A Lion in a Flower Field

The halls felt doubly more ominous; maybe it was the echoing of her shoes on the immaculately pristine tile, the pounding of her heart in her ears or the massive aching in her lungs, but Mira didn’t feel like she was traversing stable ground.

It winded her, running laps along the hallway, zipping past closed doors of ongoing classes, but her chest could spare her the complaints. If Callie was being honest with her and some of the seniors decided to ‘test’ how far they can push Magic’s reaction to the bells by exploiting his grace period, then Mira would have to find him quickly.

She’d seen his reaction to the bells once.

The two of them had been eating snacks by the watchtower one day, oblivious to the passing of time when the factory alarms went off to signal the end of a work day. It was a common sound, not one they hadn’t heard before. Though it was jarring and unsettling, Mira needed only to cover her ears and be done with it.

But the faraway look on Magic’s face and the pallor to his skin was everything Mira needed to know that whatever was going on inside his head wasn’t just simple fear: it was panic.

He dropped everything he’d been holding—a half-eaten flickerfruit and the raggedy plush fox Mira had bought for him two years prior—and bolted. Mira chased him around town, losing sight of him by the marketplace. After a fruitless, seventeen minute search in the dead of winter, she found him huddled between two buildings closest to the train station up north.

Nothing had prepared her that day for finding Magic, typically so calm and collected, curled in the fetal position between a dumpster and a stack of old crates.

Stuck in a dissociative haze, Magic hallucinated the scent of smoke, screeching for his mother, stuck in a puddle of his own vomit. He was completely unaware of his surroundings, sobbing and shaking, and his hands, which he’d curled to tight fists, were messy with blood that snaked down his arms and pooled on the dirt beneath him.

He’d been nine then, Mira twelve—almost thirteen—and she sat with him until the sun set, waiting nearly two hours until he was calm enough for Mira to escort him to her house in the pitch black of winter. Mira spent the majority of the night sitting beside Magic on their upstairs couch trying to get him comfortable with merely speaking again while her father brewed a calming tea mixture for him, waiting for Amelia to arrive. The two of them eventually stayed the night, as Amelia was too nervous to move her son around and risk setting him off a second time.

It wasn’t long after that Mira realized it wasn’t just the factory bells that he reacted to—though they were significantly worse—but every bell, even loud, sudden noises that resembled them. Alarms made Magic flinch, whistles made him jump, and the simple chime accompanying every opening door in the marketplace had made running errands with him so difficult because of his flaring anxiety that he waited for Mira outside until she returned.

She shuddered. Hopefully, Magic still had some sense leftover to be somewhere isolated.

Time felt nonexistent. Her lungs eventually stopped being able to support her sprinting feet—she cursed them out silently in her head—so she walked painful laps along the top floor, stopping at the stairs closest to the Art room. For a brief moment, Mira considered asking Miss Flannise if she’d seen Magic, but she couldn’t come up with a reason for why he’d waste time running down the steps for a hiding place.

But he did feel comfortable there, and if there was anything she’d learned about her brother, it was that Magic prioritized what felt safe over what made sense.

So she made her way to the room, winded and frazzled, standing in the doorway.

Miss Flannise looked up once from her lesson to the group of kids in Grade 6 and made eye contact. Even the younger kids turned around, their faces contorted with horror. Mira supposed she looked about as wild and panicked as she felt, so she couldn’t exactly fault them.

“Mirabellis,” started the teacher, “is there something wrong?”

Everything. Everything is. But true as it was, that explanation wouldn’t help find her brother. “Magic didn’t swing by here, did he?” Mira asked, gasping.

The woman hesitated. “I … No, I haven’t seen him.”

Mira didn’t need more information than that, the reality of the situation settling like a knife between her ribs. If she stayed around any longer, bearing the sympathetic stare from Miss Flannise, the confused horror from the younger kids, she was going to lose it.

The teacher was saying something, but Mira couldn’t hear. She ignored everything and ran before she could lose her composure, cursing the school, her peers, herself with every step she took back to the fourth floor. The bell rang the minute her feet reached the landing and that was when she heard it.

A shriek swallowed by the growing murmur of the hallways.

As bodies flooded the halls, Mira weaved between them, sitting against the set of windows closest to the source of the sound. It would be better for her to wait until everyone cleared out and while Mira was ruminating about everything that had happened in the last forty minutes, she spotted Janie walking past her.

