I’m not signing off on anything.”

“Fine,” I said. “Whatever you have to do.”

She went off then, and came back about half an hour later with a diviner. He stared at me for half a minute and then pronounced me healthy, then told me I was in for an interesting day.

“Sounds pretty typical,” I said with a shrug.

“Do you often have a hard time holding onto your clothes in public?”

“Why, what do you see?” I asked, horrified. “Is anybody else there? Am I… doing anything?”

“I warned you she has a dirty mind,” Lynette said.

“I don’t!” I said. “I just want to know why I’m going to be naked in public!”

“You would probably know better than I,” the diviner said. “You live your whole life inside your skin… I only got a flash.”

“So to speak,” I said sourly.

He shrugged.

“If you honestly don’t want this to come to pass, you should be able to prevent it fairly easily,” he said. “Forewarned is forearmed, as we say in my department.”

“But what exactly is going to come to pass?” I asked.

“You’ll know when it happens.”

“That’s not exactly what I call forewarned!”

He just mumbled what sounded like the standard line about divination being imprecise, and then excused himself.

“If half the rumors about you are true, a little public nudity shouldn’t bother you,” Lynette said.

“Is listening to rumors about students part of your vows?”

She colored a bit, but didn’t back down.

“Didn’t I walk in on you with three other people in bed with you, crawling all over you?” she asked.

“One of those people was just sitting there,” I pointed out.

“Right, it was just the nymph and the… Steff.”

“Oh, fuck,” I said. Something had just occurred to me. “He wasn’t just getting a prediction… he actually saw me naked, didn’t he?”

“Probably,” Lynette said. “But it’s not like he was spying. If there wasn’t a decent chance that you’ll be baring yourself in the near future, there’s no way he could have seen that.”

“I was planning on taking a bath when I got out of here,” I said. “What if he was just peeking at that?”

“I told you, he wasn’t actually peeking,” Lynette said. “It would have to be something significant and way out of the ordinary for it to come through when he was just reading your aura.”

“A good hot bath feels pretty significant to me after the week I’ve been having,” I said. “But I suppose on the bright side, as long as I’m stuck in here I’m not likely to publicly expose myself.”

“Well, we’re working on getting you out. I’ve left a message for the professor of planar apertures, Phones Proust,” Lynette said. “If he gets in before the temple gets back to me and he doesn’t have any objections to gating you out, we’ll go ahead and do that.”

“Can’t you just wake him up?” I asked. “This is kind of an emergency.”

“One student being stuck in bed is hardly an emergency,” Lynette said. “Anyway, he doesn’t use the staff housing… he telecommutes. I’m not sure what time he usually gets in, but he’s got a class at nine, so… some time before then.”

“On the subject of clothes, can I at least have my own stuff back?” I said. “If I’ve got a clean bill of health.”

“Sure,” Lynette said. “I’ll go get them.”

A few minutes later, I was out of Two’s ridiculous sexy pajamas and in my own comfortable clothes… though my jeans felt oddly confining after the healing robes and skimpy nightwear.

I’d decided that even if I was stuck in the room, I’d been pronounced fit and there was no reason to stay in bed… but after realizing how uncomfortable the chairs were, I decided to sit on top of the covers instead. I finished up the logic homework that had been so hard to focus on two nights before, and then read some more of Ian’s comics.

Lynette knocked on the door frame about an hour later.

“Professor Proust sent a message back,” she said.

“What’d he say?” I asked.

“‘Brace yourself’,” she said.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, and the bed disappeared from beneath me… mattress, blankets, and all. My ass hit the floor and my head hit the wall behind me. “Ow!” I wailed.

Why did it seem like my skull was a lodestone for walls?

Lynette smiled over gritted teeth.

“Oops,” she said. “I guess his aim was a bit off?”

“Maybe this is something he should be here to do in person?” I asked. I felt an odd sensation that it took a moment to identify; my bra had vanished.

“You’d be waiting a while for that,” Lynette said. “It turns out he’s on a personal leave right now. Luckily, his office forwarded my message.”

“Leave? What for?” I asked.

“Stress related to…”

I didn’t hear the rest. I was in the same position, but my butt was suddenly resting rather directly on slightly uneven dirt and Lynette was no longer in front of me. My first thought was that the distant Proust had somehow grabbed the entire room and its contents except for me… including my clothes. I was naked, except for the sanitary pad which had stayed snugly secure through the teleportation.

“Fuck!” I yelled, covering my bare chest with my arms and looking wildly around. I wasn’t just outdoors… I was surrounded by brick walls going off in different angles, just a little bit too tall for me to reach the top of. I got to my feet and took a quick look around, if only to confirm the horrible suspicion that had formed in my head.

It didn’t take long for me to do a quick survey of my surroundings: I was in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.

Beautiful.

The dimensional gate had dropped me into the middle of the school’s labyrinth, naked and alone.

Well, the diviner had said I was going to have an interesting day…

The healing center could get to be a busy place in the afternoon, and little sounds from the hallway outside the room kept intruding into my consciousness. I couldn’t believe that being trapped in such an uncomfortable place was actually more conducive to my rest than being cozily ensconced in my own warm, relatively quiet dorm room would have been. Did Lynette think I was going to start chaining fireballs together as soon as I was out of her sight?

I brought this up to her when she checked in on me around four and reported my energy recovery was “disappointing”.

“At least here I know you’re recovering at all,” she said. “Have some more tea and we’ll get you out of here yet.”

“What exactly is my energy level at right now?” I asked. “Fifty percent? Sixty percent?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Enchantment major, right?” she asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s always the enchantment majors who think in those terms, like the hum… like one’s body is a magic wand with so many charges built into it,” she said.

“But there is some amount of energy,” I said. “And you can obviously measure it.”

“I can estimate it,” she said. “I’m not a diviner. I can get a very general sense of your well-being… not as much as I could get if I could use my gifts on you directly.”

“So what’s your general sense of my well-being tell you?”

“That you’re getting better but not as fast as I’d like,” she said.

“So send me home,” I said. “Cut me loose. I swear I’ll just go back to my dorm room and sleep all day.”

“And then stay up all night,” Lynette said. “At least here I can give you a sleeping potion.”

“I’ll take one with me,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Those don’t leave the center under any circumstances,” she said.

“Let me leave and come back, then,” I said.

“Look, if we let you go and you end up seriously hurt then we’re in a lot of trouble,” Lynette said.

“What if I die under your care?” I asked. “How would that look?”

“Didn’t your girlfriend make you promise to behave or something?”

I blushed.

“She’s not exactly my girlfriend.”

“Whatever,” Lynette said. “Anyway, threatening to die isn’t going to work. If I truly believed you were a danger to yourself, I’d have you asleep so fast your head would spin.”

“Okay, but if you had to estimate what my energy level is, what would you guess?”

“What do you want me to say?” Lynette said. “It’s bigger than a bread box? It’s over nine thousand?”

“Just as an approximate percent of what it should be,” I said. “So I know how much further I have to go.”

“Well, this is just a very rough guess, but I’d say you’re in the neighborhood of eighty percent,” Lynette said.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I said.

“Anything below ninety percent is terrible,” she said. “Most routine magic use won’t cause you to dip below ninety-five, though a lot of students manage to work their way lower. Most of the time, though, you’re actually using a small portion of your own energy to start a reaction.”

“Okay, I guess I kind of knew that,” I said. “But I just assumed if I was in such bad shape, I must have been close to zero, and anything that much over fifty percent would mean I was good to go.”

“Look at it this way,” Lynette said. “You’re missing something like twenty percent of your body’s vital essence. Do you think a responsible healer would let you leave in that condition?”

“No, ma’am,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “So that’s the end of that argument. Your friends are bringing your supper?”

“Yeah,” I said. “If that’s okay.”

“One less thing for us to worry about,” she said. “Just make sure they don’t tire you out.” I blushed. “You have a filthy mind, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised… er, because you hang out with Steff, I mean. I should get back out front. Don’t forget to finish that tea.”

“Right,” I said.

It seemed like Lynette was determined to treat me like any other patient, but she couldn’t quite forget what I was. Oh, well. It was probably safer for all involved that way.

Amaranth, Steff, and Dee arrived at half past five.

“Where’s Two and Ian?” I asked.

“The pseudowench is helping H.F.H. bring the food,” Steff said.

