Scott was strapped into a gurney. I held his hand while, a few yards away, Norris explained the situation to the paramedics and gave them a copy of Scott’s file. The ambulance had come up the long drive with their lights on but no siren. The lights were still going. They strobed in and out, giving the shadows a pulse.

I sniffed and wiped my nose.

“I told you,” Scott murmured. “It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

I smiled. It was weak, but it was a smile. “That’s because you’re so high right now, they had to strap you to the stretcher so you wouldn’t float away.”

“Yeah. Creepy Nurse Norris really came through with the good stuff. Levitation.” He tried to shake his head. It barely moved. “Not the power I would have chosen.”

“Try not to move your head,” Darius reminded him. “The doctors are going to want to check it out. You hit it pretty hard when you came back down.”

“That, I remember,” Scott grumbled. “What a way to wake up.”

I laughed and wiped my eyes.

The paramedics came over. I had to let go and step back.

“Tell Wes to look after Sir George for me!” Scott yelled as they wheeled him into the ambulance. “He gets lonely!”

I watched the ambulance drive away, then stepped back again, looking for a wall to lean against. I didn’t want to keep holding myself up. Instead of a wall, I found Conrad. Not much of a difference, really. He must have come out once the paramedics were gone. To keep me from tripping over his feet, he put a hand on my shoulder and guided me to the wall I’d been looking for.

Darius came over. Norris went back into the building while Wuller joined us by the wall.

“I need to thank you, Vasil,” Wuller said. “I understand you were the first on the scene?”

“I happened to be near the hall. That’s all.”

“You’ve had medical training?”

“Some. May I ask about Mr. Shipp’s injuries?”

Wuller grimaced. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. Privacy and all that.”

“Can you tell me if it’s as bad as I thought?”

The paramedics had covered Scott with a blanket, but there had been bruises and cuts all along his bare arm. I closed my eyes to banish the memory.

“We’ll have to wait for the x-rays,” Wuller said. “With luck, the worst will be his shoulder.”

“The boys are going to want to see him.” My voice was weak and husky.

The headmaster’s eyebrows pulled together. “Pardon?”

“The other musketeers.”

“She means Osborn, Reed, and Walman,” Darius explained. “They’re close friends with Mr. Shipp.”

“Errr, yes,” Wuller said. “That may take some special arrangements. Reed, you said? Yes. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Before that, Mr. Wuller, there are some questions I need to ask.”

The headmaster rubbed his eyes. He slumped, and there wasn’t a square millimeter of his body that wasn’t displaying weariness and resignation. “What kind of questions?”

“How many times have these psychic powers resulted in a student being injured?”

Conrad took me by the arm and led me over to the open door. “Come on,” he said softly.

“They were talking,” I mumbled.

I didn’t have a great reason for saying that. Maybe I thought I needed to stay out there or something. Maybe it was a reflex.

“Darius will tell us anything important,” Conrad said. “You look like you’re about to collapse.”

“I’m just tired.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

We were halfway down the hall when Conrad stopped and cocked his head. A second after he did, I heard the footsteps. Wes and Eric were charging down the hall. They had to grab on to the wall to make the turn. Wes was still in his pajamas. Eric had thrown on pants and an undershirt. The undershirt was inside out.

“Where’s Scott?” Wes demanded.

I looked up at Conrad.

“Dustin’s coming,” he warned me.

“He’s right behind us,” Wes said. “What’s going on? Is Scott hurt?”

“Someone said there was an ambulance,” Eric said.

Dustin came around the corner. His posture, how he moved, his face—everything confirmed what I’d guessed.

Eric and Wes were scared. Dustin was terrified. Eric and Wes were concerned. He was heartsick. The only reason Dustin could keep it together was because the mask he’d worn for so long had fossilized.

I tore my eyes away from him and focused on Wes and Eric instead, trying hard to keep my feelings in check.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“Emerra?” Wes sounded desperate.

“Um…I…”

The sorrow that had been spreading through me choked off my voice. Since I one hundred percent felt like a yon fair maiden, I did what any respectable maiden in distress would do: I turned to a knight for help.

Conrad saw the pleading look I gave him and instantly took charge.

“Your friend is hurt,” he said to the boys, “but he’ll be okay. We can tell you about it, but first, Emerra needs to sit down. We’ll go to one of the front meeting rooms.”

“Most of them will be locked,” Eric said.

“Then I’ll open it,” Conrad growled.

That line was sufficiently impressive, the boys followed us without further comment. I didn’t really think that Conrad would rip the handle out of a door just to find me a place to sit down, but I wasn’t completely sure either. Fortunately, he didn’t have to; the door to the armory was open.

