Harmoni and Rasha slipped back into the tower. They would want to be in bed when Fleck and Evin completed their step, just in case there was a way to check, say through magic, where Rasha was. But while Harmoni went for the stairs, Rasha stepped to the side, going to the wall under the stairs.
“Rasha? What are you doing?”
“Using the shortcut.” Rasha shrugged. “I guess you can take the long way if you like.”
Then she stepped into the area beneath the stairs, and was seemingly swallowed by shadows. Harmoni stepped closer without going under. From what she could see and hear, Rasha really had vanished.
“Why am I just finding out about this now?!” Harmoni cried, in a way she wouldn’t if she wasn’t alone.
Fleck chuckled from where he was outside. He had no trouble knowing where the potions teacher slept. His sense of smell could lead him. The window he'd stopped at was about as close as he could get. (Didn't want to dribble slime all over the castle.) But now he should get through. Wanted to be in the room before he was noticed.
Harmoni clenched her fists. She stepped into darkness. The next step she took dropped her off on their floor landing. She opened the door. Yes, this was certainly the right dorm room. She recognized her bag under the bed, could see Eddie sleeping in the bed closest to the stairs, and could see Rasha sitting on her own bed.
Harmoni took a seat on her own bed, facing Rasha. She could tell through Fleck that everything seemed to go well. Fleck couldn't understand the specific words Evin or the potions teacher were saying, if any, but both Fleck and Evin played their parts, and the teacher certainly seemed afraid.
He even fled the bedroom.
Harmoni relayed the message, the general idea. She was quiet and vague, in a way where it wouldn't make sense unless you already knew the context. She was almost positive Eddie was asleep, based on the sound of her breathing, but she didn't want to wake her up.
Rasha smiled, tight-lipped. "Thank you. I-" She reached for Harmoni. She paused just above Harmoni's hand. When Harmoni didn't react, she took it. "I mean it. And I'm sorry. The way you acted, before tonight, I thought you didn't like me. Or I should lea'e you alone. I misjudged you.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
They went silent after that. Maybe Harmoni was supposed to say more, but what did you say to that?
Possibly acknowledge her own weird behavior.
Before Harmoni could try that out, there was a groan, and Eddie rolled over. She sat up, looking at the two. “What are you two still doing up? It’s two in the morning.”
It was?
Harmoni glanced at the clock. And so it was.
“Sorry,” Rasha apologized, slouching.
Harmoni nodded. "Good night." She dropped back onto her own bed.
Eddie watched the two of them for a moment longer, before lying down, and presumably falling back to sleep as well.
~~~
The next day was normal. Rasha sat next to Harmoni for History of Magic, the first time she'd done that, and Harmoni found she liked it. Rasha confirmed that it was, indeed, mostly history of Iva’s magic. When they left Rasha told Harmoni a bit about her own planet's history of magic. And the planet, Morgou, in general. Apparently, the days were 375 hours long, instead of 26 like Xentron, or 20 like Iva.
Harmoni couldn't help but gape at that. "How does sleeping work?"
"Oh the amount of daylight doesn't really matter," Rasha explained with a shrug. "We sleep in shifts. I mean, the world and life keeps happening while you sleep, even when it's dark. It would be crazy to all sleep at the same time."
Fleck openly laughed while Harmoni tried to hide her own embarrassment.
Harmoni wished she could return the favor, but she wasn’t even sure what her home planet was.
Not Iva, or Xentron. Possibly Morivon? It was the most likely place to find humans, of which she was half, and she did subconsciously use Morivon as a standard.
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'Possibly.'
After History of Magic, Harmoni went to clean out the stables. Rasha joined her, so she joined her for her own task of cleaning inside the school. Even if Harmoni couldn't talk about her home planet, she told Rasha a bit about Xentron. The imp's eyes shifted from slit to round with awe when she explained how big some of the creatures there got. (It wasn't just dragons, after all.)
Spending so much of the day with someone hadn’t happened in a while. Harmoni hadn’t realized she missed it until now.
'Like when you didn’t notice you were hungry, until you started eating.'
‘Something like that.’
And nothing bad happened the whole day. But the next day did have a Potions Class scheduled.
Apparently, no one had seen the potions teacher since before Fleck had scared him off, but none of the three were sure what to expect.
It was actually Rasha who was more for going to class. If she did have to see the teacher again, she wanted it to be in a classroom full of other students.
Harmoni wouldn't have blamed her if she wanted to pretend to be sick.
Fleck was in Harmoni's head. He knew she'd considered taking Rasha, and heading for the hills.
'Considered, yes.'
