NADIA DUPONT || BEFORE

She can’t have heard right, so she leans forward in her chair and asks the woman to repeat it.

“The news is shocking. I understand.” Before her, the doctor caps her pen and tucks it behind her ear. It winds through her red-blonde tresses. “We have some options, though, which with help make you more comfortable for the time being.”

“No.” She leans forward to look at the file, but the doctor snatches it back. “That can’t be right.”

“My apologies, Ms. DuPont… but I’m afraid it is.”

If only she could burn her to cinders with her stare, or bend her body inside out. Alas, she majored in the wrong realm of magic. Instead, she gives the doctor the fiercest glare she can muster, chin tipped with the force of her defiance. Undoubtedly, the doctor has delivered this sort of diagnosis before to hapless, tired students with unknown illnesses. Perhaps some had acted the way she is now, armored with the scathing looks. Still, she’s nothing like them. She can’t be.

“I’m not dying,” Nadia says at last.

The folder in the doctor’s hand tips, allowing Nadia a view of her name tag. Doctor Aiza. “The results are quite clear.”

In a flurry, she unclips her capelet and throws it to the floor. She gives her bruising forearm a harsh smack, wincing at the force of her own fury. “So check again. Do more tests. Make your salary fucking worth something.”

“Ms. DuPont.”

Now, her name is uttered without any warmth to it. She stills, heartbeat too loud in her ears. The pity remains in Doctor Aiza’s grey-rimmed gaze, so intense it makes her want to smother her.

“I truly am sorry,” Doctor Aiza says, as if saying anything else would be enough to break her.

But she doesn’t. Nadia is stronger than this. She has to be, she tells herself as she bundles the maelstrom of emotions within tightly. If not for the tears burning her eyes, there would be no evidence of her being on the verge of collapsing.

Hands folded in her lap, Nadia focuses on the mole between Doctor Aiza’s eyes. “So,”she says, “what now?”

The doctor blinks once, then again. The faint twitch of her brows betrays her surprise. “Would you like a moment to process first?”

“I can process and act at the same time.” Nadia is almost proud at the briskness of her own words, of how she has wrangled the turmoil curdling her insides. “Again I ask: what now?”

Doctor Aiza leans back, eyes wider now. She sets her clipboard aside. “Well… With sanguina malefica, we like to keep an eye on the progression of the disease.”

“Progression.” She rolls the word around on her tongue. “Does not sound like like there’s a cure in mind.”

“I am afraid not, Miss DuPont.” Sighing, Doctor Aiza chews on her lip before continuing. “The disease can be monitored. When you become too ill for normal function, we can re-assess. There are centers we can send you to. A sort of hospice.”

“So, for now, what can we do?”

She drums well-manicured nails on her thighs. “We have done trial runs with doses of Serenity for pain management. While not the most ideal, the results have been promising.”

Something I already partake in… not that you need to know. Nadia let’s the thought fester in the back of her brain. “Is that all?”

Doctor Aiza frowns. “It… we have little else at this juncture. I can schedule meetings with one of the Evocators to help further mitigate the pain.”

Her words hang in the fragile silence. Nadia turns the conversation over the way a child might an Akalese puzzle toy. As of yet, one detail has not been broached.

“How long do I have?”

Doctor Aiza removes her glasses and folds them, plump bottom lip between her teeth. “That, we are unable to determine. For now, I would advise you get your affairs in order. Ensure there’s no loose ends when the end comes.”

Nadia’s chest tightens. The same sentiment had escorted her mother to an early grave. “So then, I don’t have long.”

“I cannot say for certain.”

“Do I have weeks? Months? A couple of years?”

Doctor Aiza’s grey-rimmed eyes flash like sun-warmed metal. “To be frank, Ms. DuPont, you would be lucky to see graduation next year.”

Nine months. Nadia’s life, already so insignificant, reduced to nine months.

“I see.” The two words tremble under the weight of emotions she struggles to contain. She plays with the ring on her thumb to avoid looking at the doctor any longer. Then, breath rattling, she stands. A familiar pain traps her knee in a vice-grip.

“Do you have any questions?”

Nadia shakes her head. “Thank you for your time.”

As she turns to leave, Doctor Aiza grabs her wrist. Her skin is as cold and smooth as wind-carved stone. Nadia pauses mid-step.

“Even in our darkest nights,” Doctor Aiza says in a whisper, “there is light available. Remember that, if nothing else.”

How strange of her to offer a parable after delivering fatal news. Nadia would laugh, had the words not come from one so obviously Gods-touched. For a split second, her heart twinges, and she again feels the heat behind her eyelids. Then the moment passes.

“I’ll keep it in mind, thank you.”

With this, she snatches her hand away.

#

Chantal answers on the second ring, just like she always does. She’s barely said a syllable when Nadia cuts her off.

“Do you have those notes from your friend in Elrick?”