“H. what?”

“Her Friend Hazel,” Steff explained. “They cooked up a storm. Chicken soup, fresh rolls from scratch.”

“Ian said he had to run a few errands,” Amaranth said.

“I have been gathering nuts and mushrooms in the forest at night,” Dee said, holding up a large clay bowl. “They should provide adequate sustenance for those who do not ingest meat or grains.”

“That’s very thoughtful, Dee,” Amaranth said.

“Is Celia coming, too?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Amaranth said.

“She said ‘people like us go into healing centers and never come out’,” Steff said, rolling her eyes.

“She’s right,” I said. “I’m living proof.”

“Oh, baby, don’t exaggerate,” Amaranth said. “It’s only been one day. Is Lynette letting you come home tonight?”

“Don’t know for sure yet,” I said. “She’s having a diviner come by to check me out later, but I’d say probably not. If she thought I was doing well enough to leave, she’d probably have got me out of here before dinner time.”

Sooni showed up shortly after Hazel and Two had arrived and started apportioning food. She was dressed in a black and red sort of robe/dress with an even higher hemline on the bottom than most of her skirts, and she’d somehow added red highlights to her long looped braids. She carried a woven bamboo basket. My first thought was that she’d decided to join the party after all, but she apparently had other ideas.

“What is going on?” she shrieked, her shiny black eyes flashing around the room.

“We’re having another picnic,” Amaranth said. “Didn’t Mack tell you?”

“You promised me we could have dinner together!” Sooni said to me. “Just the two of us!”

“Aren’t you a fast worker?” Hazel said to me.

“Sooni, I told you not tonight,” I said. “Weren’t you listening?”

“I listened when you promised. I told you I would be back tonight,” Sooni countered. “Weren’t you listening to me?”

“Sooni, I promised you some night next week,” I said.

“Well, I did not hear that,” Sooni said. “You should learn how to speak more carefully in the future!”

“Sooni, I promise you I was very specific.”

“I just bet that you do, since your promises do not appear to mean anything!”

I sighed.

“Name any day next week,” I said. “Write it down. In the mean time, if you want to join everybody else…”

“I did not bring enough food for everybody,” Sooni said. She sounded flustered, and even blushed slightly as she admitted this. “If I had known… if you had told me…”

“I did,” I said.

“If you had told me better,” Sooni said. She held her basket up in front of her like a shield. “I will go now, but do not forget your promise again. Everybody heard it this time.”

“Pick a day,” I said again. “Write it down and give it to me, so there’s no confusion.”

“Any day?” Sooni asked.

“Any day,” I said.

“Next Friday, then,” she said. “We can go to a nice restaurant in Enwich.”

“I didn’t really mean…”

“You promised!” Sooni shrieked, giving a little hop and stomping her sandal down so hard one of her piles of braids started to unwind. “You are a liar and a cheat and a horrible person and that’s why you are going to lose tomorrow!”

Hazel exchanged a knowing look with Two… or rather, she gave Two a knowing look and then turned and gave it to Steff instead.

“Sooni, please calm down,” Amaranth said. “Mack didn’t mean anything…”

“She never means anything she says, apparently!” Sooni yelled. A pair of male healers appeared in the door.

“Sooni, we’ll do whatever you want,” I whispered fiercely as they entered. “Just calm the fuck down before you get everybody kicked out, okay?”

“Do… do you mean it this time?” Sooni asked, in a much quieter tone.

“Anything reasonable, subject to my approval as owner,” Amaranth said.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, grateful for the caveats. In my desperation to get the situation under control, I hadn’t thought to add any. “What Amaranth said.”

“Okay, but do not try to weasel out of it.”

“What’s going on in here?” one of the healers asked.

“Some of us just got a little overly excited,” Hazel said. “Nothing big.”

He looked around the room doubtfully.

“Lynette says you’re supposed to keep calm and rest,” he said.

“I am,” I said.

He cocked an eyebrow at me and then looked at his coworker for support.

“Well, just try to keep things down in here from now on,” the other healer said. “And remember everybody needs to clear out of here by eight.”

With that, they left us alone.

“So, Sooni, would you like to stay for soup?” Amaranth asked.

“I was not prepared for such a large group,” Sooni said, recovering some composure and haughtiness. “I will go, but I will hold you to your promise, Miss Mackenzie.” She gave a stiff, shallow bow. “All of your promises.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked, but she was already heading for the door and did not stop to answer. “All what promises?”

“Now, what exactly was all that about?” Hazel asked. “The last time I saw that vixen, she was stomping you into paste, wasn’t she?”

“Sooni is sort of… complex,” Amaranth said.

“What’s complex about it?” Steff asked. “She wants to bang Mack, obviously.”

“What?” I asked. “That’s insane. She hates lesbians more than just about anything.”

“Insane’s the word for it,” Steff said. “The sort of comics she reads, girls don’t have to be lesbians to wind up in bed with each other. Anyway, haven’t you ever heard that the most homophobic people are the ones who are afraid of being gay themselves?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think it’s probably remotely possible for somebody to hate gays because they hate gays. Anyway, Amaranth would know, right?” I looked to Amaranth for support. “You could see right away if she was into girls, or me.”

“Well… um…” Amaranth said, blushing.

“What?” I asked. “She isn’t, is she?”

“I can’t exactly get a feel for her,” Amaranth said. “Like I said, she’s complex. And I think her sense of sex is very underdeveloped. I get the feeling that she might fantasize about dating and marriage and things like that, but… any actual sex in her mind is very abstract and nebulous.” She shrugged. “I wish I could tell you, baby, especially since I know you want her so badly.”

“I do not!” I said, at the same time Two said, “She does not!”

“I see what I see,” Amaranth said, shrugging.

“In the nymph’s defense, you were coming pretty hard when she kicked you in the head,” Hazel said.

“What I would have given to see that,” Steff said. She sighed. I could be wrong, but I think she might have been imagining herself in Sooni’s position.

“Let’s wait until Mack’s out of the healing center before we start thinking of that kind of thing,” Amaranth said.

“And let us further wait until the telepaths are out of mindshot,” Dee added.

“Sorry,” Steff said, making a heroic effort at seeming embarrassed. “Mack inspires a vivid imagination in me. I’ve got a notebook full of… well, never mind.”

“Notebook full of what?” Ian asked from the door.

“Sonnets,” Steff said. “Sappy elven poetry.”

Somehow, I don’t think she was being completely honest.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. He looked nervous about something, and he was trying to keep something off his face. “I had to take care of something.”

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Only…”

“Only what?”

“Only I’m in a band,” he said, breaking out into a smile. “There was an ad on the bulletin board for a lute player… I didn’t want to mention it before, in case I jinxed myself or something, but I just finished my audition, and they said I’m in.”

“Rock!” Steff said. “At least, I assume rock.”

“Rock,” Ian said. “They’ve got kind of a… well, their sound is… well, actually they don’t have much of a sound yet because it’s a new band but everybody seems to know how to play. We just have to play together a bit to find out what kind of band we’re going to have.”

“That’s cool,” I said. It sounded underwhelming and lame, but it was cool. Any question that Ian was just a dork with a lute had been settled after I’d heard him play for real.

Now it was official, though. He was in a band.

He was the center of attention for the rest of the meal, happily trumping all talk of Sooni and her weirdness, or our supposed mutual crushes.

Everybody left well before the appointed hour, in order to not walk back to the dorms in total darkness. The scuttlebutt was that the campus had been heating up at night, but I wasn’t worried for anybody’s safety, with Steff and particularly Dee along for the walk.

Dee might have been a little overly quick to remind people just how dangerous and unforgiving her homeland was, but she did have a point. Only the very strong and the very skilled could survive for long in the subterranean depths.

Lynette brought a divination professor in for a consultation at around seven-thirty. I tried not to roll my eyes when she predictably declared my aura was dangerously dim and predicted another night of total rest would restore it.

“Can I get that in writing?” I asked.

“Divination is not a precise art,” she said. “But if our head healer does not declare you fit for duty tomorrow morning, I’ll serve you breakfast in bed myself.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting into there, Genevieve,” Lynette said. “She’s a real bitch in the mornings.”

“Hey!” I said.

Lynette shrugged.

“What?” she said.

“You shouldn’t talk about patients like that,” I said.