She snatched the girl’s wrist, watching the momentary fear and confusion in her friend’s face. All she saw was the horror of the smaller sixth graders reflected and it was all Mira could do to save face. “I’m not going to English.”

Janie blinked. “Why? Mira, what’s … ?”

Mira didn’t speak, but held the girl’s gaze. The two of them sat in uneasy silence, the message passing between them without a word and Mira feared opening her mouth. She was grateful for it. Besides, who knew what curses or tears would be on their way out if she did?

Her friend’s face fell. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Mira said, the reply automatic.

“Go find him. It’ll let Miss Kiriam know when I get there. Good luck.”

Janie gave Mira’s wrist a small squeeze before letting go and continuing down the hallway. With her friend gone, Mira leaned against the radiator, anger burning in her chest like a hot flame. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this furious, but the emotions faded away when the bell rang and the screaming sounded again.

A shiver went through her.

Now, the hallway truly sounded haunted.

Mira followed the sound to its source, just behind the wooden door of the boys’ bathroom. She paused, one hand on the door. The idea of walking inside to potentially be face to face with guys carrying out their business didn’t sit well with her, but if this was where Magic had hidden himself, then she had no other options.

She gave a quick rap along the door. “Magic?” she called, pressing an ear against the barrier. Someone was speaking on the other end, but not loud enough for her to hear. “Mags? You in there?”

No response.

She knocked on the door a second time, raising the volume and intensity.

“Help me!”

Magic’s voice.

The door yielded to her kick, rebounding against the ceramic wall with a sharp bang. Magic screamed again, a chain of incoherent words, and Mira found herself far less concerned with the possible appearance of other boys in the room than she was for her brother’s safety.

Finding him wasn’t hard; Mira spotted his arm on the floor of the largest bathroom stall at the far end of the room, his backpack propped up against the door. The scent of something acrid and sharp made her cringe, but she grabbed a slew of paper towels from the dispenser, ran a few of them under the faucet, and returned to the stall Magic was in.

“Magic,” she said again, reducing her voice to a whisper so as not to aggravate his condition—whatever it may be when she entered. “It’s Mira. I’m gonna move your backpack and come over. It’s just me.”

She slid the bookbag over, allowing the stall to open; it wasn’t latched shut, just hastily closed. When Mira poked her head in, it took the remainder of her strength not to break down in tears.

Magic was on his knees, curled into himself with his arms pressed against his ears, back arched like a tiny, terrified pillbug. His hands were tightly made fists, dried blood crusted along what she could see of his wrists and sides of his palms. She watched him rock back and forth, his forehead grazing vomit-covered tiles as he heaved and gagged, screaming something incoherent and swallowed up by his sobs.

Mira knelt in front of him but didn’t dare touch him. She did, though, put the damp towels on his backpack and pat the ground beside him, tapping the tile with her nails and blowing cool air into his ear, hoping the alternative sensations could bring him back—even briefly—from whatever hell his brain was creating. “Magic,” she repeated, over and over, hoping to get a response.

After several attempts, he made a small moan in response to his name, and Mira saw that as her opportunity to reach him. “Magic, I need you to lift your head and look at me. It’s Mira. Look at me, Mags.”

Slowly, he obeyed, but despite his ability to follow directions, Mira spotted the glossy, vacant glaze in his eyes. Magic wasn’t here. He was elsewhere already, fighting like hell to come back.

“Help me,” he whimpered, shiny track marks on his skin. “Please, don’t leave me here, it burns. It burns so much.”

“You’re safe here, Magic. There’s nothing—”

“Please, please, help me! My skin hurts, it’s so hot!”

“Mags, focus on—”

Magic couldn’t hear her. He dropped his head and curled into a tighter ball, shaking violently, a fresh trail of scarlet streaming down his wrist, staining his sleeves. She had to resist the urge to grab him and force his palms open, seeing as now was hardly the right time to consider laying so much as a fingernail on him.

His pitch rose to a budding screech, feet kicking the tile as he pushed his weight forward onto his arms. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I can’t—I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! Make them go away—I’m so sorry!”

“Magic, you’re panicking,” Mira said, forcing calm into her voice. “I need you to come back to me—listen to my voice, Mags.”