But where would they possibly go? Aside from the cost of space travel, not many ships came to Iva. The idea of trekking to a different part of Iva instead did, admittedly, have its appeal. The planet was beautiful.
'Admittedly, yes.'
But Harmoni was the only one who spoke Elvish. On the home planet of the elves.
Anyway, this was Rasha's choice. So the two started down the hall, for the potions room.
Then an explosion sounded from around the corner, the boom ringing in Harmoni’s ears, the smell of smoke hitting the hall even without Fleck's great nose.
“Holy shit waffles!” Rasha shouted. “Are we getting attacked by a monster again?!”
Harmoni didn’t think that was right. And there was a scream. This one didn’t have words. It was just a long, drawn out, scream. Coming from the potions room, around the corner. And Harmoni recognized the voice.
She raced around the corner. Smoke was coming out of the potions room, the door flung off its hinges. Harmoni could see droplets of blood in the doorway, but she couldn’t see inside properly. Bad angle, and too much smoke.
Harmoni kept moving, but as she reached the doorway, she hit a mostly invisible wall, stumbling away. It was like glass. She could just barely tell if it was there or not.
“Get back.”
Harmoni looked further down the hall. Tolith was there, crystal ball in hand. Based on the expression he was making, he was creating the clear wall.
“Wesles is in there!” Harmoni shouted.
The gnome had stopped screaming, but Harmoni could still hear pained, panicked, rasps of breath from inside. That couldn’t be good. He was getting weaker. He was going to slowly die right in front of Harmoni.
“I know,” Tolith said. He was, thankfully, moving to the door now. “But you need to stay out of the way.”
The clear wall dropped. Tolith stepped inside and the wall went back up behind him.
Harmoni stood there. Rasha had joined her at some point. She stood just behind Harmoni, mouth covered.
Wesles was carried out a moment later, but neither of them got to see him. Tolith had tossed some sort of white cloth over his body, carrying him in one arm, and presumably healing him with the crystal ball in his other arm.
Wesles was still breathing. Harmoni could hear him breathing, and kept reminding herself of that.
If the goal was to hide the damage from them though, Tolith could’ve used a cloth in any other color. Dark red stains were obvious on multiple parts of it, spreading in one place. And while Wesles was small, the bundle seemed even smaller.
Harmoni thought, distantly, that she should maybe stop looking. That she would regret staring so hard later, of memorizing every little detail. But she didn’t tear her gaze away.
Other students had shown up as well by now. A quick “out of my way” got Tolith past any blocking him. Then he was out of sight, leaving everyone to stand in the hallway.
It was Lona who finally broke the silence. “What do we do now?”
Most everyone looked at her, but Harmoni was still staring at the door to the potions room.
Lona started to, nervously, elaborate. “Uh, I mean, we’re not having Potions now. Uh, are we?”
Harmoni, meanwhile, moved towards the door. She was vaguely aware of someone staring at her, and Rasha calling out to her, but they were easy to ignore.
The potions room was still filled with smoke. There was a small fire or two, in places where there was actually something to burn. So much of the place had been blackened or broken.
The worst was the table Harmoni and Wesles normally sat at. It looked like it had maybe buckled in the middle, but so much of it had splintered apart it was hard to tell. And starting at the table, and sliding back towards the door, was blood. Well, not just blood. The trail also included something that was probably burnt flesh, something squishy that was probably an eye, and a bit of bone. The bone was in too many small shards to identify where it came from.
Wesles had clearly been alive a few seconds ago. He’d been screaming. She’d heard him breath when Tolith took him away. But this looked . . . bad.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her shoulder and pulled her around. Harmoni’s eyes went wide, her heart skipped a beat, and she almost panicked further. Then the person who had grabbed her spoke.
“Are you listening?” the headmaster asked. “I said you shouldn’t be in here.”
The headmaster. It had just been the headmaster. Oh God. If she wasn’t careful, if he hadn’t spoken up. . .
She could’ve made the headmaster explode.
Fleck wasn’t too sure of that.
‘You’re just saying that.’
‘I’m not.’
Harmoni had felt surprise and fear the last two times, true. But she felt that when she was pushed down the stairs as well, or when Evin threatened her, or when Cembra threatened her. Those two things couldn't be the only requirements, and it wasn’t going to happen now.
. . . But he could tell she felt bad. He wished he could come to her, but he and Asplenium had left the castle and gone farther into the forest to get food. It wouldn’t be a short trip back. An hour? Maybe less if he let Asplenium carry him. . .
‘No. I’m fine.’ Well that was an obvious lie. ‘I will be fine.' And she was already connected to Fleck. His physical presence sometimes helped, but she didn't think it would in this case. 'I’m more upset about Wesles than anything else.’
Understandable.