“I’m off duty,” she said. “And you earned it.”

I didn’t really have an answer for that.

“Anyway, here’s your potion for the night,” she said, putting a vial on the table. “I recommend you take it sometime before ten, if you want to get out of here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like your excitable friend.”

“She’s not exactly my friend,” I said. “Anyway, my first class is at ten fifteen. Can you make sure I’m awake in time to get to it?”

“I’ll have somebody wake you up, if it comes to that,” she said. “But if you don’t wait too long to take the potion, it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Is Candace really going to be here alone all night?” I asked.

“She’s not going to bother you,” Lynette said. “I’ve spoken to her. Multiple times. She’s more afraid of you than you are of her.”

“People who are afraid of me can do a lot of damage,” I said.

“I’ll talk to her again before I leave,” Lynette said.

Somehow, I didn’t find that wholly reassuring.

I sat up and looked to see the face of Sooni of all people in the little window. She had an idiotic grin plastered across her face, and when she saw me looking, she ducked to the side and held up some kind of wooden bucket-shaped container on a string.

“Hello!” she said as she opened the door and came in. “How are you? Are you feeling better? I love your PJs, where did you get them?” She was speaking rapidly without waiting for me to answer, but she didn’t sound nervous. She held up the basket, or whatever it was. “I brought you more sekihan! I hope you liked it. It’s my absolute favorite. I faked my period a year before it actually started just so I could have it for dinner. Can you believe that?” She giggled. “I think my father knew, anyway.”

I stared at her.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. “Seki-what?”

“Sekihan,” she said. “Red rice. It’s my favorite.”

Puzzle pieces fell into place very slowly. The picture they formed was inescapable, though it still made very little sense.

“You brought me that rice stuff?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Was it poisoned?” I asked.

She laughed.

“You’re so funny, Mackenzie,” she said.

“I’m a laugh riot,” I said. “Was it poisoned?

“No, it’s just rice, sweetened azuki beans, sesame seeds, salt, and a little seasoning,” she said.

“And you cooked this yourself?”

“Kai-Kai boiled the beans and steamed the rice and seasoned it, but I did the important parts,” Sooni said, beaming with pride at the accomplishment.

“Which would be?” I asked. I didn’t know anything about Yokano cooking, but I couldn’t imagine what that left.

“Well, everything else.” Her smile faltered slightly as she said this. “Anyway, it was my idea.”

“But why?”

“You were hurt,” she said. “Azuki beans always make me feel better so I knew they would make you feel better, too.” Only Sooni could combine such perfect narcissism with altruism. “And it is traditional for your first period. I know this is not your first period, but it’s the first one since I’ve known you and I believed you would not have had sekihan before, and like I said, it is my favorite and I thought it would cheer you up.”

“You know what else is traditional? Making people their own favorite food to cheer them up,” I said.

“Well, what is your favorite food?”

Okay, she had me there.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Did you like the sekihan?”

It didn’t seem like I could deny that I had. I nodded.

Sooni glowed.

“Then it can be your favorite food, too,” she declared. “We have the same favorite! We like the same shows and the same foods. Isn’t that neat? I can’t wait to find out what else we have in common.”

“Sooni, you can’t tell people what their favorite foods are,” I said.

“Well… you can’t come up with one on your own, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to do so,” she said. “Anyway, I thought while we ate lunch we could talk about how we’re going to watch our shows on Sunday.”

“Wait… you want to eat lunch with me?” I asked.

“Of course!” She covered her mouth with her finger tips and giggled. “I know that sekihan is your favorite food but I made plenty for both of us.”

“It’s not my favorite!”

“So contrary,” she said. “That’s why you’re funny.”

“I’m not being contrary,” I said. “Or funny. Sooni, why the hell are you here?”

“Well, to see how you were doing, and make our plans for the weekend. Why else would I be here?”

“My only plan for the weekend that involves you is the election tomorrow,” I said.

“Oh, that reminds me! I already told Kiersta you’re not running any more but she said she needs to hear it from you.”

That didn’t seem worth responding to.

“Sooni, as much as I hate to interrupt your crazy time… my friends are going to be here in a little bit,” I said. “I would really rather you were gone by then. In fact, I’d really rather you were gone now. In fact, I’d really rather you hadn’t come at all.”

She seemed to physically shrink before my eyes. The corners of her mouth, her shoulders, and her fox ears and tail all visibly drooped.

“I… I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?” I asked. “I thought I was pretty fucking clear.”

“Aren’t we friends?” she asked. “Aren’t I your friend now?”

“You attacked me without provocation. You kicked me in the ribs when I was down and stepped on my tit,” I said. “You stomped on my face.”

“Yes,” she said. “I won. I beat you.”

“You beat on me, maybe,” I said. “But you were on the ground crying at the end, too.”

“Only because that nasty little gnome hit me with the rolling pin,” Sooni said.

“And I’ll love her forever for that,” I said. “But why would you think I’d like you any better because of our fight? It’s not like I spend all day wishing you’d knock me around a bit and then stomp on me.”

Not all day, anyway, and it wasn’t exactly wishing.

“But I defeated you,” she said. “That means we’re done fighting, right? And so now we can go on to be friends?”

Where had I heard that scenario before? More puzzle pieces arranged themselves in front of me. I did not like the picture that was unfolding.

“You… you brought me your comics, too, didn’t you?” I asked, reaching over and picking up the high school story I’d been reading. “This is yours, not Ian’s.”

Just like that, Sooni was all smiles again.

“Yes!” she said. “When I saw that you liked manga, too, I sent Kai-Kai back to my room to get some of mine for you. Did you like them? I knew you’d like them, just like I knew you’d like sekihan.”

“And you think this is like in the comic, or an episode of Science Princess,” I reasoned out loud. “You think because we fought and you ‘won’, that makes us friends.”

“Yes,” Sooni said. “Aren’t we?”

“Sooni, you stomped on my tit. You crushed my face beneath your heel. If I hadn’t been invulnerable, I would be dead now. I almost died anyway.”

“No, see, you only almost died because you risked your life using magic foolishly in your zeal to defeat me,” Sooni said. “But now that you’ve healed up you see the error of your ways and you’re eager to show how you’ve repented.”

“Sooni… I can’t believe I have to tell you this, but you don’t get to narrate what I’m thinking and feeling,” I said. “Life isn’t like some stupid TV show.”

“Well, it should be!” Sooni said. “Don’t you want to be my friend? I’m being so nice to you!”

“Please refer to subsection B, paragraph you stomped on my face, you fucking whore,” I said. “You can take your stupid rice, your clunky sandals, your too-short skirt, your ridiculous hair, your perfect breasts, and your flagrant abuse of tanning oil and get the hell out of my room.” I pointed at the door. “I’ll send the comics back when I’m done with them.”

Sooni reacted as if she’d been slapped.

Actually, I doubt she’d ever been slapped. She probably would have collapsed crying, like she had when Hazel took her down.

She reacted like a mostly normal person would have reacted to being slapped.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Lynette asked, appearing in the doorway. “Am I going to have to put you back to sleep?”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you to let the bitch queen of the material plane in,” I said. “One unwelcome visitor a month is plenty for me, thanks.”

“I think you’re going to have to leave,” Lynette said to Sooni. “You’re upsetting my patient.”

“I… I don’t mean to be,” Sooni said. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.”

“She’s the reason I’m here, Lynette,” I said.

“I was under the impression you overexerted yourself in a game of some kind,” Lynette said. “Not that it’s my business. We only asked your R.A. if she knew what you had been doing when you collapsed for diagnostic purposes.”

“Yeah, it was a game,” I said grudgingly. “But she took it too far.”

“She takes her rivalry with me so seriously,” Sooni said, in the tone of exaggerated politeness she often affected. She dropped it quickly, though, letting her very real state of bewildered sadness through. “But… I thought we were past all that now.”

“Sooni, we’re not rivals,” I said. “And we’re never going to be friends. I’m not like your nekos. I’m not somebody you can push around and then expect them to just turn around and worship at your feet… or kiss your ass.. or lick your pussy while you call me filth… or whatever it is you want me to do for you.”

“Subtext!” Sooni said, practically dancing with joy. “See? We have subtext now!”

“I’m not sure that qualifies as ‘sub’ anything,” Lynette said. “Seriously, though…”

“You’re insane, Sooni,” I said. “And I have no idea what either of you are talking about.”

