Page 34 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

34

Dan

Dan was not prepared for a panicked hob to pop into his room while he was half-dressed. His shirt was long enough that it covered his boxers, but he still wasn’t a huge fan of having a hob stare at his bare legs and sock-clad feet. Privacy was a rare thing in the increasingly crowded castle, but typically, he had some measure of it in the privacy of Axell’s room. Dan still didn’t think of it as his room even though they’d more or less started sharing it.

He had the rare moment of Axell being temporarily out of it without Dan. So Dan was currently sans trousers and shoes when he was startled by an unknown hob in neon-yellow overalls and a bow with bright-yellow ducks pinned in their hair. The hob blurted, “Quick! Battery needed!”

Dan darted toward a robe that was on the bed and managed to grab it. “Wait. I’m—”

The hob grabbed his ear, and they were suddenly in the infirmary.

“… not dressed,” Dan finished.

The hob was gone, and the doctor gave him no more attention than she gave anything other than her patients. He wasn’t entirely sure she even noticed that he had on neither trousers nor boots. He shrugged on a robe and held it closed with one hand.

Currently, Dr. Jemison was washing a disturbing amount of blood from Lord Scylla’s stomach. “You can’t go teleporting and carrying dead weight and bleeding everywhere, Scylla!”

“Dragged him back like a sack of soggy cement,” Scylla crowed. “Look at him.”

Dr. Jemison glared at her grinning patient. She did, in fact, look over at the man who was lashed to the bed where the headmaster had been when last Dan visited.

“Sondre is all better?” Dan asked. “So you can heal people again and—”

“Excuse me?” The doctor’s gaze shifted to him, and he clutched his robe tighter. “I healed you. ”

“And a hell of a lot of other witches,” one of Dr. Jemison’s assistants said.

Dan folded his arms awkwardly. “Seems weird that the only one you aren’t healing is the one I gave you a boost to heal.” He shrugged. “Just thinking about it, Dr. J.”

Lord Scylla frowned. “I did feel better faster when he wasn’t here.”

The doctor scowled at her, at him, at all of it. She didn’t say anything, though. Instead, she looked from him to Lord Scylla to him again. Finally, she huffed. “Damn it. Get out. Just in case it is you, get out.”

Dan looked at her, mouth opening in surprise. “Seriously? You summon me here without my trousers or shoes, and then I’m just… to walk around out there?” He waved a hand toward the door into the castle. “Are you always this rude?”

The doctor shot a glare at him, as did an unknown witch who was sitting against a wall.

“Hey. I’m Ian.” The guy lifted a hand in a wave. “Prisoner here, I guess.”

“Remedial witch,” Dr. Jemison muttered. “Sondre dropped him off for an exam, but then this one…”

“Retrieved an enemy,” Lord Scylla finished. In a falsetto voice, she added, “Good job, m’lord. Excellent work, m’lord.”

“Follow orders, m’lord. How about you try that?” Dr. Jemison snarled.

“Boring.” Lord Scylla gave a wide grin.

“You are bleeding again, you stubborn witch.” The doctor leveled a look at Lord Scylla that would make most rational souls quake in fear.

The illusionist witch was clearly unbothered. “If he’s draining you…” Lord Scylla started.

“And draining you.” Dr. Jemison looked him up and down. “A natural siphon? He did boost my energy. Fine.” She pointed at him. “Stay a minute, but don’t touch anything or anyone.”

Dan bit back a remark. The only way he ever touched them was when they dragged him here. Bare-legged under my robe. It was chillier than he’d like, and he had the overwhelming fear that he was going to step in something gross. This was, after all, where sickness happened. He pointedly stayed clear of the bloody cloth that was dangling half out of the basin beside Lord Scylla’s bed.

“Newton’s Third Law states that for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Dan suggested. It made perfect sense in a horrible way. “That’s physics, but magic seems to follow some of the same laws. If I can give energy, I have to get it from somewhere. It took a lot to… do a thing I had to do at the order of a witch who outranks me, and I’m not saying I did in case I’m not supposed to say that much.”

Dan grimaced at what he almost said.

Prospero was not one of the good guys. He was mostly sure of that. Chaotic neutral? Lawful evil? He couldn’t quite decide what she was other than dangerous. So he wasn’t about to admit to these witches that he had aided her as she erased Ellie’s and Maggie’s memories, but he knew that erasing Ellie’s had given him a headache that had lasted for a full week. Boosting Prospero so she could adjust Maggie required only a trickle of energy, but the magic necessary for Prospero to erase Ellie’s memories was enough to make Dan glance into a mirror afterward. He felt like a husk, like everything in him had been drawn out, and he couldn’t get enough food or drink or sleep for days.