He ignored her. A long, high-pitched shriek left his mouth, accompanied by hitching sobs. Again his body convulsed and Mira snagged him from under his arms, bracing his chest against her forearms as she lifted his head a little off the floor, a thin, violent round of vomit dropping from his mouth. Still, Magic was babbling, pleading for help as Mira stood over him and hoisted her brother to the toilet.

His hands gripped the edges of the porcelain as though trained by memory while he continued forcefully expelling bile into the basin. Mira whispered and hummed in a failed attempt to comfort him and kept him stable with a knee lightly pressed against his spine, supporting his back as he sobbed and screamed.

Mira kept an eye on his movements, watching Magic’s hold on the toilet slip. It happened in slow motion; he stopped, his screams fading to mumbled whispers as his body went slack and Magic slumped forward, smacking his face on the rim.

He would’ve tumbled right to the floor had Mira not wrapped her arms around his waist. She dragged the dead weight of Magic’s body away from the toilet, sitting with him on the opposite end of the stall from where he started. For a tall twig, Magic was deceptively heavy and moving him around while he was unconscious was more taxing than Mira anticipated. She settled for laying him down on the tile, using one outstretched leg to act as his pillow, her other propped up, bent at the knee.

Mira took her brother’s glasses off, folding the legs into the collar of her shirt as she dabbed at Magic’s skin with the damp paper towels to clear the dried vomit off his face. Under the neon light of the bathroom, he looked deathly ill, the fluorescence painting his olive skin an unhealthy gray. The greasy sheen in Magic’s hair from sweat wasn’t helping and his skin was glossy, dark circles painting his bottom lids. Even his angular cheekbones looked out of place on him.

It took far too long for his breathing to calm, and even then Magic was still wheezing—albeit faintly—shuddering with each inhale. Mira took the opportunity while he was unconscious to clean off his hands, since he’d likely object to it when he woke up. His fingers were freezing as she peeled them away from his palms and Mira felt her stomach drop miles into her gut. His hands were a cascade of purples and blues, swollen and dirtied with dried blood that caked beneath his fingernails. The punctures were beginning to scab and even just dabbing around the areas made Magic moan despite his general lack of awareness.

The pain must have been too much for his body to bear; Magic’s anguished noises grew louder and his face twisted up, eyelids fluttering. She blocked some of the light with a hand to give him an easier time adjusting. Relief left in one exhale as Magic’s eyes opened, a dazed green and hazel, but clear. Present.

“Hey, bud,” Mira whispered. He flinched at the sound of her voice and she grimaced, wiggling her fingers a little. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. How are you feeling?”

Magic stared back at her, blinking. Recognition flickered in his gaze. “Mira?” he croaked.

“Yeah. It’s me. You don’t have to say anything if you’d rather just lay here and rest for now.”

Her brother shook his head, rubbing at his eyes. He patted his face for his glasses and Mira handed them over. “It’s fine … I just don’t … Sorry, where are we?”

“The boys’ bathroom. You didn’t make it to my Accounting class and you weren’t at lunch, so I imagine you ran here between those two. We’re in period six now, probably towards the middle of it.”

“The boys’ bathroom?” he echoed.

“Yeah. The boys’ bathroom.”

“Why are you here then?”

Why was she here? Mira could’ve laughed—she almost did and then remembered where she was, who she was with and how they’d gotten here. She reached into the paper lunch bags and grabbed one of the juice containers while slowly propping up the leg Magic was resting on to force him into slowly sitting up. He followed her lead and when Mira offered him the juice, he took it from her and sipped while she spoke.

“Someone had to come find you.” She managed a ghost of a smile but couldn’t hold it long. With a sigh, she added, “You scared the crap out of me, y’know.”

Magic gazed at his shoes, arms tucked close. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.” Tension in Magic’s shoulders faded and Mira felt a twinge in her heart. “Mags, this isn’t your fault,” she repeated. “What am I always telling you? Don’t feel bad for something that’s out of your control. You’re doing what you can. I’m just telling you how I felt.”

His frown deepened. “Sor—I guess.” Magic rubbed his fingers along the juice bottle and he looked down at his feet. “Do I want to know what happened?”

“What do you remember?”

Magic bowed his head deeper, clearing his throat. His fingertips drummed anxiously along the plastic in his hands and Mira could tell he was stalling. She didn’t want him to recount the details, but she needed to know what he knew if there was going to be something done about it—if not on her end, then the teachers.