“Seriously, you have to leave,” Lynette said. “Whatever… relationship… you two may have…”

“We don’t have one,” I said.

“Whatever,” Lynette said. “You need rest, you need relaxation, you need to recover.” She turned to Sooni. “Which means you need to go.”

“But… I made sekihan,” Sooni said quietly, holding up the food container. Even the piles of braids on top of her head seemed to wilt a little. “It’s our favorite.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Lynette said. “But…”

I didn’t listen to the rest of what Lynette said. I was looking at Sooni’s face. She seemed utterly crushed. She wasn’t playing, either. This wasn’t an affectation like Kai’s sad kitty look.

I felt like I should have been overjoyed, after the way she’d treated me… especially since that was probably the way she’d treated everybody, her whole life.

In a misguided and utterly fucked up way, though, she reminded me of me… when I’d been so pathetically disappointed at missing Puddy’s pizza party due to a slight case of attempted rape.

But… we were going to have pizza.

But… we were going to have sekihan.

I remembered when I’d first told Amaranth about Sooni’s actual relationship with her nekos. She’d told me that if she really had no friends that hadn’t been paid for, we should feel sorry for her.

I didn’t buy that. I couldn’t. For one thing, slavery of any form was abhorrent. For another, it seemed pretty obvious that her “friendship” with the nekos had twisted them badly.

Maliko was sadistic and mean-spirited. Suzi seemed a bit, well… like a big fluffy kitty cat… but I’d seen the cruel looks she gave Kai sometimes, and she was just as quick to throw an insult, though even less skilled than Maliko. Kai struck me as being cutthroat herself, in her own way. I couldn’t blame her for that.

I really couldn’t blame any of them for their failings, not knowing their circumstances, not knowing what exactly Sooni had put them through.

But you have no problem blaming Sooni, not knowing what she’s been through, a quiet voice said. It sounded a lot like Amaranth’s.

Of course I didn’t. Sooni was evil.

People say the same about you. You do, too, for that matter.

That’s different. I tried to be good. I really did.

And what’s Sooni doing? What’s she doing right now?

She wasn’t trying to be good! She was trying to force me to be friends with her in accordance with the rules of her stupid stories. It was sad and all that she didn’t have any real friends, but it wasn’t my fault that she’d somehow managed to be even more socially inept than I was.

So it’s okay to be mean to somebody and shut them out for being more socially inept than yourself.

…

Well, I’d certainly shut me up.

“Look… stay,” I said.

Lynette and Sooni both turned and stared at me.

“What now?” Lynette asked.

“Sooni can stay,” I said, knowing I would regret this sooner or later. “I… I don’t mind.”

“I knew you couldn’t resist your favorite food,” Sooni said. She turned to Lynette. “She’s just in a bad mood but sekihan always cheers her up, just like it does for me.”

Yeah. It looked like we were going to go with “sooner.”

“Fine… but if I hear another raised voice in here, I’m kicking one of you out and putting the other one under,” Lynette said. “I mean that.”

“Do not worry!” Sooni said. “Miss Mackenzie and I are going to be the best of friends.”

I tried to look on the bright side. There was still every chance that when my actual friends showed up, Steff would kill Sooni. The slight chance that she’d try to turn the corpse into some kind of undead sex puppet seemed like an acceptable risk, at this point.

“Hi, Two,” I said.

“Hey, hon,” Steff said.

“Hello, baby,” Amaranth said, coming over to the bed and leaning over to give me a hug.

“I’m feeling better now,” I said, returning the embrace with all my heart. If I had died… if I’d slipped away in my sleep… we’d have been separated forever. I didn’t know if immortal spirits like nymphs had an afterlife, but it sure wouldn’t be anywhere near where I was likely to end up. “Much better now that you’re here.”

“That’s good to hear,” Amaranth said. “Healer Lynette seemed to think you were in a bit of a grumpy mood.”

Grumpy? What was I, six or something? There was just something annoyingly maternal about the way she said it. She was my lover and my owner… not my mother.

“Don’t listen to anything she says,” I said. “She’s got it in for me, for some reason.”

“She’s looking out for you,” Amaranth said. “Oh, did Sooni come and visit you, too?” She bent over me and picked up the stupid high school comic I’d just finished.

“What? No,” I said. “I think Ian must have brought that.”

“I don’t think so,” Two said, shaking her head. She started sorting through them, holding up the Imperial titles. “He brought this one, and this one, and this one, and…”

“Oh, will you put a freaking sock in it?” I said. Every word was like a spike thrusting my ears straight into my brain.

“But he did,” Two said to Amaranth.

“She’s right, Mack,” Amaranth said. “Ian didn’t have any of these eastern-style ones with him.” She pointed to some symbols on the back. “These look like Yokanese.”

“Yokano,” I corrected. “And how do you know what Yokano writing looks like?”

“Well, I have done a lot of reading, you know,” she said.

“Why would Sooni visit me?” I asked, temporarily forgetting my theory that Sooni had brought over my logic homework. “To rub in the fact that she stomped me into the floor?”

“Maybe she wanted to make up with you?” she said.

I snorted.

“What?” Amaranth asked.

“Sooni’s not the sort of person who makes out with the people she beats up,” I said.

“Up,” Steff said, hiding half a smile behind her hand.

“What?”

“Makes up with the people she beats up,” Steff said.

“Well, what the hell did I say?” I asked.

“Makes out.”

I glared at her.

“I did not,” I said. Had I? I didn’t think so.

“Maybe we should just come back later, when you’re feeling better,” Amaranth said, moving away.

“No!” I said. I lunged sideways and threw my arms around her waist. “I want you to stay.”

“Then you can start acting like it,” Amaranth said. “I know you’ve had a rough time, and it must be very frightening to have come…”

“I’m not scared,” I said.

“You were dying, Mack.”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t even conscious for it,” I said. “From the moment I woke up last night I’ve felt nothing but fine except for the fact that I’m locked in a freezing room and being treated like a baby.”

A small, annoying voice piped up in my head to point out that I was acting like a baby, but I pushed it aside. I was hurt. I was sick. I was being confined against my will.

I was entitled.

“Oh, poor baby,” Amaranth said. She lifted up the covers and slid in beside me, pressing her front into my side. “Scoot over.”

“No,” Steff said, climbing on the other side of me and crawling up to the head of the bed. “Stay where you are.”

“I don’t think this bed was made for more than one person,” Two said, looking on with a mixture of horror and fascination in her big blue eyes.

She had a point. Steff and I might have been able to lay side-by-side, and maybe I could have spooned with Amaranth, but the three of us was pushing things.

“Things” in this case meaning me. I was definitely being squished… the part of my thigh that was lined up with Steff’s crotch more so than the rest of me.

I wasn’t complaining. I felt the impulse to, but it was no match for the competition.

“Sit down, Two,” Amaranth said, and Two started for one of the metal chairs set against the wall. “No, honey, on the bed.”

“But there are chairs for sitting on,” Two said.

“Come join us,” Steff said. “Be with your friends.”

Indecision played across Two’s face.

“Okay,” she said, nodding. She came over and sat down on the edge of the foot of the bed… very gingerly, as if she expected somebody to burst through the door at any moment and accuse her of mal-furniture-use.

Amaranth and Steff pressed in closer and, grabbed by simultaneous impulses, each kissed me on the cheek.

“We love you, baby,” Amaranth whispered.

“Love you, Mack,” Steff said.

“I love all of you… guys,” Two said.

“I love you all, too,” I said, and felt my eyes tearing up.

We remained like that for several minutes, Amaranth stroking my hair while I nuzzled my head against her, and Steff kissing the side of my face and neck. Her erection still pressed up against me, under the blankets, but she behaved herself.

Mostly. Her hands did a little exploring under my healing robe.

“What the hell are you wearing?”

I blushed.

“Two’s pajamas,” I said.

“Did you like them?” Two asked. “They’re so pretty.”

It wasn’t hard at all to resist the urge to wipe the smile off her face.

“I find my own more comfortable,” I said. True, not overly negative, but also not likely to lead to more opportunities to swap jammies. “If they make me stay another night, will you bring me my own?”

I watched Two think about this for a few seconds. Her eyes looked at me for a cue, then at Amaranth. I looked at Amaranth and saw her lip trembling. She was torn. I wanted her to give Two directions if she started to get upset, but no sooner. Would she manage that?