“So, siphoning…” The doctor had a worrisome look on her face. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes practically glistened in excitement. “If that’s the case, it would explain some things. His magic was depleted because he’d just helped Prospero blank the memory of her poor wife.”

“Poor wife?” Lord Scylla scoffed. “They’re meant for each other. She’s so head over heels—”

“Which one?” the doctor muttered.

“Ha! Prospero. I was surprised she wasn’t breaking more rules in their damnable courtship, but the both of them are fools. Ellie ought to have talked to her instead of running off.” Lord Scylla made a noise like hmph and gave one nod as if to underline her point.

“Fair. It had to have been hard to have to try to date when she could look into everyone’s mind, though.” The doctor hopped up and sat on the counter, surrounded by potions and bandages.

“That’s what we’re calling her swath of heart-breaking the last century? Dating?” Lord Scylla rolled her eyes. “I’m grateful I don’t find women attractive. Watching her roll through all of you like a bear knocking down beehives was—”

“Ahem.” The doctor shot him a look. “On the matter of the siphon-battery dilemma…”

“Buzzzz,” Lord Scylla said quietly.

The doctor sighed. He watched as she visibly pondered. He glanced at Lord Scylla, who was steadfastly staring at him.

“We need to get Sondre, probably Walt,” the doctor announced. “I suspect we ought to have Prospero here.” She tapped her foot in the empty air. “Brandeau, too.”

Lord Scylla sighed. “Do I want to ask?”

“And can we address my lack of trousers, please? I’ll do your experiment, but… I’m not doing anything without trousers.” He gestured at his bare legs. They might be hidden under a robe, but it simply felt wrong to be here without his pants on.

“Lemon!” Lord Scylla called out.

The yellow-overalled hob appeared. “You bellowed, sir.”

“Be careful, Lemon, or I’ll take you home with me.” Lord Scylla smiled fondly at the hob. “Take this one to his room. He needs—”

The hob flung themselves across the room like a flying squirrel and landed on Dan’s head. In the next moment, he was alone in his room. Not the room where his boots were. Those were in Axell’s room, along with the trousers he’d intended to wear.

Lemon, however, was long gone. So Dan grabbed his only other pair of shoes, a tattered pair of secondhand slipper things, and a pair of sweatpants he had been using for pajamas before he started sharing a bed with Axell, and hurriedly got dressed. This whole business of popping him in and out of places with no warning was getting tedious.

He left his room in search of Axell.

If the witches were planning on experimenting on him, he wanted someone there who cared about his best interests. Dan scanned the hallways, and for the first time he tensed every time he heard the telltale pop of a hob appearing. By the time he found Axell, who appeared to be composing a song in the middle of an unusually empty library, he felt like all his nerves were frazzled.

“I need you to hold on to my hand at all times today unless one of us needs the toilet,” Dan blurted as he marched hurriedly toward Axell.

“Yes.” Axell took his hand, pulled Dan into his lap, and said, “Now, you tell me why.”

The anxiety that had been twisting through Dan lessened as Axell stroked his other hand over Dan’s spine. He felt safe here, protected, even though that was foolish if he had to deal with Prospero and the headmaster and Lord Scylla and Ellie.

“I can siphon magic.” Dan looked around. He hadn’t seen the library this empty since they’d told others about it. “That’s the theory. It’s why I can boost it. I’m taking it from places and then putting it other places.”

“Makes sense.”

“Where is everyone?” Dan asked.

Axell shrugged. “The door did not open. I was locked in. Everyone locked out. Until you.”

Dan hopped up. He started to let go of Axell’s hand to pace, but Axell stood with him. “I am to hold your hand.”

“Right. Right. I know that.” Dan stood still until Axell tugged him back, and together they paced the room slower while Dan filled him in on everything.

When he finally stopped, Axell looked at him. “You tell them that you will not do the experiment without me there. I go where you go.”

“What if they send me back, siphon me, and—”

“I go where you go,” Axell repeated. “We would travel and be together there, too.”

“Even when you’re famous and I’m just… me.” Dan stared at him, hating his insecurity but unable to stop the words.

“I like just you. ” Axell squeezed his hand. “Together we will be. Here. There. I know what I want.”

And Dan felt like the experiment—whatever it was—would be fine. Everything would be fine. He could conquer it all, just as long as Axell held his hand.