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BY the next day, Lille had mostly gotten her head around the basics of levitating objects.
“Good job! Now that you’re able to levitate small branches, let’s try moving one in mid-air,” Charles encouraged. Leo was working alongside her, though he was levitating a much heavier branch, without breaking a sweat.
“Thank you for giving me an example to follow, Leo.” She smiled in admiration.
“I’m not giving you an example,” he said irritably. “I’m showing you how much better I am.” Even in the face of his rudeness, the sparkle in Lille’s eyes didn’t waver
“Wow, you can even lift multiple branches at once!” she observed. “I wonder if I can get that good at it…”
“Sure, if you work hard enough.” He puffed his chest out.
“I will. Thank you, Leo,” she said genuinely.
In spite of his peevish tone and snappy complaints, Leo was accompanying Lille during her lessons of his own volition. It had to be boring for him, yet he showed up all the same. Recently, Lille had started to think that he was actually a rather caring boy. Considering he said he had a little sister, perhaps it was to be expected.
“Master Charlie? I can’t get it to move.” She frowned. After a lot of intense concentration and silent screaming at the branch, she had somehow managed to make it float. Making it move was another matter altogether. It wouldn’t budge an inch.
“You’re tensing up too much. You need to relax your muscles, calm down, and let the mana flow through you. Then, imagine the mana gliding in the direction you’re trying to move the branch,” Charles instructed.
“Yes, Master Charlie.”
“Remember: to cast a spell is to give mana direction.”
“I’ll do my best,” she resolved. The sun was shining almost directly overhead. In the afternoon, Leo would have another, more in-depth lesson with Charles, and Lille would tend the shop. She wanted to succeed in some way at her current task, but she only had until noon.
She closed her eyes, slowly inhaling and exhaling. The air was rich with the aroma of approaching summertime, and when she filled her lungs with it, the fresh, green air calmed her down.
I can do this.
She imagined the floating branch sliding across a sheet of ice, then willed the surrounding mana to aid her in pushing it along. Once the image crystalized in her mind, she thrust both her hands out toward the branch.
All of a sudden, it took off at a tremendous speed, whizzing through the air.
“I…I did it!” she exclaimed. Unfortunately, her success took her by such surprise that she completely forgot she was supposed to be controlling the branch.
“That’s great, Lille! Good job,” Charles praised her, his whole face lighting up in a huge smile. Meanwhile, Lille stood stiffly rooted to the spot, her hands still sticking out awkwardly.
“Lille? You can stop now,” he added after a moment.
“It won’t… It won’t stop!” she said, panicking. Before Charles had a chance to intercept it, the branch was flying toward her at full force. It crashed into her legs, grazing her skin painfully.
“Eek!” she cried.
“Lille! Are you okay?!”
It knocked her off balance, and she toppled onto her backside. The offending branch lay contritely on the ground next to her, almost as if it were ashamed of its actions.
“Owww…” she groaned, pulling up the hem of her skirt to see blood oozing from a cut across her knee.
Leo grimaced. “Yeesh, that looks nasty. You’re bleeding.”
“As a girl, I guess you’ll want to avoid any big scars. Healing magic isn’t my strong suit, but I’ll give it a go…” Charles said, crouching down and moving to place his hands on her leg. Surprisingly, Leo held him back.
“It’s fine, Master Charlie. I’ll do it,” he announced.
“Huh?” Charles blinked. “But, Leo, you…”
“I’ll be fine. Please. I don’t want her to lose any more blood,” he insisted impatiently.
“…All right,” Charles conceded.
Leo took Charles’s place, kneeling in front of Lille. She assumed he’d try to cheer her up by talking her ear off, like usual, but something was wrong. Without a single word, he bit his lip nervously before touching her knee.
A dim light enveloped the gash, shining like moonlight. Her leg steadily grew hotter, as if he were pouring warm water over it. Though she didn’t like the sight of blood, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the cut. The wound was closing up, and the inflammation around it was going down, too. In the end, her blood-stained skin was the only evidence she had been injured at all.