Then, Two made up her mind.

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And how’s our special guest doing?” Lynette said, coming into the room. “Oh, no way is this going down,” she said. “Everybody who is not a patient, out of bed.”

Two stood up like somebody had bit her on the butt, and Amaranth likewise slid out from under the covers without further prompting, but Steff stayed where she was, running her hands over me in a very visible way while she spoke to Lynette.

“I could be your patient,” Steff said. Her voice still held a bit of flatness, but there were playful notes, like rays of sun peaking through the clouds. “I’ve got this horrific swelling I’d like you to take a look at…”

“We have all seen your swelling, Steff,” Lynette said. “Out of bed, before I kick you and your friends out of the room.”

Steff climbed out of bed, making no effort to conceal her very obvious state of arousal. How had I missed that for so long? I guess I’d seen what I expected to see.

“Why don’t you go take care of that?” Lynette said.

“Sorry,” Steff said, not sounding very sorry at all. “I’m not permitted to do that right now.”

“I was hoping you could kill two birds with one stone,” Lynette said. “The ladies’ room is still sanctified from the other day.”

“Still?” I asked.

“We don’t really do ‘unholy’ around here,” Lynette said. “It’s not like an enchantment you can just dissolve. Well, maybe you could. On a related subject, Candace is pulling the overnight tonight.”

“Oh, I am so out of here before then,” I said.

“Who’s Candace?” Amaranth asked.

“You know those icons the dogmatics have in their temples?” Steff said. “Candace is like that: holy as all get out, but with a head full of marble.”

“I’d like nothing more than for you to be gone before she gets in,” Lynette said. “But I’m having a diviner come down to measure your energy levels in the evening and I can’t really make a decision before then.”

“Why can’t you check now?” I asked.

“You want me to decide based on your levels now or after another ten or twelve hours of recovery time?” Lynette said. “Don’t worry, she’s been given a verbal reprimand and a reminder of university policies and her oaths.”

“That’s going to be a big comfort when she starts blessing my room,” I said.

“I’ll make sure to get you your supper and a sleeping potion before she comes on,” Lynette said. “You won’t even have to see her. Just be glad you don’t have more in the way of physical needs.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She could do a lot of damage with a blessed bed pan.”

“Hey… speaking of which,” Amaranth said, in a forced casual tone. “Is there any possibility I could borrow one of those and one of these robe things?” She giggled. “It’s for purely spiritual purposes, of course.”

“I’m sorry,” Lynette said, with a wry smile. “If I let you conduct religious rites with our equipment, I’d have to let Candace do the same.”

“Oh, fooey,” Amaranth said, scrunching up her lips.

“Maybe it’s none of my business… you know, never mind,” Lynette said to Amaranth. “Forget I said anything.”

“No, please,” Amaranth replied. “I believe in open, honest communication.”

“Well, how do you think your goddess would feel about you… dating, or whatever you’re doing… somebody of her race?” Lynette asked.

“Oh, we’ve… we’ve talked about it,” Amaranth said.

“You’ve actually spoken with her?”

“Yes,” Amaranth said. She reached up and tugged at the skin of her lip. “She’s… okay with it. I mean, she hasn’t told me no, so…”

She shrugged.

“Interesting,” Lynette said.

“What is?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Lynette said. “I’m not trying to offend anybody… I definitely don’t want you getting excited or upset, in your state. I’m just curious, I guess. I probably shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine,” Amaranth said. “We’ve always been very open about our relationship.”

Steff snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

“It’s none of my business,” Lynette said. “Really, I just came in here to make sure you’d drunk the tea… which I can see you didn’t.”

“I wanted…”

“Lemonade,” Lynette said. “I remember. But if you don’t drink the tea, your energy’s not going to recover as fast. I thought you wanted to get out of here?”

I sighed and picked up the cup.

“It’s cold,” I said.

“It wouldn’t be if you’d taken it when I brought it in,” Lynette said. “I can warm it up for you.”

“I can do that,” Two said.

“That’s fine,” I said. “But I can actually…”

“No!” Lynette and Amaranth said at the same time.

“Baby, no,” Amaranth said, in a sultry tone I’d rather she hadn’t employed in front of anybody outside our immediate circle. “You’re supposed to be resting. No magic at all.”

“But fire’s my strongest suit,” I said. “Surely I could…”

She cut me off with an over-the-glasses glare.

“Listen to the healer,” she said. “And let Two heat up your tea. You know she’s happy to do it.”

I sighed, defeated, and handed the mug to Amaranth, who passed it to Two without looking. Two did a small chant over it and handed it back. Under Amaranth’s watchful eyes, I drained the mug of the slightly bitter liquid.

“Do I need to be naked in order to get that kind of obedience?” Lynette asked.

“There’s really only one way to find out,” Steff said.

Amaranth kept her eyes focused on me.

“I don’t think you’re going to have any further troubles from my Mack,” she said, continuing in the same sexy purr. “I think she’s going to be nothing but perfectly obedient for the rest of her stay, no matter how long that is. Isn’t that right, baby?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I mumbled, ducking my head.

“What’s that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said louder.

“She’s going to follow all instructions and say ‘please’ when she asks for something and ‘thank you’ when she gets it,” Amaranth continued. “Right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And she’s going to wear pretty pajamas to bed,” Two said.

Amaranth sputtered a laugh.

“Two, I’ve told you, you’re not in charge of her sleepwear,” she said. “But… hmm… I think maybe some small punishment is in order for your recent behavior. Mack, remove your robe.”

“Whoa,” Lynette said. “Hold on now. This is…”

Amaranth held up a hand. “Don’t worry,” she said. “She’s got something on beneath it. What are you waiting for, baby? If you want to make me say it a second time, we can put Two in charge of your sleepwear.”

Glowing red from head to toe, I pulled off the flimsy robe and handed it to Amaranth who handed it to Lynette.

“Now you’re dressed for bed!” Two said, beaming. After a few seconds, she added “Pretty! Isn’t she pretty, Steff?”

“Yes, she is,” Steff said. “Pretty as a picture.”

Amaranth sighed.

“I think we’ve probably got to get going,” she said. “Classes. Can we come back over lunch?” she asked Lynette.

“Sure,” Lynette said. “You can bring her food, if you want.”

“We can have a picnic,” Two said. “It’s okay to eat without a table if you’re having a picnic,” she explained, as though for Lynette’s benefit. “Though I’d rather have a table than a picnic.”

“I, uh, see,” Lynette said. “Well, I’ll clear out for a bit so you can say your goodbyes. I’ll be back in a few minutes with another mug of tea, though.”

“Goodbye,” Two said to her as she left. “Bye, Mack.”

“We’re not leaving just yet, sweetie,” Amaranth said.

“Can you see if Ian will come?” I asked Amaranth.

“Sure, baby,” Amaranth said. “Do you want us to bring Dee and Celia, too?”

I shook my head.

“Just you guys,” I said.

“Okay,” Amaranth said.

“Can I bring my friend Hazel?” Two asked. “She likes picnics.”

“No, Two, not today,” Amaranth said.

“But…”

“Mack’s not feeling well enough for visitors,” Amaranth said. “Except for us, because we’re like family.”

“Oh,” Two said. “Okay.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” I said, and I explained to Amaranth my decisions about the emergency contact form. “Is that okay?”

“Well… you do want to talk to Ian about it,” she said. “But I can’t imagine he’ll mind. Though… um…”

“What?”

“Are you sure you want to cut your grandmother out like that?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Don’t you have any other family, though?”

“Not really,” I said. “Aunts and uncles I didn’t see very often before I turned, and not at all after.”

“Well, maybe this is the time to get re-acqua…”

I shook my head, and the expression on my face convinced her.

“Well, okay,” Amaranth said. “I wish you felt differently, though.”

“But you’re not going to order me to?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that.” She came closer and leaned over, kissing me. “Feel better, okay, baby?”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“We’ll see you later, hon,” Steff said.

“Bye, Mack!”

“Bye, Two.”

I’d woken up wet, with my grandmother standing over me. She hadn’t needed to tell me what had happened. Without a word, she’d taken me by the hand and dragged me down the hall to her cozy little kitchen, lit the stove, and put the pot on.

