Of Caverns and Casters ✓ [TLRQ #1]

Chapter 63 - Sean

Sitting at the dining table, everything is disconcertingly normal, uncomfortably usual after kidnapping the most important person in the area. After almost dying. After Idyne killing those people. Bukki looks sleepily scatterbrained, as usual, and Marcí is fretting over him, as usual. Idyne, as always, talks at us like we're dolls at a tea party. Zena is as much the seven-year-old as ever, Marcus is as silent as ever, and Jacin is, if possible, looking creepier and more brooding than ever. The only difference is that Leavi and Aster aren't here.

I ask Marcí where they are.

She turns to me, surprised. "Didn't Leavi tell you?"

"I haven't seen her all day."

"Oh. Bukki was..." She lays a hand on one of his, smiling at him. "Sick. And dear Leavi didn't know how to help him. But that blessed wizard came and saved him, gave Bukki more time." She blinks away the grateful tears that are trying to form, but her face falls as she continues to speak. "But now the boy's paying for the spell. I don't know much about it, but he's been in bed ever since. I think Leavi is with him."

I frown. As much as Aster gets on my nerves, I don't want something to happen to him. Too many things have gone wrong as is, and for both his and Leavi's sakes, I want him to be okay. My tongue suddenly remembers to respond, and I manage a stilted, "Thanks."

Marcí gives me a curious look, and Idyne tilts her head at me. I offer a thin smile to the first and ignore the latter. A minute or so after Marcí finishes eating, I do too. When I get into the kitchen to wash my dish, she's standing at the counter, putting together a plate. A bowl of broth already sits on a tray.

She looks over at me. "I'm going to take this up to Leavi and Aster in a minute." She hesitates. "If you're wanting to go check on her, you can take it instead."

I pause, watching the ripples in the broth. Do I want to go check on Leavi?

Yes.

Would it be a good idea or serve any sort of purpose?

"No." I turn away from Marcí and finish washing my plate. "Thanks."

As I head upstairs for the night, light reflects off the snow outside the living room window. I pause on the stairs, and the others pass me, heading to their rooms. The snow is piled so high, I can hardly tell the difference between the porch and the ground. There were winters in Xela when a white-out would hit and we would be trapped in the house for days at a time because the snowdrifts got so big. This doesn't look so high as to keep doors from working, and I silently curse that Aster is sick again. If he were well, we could go ahead and get out of here before the next storm strikes.

I'm entering my new room when someone starts banging on the front door. Worry spikes through me, and I hurry back to the opening of the stair. Marcí sets the tray down and opens the door just in time to interrupt another round of banging. I jerk back around the corner.