“…How does it feel? Still hurt?” he finally said.
“Oh, no. Not anymore.”
“Okay. That’s good,” he replied curtly. When he stood up, his eyes remained focused on her leg. He didn’t look up at her face once. “The wound’s mostly closed up, but you could still get infected with tetanus or something. I’ll go get the first aid kit, just in case.”
“Th-Thank you,” Lille stuttered.
She got to her feet, brushing the dirt off her behind as she watched Leo run to the house. Despite how perfectly he’d healed her, he didn’t seem pleased at all. His face had been plastered with a pained frown, as if he were the one injured. And when he first touched her, Lille had seen the emotions etched into his face—anxiety, unrest, and fear.
“…But, why?” she murmured to herself. Charles was standing beside her, and she looked up to see him gazing after Leo as well.
Charles said that healing was Leo’s talent. If magical talent was closely linked to a sorcerer’s personality, it probably meant that Leo had a profound wish to heal someone or save someone—just like how Lille craving connection with other people influenced her own magic.
“Master Charlie? When he said that I could still get tetanus, does that mean…?”
“…Yes. Magical healing isn’t all-powerful,” he said solemnly. “It can speed up the recovery of injuries and mask pain, but it can’t prevent sickness or prolong anyone’s lifespan…” He paused for a moment. “No—it’s not that it can’t, but you shouldn’t.”
His words hung heavy in the air. The way he said it, for a sorcerer to attempt such a thing was strictly taboo.
“Why not?” she asked nervously.
“…Because if you did, you wouldn’t be human anymore.”
And with that he fell silent.
✦ ✦ ✦
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“SAY, Ark. Have you known Leo for long?” Lille asked, staring up at the ceiling from her bed.
Occasionally, if he felt like it, Ark came to sleep in her room at night. When he did, he swooped through the door and alighted on one of her bedposts. Talking with Ark was always a lot of fun, and they often found themselves deep in conversation. Sometimes they spoke until they fell asleep.
“Nah, not really. He’s only been here for about a year,” he yawned, refolding his wings and settling in.
“Oh. Then, did you bring him here the same way you brought me?” she asked.
“Nope. To be honest, I don’t know much about Leo either. Master Charlie just brought him home one day, out of the blue, saying he was going to be his new apprentice.”
“How curious…”
“Where he’s from, a kid his age should’ve been in magic school. So I just assumed Master Charlie took him in ’cause there was some reason he didn’t want to go to school,” Ark said. “I mean, back then, he was even more antisocial, and he didn’t seem like the type to do well in a group environment. His circumstances didn’t really matter to me, though, so I never actually asked.”
“Magic school, huh…?” she said wistfully.
Leafing through the textbooks Charles had lent her, she had noticed both his and the academy’s names written inside the front cover. Lille had been imprisoned before she was old enough to attend school, so she’d never even been to a normal one, never mind one that taught magic.
“Well, that’s how it is when half the population is sorcerers. They’ve got a pretty huge school there,” Ark commented. “Do you wanna see what it’s like to go to school, too?”
“Only a little.” She smiled. “I’m sure I’d prefer studying here with Master Charlie.”
“Yup, probably,” he said, sounding pleased with her answer. He closed his eyes peacefully.
“…Ark, are you asleep?” She watched him for a while, but he didn’t even twitch. Eventually, she gave up and nestled on her side.
Before she shut her eyes, she recalled Leo’s emotions from earlier that day, when he had touched her. She had never encountered fear or anxiety on that wavelength before. It was an entirely different sort of fear than what she’d felt when the two men chased her in the city. Leo’s fear had been tinged with sadness, like a medicine so bitter the taste could make one cry.
“My chest feels like it’s caving in…” she whispered.
Was Leo feeling the same way? Even if he were, Lille suspected he wouldn’t appreciate someone sleeping next to him or holding his hand. However, she could at least wake up early the next morning to make him his favorite mushroom omelet.
With that idea in mind, Lille closed her eyes.