“What do you mean, the real reason?” I asked. “You kept us out of it because you were trying to protect us, right?”
“I thought so, at the time,” he sighed. “I didn’t lie to you, not deliberately, I just… lied to myself. Look, can we not talk about this in a random tunnel?”
So we went to our room. Max sat on his bed and rubbed the mage mark on his arm uncomfortably while I paced. I wasn’t sure why he was bringing any of this up now, but at least he’d stopped trying to armchair psychoanalyse me, so I wasn’t going to stop him.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he said reluctantly, “that I have a… certain level of wariness… when it comes to dealing with magic that is difficult to predict or control.”
“Oh, wow,” I said dryly. “Are you sure? I never noticed.”
“Shut up. It was always my life’s goal to become the Nonus Acanthos; I started training for it from a very early age. But I was terrified to win. Becoming the family mage meant dealing closely with magic, it meant having one of these things inside me, and that was a difficult fate to handle. When I was named Octavia’s heir, I was both scared and relieved. Relieved, because losing would have been completely unthinkable, but winning meant…” he glanced down at his mage mark. “Anyway. My life goal was set, and there was nothing I could do about it, so I did what I always did, and resolved to be the best at it that I could. I came here, I studied as hard as I could, and I did everything possible to prepare for the Initiation.
“The Initiation looming closer and closer was the most terrifying thing I’d ever dealt with in my entire life, and as you might recall, we were dealing with a potential killer who’d gotten a staff blown up in my face at that point. But I figured, this was it, right? The whole point was to go in there and conquer my fear. I’d walk into that, that vortex of uncontrolled magic, and I’d face it down, and I wouldn’t let the fear beat me and then I’d be all better. There’d be nothing to be afraid of, because I would have faced it, and I’d be a mage, and everything would… be better. I’d come out of the experience as somebody who could handle this.
“And so I did. I won’t explain the details of my Initiation, because it was kind of like a dream – that is, really engaging in the moment, but surprisingly boring to describe. But I went in there, I conquered my fear, and I came out stronger.” He swallowed. “Except, of course, that I didn’t. I walked out of that place and everything wasn’t magically better. All I’d done was trapped myself. I wasn’t any stronger, I wasn’t any more emotionally equipped to handle what was happening, I was the same person but now the magic was inside my body. And when I was looking into the school, and the corridors, I… I realised what the problem was. I remembered how relieved I’d been, to be chosen, and realised that walking into the Pit hadn’t been an act of bravery. If, if you’re afraid of the dark, and you flee a tiger by hiding in a cave, you haven’t conquered your fear of the dark; you’ve endured it to avoid a greater fear. I didn’t choose to walk into the Initiation so much as acknowledge that the alternative was far worse. So when I mapped the way to the labyrinth under the school, it… I wanted to go down there, to investigate the library that all my research had told me was at the centre, to figure out what was going on. But I also… kind of saw it as a second chance. A chance to make a free choice and properly face my fear, so I could move on.”
I cut in. “I don’t think that’s how fear works.”
“You’re right. It isn’t. Going down there alone wasn’t bravery, it was stupidity, and it didn’t accomplish anything except almost getting me killed. And then it almost got you and Kylie killed when you came for me. It was a big mistake that I made for incredibly selfish, emotional reasons; I should’ve shared my information and made a proper plan as a group. It’s not a mistake that I plan on repeating, and it’s not one that yu should need to make on your own.”
Oh, that’s what this was about. “Participating in pit comps isn’t the same thing as getting trapped in a really dangerous spell labyrinth. I’m not going to die in a relay race.”
“That’s not the point. The point is, treating fear like some weakness you can exorcise with a big macho confrontation doesn’t work. If you wat to compete, and the risks are worth it to you, that’s your choice. And if you’re trying exposure therapy, that works for a lot of people, although you really should get a professional involved for it. But if you’re just going to stubbornly hurl yourself at things that hurt you to, to punish yourself for having trauma in the first place – don’t. Please.”
“My hobbies or the reasons behind them aren’t any of your business.”
“Maybe not, but you’re my friend, and if you’re engaging in self harm – ”
That startled a laugh out of me. “Really, Max? Self harm? I honestly strike you as the kind of person who would – ”
“The ‘kind of person’ who would engage in self harm is potentially anyone in the world,” Max cut in acidly. “There is no ‘kind of person’. It’s a very common trauma response and I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Yes, obviously, that isn’t what I meant,” I said. Trying to argue again that I didn’t have trauma wasn’t going to go anywhere, so I stuck with what he was insinuation that was pissing me off anew. “Max, I can guarantee you that I don’t engage in self harm, okay? I just don’t.”