The moonlight angling through the windows and the flickering flame of the stovetop were the only lights. Somehow, the things they illuminated seemed ghastly and frightening in a way the darker parts of the room weren’t. I kept my eyes towards the shadows, looking at the familiar jars of herbs on the spice rack, the long knives hanging on the wall, the pots and pans on their pegs, the temple calendar. No light touched these things, and they remained untransformed.

I was cold and wet, but hopeful. I thought maybe my grandmother was finally going to make me something to eat… she hadn’t let me have any food since I’d arrived.

The strange thing was, I wasn’t that hungry. I was aware that my stomach was empty, but the gnawing hunger that had been with me my whole life was gone.

I missed food. I wanted food. I didn’t need it.

“Now, Kenzie,” my grandmother said when the contents of the pot began to bubble. Her voice was muffled and indistinct with the interference of intervening years, but the words themselves were sharp and clear. They were seared into my mind. “Do you know what holy water is?”

“Water… water that’s holy?”

She nodded.

“It’s a simple enough description, but apt,” she said. “Do you know what holy water would do to something of your kind?”

I shook my head.

“Something like what boiling oil would do to someone of mine,” she said, and she thrust her hand into the pot.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry out. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw and held her hand there. I don’t know how long. Time wasn’t working right. It had been like that the first time, in real life, and it was even worse in my dream.

“Grandma, no!” I cried.

I called her “grandma” back then. I was frightened and confused by the changes in my life, but she was still the comfortingly familiar shape that had loomed over me at irregular intervals throughout my childhood. Visits to “Gan’ma” had been a special treat when I’d been little, and when she and my mother fell out over something my mother had refused to tell me about, those increasingly rare visits had become all the more important.

Now, she was hurting herself in front of me, and I didn’t know why.

She pulled her hand out of the oil and thrust it in my face, talking calmly while I screamed my head off.

“From now on, there will be a bucket of holy water by your bed at all times,” she said, waving the mangled limb in front of me. “If you have one accident, I will douse you and put out the fire. If you have another accident, I will douse you and put out the fire. If you have a third accident in the same night, it will be the last one. Do you understand me, child?”

She did not get a clear answer out of me that night, but she repeated the message and the question in the morning. She repeated it again before I went to bed.

I didn’t go to sleep that night. It was easy. I was keyed up with fear. The next night was harder. I was still frightened, but I was exhausted, too. The fear won out in the end, and I stayed awake until morning.

When my grandmother caught me nodding off during the day, she called me willful. There was no question of making it through another night without sleep. I passed out as soon as I climbed onto the bare mattress, and slept deeper than I ever had before.

That was the third night without any accidents, and my grandmother let me have my blankets after that.

I didn’t dream about all of that, though. My dream stopped when my grandmother shoved her hand… burnt, blistered, and bloody… into my face.

I don’t mean it ended. I mean it stopped, frozen on that image. Seconds replayed. The hand came closer, then came closer again, then came closer again. It never moved back. It was simply thrust into my face again and again, forever.

Angles changed. Sometimes I could see my grandmother’s face, the look of grim resolve. Sometimes I could see my own. Sometimes it was just the hand.

I think the dream stopped there because that was usually the part where I woke up. That was the fun thing about being stuck in an enchanted sleep for eight hours, or until somebody kissed me.

There was no escape clause for nightmares.

I just had to ride it out, sometimes more aware that it was just a dream, that the event I was witnessing was nine years in the past and I never had to see my grandmother again… and sometimes less.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Lynette, the healer, said… her voice was the first clue I had that I was awake. The image of my grandmother’s hand still hung in the air in front of me for several seconds. I gasped and tried to stir myself to brush it away, the way you wave away an image in a mirror. “Oh! Are you alright?”

“Bad… bad dream,” I said. My throat felt dry. My head hurt and I was cramping again… or still… and the dream was still fresh and vivid in my head. “My grandmother… hurt.”

“Do you want a mirror?” Lynette asked. “So you can talk to her?”

I shook my head.

“No!” I said fiercely. “I want to forget her.”

“Well, I can’t help you there,” she said. “How about a glass of water? Sleeping potions often cause a bit of dry mouth.”

I nodded, and she got me one.

“You’re not really going to make me stay here all day, are you?” I asked after I’d finished drinking.

“Roger said you might be difficult… if there were any way to speed up your recovery, I would do so,” Lynette said. “But it would be blatantly irresponsible of me to let you out of our care before I’m certain your energy levels have normalized. Here’s some reading material.” She handed me a pamphlet. “I gather you may not have received some rather crucial information about your menstrual cycle.”

“I knew it affected things,” I said. “I didn’t realize it was so dangerous. That’s going to make it difficult to keep up in my labs if I can’t use magic at all…”

“I doubt you’ve been just ‘using magic at all’ for these past few days,” Lynette said. “The key is to try not to use any more magic than you normally would. Your body has natural barriers that protect you by preventing you from drawing too deeply on your energy reserves, but those barriers are weakened during menstruation. You have to substitute your own judgment for your body’s.”

“My body’s judgment,” I echoed darkly.

I squeezed my eyes shut. That sounded just like something my grandmother would say. Not judgment by my body… but a judgment of my body, upon my body.

In her mind, being born female was a judgment from on high… a curse, and menstruation and everything that went along with it was part of that curse.

It wasn’t that I liked to agree with her, but I could certainly understand where she was coming from.

“Miss Mackenzie, if I’d known how… inexperienced… you were about these things, I never would have been so brusque with you the other day,” she said. “But what I said is true: it is just a period, and we all have them. So long as you’re careful in how you expend your energies in the future, I can promise you’re not going to die from one.”

“You’re a divine caster, right?”

“What?”

“Are you a divine caster?” I asked again.

“I don’t like the term ‘caster’,” she said. “To me, what I do isn’t ‘spells’, it’s a miraculous gift… but yes, I use divine energy for healing and protection.”

“Well, then, you don’t have to worry about burning up or bleeding yourself dry, do you?” I said. “Even though we both have periods, you don’t have to worry as much about yours.”

“You know, I’m going to go get you some more blood leaves to chew on,” she said. “We can have somebody go over and get some breakfast for you, too. There’s a fresh pad on the table, and a sponge by the sink if you want to clean up a bit.”

“Can I have some privacy for that?”

“There’s a curtain you can pull around the sink,” she said pointing to it.

“Can I have a little more privacy?”

She smiled.

“If you close the door, we won’t come in without knocking,” she said. “Unless you don’t answer.”

“Just close it behind you,” I said. “I’ll open it when I’m done.”

She nodded, then left, pulling the door closed. I felt a tiny bit better, exerting a pointless bit of authority over the administration of my prison.

My legs were a little bit wobbly, but I attributed that to having slept too deeply for too long, and in an unaccustomed position. The princess pose was not my thing, but it was another side effect of restful magic sleep.

I washed up in the sink and changed my pad. I had an uncomfortable moment when I realized somebody must have done that while I was unconscious the day before, very possibly more than once.

I tried not to think about it. I tried to make myself believe they had somehow done it magically with no actual contact or exposure. I didn’t succeed at either.

It was so humiliating. Everything about my infirmity and confinement was. Ordinary healing was such a quick and painless affair. Wounds, poisons, diseases, and broken bones could all be taken care of quickly with no loss of dignity… being mystically depleted and bleeding to death out your nether parts was apparently a different story.

I found that for once, I could push my mortification away by resenting the people who caused it. Okay, so there were some good sides to worse-than-average period symptoms. I hadn’t asked anybody to clean me up in my sleep or mess around with my private bits. It wasn’t my fault. They should be embarrassed, not me.

I also had an idea where I could start healing my pride. I never had changed before I conked out, but if I was going to spend the day in bed, my comfy shorts would beat the hell out of the flimsy robe.

Or they would have, if Two had brought them. What was hanging in the cupboard was clearly hers. At least it was opaque, but ridiculous all the same: all tassel trim and dangling pom poms, covering only the bare essentials.

I looked about a bit to see if my own clothes were anywhere in sight, then put on Two’s nightclothes underneath the robe. It made me feel less naked, anyway.

I didn’t bother opening the door when I was done. I simply settled back in bed and picked up one of Ian’s comics, waiting for Lynette to knock.

“Enter,” I said when she did. I tried to sound haughty and didn’t look up when she came in.