It wasn’t really an armory. It was a room where they displayed the souvenirs left over from the original house, but when I’m desperate for a way to distinguish one room from another and the only major difference between it and its four nearest neighbors are the swords up on one wall, that’s all it needs to qualify as an armory in my book.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Conrad turned on the lights as we went in. The boys weren’t supposed to be out of their rooms, but I knew they wouldn’t care if Wuller himself caught them. I sat down on a couch while Conrad went over to the window and looked out on the grounds. Wes and Eric sat on the couch across from me. Dustin milled around behind them, as if he wasn’t sure he had a right to join us.

Stop it, Emerra. Worry about Dustin later.

“What happened?” Wes asked.

I squeezed two fingers while I spoke. “Scott started levitating in his sleep. While he was levitating, he had a seizure.”

Dustin froze and stared at me. I tried to ignore him.

“It was bad,” I said. “It was really bad. He was on the bottom bunk, and he and his roommate weren’t expecting anything like that. Scott hurt himself while he was thrashing. There’s lots of bruising. He broke his bedside lamp and cut his arm—”

“Why an ambulance?” Eric demanded.

“He’s dislocated his shoulder, and he might have some minor fractures along his vertebra—”

“He broke his back?” Wes shouted.

“Not like that. These would be small fractures.”

“What kind of a seizure breaks your back?” Eric said.

I remembered Darius’s soft voice, gently explaining it to me. I wished he was here. We could all use some calm-me-down hypnotism.

“His convulsions were stronger than normal,” I said, “and fractures from…that kind of seizure…weren’t uncommon—”

“Weren’t? What do you mean, weren’t?”

“—aren’t uncommon. They aren’t uncommon. But these should be hairline fractures. Lots of people that had them never complained about any pain. Scott’s going to be fine. They’re going to take care of his shoulder and, since this was his first seizure, they’re going to do some tests to make sure everything’s okay.”

Wes and Eric sat back. Wes scratched his head with both hands. Eric frowned and gazed at the rug. They were fortifying themselves. My information was nothing but another report, delivered to a couple of generals in the middle of an ongoing battle. They heard it. They accepted it. Now they would have to decide what to do about it.

Wes looked at me. “He’s going to be okay?”

“Yes.” I managed another weak smile. “He wants you to look after Sir George until he gets back.”

Wes nodded—every bit, the grave soldier. “Of course. George gets lonely.”

“What kind of seizure was it?” Dustin asked.

I covered my mouth and kept my eyes on the line where Wes’s bare foot met the rug.

“Is there a reason you don’t want to tell us?” Dustin asked.

I closed my eyes.

There was a long silence.

Dustin was the one who broke it.

“How did you know it was me? No—don’t answer that. Tell me what kind of a seizure it was.”

I looked up. Wes and Eric were watching me and Dustin, trying to understand what was happening.

“What’s Metrazol therapy?” Dustin demanded.

“It’s an old therapy for psychiatric patients,” Conrad said. “They injected them with a drug that induced seizures.”

Dustin’s face screwed up with grief. He pulled his arms to his chest. When he spoke, his voice shook.

“So this is my fault.”

I stood up. “This isn’t your fault, Dustin.”

Dustin nodded to Conrad. “He thinks it is.”

“Conrad!”

“The boy could have come forward at any time, Emerra,” Conrad said.

“What’s going on?” Eric stood up and turned to Dustin. “How is this your fault?”

Dustin took a step back, but then he braced himself. It looked as if he was teetering on the edge of a cliff.

You don’t have to tell him, I thought.

Dustin heard me. When he looked at me, I saw a tiny smirk at the edge of his lips. It was there for less than a second, but it held a universe of despair.

He looked back at Eric. “I’m the reason all the powers have been manifesting.”

Wes slowly rose to his feet. “You want to explain that a little better, Dustin?”

“Ever since I was little, I’ve had these awful powers. I try to control them. I try to be normal. It never works!”

His voice started rising, becoming more frantic.

“My parents sent me here. They won’t even admit anything is wrong with me—like maybe I won’t know if they don’t say it—like I can’t read their minds, or-or feel how desperate they are!”

His energy collapsed. He looked down and droned, “They thought Wuller might be able to help, but there’s something wrong with the building. I’ve been having nightmares.”

He fell silent.

“I tried to control it,” he muttered.

Eric dodged around the edge of the couch and grabbed Dustin by the collar of his shirt with both hands. He moved so fast, I didn’t have time to react. His face was tight with rage.

He yelled, “Are you telling us that this—all of this—is your fault?”

Dustin swallowed. “Yes.”

I stumbled forward. Conrad came away from the window. Wes moved, but it was like he was stuck in slow motion. He drifted toward his friends.