She’s never been so overt, she thinks. All the phones are monitored by operators. Having witnessed the expulsion of her peers, Nadia has learned over the last two years to speak in code. This is the most daring she’s ever been.

Chantal’s breath catches over the line. “Yeah, I think so,” she replies after several seconds.

“Can you bring them by in, say, twenty minutes?”

The moment Chantal affirms, Nadia hangs the phone back on the cradle. Her heart beats at the pace of a hummingbird’s wings. After a pause, she picks up the phone once again.

“Etienne LaChance, please,” she says into the mouthpiece. After a click, she hears his soft hum.

“Nat?”

She should have planned what to say. Curse her over-active instincts. How do you tell someone you’re dying?

“Etienne.” Her voice cracks, betraying her.

“I’ll be right there.”

He hangs up before she can argue. She guesses, in a way, she deserves it after her brusque discussion with Chantal. Replacing the phone, she steps away.

The door trembles on its hinges with the force of his arrival. He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t have to. Before she can speak, he has her enveloped.

It’s in his warmth she finally shatters.

He releases her when Chantal shows up, quick to send her away in Nadia’s stead. When he returns, it’s with a small paper bag. After he sets it between them, he takes her hand. Neither of them speak for a long while.

The ticking of the clock digs its way under her skin.

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“So.” Tick, tock, tick, tock. “I got some news today.”

Etienne adjusts his glasses as he looks up. “I knew something happened.”

“I’m…” Her breath catches. The words form a dam at the base of her throat. Where to even begin?

“We don’t have to talk about it.” He takes her hands in his, grasp limp in case she decides to pull away. How does he know her so well?

It would be easy to bury the truth. A good cry and a dose of Serenity and it would be like none of this had ever happened. She could go on with the knowledge held close to her chest, and in nine months she’d be gone and none of it would matter.

She thinks about it, briefly, but the concern in Etienne’s gaze fractures her resolve. He deserves the truth more than anyone else.

“Etienne, I’m dying.”

His hands tighten around hers, knuckles paling. When she tries to meet his gaze, he’s staring off into the distance. The silence that falls is all-consuming. A chasm opens in the pit of her stomach.

In a voice entirely too small, she says, “Etienne?”

He rubs a thumb along her skin. “Are… are you sure?”

“That’s what the doctors told me today. They—“ The words fall short. She shouldn’t be breaking up about it. Death is a part of life, after all. If the gods see fit to end her life so soon, who is she to stop it?

After a deep breath, Nadia tries again. “They said I will be lucky to see graduation.”

Etienne’s breath hitches. “That’s—“

“I know.”

His eyes squeeze shut. Despite his efforts, a tear slips free and rolls down his cheek. Nadia cups his face, desperate to wipe the pain from his face.

“Etienne… I’m sorry.”

He’s the one crying, thick sobs tearing from him and making them both tremble. Despite the way her throat closes, though, Nadia refuses to let her own tears fall. Her mind drifts to when her mother had shared similar news with her, the stony quiet that had enveloped them. Neither of them had been much for words or emotions. Even Nadia’s mom had cried harder than either of them. She was losing her wife, after all.

It’s that way now. She’s Etienne’s closest friend. Now, in a twist of fate neither of them had seen, she’ll soon enough leave him.

“Hey,” she says, tipping his chin. Water-logged green eyes consume her vision. She swipes a thumb over his cheekbone. “We still have time. Not as much as I would like, but we have time.”

He lunges into her arms with a choked sound, head pressed into her ribs. She rubs slow circles into the ridges of his spine. The sound of his sobs turns to unrelenting static.

This is not how the conversation should be going, she thinks. She should be the one breaking down, right? She is the one whose life is coming to a close. Why is Etienne the one crying instead of her?

She shoves him back, perhaps a bit too roughly, and hates the mix of hurt and confusion swimming in his eyes.

“I… I need to be alone right now, Etienne.”

She might as well have slammed a door in his face, the way tears well up and roll down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” A fist clenches in her lap, the most she’ll allow her anger to show. “I’m so sorry. I just. This is a lot for me to have to take in right now. You understand, don’t you?”

He gives a dry swallow. “Of course,” he says, the syllables sticking together. “Just… call me later, okay?”

“Yeah.”

She guides him to the door, every bone in her body aching. If not for her watching him lumber down the hall, she’s sure he would have stayed, which is not preferable in her current state. More than anything, she needs to slip into the oblivion Serenity can give her. Perhaps, wrapped in the drugged-out depths, she can find an answer to her plight.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps she’ll just be high. Either outcome is possible.

#

Serenity has her in its inky clutches not too long after Etienne leaves. The world is a haze of the past and the present and the possible. Any thought she conjures quickly distorts.

A far-off knock disturbs her gentle trance.

When her eyes open, she’s in her bedroom still. The image around her wobbles, like she’s viewing it through a scrying spell, but she knows her room from any in the tower. Perhaps on the entire campus. Unless she spontaneously managed to master teleportation. Ha.

