4.101: Goodbye

Outside the giant glass windows and door of the medical ward, snow fell. Inside the medical ward, I folded hospital gowns.

It felt absurd to be doing this. I was less than two weeks away from trying to save the world, and I was wasting time folding hospital gowns? Why was I here?

But I had an apprenticeship to do, and I was going to do it, damn it. What was I supposed to do between slowly gathering supplies and saying goodbye to friends? Sit in my room and panic? I picked up a gown, folded it, and put it on the pile. Picked up another gown.

“I’ve already restocked the consumables in the desk,” Dae-hyun said behind me, making me jump, “so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “More time to fold sixteen billion hospital gowns.”

He shrugged. “The glitz and glamour of medicine.”

“Do you ever wonder if this is a good way to do things?”

He frowned. “A good way to fold a hospital gown?”

“A good way to train healers. I mean, in most of the world, people go to med school. They spend years being taught different things by different people. They have to pass exams and standards set by different organisations; there are checkes and balances. Here we… what? Learn until one guy decides we’re competent enough to preserve human lives?”

“Malas is very good at what he does.”

“I’m sure he is, he’s a very successful doctor who’s been working in a school forever. But he has a lot of apprentices. And also, not everyone’s malas’ apprentice, right? What if I graduate, and I take on an apprentice, and I’m lazy about it and let some utter incompetent out intot he world to practice medicine? How are patients supposed to know the difference?”

“You think no commonfolk has ever bought their way through med school?”

“I think they have to prove their competence to a lot more people. And they get licenses that are given by more than one person. And they get sued for malpractice.”

“So will you, if you commit malpractice. If you do a bad job and a patient is harmed, they’ll sue you for reparations, same as they would for any other injury.”

“Yeah, if they notice I’ve done a bad job. But we could make all kinds of mistakes that they wouldn’t notice.”

“Same as commonfolk. They’re only sued for malpractice if somebody notices.”

“I guess. It just seems like healthcare is a bit too important to put in the hands of the apprenticeship system.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Malas doesn’t release incompetent doctors into the world. Most of his apprentices are off training with other medical professionals right now, getting a broad knowledge base, and they only send them back when they’re happy with their competence. So here, at least, there are checks and balances.” His eyes flicked to my familiarity mark. “Although I’m not sure how they’re going to organise things for you, if you’re going to Fionnrath.”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure how we’re going to manage this apprenticeship at all from Fionnrath, to be honest. Malas can’t leave the school, they’re unlikely to let Kylie come back here, and it’s dangerous for me to be away from Kylie for too long.”

“So you have to give up your future to support hers?”

“No, that’s not how it is. Things are more complicated than that.”

“Hmm. You know you don’t have to go, right?”

“I absolutely do.”

“No. You don’t. There are laws governing the rights of familiars, but being a familiar doesn’t strip you of your other rights. I don’t know what your mage has convinced you, but she can’t force you to go anywhere. It’s your decision.”

I stared. Did Dae-hyun think Kylie was abusing me? “It’s not like that,” I said. “The decision to go to Fionnrath is mutual. Believe me.”

“Hmm. If you’re sure. I’m just saying, you both have a perfectly good chance at a future here, so if you’re throwing away yours so she can be a magical superstar in a small town – ”

“It is not. Like. That,” I snapped. “And i’d thank you to shut up about things you know nothing about.”

He put his hands up. “Okay. Okay.”

“Anyway,” I said, turning back to the gowns, “it’s dangerous for her to go without me. I’d need to follow her regardless.”

“If it’s dangerous for her, then it sounds to me like she’s the one who needs to worry about sticking close to you, not vice versa. She has a perfectly good future here. If you don’t want to go, there’s no reason you should – ”

“I do want to go.”

“Of course. But if you didn’t want to go, there’s no reason you should have to.”

“Believe me,” I said, “there are circumstances at play here that you don’t know anything about. I know what I’m doing.”

“Alright.”

I went back to the gowns, and he went quiet. I thought the conversation was over, until he piped up, “Your familiarity rune.”

“What about it?”

“Couldn’t help but notice the cancellation scars running through it. You have tried to sever your link with her.”

I sighed impatiently and tossed the gown I was folding down in a crumpled ball. “If you absolutely must know my personal business, Malas himself cut those cancellation lines. I was unconscious at the time.”

“Oh?”

“The link was supposed to be temporary. We made it with the intent to sever it right after. But, well, I’m sure you know how clingy a spell can be when it gets its hooks in a human. So here we are, big mystery solved. Happy?”

“I didn’t mean to imply – ”

“You did, and thank you for your concern, but I am completely fine.” I reached for a gown to fold it, but just then, a pair of familiar faces came through the door.

“Koala!” Mae called, waving cheerily. Terry fluttered her fingers in greeting.

“I should have expected you two to hurt yourselves sooner or later,” I said. “Malas is busy, but – ”

“Oh, we’re not hurt,” Terry said. “We’re here to see you.”

“To… see me?”