“Well, you’re just making yourself at home, aren’t you?” she said.

I didn’t say anything. I’d grabbed without looking, and ended up with an eastern import. Not in the mood to admit a mistake even to myself, I’d actually started reading it.

“Here are some herbs and a bit of restorative tea,” Lynette said, shifting the stack of comics to put them closer to the bed

“Don’t move my stuff,” I said. Being difficult made me feel ever-so-slightly better.

“I just want to make sure you can reach them,” she said.

“I’ve got arms and legs.”

“You’re supposed to be resting,” she said.

“Now I have to get up to reach my graphic novels.”

“Fine,” Lynette said. She picked them up and put them on the bed beside me. “Now they’re…”

“I told you not to move my stuff!” I said. I sounded about twelve years old and felt about six. That was okay with me.

“Look, if you really don’t want to be here, we can just give you a few more sleeping potions and you can sleep until you’re discharged,” she said. “Is that what you want?”

A whole day stuck asleep, at the mercy of whatever dream popped into my head? I didn’t answer, but my expression must have been enough.

“If you continue to get all aggravated, I can force you to take them,” she said. “You’re here to relax. If everything goes as it should, you’ll be out of here by Friday morning at the very latest.”

“Friday morning?” I repeated.

“At the latest,” she said. “Your friends can visit starting at eight, as long as they don’t get you excited or tire you out.” I blushed, and felt all the more embarrassed because I knew she didn’t mean anything like that. “Do you want breakfast first? Do you want a mirror?”

“Breakfast,” I said. “Waffles or pancakes, with strawberry syrup.”

“I’ll send somebody over. Anything to drink?”

“Lemonade,” I said, without thinking.

“Lemonade?”

“I can have lemonade, can’t I?” I asked.

“I don’t know if the cafeteria has lemonade in the morning,” Lynette said. “Would you like orange juice if…”

“I want lemonade,” I said. I remembered Two’s lemonade, almost sickly sweet. “And extra sugar to put in it.”

“Okay, but if they don’t…”

“Then I don’t want anything,” I said. “I’ll get my friends to bring me some.”

“Okay,” Lynette said. “If that’s what you want. We’ll try to stay out of your hair, Miss Mackenzie…”

“Ms. Blaise,” I corrected, though I’d long since stopped caring what other people called me. “I have a last name, you know. I am half-human.”

“Ms. Blaise, then,” she amended.

“And why is it ‘miss’ for non-humans and ‘ms.’ for humans?” I asked. “That seems demeaning, somehow. Men are ‘mister’ no matter what their race is. Why aren’t women the same?”

“Actually, as recently as twenty years ago, it was still fairly common for non-human men to be styled ‘master’,” Lynette said. “But that was considered to be a bit diminutive.”

“And ‘miss’ isn’t?”

“Maybe it is,” Lynette said. “I’ll go get your breakfast taken care of. As I said, Ms. Blaise, we’ll try to stay out of your hair, as long as you try to relax a little. You’re not doing yourself any favors getting all wound up over little things.”

“Call me Ms. Mackenzie,” I said.

She gave me a “don’t push it” look and headed for the door.

Okay, so I was being peevish on purpose, but really… why not Ms. Mackenzie? The different forms of address for non-humans came from the reality that human-style surnames were rare in other cultures, but why did that mean we had to be titled differently? And didn’t I have a right to be addressed as I saw fit?

I persisted in reading the stupid backwards comic out of obstinance. It was a slightly-larger-than-pocket-sized digest of the first several issues of a series, with girls having weird adventures in a high school.

I think it was a high school, anyway. It seemed in some ways to be more like a university.

Lynette came in with a tray and set it down on a folding stand. She didn’t say a word. I was absorbed in reading, or else I would have remembered that I wanted to complain about having really wanted either waffles or pancakes, depending on which one she actually brought.

There was a stack of each, anyway… and lemonade.

The main plot in the comic was all about how the oh-so-stereotypical “bad girl” kept trying to mess things up for the heroine and her friends, challenging her to a bunch of pointless contests and getting competitive in class seemingly for no other reason than to get in the heroine’s way. At the end of the collection, she was utterly humiliated after being defeated—in a cooking contest of all things—and was slinking away and monologuing about dropping out of school when the heroine caught up to her and put her hand on her shoulder.

That was how it ended. I could see where the story was heading. They’d become friends and the bad girl would be integrated into the gang, though they’d always be rivals.

It was trite and it was stupid and it was clichéd and it bugged the crap out of me that I didn’t have the next part to read… though I wasn’t annoyed for long: I could hear Amaranth out in the hall. It was eight, and I had visitors.

Or maybe her looks were deceiving and she was a healer.

“Hi there,” she said. “What can we help you with today?”

“I’m… um… having some pain,” I said.

“Alright, just fill this out,” she said, handing me a card-sized form and a pen. I took them, registering a second too late the tingling in my fingers, which burned with pain at the touch of the pen.

“Ow, fuck!” I yelled, dropping it.

“Excuse me?” the receptionist said.

“It’s blessed,” I said.

“What? No, it isn’t,” she said.

“It burned me,” I said.

“It’s just a pen,” she said, picking it up and holding it out towards me.

I stepped back, but held up my injured fingers.

“Look!”

“Why would a blessed pen burn you?” she asked.

“Can I please just get another one?” I asked.

The receptionist tilted her head and looked at me over the top of her glitter-encrusted glasses. She didn’t have quite the same effect as Amaranth.

“Are you sure you don’t want next door?” she asked.

“You know what, I’ll use my own,” I said. I set my book bag down and rummaged in it.

“Honestly, all this fuss over a pen,” she said.

“Hey, what’s going on?” a blonde-haired girl in white robes said, coming through a curtained door behind the counter. She was good-looking in a very predictable sort of way, and her ears had a slight point to them… maybe a quarter elf.

“This young lady doesn’t like our pens,” the receptionist said. “Says they’re blessed.”

“Oh! Um, they are,” the girl said. “I was alone at the counter over lunch, and I blessed them.”

“Why would you bless the pens?” I asked, pain and crankiness overwhelming what would have been my more typical response to a tall, thin, pretty blonde girl.

“I thought it would be a nice way of bringing a little good will to our patients,” she said. “Also, I was bored.”

I glared at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Some people can’t handle blessed items,” I said.

“Yeah, but, only like demons and shit, right?” she said.

Oh, she would make a fabulous priestess some day. I could just picture it: “Okay, so, like, let’s all totally praise mighty Khersis, or something?”

I held up my hand to show her the burn marks. She blanched and backed away through the curtain. I sincerely hoped she wasn’t the only healer on duty.

Though my writing was a little shaky, I managed to fill out the form with my own pen and handed it to the receptionist. She looked at it, reached up and adjusted her glasses, held it at arm’s length, and squinted at it.

“Now, why in the world would you want arcane healing?” she asked, as if she hadn’t caught anything that had happened since I arrived. That seemed pretty likely, actually. “That isn’t cheap, you know.”

“I need it,” I said.

“You kids… you think you need something just because it costs a lot of money,” she said. “Divine magic comes from the gods, you know. That should be good enough for anybody.”

“Can I please just talk to a healer?”

“Pushy, pushy,” she said, lifting up a coffee mug from beneath the counter. I saw it had the same “Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Administrative Assistants” slogan on it that Steff’s friend’s mug had. An omen of things to come? She looked over her shoulder at the doorway and called, “Candace, do you want to take this young lady?”

There was no immediate response, and I assumed that Candace was the priestess-in-training.

“Hello? Candace?” the receptionist said after several seconds had passed.

A brunette woman came through the curtain. She looked just a little bit too old to be a student, or an undergrad, anyway. She certainly looked more mature than Candace, if that was the elvenblood’s name.

“Candy’s locked herself in the bathroom and warded the door,” she said. “Do you have any idea… oh.” Her eyes had fallen on me. “Are you here to be healed?”

I nodded.

“Come around,” she said, gesturing towards the doorway past the counter, and then disappearing through the curtain.

She met me on the other side and led me into a treatment room. It was cold inside, and I got goosebumps on my arms almost right away. I rubbed them with my hands.

“My name’s Lynette,” the healer said, gesturing me towards a chair, which I fell into. “If you can excuse me for one moment, we’ll get those fingers taken care of first.”