At least, she wanted to hope they’d do something. They didn’t go through all this work, all this effort to give Magic every accommodation he needed for them to throw it away because a star school player decided to cause him a panic attack for funsies.

“Not a lot,” he murmured. “I walked out of Chemistry and couldn’t hear anything—I had them off. I don’t really know where the hallway ended and everything else started. But there were three. I didn’t notice anything until I felt my shirt pull back … ” Suddenly, he groaned, putting the now emptied juice bottle down, pressing the heels of his palms into his forehead. “Fuck.”

“Something wrong?” Mira asked, sitting up a little straighter.

“My head hurts. Like my brain is pounding against my skull.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you: you fainted on me and smacked your head on the toilet bowl. Lucky for you, I stopped your face from going inside it.”

He turned his face to the side, squinting at her. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Do you want a minute to yourself?”

Her brother nodded and she motioned towards the stall door, a silent invitation for him to claim his space away from her. Without speaking, Magic shuffled away and leaned his head against the door, chin tipped up as if he were searching for air he couldn’t quite reach. His skin looked a little better from this angle, a little color in his cheeks, though he still looked like shit. Magic was pushing his hair out of his face, tucking long black strands behind his ears, holding onto the back of his head …

Something about this picture was wrong.

And it wasn’t until he started rubbing at his temples that Mira realized why.

His headphones were missing.

The entire time she was helping Magic out of his panic, she hadn’t realized that his headphones were gone. Mira shuffled to sit in front of him and he lowered his head to meet her gaze. It was downright pitiful how exhausted he looked sitting in front of her and she didn’t want to breach the topic. Not when he was like this.

But it would be better if it came from her. If Magic noticed it first, she’d lose him before they could even consider a solution.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied, trying to keep her composure.

Despite his fatigue, Magic’s eyes scanned her relentlessly, searching for kinks in the armor as he always had when he was younger, back when he had no reason to trust her and regarded every action of hers with a degree of caution. It was a valid concern of his at the time. As they grew up, Mira found herself at the mercy of that calculated gaze less often, though the intensity of it lingered in the way he stared at others, doing everything he could to read their patterns and habits.

The quirk remained, but now he used it to detect her falters.

I notice everything.

Yes. He did. And while he wouldn’t know how to respond to what he found, Magic could read her like a damn book. And sometimes, Mira hated him for it.

“What?” he asked again, the quiver in his voice unmistakable.

“I don’t want to upset you,” she started, keeping her voice low, “but where are your headphones, Magic?”

He blinked as though she were speaking a foreign tongue. Magic cautiously snaked his bruised, bloodied hands up to his head, rubbing gingerly at his ears. The knowledge—the realization—that he’d nothing to cover them with set in immediately.

Magic’s eyes widened, all encompassing twin pools of black. “I don’t know,” he whispered, gripping onto his hair. His sobs returned, squeaking his voice. “I don’t know—Mira, I can’t remember! I can’t remember!”

“Magic,” Mira started.

But her brother’s frantic panic cut her off. “Mira, I can’t—I need them! I need them, Mira, please, please, I need them, I’m scared! I can’t go back! I don’t want to—I don’t want to go back again, please—”

“Mags,” Mira said, “can I place my hands over your ears?”

“Huh?”

“Can I place my hands over your ears?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know how much time we have left … And I was gonna ask you to put the headphones on …”

Magic deflated; he slouched forward and wrapped his arms around his shins, face downcast and despondent as he tucked his chin to his chest. He looked like a child who’d just been disappointed. It was pitiful. She’d been with him through a lot, but never had she seen him so defeatedly complaint with a request.

Even worse was that Mira knew this would do nothing. It would give her brother no solace, no release from the bells. But it was all either of them had.

Magic nodded once and Mira reached forward, pushing against his ears with her palms. He stiffened, muscles tense. Magic took long, deep breaths to steady himself as he gripped onto her wrists, hands rough and warm from healing wounds.

Mira’s heart ached. Her brother was terrified and not just because of the noise.

“I don’t want this,” he sobbed. “Mira—”

“I know,” she said.

“I can’t go back; I don’t want to go back. I don’t like it there, I’m scared … I’m so scared, Mira …”

Mira briefly touched her forehead to his—she could hear his muffled whimpers he kept caged in his throat—before sitting back on her heels. “I know you don’t. Try your best to focus on me. I’m not going anywhere, Mags. I’ll ride this out with you.”