Getting upright is like swimming through stone, but she manages after several attempts. The effort has her gasping, each breath rattling her hollow lungs.

The knocking sounds again. Nadia rises, stumbles, and tries again.

Who the fuck is bothering me at… She glances to the clock on her living room wall. Seven in the evening? Fuck. Each mental word is punctuated by an uneven step. One could mistake her for a drunkard, perhaps. At the very least, her movements lack the discomfort that often clings to them. This is blessing enough, she thinks.

She plants herself against the door, the wood bending under her weight and threatening to cave. Standing on her tiptoes, she peeks one bleary eye through the peephole and immediately recoils.

“Nadia?” She watches as Simone raises a warped hand and knocks again. “Are you in there?”

The Serenity distorts every sense she has, but she gets the feeling they’re talking loud enough to attract attention. With a hiss, she yanks the door open. They’ve changed since she saw them last—or perhaps the Serenity makes it so their clothes are more vibrant. Gone is the Abjuror’s capelet, letting the soft cream of their button-up shirt breathe.

“Simone.”

“Nadia?” Their voice bounces around in her skull. Though she doesn’t feel the usual tug of nausea, she thinks she might puke.

“Fuck. I…”

Their brows knit together. Though they don’t touch her, she feels their aura in the space between them. It guides her back as much as they do, a sturdy wall keeping either of them from making contact.

As soon as they’re in her living room, they shut the door. The sound of the lock makes her bones vibrate.

“What happened to you?”

Perhaps if she was more sober, she could attempt to pull herself together and lie. The moment she has the thought, the ground sways. She couldn’t fake it if she tried.

“I…” Her words make her tongue fuzzy. Then, in a rare moment of lucidity, she says, “You shouldn’t see me like this.” She lumbers forward to shove them out, to get them to leave, to do something, but the wall comes up between them again and she falls back.

And then, with a gentleness that threatens to break her, they say, “Let’s get you in bed.”

“I’m fine,” she says, seconds too slow. “I can handle myself.” And yet, she knows the way her words stick together like they’re made of melted sugar.

Their face is a mask, all smooth curve and thick lips. With the faintest twitch of their eyebrow, they hook her arm through theirs and guide her deeper into the apartment. Great, uncomfortable heat forms where they touch. Images flash behind her eyes: open books with words she can’t decipher; a burly figure’s pressed suit and leather elbow patches; Nadia herself, gray-tinged and haggard.

She yanks back, desperate to sever the connection between them. Is that how they really see her? Still, the images keep coming. A figure, so like Simone and yet so different, scowling at her from across a yawning chasm. Sparks of magic. The smell of ozone.

With a grunt, Simone’s arm curls tighter around her.

“That way.” She weakly gestures with her chin before she realizes she’s done it. If they won’t let her go, they can at least put her to bed. “To my room, I mean.”

She must black out, because she finds herself falling back against the mattress before long. The stars on her ceiling dance to the tune of her twisting vision. A true, vicious wave of nausea roils her stomach.

Her gaze falls on the bedside table. A black smudge mars the rim of her cup. She has half a mind to be panicked; her and Simone have barely interacted before now. Will they know what she’s consumed? Worse still, will they tell?

The fear is swept away in the next moments as Simone tucks the blanket around her and smooths the sweat-slicked strands of hair sticking to her forehead. Each movement vibrates through her body like a lake disturbed. The ripples continue to ricochet. This close, their fingers against her brow, dozens of images flicker in their dark brown eyes.

She’s hallucinating. She has to be.

Nadia whips her head to the side, desperate to break the mental link between them, and her stomach lurches at the motion. Too fast, she thinks as she takes a deep breath to keep the bile at bay. Did she even eat anything today?

“Sorry.” Their voice bounces around in her skull. “I should have asked before touching you.”

Slower this time, she tilts her head to gaze at them from the corner of her eye.

“I… um…” Simone’s cheeks pinken a touch. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

Some primal part of her screams is the back of her skull. You fucking idiot. You inconsiderate fucking waste. Your Serenity was more important than this person you barely know? You’re so devoid of compassion and empathy you’d allow them to waste their time on you?

You stupid, stupid little girl.

Nadia squeezes her eyes shut, hating the teardrops that slip through. Deep breaths do little to calm her. At any second, the dam will burst and she will be a bleeding sea of pain.

“You should go,” she forces out between clenched teeth. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

The silence is tangible, thick and waving and enough to make her dizzy. It’s in this silence she waits, straining an ear for the sound of Simone’s shoes on the floor. Leave me, she pleads from inside herself.

There’s nothing. Her gaze latches to the ceiling. Her mouth open, but her thoughts linger at the end of yawning tunnels and she finds herself incapable of speaking.

And then, mercifully, their shoe squeaks on the wooden floor. Nadia knows without checking that she is alone. So utterly, terribly alone.