Without letting go of the shirt, Eric slammed his fists into Dustin’s chest. “Every single psychic? Every fire? Every piece of broken glass—those stupid classes? Wes? Ivers? All of them?

“Yes.”

“Eric, stop!” I said. “You don’t understand.”

I might as well have been yelling at one of the brick walls.

Eric’s fists tightened around Dustin’s shirt. “Scott?”

I could see tears gathering in Dustin’s eyes, but he never looked away, and he never blinked.

“The wolfman’s right,” Eric said.

I yelled for him to stop, but he shoved Dustin, hard. Dustin staggered back several steps, then righted himself.

“Leave,” Eric demanded.

“Eric!” I said, “Listen to me!”

“How many more people were you going to hurt before you said something, Dustin?”

“I never meant to hurt anyone!” Dustin screamed.

The lights flickered, and the walls seemed to flex toward us.

“You didn’t do anything to stop it!” Eric yelled. “You might as well have used your powers to pull his arm out of its socket yourself. Or is that what happened?”

“Wes!” I cried. “Help me!”

It was like I had invoked a spell. Dustin and Eric both fell silent and turned to Wes.

He stood there, motionless, for what felt like a minute. It was probably only a second.

Dustin held up both hands. “I get it. You don’t have to say anything. I’m gone.”

He turned toward the door.

“Dustin—” I started.

His raised voice was ragged with emotion. “Shut up, Emerra! They hate me, all right! Nice while it lasted. You and the Torr are going to take me away somewhere? Lock me up? Fine! Just give me some fucking space. I need to calm down.”

The door slammed open without being touched. The souvenirs on the wall rattled from the force. He passed through, and it slammed closed.

I turned to Eric and Wes. I’m pretty sure I was channeling all the tears that Dustin held back, because there was no way I could cry that many myself. They rolled down my face like someone left the faucet on.

“I ought to slam your idiot heads together,” I said. “He was your friend!”

“He lied to us!” Eric yelled.

“He hid something from you! He hid it because all he wanted was a stupid normal life and some stupid normal friends!”

“He said it was his fault,” Wes said.

“You want someone to blame? You blame Allard and his prison camp of an insane asylum! Or you blame the hundreds of people in Dustin’s life that hurt him bad enough he thinks he has to hide who he is to be accepted!”

“You don’t know what we’ve been through,” Eric said.

I marched up and stood on my toes to better snarl in his face. “And you don’t know what he’s been through! You never asked! Did you ever wonder what it’d be like to know that everyone is afraid of you? To read their minds, and know—not just wonder, but know—that they think you’re a freak? You didn’t try to understand him. You were too busy being angry and afraid.”

I stepped back to include Wes in my rant.

“Congratulations, guys! You proved every fear in his life correct! He only has friends as long as they don’t know. No one will ever be there for him. Those powers he’s been struggling to control this whole time—they hurt one of his best friends, and it’s his fault because he told himself he could control it. He made a mistake. This is the worst day of his life, and he has to face it alone!”

“So you’re a telepath now?” Eric sneered.

“All you had to do was look at him!” I yelled.

I curled my hands into claws and held them up by my face, trying to shape some of my writhing fury.

It was useless.

“Ugh!” I threw my hands back down to my sides and stormed out of the room.

I was so angry, I was at the end of the hall before I realized Conrad was behind me.

“I’m mad at you,” I said.

“Yeah, I can smell that.”

“Are you sorry?”

“I’m sorry he picked that one thought from my head. I agree with you, Emerra. There’s a difference between an offense and a mistake. He could have stopped it by coming forward—that’s his fault—but it was still a mistake.”

“You think he should feel guilty!”

“He should feel guilty. There’s nothing wrong with feeling guilty when you’ve made a mistake. That’s why you say you’re sorry. That’s what teaches you to be more careful.”

I stopped and turned to Conrad.

The wolfman said, “I don’t think he should feel like a bad person.”

“He does,” I said.

“I know.”

Through a pin-sized throat, I managed to choke out, “I don’t want him to feel bad.”

Conrad pulled me into a one-armed hug. I dropped my head on his chest.

“Yeah, I get that,” he said.

“What do I do?”

“Well, the good news is that he will definitely know you’re sincere.”

I laughed. It unlocked some of the anger and sadness that had gotten jammed in my body.

Conrad went on, “Dustin said he needed to calm down. Let’s give him some space. We still have to talk to Darius.”

“The Torr aren’t going to lock him up, are they?”

“Darius would never allow that.”

“‘Cause Darius is totally in charge.”

“Darius is the right hand of Jack Noctis, who is in charge. But even if he wasn’t, he still wouldn’t allow it. But he’ll have to start making arrangements.”

We headed back to our rooms to wait for Darius.