He met her gaze, eyes glossy. “Promise?”

A child’s plea. A mutual oath.

“Promise,” she murmured.

Magic tightened his hold on her. Mira knew it irritated him to be this reliant on her, to be talked down to this way. He hated dependency and stubbornly craved independence. But the second he’d lost his headphones—no, not lost. Had them taken—that autonomy was ripped away, torn apart like an old paper.

And whoever took them would pay for that.

Painfully.

Until then, Mira focused on keeping her brother calm, speaking with him in soft whispers to reassure him of his safety, at least to lessen the amount of panicking he’d be doing. And she’d been mostly successful until the period ended and the bell rang to signal the change in classes.

Magic stiffened. “Mira—”

“I’m here,” she repeated, trying to ignore the violent shaking that she felt between her palms. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Help me.”

“I’m here.”

“It smells—It smells like—”

“You’re okay, Mags. Breathe. Focus on me.” Magic tossed his head to the side, bringing Mira’s arms with him. “Magic, focus—”

His breaths got quicker, shallow and frantic. Magic could barely speak and his tears resumed. Beads of sweat broke out along his brow, just barely visible in the poor lighting. Every now and again, the door slammed open, claiming a shriek from Magic, Mira, and the incoming strangers who, without fail, always left and never stayed longer than a few seconds.

Soon came Magic’s louder screams with the slow but steady rise in pitch like an alarm, soft, then shrill. Eventually, Mira’s hold on his face became too much for him to bear and he released her wrists and slapped them away, kicking out his feet for distance.

Mira obliged and backed up, hugging her hands to her chest, rubbing at the skin that was starting to redden and warm. As Magic began to curl into himself, making his body small again, Mira felt her chest clench. Nothing she did or said, despite her constant reassurance, was capable of helping him through his panic. She didn’t even move closer to lay hands on him. Not when he grabbed at his hair. Not when he turned his attention back to mauling his palms. Encroaching on his personal space felt like the worst option, so Mira coached him calmly—uselessly—through his fit until hyperventilation forced him to wheeze and sputter.

When the vomiting phase returned, Mira leaped to her feet and dragged Magic by the shoulders to the toilet rim. She’d thought it a good idea to bring him back up to speed with the berry juice after his first panic attack.

Now, the mixture of fruit and bile in the stall made her regret ever doing it.

She stayed with him until the sickness passed, only pulling him back into a sitting position once she was certain Magic would no longer be bringing anything up from his stomach. Taking note of the waxen complexion of his skin, gleaming with sweat and tears, Mira pulled him towards her. Magic collapsed against her shoulder, his breathing rapid and shallow. She held him tightly in place and shushed him as the bell rang again to signal the start of period seven. Magic went rigid in her arms and remained this way for ten minutes after it stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezed into her shoulder. “I’m so sorry …”

“I know,” Mira replied, brushing back his hair. “I know.”

“I’m sorry …”

“I know. I forgive you, Mags. You’re okay. Close your eyes and rest, Magic. Let it happen.”

Against her shoulder, Magic mumbled, his words completely unintelligible through his shuddered gasping. When his breathing began to calm and his gibberish petered out, Mira gently pushed his legs out to the side and cradled him when he fainted.

Mira tightened her hug once she felt his head loll forward and tuck towards his chest, pressing her forehead against his hair. It was disgusting how greasy and damp his hair had gotten, the scent of bile in the air doing nothing to make it smell less like a locker room.

As if it would do anything to make the situation better, Mira swayed back and forth, desperate for movement, for something to calm her nerves. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do in order to breach the conversation of the missing headphones—she didn’t need Magic passing out a third time from stress alone—but they would figure that out once he was conscious.

“We’ll find them, Mags,” Mira murmured. “The people who did this or the headphones. Hopefully both. But they won’t do this again. I promise you.”

Arranged in the same manner as the first time Magic fainted, Mira occupied herself by braiding her brother’s hair, gathering the long, black strands and crafting careful pleats while she hummed to herself.

For some reason growing up, Magic’s resistance to touch never applied to having his hair brushed or styled. And Mira, who always needed something to do to keep her energy in check, would practice hairstyles on her brother’s head due to his preference of keeping his hair long. It served as a middle ground for both of them, a way in which they could be within each other’s space without crossing any specific boundaries.

