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Poor kiddo…

With everyone else standing around and wringing their hands, Magdalene wanted to growl. She would have if she thought it would have spurred any of them into action.

“Sam, there was always a doctor in the village. Last I remember, it was old Franz…”

Sam’s brow furrowed. “His son is the family practitioner now. He still lives in his father’s house. He doesn’t attend to the school’s cases much, and I’m not sure how he would even get up the cliffs...”

And now Magdalene actually gnashed her teeth.

“Damn this backwater place and their refusal to finally connect the school and the town with a drivable road!” All eyes turned to Magdalene, blinking at her outburst. She lifted a hand in a pacifying gesture.

“George, Joanne, somebody? Do you have your phone on you? Call Franz Jr. or whatever name he goes by. We might need to send Lily to the mainland if it’s more than a clean break or if it’s more complicated than he can deal with. Oh, and get in touch with any of the fishermen. If she needs a boat at this hour, one of them will help us out.” She looked around and when her ex-husband came into view, Magdalene allowed her shoulders to relax a bit. “Timothy, help us carry her outside so the doctor won’t need to come up. I don’t think sitting in all this water is doing her any good.”

Everyone had their orders, and as Timothy moved to bend down to pick up Lily, Magdalene leaned in close to the girl.

“Imagine all the care and coddling you will get when this is all over, missy.”

The tease landed her the wobbly smile she’d been aiming for. The girl was holding up admirably, and Magdalene was really proud of her.

Once Timothy held Lily safely in his arms, mindful of her injuries, he carried her outside with Sam’s assistance. Joanne got out her phone and, trying to beat the spotty reception, dialed the doctor, which she should have done in the first place, instead of running around the school looking for Magdalene.

* * *

The entire experiencewith Franz at the clinic left her seething. He seemed competent, at first glance and by all accounts, and the ankle was just sprained. But Magdalene shuddered to think what would have happened if things had been more serious. By the time they returned to Dragons, her anger was boiling just under the surface.

As if Lily hadn’t been through enough already with the fall, of all the places to encounter transphobia, the medical field really shouldn’t be one. Still, she wondered why she was surprised to begin with. These days, you just never knew. Bigotry of all kinds simply flourished unchecked. It hit home that Sam’s decision to stay in the closet was perhaps the correct one considering the people at this school and on this island.

Magdalene made a mental note to look into medical care options, dig deeper into Frantz, since he was the only provider on the island and made some decisions for future incidents.

* * *

She leftLily with Sam so she could make sure the girl was comfortable in her new quarters in the faculty wing that had been assigned to her while she recovered. Then she made a quick point of checking the dormitories and speaking to the few other girls who spent their summers at the school. Giving them the news in the most soothing manner possible, she managed to calm down some of them, reassured others, and made sure Lily’s girlfriend, Amanda, knew where to find her.

Girlfriend…

Magdalene hid a smile. Some things did change, even if the aforementioned bigotry still flourished on Dragons. And among those things was young love. And bravery. Things she herself thought she had once, things Sam had been careful to keep away from prying eyes all her life, things these girls were so proud and so free in showing. It was heartwarming.

It was also very loud, as Amanda had a thousand questions and so did the rest of the girls, and in the overall hubbub and anxiety of the students, Magdalene felt jittery and exhausted. They were all lovely. And very noisy.

After making a quick round through the building, under the excuse of ensuring that everyone was in bed and safe, Magdalene found herself back at Sam’s door. The site of the accident was clean now, all indicators that anything occurred here, gone. She thought to chastise herself for creeping around but ran out of time as the person she absolutely wasn’t waiting for rounded the corner.

“We need to talk about what happened, Professor Threadneedle.”

Well, as opening salvos went, this one was perhaps not her crowning glory, but how was she to know she would end up here, of all places?

Good thing you’re not wearing pants, Magdalene… They’d be on fire by now.

This time, the voice in her head sounded suspiciously like Candace catching her with her hand in the cookie jar.

“What happened?” Sam stared at her, blinking. Her obvious confusion really shouldn’t be this endearing. And yet it was not just that; it also reminded her of that desperately attractive, raw honesty evident on Sam’s face—back in Manhattan, and here, yet again. It gave her solace. It gave her succor, even if it made her think of all the things she really shouldn’t want as much as she did.

“Water on slippery tiles and the lights not working in the whole corridor? You think there is nothing to talk about? The custodians replaced the bulbs, by the way—all three of them—and as you can see, everything is back to normal.”

Sam’s color drained. Had it not occurred to Sam that there was zero other explanation for the events of the evening but deliberate sabotage? The thought alone made her stomach twist, and not at all in a pleasurable way. Yet Sam seemed entirely oblivious to her being the potential target of that very sabotage.

“You think somebody tried to hurt Lily?”

“Considering that it all happened in front of your door, I don’t think that the intended victim was supposed to be Lily at all. Wrong time and wrong place for her, though.”