Magic's Memories

Chapter Forty-five

"Everbloom," Sandrina said, the word an unmasked sneer. Feyla usually thought of flowers and soothing scents when she saw lavender but the sinister way the cool glow of Sandrina's magic hit the planes of her face was making her rethink that.

Feyla scrambled away from Sandrina's staff and hauled herself up. She jerked her head around frantically. No, no no, she couldn't have lost them, not now, not when she had been so close to fixing everything.

"Feyla?!" Mydel grabbed his signature hat and dusted it off. He held himself at a distance, lingering uncharacteristically close to Sandrina.

Pressure built in her chest. Her breath came out short and weak. She swiped her palm across the tears already stinging her eyes.

"Are...are you okay?" Mydel asked. He shifted his feet awkwardly but didn't move further.

"I had them!" Feyla shouted. Her hands curled into hard, shaking fists. Sandrina's grip on her staff tightened but Feyla paid it no mind. "I was so close! So, so close to catching Desden and making everything right. And if you hadn't distracted me—"

"Don't put your failures on us, battle healer," Sandrina growled. She moved Mydel behind her and pressed forward into Feyla's face. "Every problem you have is because of your own selfish goals. You betrayed Master Alverdyne and now you've betrayed your own guild as well. I don't know what you claim to be fixing but I highly doubt that anything you're doing could improve this situation at all."

"No! I am not a failure! I can still fix this. I will fix this. And I'll do it without the healers, or my mother, or even Sedgewick. And once I do, everyone will finally get it. And they'll...they'll see me. She'll see me." Feyla clutched her chest, fingers gripping the necklace underneath her shirt. The single-minded drive that had pulled her along since she'd decided to hunt Desden alone started cracking, taking her composure with it.

"You've literally fixed nothing!" Sandrina shouted back. "The Carrows are still at large, and Master Alverdyne practically had a breakdown because of you."

"I wasn't trying to hurt him." Feyla gripped the necklace harder.

"Yeah, well, you did," Mydel snapped. "Master Sandrina had to drag him away from a bottle."

Feyla's shoulders trembled under the weight of everything that had happened. Sedgewick hadn't been like the others. He'd seen her. Not a conniving gold digger or an incompetent child but the whole of her, both good and bad. Sedgewick saw her messy, sensitive, perfectionism and he still called her smart, capable and caring. And when he'd trusted her with his fragile, healing heart, she'd vowed to protect it.

But you didn't. And now she'd failed at the one task that might have given her a chance to right everything. In fact, with Dormaeus's memories returning, she might have made it worse.

"And now we're stuck going to Hobrin for help because Master Sedgewick never came back— Ouch!" Sandrina smacked the back of Mydel's head and he shut his mouth.

Feyla didn't let shock freeze her. She shoved Sandrina aside and grabbed Mydel by the shirt. "What do you mean 'Never came back'?"

Mydel's eyes bugged out. He tugged at his shirt and freed it from her hands. "He went to the guild house to see you. We were supposed to meet up afterward."

"Mydel!" Sandrina hushed.

"She might know something!" he shot back.

"He...came to see me?" Feyla asked softly, hope rising in her chest. "Why? What did he want?"

The two mages exchanged a worried look. "So, you didn't speak to him?"

"I wasn't even with the healers at the time." Feyla straightened to her full height and jutted her chin out. "I've left the guild. And I took Dormaeus with me. Not that it did much good, apparently. He ran away with his brother when I was trying to use him as bait."