It was a much simpler time. Sometimes, Mira wished it could always be that simple. But that just wasn’t how the world worked and, though she understood it, she never could quite be at peace with it.

She made it roughly three-quarters of the way through her brother’s hair before his face twitched. Magic wasn’t conscious enough to speak in coherent sentences, but he lazily swept his hand through the air as though aware of her close proximity. Mira gently guided it down to rest it against his stomach while his muttering died out and he became still again.

But they were running against the clock, and Mira couldn’t be generous with the time, as much as she desperately wanted to.

“Magic,” she whispered, lightly shaking his shoulder.

He groaned.

“Magic, I hate to do this to you, but you need to get up.”

Magic turned in the direction of her voice, eyelids dancing before slowly opening. He stared up at her in silence, squinting against the light of the bathroom.

“Welcome back,” she said simply, demolishing the braid. He flinched as her fingers caught a knot. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay …” Magic oriented himself a lot faster this time and his eyes seemed to flicker over her features briefly before they scanned the rest of the room. “Have … Have we moved?”

“I take it you remember me telling you we were stuck in the boys’ bathroom?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing’s changed since then. You fainted again, just like the last time because of the noise—Slow down, Mags. Take it easy.”

But Magic was already rolling onto his forearms to push himself into a sitting position, limbs shaky and weak. He swatted her away when she reached to support him. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I don’t need you overexerting yourself and fainting for lucky number three.”

Magic adjusted himself in silence. He sat to her right without a word and leaned up against the stall door, knocking his skull into it with a small thunk. He was wheezing, unable to catch his breath no matter his efforts. “Okay,” he said. “Then we leave.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Mira closed her eyes. As eager as she was to leave, she also didn’t think he was ready to. And she certainly wasn’t going to drag him down three flights of stairs if he passed out on her. “I would prefer if—”

“I don’t like it here,” he muttered. “Cramped. I want to leave.”

The bathroom stall was no more crowded or empty than it had been the last two periods, but Mira didn’t think her brother would appreciate the jab five minutes out of a panic attack. She didn’t press the matter and didn’t argue. It would do neither of them any good to bicker about the specifics and Mira wasn’t in the mood to be snapped at, either. So she offered her assistance, groaning as Magic blatantly ignored it and used the wall to pull himself to his feet and hoisted his backpack over her shoulder.

His balance hadn’t fully returned; Magic toddled his way out of the stall and the bathroom looking like he’d had one too many drinks. Mira hung back to give her brother some of the independence she knew he craved after being coddled for nearly an hour.

They made their way into the hallway unnoticed to Mira’s relief and walked to the steps where Magic stopped and leaned against the wall. One of his knees buckled and she sprinted to his side, ignoring his complaints. She tilted him towards her and slowly sat with him on the landing of the steps.

Magic nestled his head against her shoulder. “Stars, I want to go home …”

The plea came out like a whine, splintering her heart. Mira snagged his hoodie sleeve, shaking it back and forth a little. “I know. But I have a question for you, Mags.”

“What?”

“Who took your headphones?”

Her brother groaned.

“Mags—” she started.

“I don’t know,” Magic interrupted. “There were three. I don’t know who. They all blended. They had purple like you did, but I don’t—Mira, I don’t know …”

Seniors.

Mira had a feeling she knew who. There were only a few seniors she could really pin it on and a smaller number who she had personal business with that would use Magic to get to her.

She took one of his hands and immediately his fingers began twitching, pawing at her knuckles. Tiny, automatic robots ready to get the job done. “Mags, stop.”

“It hurts, Mira. I don’t feel well … My stomach hurts and I—I want to go home …” A small cry caught in his throat, masked by a shuddered gasp. He dug his forehead into her collarbone. “I don’t want to be here …”

“I know. I know today was stressful for you. Do you think you can make it to the nurse’s office, though? She might be able to help patch up your hands. They’re a bit roughed up—you don’t want stuff like that to get infected.”

“I’m sorry …”

The guilt and shame in his voice was all she could bear.

“I’m not blaming you,” she said, “I just think you should get it cleaned up. Think you can manage the stairs?”

“Yeah.”

Mira didn’t believe him.

