Magic's Memories

Chapter Forty-one

The sobriety potion had done its work too well. Sedgewick blinked in the bright sunlight. It stung his sensitive eyes and now he lacked even the haze of alcohol to put between him and his stark, unpleasant reality. He stared up at the Healer's Guildhouse and...hesitated. What would he say? That he understood why she did it better now? That something in him still felt cracked and broken. That he'd come in spite of that pain because he...he still...

"Do you need something, sir?" a young healer, an apprentice asked, her voice hesitating as if she didn't quite know what she was supposed to say. She took a step closer to the wide-opened gate. "Due to the attack, we're asking that all new patients used the Healing House in the Banking District."

"I'm not here for treatment."

The young woman eyed him up, the corners of her mouth grimacing. Drinking all night probably hadn't left him the picture of health. Her attention then narrowed in on his orange mage's hat.

"I'm here to see Miss Everbloom," he replied swiftly.

At the mention of that name, the girl leapt into action. "You'll need to come inside and wait."

"That will be fine." The girl led him up to the door and Sedgewick took in the sight of the guild house in the stark light of day. It was an older building, its walls around its courtyard nearly touching those of the buildings beside it. The stone seemed to lean inward toward itself, the effect either a safe cocoon or a suffocating womb. What would it have been like for Feyla to grow up in a place similar to this? He tried to picture it as they crossed the threshold inside. How she had lived in a house that wavered between life and death and somehow emerge still blooming. His childhood village had not had a healer, merely an elderly woman with a knack for potions and his own mother with a knack for lost causes. Nothing like this.

"Wait here, please," the girl said, waving her hand at the simple wooden chairs just inside the entrance.

Sedgewick took a seat and watched her scurry away. He twisted his hat in his hands but the motion did nothing to ease the twisting of his stomach. The doorway Feyla would soon walk through loomed large from across the room. Sweat seeped from his palms into his hat. This moment had been playing in his head since he'd sobered up. He started rehearsing what he planned to say once again. She'd walk through the door and freeze and he'd— he'd—

Or maybe she wouldn't freeze, maybe she'd run to him and scold him for the state of his clothes and the bangs under his eye while brushing her hands through his hair and whispering apologies through her tears.

But tears were so hard to handle and so hard to resist the urge to wipe away, to comfort. No, perhaps she would rage with her eyes churning like a storm in a bottle. Shout and lash out, asking why he'd returned. Yes, returned because he'd left this time, she hadn't. He hadn't been the one rejected and that made all and none of the difference.

Although he sat firmly in the chair, he felt adrift, washed in a sea of unfamiliar feelings and indiscernible desires. They churned and shifted him into a storm, drowning out reason and sense. The inside of his chest felt battered like the hull of a ship. He hurt and he continued to hurt even while he understood her actions better. Part of him wanted to embrace her and hold her close to his chest, begging that her whispered words of reassurance would seep into his skin and close the gaping hole inside of him. Another half of him wished that the sea inside him would freeze, hardening into a cool demand that she help him now or leave him forever.

But for now, the storm raged on and he waited.

And waited.

...and waited.

Someone should have come by now. There was no sign of the apprentice or Feyla. Not even a glimpse of That Healer or the woman who might soon become his mother-in-law. Sedgewick thrummed his fingers on the arms of the chair, his nails clacking against the wood. Was Feyla avoiding him? Or were those other two keeping her away while waiting for him to give up?