“Yeah,” Mae said, “because you only seem to show up to stuff if someone invites you in person, and you absolutely cannot miss Robert’s funeral. They’re the most Extra person on the planet, it’s going to be a night to remember. I’m expecting some cirque du soleil kinda shit.”

“You didn’t come to their birthday party, meaning you missed an incredibly fancy cake,” Terry said.

Mae shook her head. “Ok, that wasn’t a cake. It was a goddamned edible fairy castle. Spun sugar for miles.”

I tried to remember if I knew a Robert. Right; from that graduation funeral. Absurdly tall person dressed like a fairytale princess. “When is it?” I asked.

“Next month. They’ve still got to clear – ”

“Ah,” I said. “I… can’t make it. Change of plans, as of yesterday.” I explained about moving to Fionnrath.

“Aww, you’re leaving us, Koala?” Mae asked.

“Anadoning us to rot in these caves,” Terry said, shaking her head. “Heading off into the sunlight world with nary a thought for – ”

“You guys spend like half of your time hanging out on a sunlit island beach.”

“Okay, fair.”

“You know what this means, right?” Mae asked.

Terry nodded. “We have a very short time to plan Kayden’s funeral.”

“I’m not graduating!”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re heading off into the afterlife, the world beyond what we know, and you must be memorialised. Besides, people will want your new address. To write letters.”

“Yeah, there are so many people who want to get to know you better. You’ll need to exchange addresses with anyone you want to keep in contact with.”

“Well, he’ll probably have email,” Terry pointed out.

“Ugh, getting out of here long enough to get an internet connection is such a pain!’

I glanced around. Dae-hyun had left to do something else. We were alone.

“I barely know your friends,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s what the letters are for,” Terry said.

“They don’t have to – ”

“Mate. You’re moving far away from everyone, to live among strangers, right? With Kylie the only person you know?”

“Yeah...”

“Then you want as many people watching your back as possible. I know you probably think you’re fine with your circle of legacy brats or whatever, but their status doesn’t mean shit outside of Refujeyo. We have friends who live everywhere. You want that variety. And maybe you won’t need it, maybe you’ll move to Fionnrath and everyone will welcome you with open arms and in a week you’ll be best friends with everyone in town and everything will be fine. But maybe that won’t happen. So we’re gonna write to you, and we’re gonna have a big party for you so other people, people who have been through shit and know the importance of looking after each other, they can also write to you. Fair enough.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said.

“Not sure how ‘have to’ is relevant,” Terry said.

“It’s really not your probl – ”

“I’m not sure he knows how friends work, Ter-pear.”

“You might be right. The youth of today, I dunno. This party’s on a bit of deadline, we might have to steal from Robert.”

“They won’t mind. Gives them an excuse to have two extravagant parties.”

“Also an excuse to push their party back further, meaning they have longer to graduate and more procrastination time.”

“Everyone loves more procrastination time. Koala, what day’s good for you?”

“Uh… the day before I leave?”

“Good call. Then we don’t have a ‘ghost’ wandering the school for too long. That’s always creepy.”

“And we have the maximum amount of time to plan. Do excuse us, Kayden, I need to go and stop this one from buying a truly insane amount of decorations.”

“You mean, you’re going to help me carry an insane amount of decorations.”

“We’ll see.”

I stared after the two as they sauntered out. I felt kind of bad about the date I’d given them. The day before I left was the day after we planned to fulfil the prophecy.

Well, whatever they bought and organised, they could repurpose for Robert’s party. Make it even more ridiculously extravagant.

There were still a few other people I needed to break the news to. Kylie and I had agreed to talk to the coven together (although she had of course told Talbot immediately and Cheryl was in prison, so there were only two other members to tell), which narrowed my list somewhat. The hardest person to tell was Magistus. He gave a lighthearted grin, but he’d never been as good an actor as his sister. He looked like he was about to cry.

“Wow, the old gang really is breaking up, huh? It’s just gonna be me and di Fiore now.”

“Sorry about stranding you with the arsehole,” I said.

“Hey. Your future is your future. Just… write to me, yeah?”

“Of course.” I hesitated. “Hey, do you think we could have… y’know, made our relationship work? If I hadn’t…” if I hadn’t been a coward.

His grin became genuine for a moment. “Why? Regretting that you missed you chance with the sexiest guy in the school?” He flexed a bicep.

“Ha! You wish. Your crude muscle is no match for my dashing good looks.” For a moment, I tried to imagine what it would have been like, if we’d stayed together. I couldn’t picture it. I couldn’t picture a me that hadn’t fallen in love with Saina. I couldn’t picture Magistus and I together once we’d run out of ways to escalate our outrageous flirting. I couldn’t picture him maintaining interest in me after he no longer got to try to protect me from political intrigue; I couldn’t picture him being kept in the dark about the whole prophecy thing and not noticing, not being hurt by it. I couldn’t picture myself forgiving him for the way he used his magic on people without telling them.

The people we were were far different than the two kids who had given romance a go, way back at the start of all this. But god, I wish we weren’t so different. I wished that, just for a little while, life could be that simple again.