She darted out of the room and came back with a small jar of ointment and a clipboard. She twisted the lid off the jar and handed it to me.

“Rub this on,” she said. I did, and felt a soothing sensation wrapping my hand. The pale green ointment vanished as I rubbed it around the injured area, taking the injury with it.

“Now, I need you to sign for that,” she said when I’d finished, handing me the clipboard. “I wasn’t sure that would work,” she confessed. “It always seems to me like sanctified damage should trump arcane healing, you know?”

“I guess,” I said. I could see her point, but I was privately glad that she had been wrong.

“Now, what brings you here?”

“I’m having these painful cramps,” I said, putting my hand just below my stomach. “And this bloated feeling. Also, I’m supposed to be at mixed melee right now, so…”

“Well, you could have just said up front that you’re having trouble with your period and need a note for WP,” Lynette said.

“It’s not that,” I said.

“Come on, you’re long past middle school,” she said.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I know for a fact it’s not my period.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“Hell no.”

She gave me a piercing look I wasn’t sure I deserved.

“Okay,” she said. “When was your last one, then?”

“Um, a while ago,” I said. I wasn’t sure exactly when. I’d never really realized just how dependent I’d been on my grandmother for keeping track of that, just like she did my feeding schedule. “But not that long ago. Why do you need to know?”

“If it isn’t your period, I need to know what it is,” she said.

“Is that really necessary?” I asked. “You can’t just cure me?”

“Arcane cures are a bit on the expensive side,” she said. “If I give you a potion to cure disease and you don’t actually have one, that’s one less we have for the next person.”

“Don’t most people just get the divine treatment?” I asked.

“That doesn’t make the arcane potions cabinet your own personal vending cupboard,” she said. “There’s always emergencies.”

“Well, I don’t get sick,” I said.

“Constipation?” she suggested.

I shook my head.

“I don’t do that, either,” I said.

“I guess you wouldn’t. I don’t suppose internal injuries are very likely, either,” she said. “But… have you been hit by anything that could injure you lately?”

“No.”

She tilted her head to the side, putting her hand up on the side of it while peering at me in frustration.

“Okay,” she said. She pointed to a cupboard. “You strip. I need to go hop on the ball.”

“What?”

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I just need to look a few things up.”

“Yeah, but did you just tell me to strip?” I asked. If this were one of my weird dreams, I couldn’t imagine why I’d be in such pain and discomfort… and Lynette hardly seemed my type, whatever that was.

“I need to examine you,” she said. “I can’t channel divine energy around you, so it’ll have to be physical.

“Yeah, but… naked?”

“I think there’s robes in that cupboard, if you’re concerned about your privacy,” she said, pointing.

“So I have to take my clothes off for you to do this but I can put different clothes on?”

“The robe won’t get in the way,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to get a quick refresher on a few points. Just change into the robe and lay down on the table.”

After she left, I went to the cupboard to verify the robes’ existence before I started to undress. There were three of them, all identical except for having slightly different ugly patterns of green flowers with blue leaves on them. I couldn’t believe they were there to alleviate privacy concerns; they were short, open all the way up the back, and Two had nighties made of thicker material than them.

She’d said “strip”, but I kept my underwear and bra on. If she wanted to examine anything beneath them I was calling the whole thing off and filing a report. The idea was ridiculous. If it weren’t for the robes, I’d think she was making it all up.

The surface of the table was freezing to the touch. I tried to pull a little fire to warm it up, but I couldn’t… it was like trying to move too soon after being suddenly awakened. I could feel that the fire element was there, but it just wouldn’t respond. I got hit with a serious twinge of pain for the effort, too.

I considered just putting my clothes back on and leaving, but Amaranth had said I needed to go to the healing center if I was going to skip class. Well, technically, I had gone, but that wasn’t what she’d meant. Telling myself that it would warm up a bit, I laid down on the table.

Once I laid down, it seemed easier to stay there than not, but I was miserable. On top of everything I’d come into the healing center with, my teeth were chattering and I was shaking.

Lynette finally returned carrying a tray, after what felt like a very long time.

“Your lips are blue,” she said, frowning, as she set the tray down on a stand by the table. “Are you cold?”

That gave me so much confidence in her diagnostic abilities.

“Anyway, it turns out that I’m going to start by listening to your heart, so you can sit up,” she said, holding up a pair of clam shells. “These were in a cabinet labeled ‘arcane’, but I can’t tell myself. Let me know if you experience any discomfort.”

I got up into a sitting position, with my legs hanging over the edge. Why had she told me to lie down in the first place?

She put one of the shells up to her ear, then reached the other around my side from the back of the gown. She fumbled around for a bit, pushing the shell against my breast.

“Sorry, I’m trying to figure out if I can do this with your bra on,” she said.

“I’m not taking it off,” I said. “Is there anybody else here? Maybe somebody more experienced?”

“Nobody uses this stuff any more,” she said. “They’re historical curiosities.” She paused. Her eyes flicked to the side. “Um, I think I’ve found the problem.” She withdrew her hand.

“What?” I asked.

She pointed to the table. There was a distinct scarlet splotch where I’d been. The front of the robe was spotted, too. I realized that my panties had to be soaked with the stuff, and as soon as I realized that I felt–or thought I could feel–it all over the insides of my thighs, not just the actual liquid but the nastiness, the crawling filthiness of it.

I bit my lip to hold back an only slightly irrational wail.

“Are you okay?” Lynette asked.

“It’s too soon,” I complained.

“Better early than late, right?” Lynette said. “Do you have tampons in your bag?”

“I use pads,” I said. “And no.”

Lynette sighed.

“I’ll see if I can talk Candy into opening up the ladies’ room, then,” she said. “And I’ll get you some herbs that will help the cramping.”

“You can’t just cure it?” I asked.

“A period isn’t a disease,” she said, giving me an absolutely scathing look out of nowhere.

“Says you,” I said. I could feel another crying jag coming on. I just hoped against hope it would come after she left and somehow be over before she got back.

I also hoped she wouldn’t take long, though.

“Just stay on the table,” she said. She glanced down between my dangling legs. “And maybe scoot back a bit. I’ll be right back.”

Once she was gone, I pulled my legs up and huddled on the table, letting the tears fall down my face. Leaking at both ends… what a picture.

“Candy’s doing her best to sanctify the restroom, but Yvette had a pad and some towelettes in her purse,” she said, coming in while I was sitting there crying, my knees drawn up in front of me.

A look of absolutely crushing pity filled her face.

“Honey, it’s just a period,” she said. “And I draw the line at hugging students, even if you were h… hurt. Here. Take these.”

She held out the pad in its wrapper and the little square packets, and I took them.

“I’ll leave you to get yourself cleaned up,” she said. “Don’t worry about the rest of the mess.” She pulled a plastic baggy full of red-tinged leaves out of her pocket and handed them to me. “You’ll want these, too. Chew them slowly when the pain’s the worst, and try not to use more than one every two hours. Your mouth will go a little numb, but it shouldn’t be a problem if you don’t overuse them.”

I nodded slowly, and she left the room again. It took me a while to get moving, and a while longer before I got myself anything close to clean enough. I simply threw my panties away… I could hardly stand to touch them… and then tucked the pad into place, sighing in relief when I felt it take hold. It wasn’t as thick as the ones my grandmother had bought me, and seemed to have boosted comfort, too… something that my grandmother certainly wouldn’t have looked for.

There was a sink in the corner and I scrubbed my hands before I touched any of my other clothes. I was just pulling my jeans on, still in my bra, when Lynette came back. She didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ve got your note. I left the days blank in case you’re having problems on Thursday, but remember that even the male coaches know a period doesn’t last forever,” she said. “If you’re going to stay out Thursday, I suggest you drop it in the instructor’s mailbox or take it by their office… some of them get a little huffy if you hand in the note after the fact. Next month, you can just tell whoever’s at the desk what’s wrong… it doesn’t matter if they’re a healer or not.”

“I don’t really want to make a habit of this,” I said, pulling my t-shirt on.

Lynette shrugged and gave me a little smile.

“It happens,” she said. “It’s life.”

“Can’t you do anything else?” I pleaded, accepting the note from her.

“Try the herbs,” she said. “You’ll be surprised how well they work.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, and headed for the door.

“Big, bad demon,” Lynette muttered, not quite under her breath.