In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure why she even gave him the option. But she supposed it would be better to give her brother the illusion of choice than to outwardly strip that from him considering how many decisions she’d made on his behalf in the last two periods alone. Regardless of his feelings, Mira kept close, and wrapped Magic’s left arm around her neck for support. Magic didn’t appear bothered by the action, so she continued, supporting him at the waist, her arm at a small distance in case he changed his mind.

The steps were a struggle, but walking wasn’t the hardest part—Magic spent most of that time stumbling his way down them. It was keeping him upright that caused the most issues. His height made it difficult for Mira to keep a proper hold and the more she assisted him down the steps, the more it became painstakingly clear that he was not going to make it down the remaining two flights walking.

Instead, Mira motioned for Magic to sit and slide down the steps—a hit to his pride and his dignity—which she did alongside him to lessen the blow. But even this was agonizing and they made frequent stops along the way.

By the time they made it to the first floor, Magic stopped three steps away from the ground, sitting with his head in his hands, shoulders shaking.

Mira stood and stretched, looking around for any glimpse of the time. “We need to keep going, Mags.”

“Mira, it’s really hot,” he whined. “I can’t breathe and my head hurts … I want to go home—Ori’s feathers, Mira, I want to go home …”

“I know you do. But we’re almost there and it’ll be safer for you in the nurse’s office than it will be anywhere else.”

Her brother stifled a sob. If she hadn’t watched him panic and faint twice in a row, she would have yelled at him for being over dramatic. But Mira didn’t know exactly what Magic experienced throughout his fits, only that all of it tied back to the day of the collapse.

Mira didn’t even know what had happened to him or his mother that day; she and her father were out of town. She’d never had the courage to ask for fear of upsetting Magic or Amelia, but seeing her brother now, distraught and fatigued by his episodes, put that little question on her ‘to-do’ list.

Pressure weighed on her shoulder as Magic pushed up to his feet—albeit it shakily—using Mira as a support.

Always on your own damn terms, she thought bitterly, descending the last three steps and turning left into the hall. Murmurs from staff in the offices were the only noise through the corridor aside from Magic’s labored breathing.

Words left her unconsciously to fill the air. “We’re almost there,” Mira said, trying to keep a joyful tone. “I don’t really enjoy doctor people, but you’ll like Miss Barrister. She’s nice.”

“We’ve met,” Magic whispered, stumbling into her shoulder.

Mira pushed back to keep him stable, the implication of Callie’s earlier words coming back to her.

He never made it to his afternoon classes.

“When?” Mira asked.

“Huh?” Magic replied, sounding ever so slightly distracted.

“When, Magic? When did you meet her?”

“Early.”

“That doesn’t help me.”

“Before.”

Mira twisted her mouth into a pout. “That … still doesn’t help me, but it’s fine—”

“Gray,” wheezed her brother suddenly, his steps faltering.

“What?” said Mira, trying to keep him upright, but it was useless. His feet were sliding on the tile and his knees were beginning to fail him. Magic was leaning far too much to one side. She looked back up at the hallway. Two doors left.

“It’s gray …”

“What’s gray?” When her brother didn’t respond, she stopped walking and tapped his face. From this angle, Mira could see his half-lidded eyes, the vacancy in them clear. “Stay with me, Mags; what’s gray?”

There was no answer.

Mira felt the brush of his head against her shoulder, saw the complete buckle of his knees and caught Magic by the waist. Cursing, she adjusted her stance and lowered him to the floor, careful to keep his head from smacking into the tile. He’d already gotten one head injury. He didn’t need another.

Once Magic was on the ground, Mira knelt beside him, sweeping hair out of his face so it didn’t block his mouth and nose. If not for the crackle of his breaths, Mira would’ve assumed he’d stopped breathing because of how subtle his moving shoulders were.

She took a breath, considering the scene.

Magic looked so helpless here. He would’ve hated it if he were awake, but he wasn’t, so Mira tousled his hair and pushed to her feet before knocking on the nurse’s office not more than one door away. They were so close …

Mira gave a quick rap on the wood, looking between not one, but two adults in the room. A spectacled, ginger haired woman—the nurse—and Miss Flannise. Panic drummed a restless beat in her chest.

She swallowed it down. “Hi,” she murmured.

Miss Barrister pushed her chair back, nearly running around the desk and past the art teacher. “Where is he?”

Mira didn’t trust words to leave her mouth.

So, she led the two women instead.