Penumbra (Darkling Mage 0.50)

Thea stood bolt upright and positioned herself by my bed, placing her body squarely in my path. “Please. Mr. Graves. Hear me out. Hear the Lorica out. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

I crooked an eyebrow and cringed through the pain as I forced myself into a seated position. God, even my ass hurt. “You’ll pardon me for being skeptical, Thea, but this is all just – ”

“Our healers have been working round the clock to keep you stable, but their work isn’t done. Let me assure you, Mr. Graves. If you leave the premises in your current condition, you will die.”

That took the steam out of me. I sat stock-still, but defiant, measuring my next move. “Then what you’re saying is that I actually am alive.”

“Yes. Through whatever so

rcery that dagger was corrupted with, you only appeared to be dead.”

“So I’m free to leave once you patch me up. I can go back to my old life.” Could I? She mentioned the morgue, the authorities. And then there was my father. Could I tell them all that it was just a mistake?

But the door creaked open. Rather, a door, since I hadn’t noticed it before, so seamlessly white that even its knob was nearly invisible against the immaculate uniform ivory of the entire room. Another woman stepped through, this one younger, smaller, and certainly meeker than Thea. She had on the kind of glasses worn by the kind of girl who thought she wasn’t pretty enough for contacts.

“Thea,” she said, her voice barely a squeak. “I’m here.”

Thea’s mouth quirked into half a smile, and she cocked her head in the girl’s direction, favoring me with a conspiratorial grin. “Yes, Berta. I can tell.” Then she turned her body fully on me again. “Mr. Graves, this is Berta. She’s the cleric I mentioned, a Hand who specializes in healing. Will you at least let her look at your wound before you go?”

I looked at Berta, then at Thea, then down at the mess of blood and bandages on my chest. Everything was painful, and my head was such a tangled mass of questions and all the wrong answers – magic and Hands and Loricas – that I just gave in.

“Fine,” I said, maybe a little too firmly because Berta jerked at the sound of my voice. “Fine,” I repeated, giving her the tiniest smile.

I sat up gingerly as she began the unenvious task of unwrapping my bandages. Even with her hair in her face I could tell that her cheeks were reddening. I noticed that Thea was staring at my chest, too, and only then realized how naked I was. I cleared my throat and looked to the far end of the room, which was as white as everything else in it, like gazing into an alabaster void. I hoped my ears weren’t turning red.

“There’s more you should know,” Thea said, breaking the silence.

“There couldn’t possibly be.”

Thea folded her hands together, like she was preparing to announce something of gravity. Whatever it was, I knew I wasn’t prepared for it myself. Looking back, I truly wasn’t.

“Imagine, if you will, that everything I’ve told you so far about magic is true.”

“I’ll try,” I droned.

“Now imagine that there are different ways for magical ability to manifest in the human body. For some of us it involves grueling study. Some others, like Berta here, are naturally talented.”

I didn’t think it was possible for Berta to blush any redder, but she proved me wrong.

“And sometimes,” Thea continued, “sometimes, latent arcane ability is awakened in times of great pain, of great distress.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re not serious, are you?”

Thea pressed her lips into a tight line. “Everything I’ve told you has been deathly serious, Dustin Graves.”

That was it. I was done.

“I don’t possibly see how you people think you can get away with trying to convince me that there’s something secret I’ve never known about this world, that you’ve been magicking behind the scenes. So those people who tried to kill me weren’t just mentally ill, they were cultists who wanted me dead for some unknowable reason?” I threw my hands out. “And you, you’re some kind of white wizard, like Gandalf in a pantsuit? And this place is some kind of wizard dungeon for magical people to gather and work in some kind of magic hocus-pocus corporation?”

“Realistically speaking, there could be more of those cultists out there.” Thea sighed. “And it’s not about wands or beards or robes, Mr. Graves. It could be if you want, of course. Magic is what you make of it. We’re just here to make sure it’s all aboveboard.”

“Excuse me,” Berta said meekly, pulling away the last of my bandages.

“Sorry,” I said, maybe secretly appreciative of the little disruption in my tirade, because frankly I’d run out of things to say. I lifted my finger, my mouth hung open and prepared to spit out more accusations as they came to me, when Thea interrupted.

“You might want to look at your wound there, Dustin.”

That stopped me in my tracks. It was ugly, the hole in my chest loosely sutured and still weeping blood, and only just barely patched with gauze. Didn’t these people know anything? What had I gotten myself into? Sure, I was grateful that they’d somehow rescued me from those cultists – all that other stuff about the morgue was clearly just Thea’s nonsense – but I was going to have to go to a hospital as soon as possible, get everything looked at. Though I didn’t miss what Thea said. What if there really were more of those cultists out there?