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“If you’re trying to be a tough guy about – ”
“That’s not what this is about. How is it that I keep having to remind you that I grew up cursed?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Max. Think. I grew up as an active danger to my friends and family. Every day of my life, there was a risk that the cuse inside me would cause something horrible to happen. There were periods of m life, a lot of them, where it was incredibly obvious to me that everyone would be better off, on a practical level, if I didn’t exist. How do you think somebody like me actually makes it to age fifteen? I had to promise my parents, very early on, that I would take care of myself. I had to promise my friends. I had to promise myself, and I had to stick with it. No suicide, no killing myself by degrees with self-harm, no long nights fantasising about it. I didn’t allow myself any leeway back then, do you really think the Initiation would be the thing that chages my mind? That’s such a fucking arrogant mage perspective to – ”
“Okay,” Max said quietly. “I apologise. I wasn’t aware. But, Kayden… the thing about self harm is, a lot of people engage in it without realising that that’s what they’re doing.”
I frowned. “How? It seems pretty straightforward.”
“Well, I can’t help but notice your history with fairly dagerous hobbies – ”
“Oh, shut up. Plenty of people all over the world engage in my hobbies, are they all trying to hurt themselves?”
“No. I just… people can hurt themselves in a lot of ways without realising. People develop eating disorders, of overexercise, or expose themselves to things they hate, or… Please be careful with yourself, alright?”
“Oh, come on, I’m never careful with myself,” I joked. The joke, of course, fell flat. I sighed. “I’ll be careful.”
“And see a professional.”
“Are you seeing a professional?”
“I can’t.”
“Oh, the rules are different for you.”
“I’m the Nonus Acanthos.”
“So you’re just automatically resilient to – ?”
“So I can’t trust a professional! Talking about things like the Initiation, or your history with the commonfolk, they’re things that professionals are trained to deal with. Everything I’d need to cover is… well. Professional integrity has its limits. All it would take is one bribable therapist – ”
“That’s just an excuse. There are plenty of legacy mages here, I refuse to believe that none of them are in therapy. And even the whole labyrinth of dreams thing, or, or Kylie’s spell – I’m sure there are therapists here who have heard juicier news and kept it to themselves, or the mental health system here wouldn’t work. It needs to be able to be trusted. You don’t want to trust it because you don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“And you do?”
“No, but I’m not the one who decided to pull out a mental health lecture.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t meant to overstep, and get involved in your personal business, I just – ”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly, trying to convey through tone and expression that I was not a hypocrite who’d tried to have a discussion with his girlfriend about their relationship behind his back, or subtly put myself between him and his shithead family friend. I nearly added, ‘I worry about you, too’, but that would’ve been way too mushy. Anyway, we –
“Holy shit,” I exclaimed, “I’m in the middle of a race right now!”
We hadn’t been gone all that long. When we got back to the Pit, Peter was navigating a mazelike series of paths that were difficult to assess, baton in hand. He seemed to be ahead of his opponent, but the nature of the trail made it hard to be sure.
Kylie sidled up, blue magic glowing around her nose. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said. “Sorry about…” I gestured at her face.
“No problem. It was a clean break.”
“I broke it?!”
“A clean break! It’s fine!”
“It’s not fine; I shouldn’t have hit you!”
“You didn’t do it on purpose. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. I was just trying to help.”
“Don’t apologise to me because I broke your nose!”
“But you – ”
“How about,” Max cut in, “you two call it a draw and move on?” He handed me a bottle of water, which made me remember I’d just climbed a cliff for about forty five minutes without remembering to drink anything and, yeah, I was probably pretty dehydrated.
We won, in the end. It wasn’t as exciting as I’d expected it would be, given that we were complete beginners competing against complete beginners, but it was nice not to lose our very first match. I jogged over to pat my teammates on the back, and none of them mentioned my little freakout (I didn’t know if they hadn’t noticed or if they were being polite), and that was about it. As I was leaving with Max and Kylie, Alania found us.
“Kayden,” she said, glancing at Kylie’s nose, “I think you should probably see the kuracar.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. I’d just panicked a little, I hadn’t fallen off the cursing cliff.
“Be that as it may, I think we could benefit from a professional opinion. Your health becoming compromised would be… unfortunate.”
Oh. That’s what this was about. “I handled my curse for fourteen years before coming here. Experiencing an emotion isn’t going to suddenly make Kylie’s eat me alive.”
“Your curse is dormant and we don’t know why, so that may or may not be correct. And we have no idea what Kylie’s curse will do.” She pursed her lips for a moment. “Also, I’m obligated to inform you that I’ve spoken to several doctors, biologists and physiologists who are interested in working with you. It’syour choice, but I’d advise sticking with the medical support you already have unless you have a good reason not to. Although I can get you a list of the people who – ”
“No, that’s fine, I don’t want to work with any of them,” I said. Well, at least redirecting to Alania had worked.
Alania looked slightly relieved at that. It occurred to me that she might have expected me to jump at the chance to not work with Malas any more. But just because I hadn’t forgiven him for using me for political gain a year ago didn’t mean I was stupid.
And I did feel bad about redirecting Ed to her. Maybe she was being overzealous and I was completely fine, but if it made her feel better…
“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll go and see the kuracar.”
He was more qualified to give me random health advice than Max was, anyway.