Chapter Text
"What do you mean, she's not here?"
"Lady Rene was summoned to the capitol yesterday, Wynn. I'm sorry." Edi's eyes were kind.
Wynn clenched her hands. Her fingers were still sore from trying to fix Piper's arm in the field, first on their ship and then in the carriage that had brought them to Green Meadow. This wasn't the hospital where she had trained, and she barely knew any of the staff, but they were supposed to have two inorganic specialists. People who knew how to fix Piper's mechanical arm.
It was maddening enough that she couldn't do major field repairs herself. At least not when critical components were crushed into dust under the assault of enemy magic. Now, with no specialists at the hospital, she was going to have to wait even longer to find out what had happened.
"Rene is tending to— Well, I don't rank high enough to know who she's attending to, but someone important." Edi glanced at the door behind them. Wynn resisted the urge to turn around and look herself. "We can take care of Lady Piper until her return."
"I can't take Piper back on patrol without her arm."
"No one expects you to. You may not be one of ours, but you're welcome at Green Meadow." Edi touched her fingers to Wynn's chin and Wynn reluctantly allowed her to tip her face up. "And, frankly, you need as much attention as your knight right now."
"I'm fine."
"How's the peripheral vision in your left eye?"
Wynn flinched and took a step back. She wanted to wrap her arms around herself, but that was something a child did — not someone who'd had their healing certification for three years running. "My magic reserves are low. I was saving them until we'd arrived. In case Piper's wounds reopened."
"Understandable. But I'm not willing to discharge you without examining you." Edi gestured to another room. "Inform your knight that you'll be back soon and join me."
"Piper needs—"
Edi gave her a look that killed the rest of the sentence on her tongue. "Piper is stabilized. I don't allow patients to willfully hurt themselves in my hospital, Wynn. Tell her you'll be back and come get your eye fixed."
***
Piper cracked one eye open and tried to keep her face blank. The door had been partially open the entire time — Wynn had a thing about never closing doors completely behind her, though she'd deny it if you said so. As expected, her healer's face was red.
This wasn't such a bad place. The landscaping was absurdly beautiful, rolling fields rich with flowers and bushes. Piper had stared out the window the entire time they'd been working on her burns. The building itself was constructed out of light-colored stone, which kept the rooms cool despite the summer burning outside. It was true, they didn't really know any of the staff here, but it'd been far closer than the hospital where Wynn had trained.
"I don't mind staying here," Piper said. The healer working on her leg ducked his head. Good. Wynn was clearly not in the mood to deal with extra people right now.
Wynn tensed. "Lady Rene is with a patient at the capitol. She'll be gone for at least a week. Blue Falls is only four days ride from here, I could take your arm to Ava and see—"
"Wynn."
"—if she could fix it there before I bring it back to you," Wynn rambled, ignoring her. As usual. "If I change horses it would probably take less than four days. I could be back at the same time as Lady Rene, and she could—"
"Wynn…"
"—make sure your repaired arm was synced with you again before we left."
"Wynn. I'm not going to ask again." Piper held her hand out.
The red in Wynn's face turned darker. She bit back whatever she was going to say, though, and stepped forward to place her hand in Piper's. Piper turned her hand over, intending to kiss her wrist — it was one of the only surefire ways to derail her when she was worked up like this. Instead, Piper had to frown. The burn Wynn had suffered when they'd both been hit with that fire blast was still there, in the crook of her arm.
"You told me you healed that."
"I healed it over. I just didn't heal it through. I needed to save my magic."
The ambush had been bad, but not that bad. Their ship had been boarded by bandits in the middle of the night. Piper would have taken care of it if one of the people — they'd all had scarves tied across their mouths, to hide their faces — hadn't been willing to set fire to the ship they'd all been standing on. She knew at least one of the attackers had fallen in the river. Her own leg had been slashed when the rest of the bandits started to retreat. Then, whoever set fire to the ship had lobbed a fireball at both her and Wynn to keep them from following.
But Piper hadn't been in such bad shape that Wynn needed to leave burns on her skin.
"I heard what you told Healer Edi," Piper said. She tightened her grip on Wynn's wrist to keep her from pulling away. Fuck it. "How's your eye?" she asked, letting irritation seep into her voice.
"Edi is overreacting. It's a minor problem."
"I feel like losing some of your vision is not a minor problem."
The healer working on her leg opened his mouth but shut it when he caught the look on Piper's face. It was lucky that Wynn hadn't been looking at him. Piper wasn't actually angling for a medical opinion in this argument. She just needed her stubborn healer to listen to her for once.
Wynn made a dismissive gesture with her free hand. "It wasn't important in the field. It's my job to make sure you're well. I saved my magic so I could do that."
"You're not doing your job if you don't take care of yourself. You need to be able to keep aware of our surroundings just as much as I do." Piper waited for a response, but this time, Wynn's face just went white. She was clenching her jaw. The healer looked uncomfortable — maybe she should have sent him out after all. Too late for that.
"Go to Edi, Wynn. I don't want to see you again until you're fixed." She let go of Wynn's hand without kissing her wrist after all.
This time, Wynn did actually shut the door all the way behind her.
The healer glanced at her. "They didn't tell me you two were bonded. If you were injured badly enough to affect your perceptions of each other, I need to—"
"We're not bonded."
He blinked. "Ah."
Piper settled back against the pillows they'd brought in for her, earlier. She looked back out the window. It was still sunny, and hot, and now there were little rabbits eating some of the flowers in the field.
***
Eventually, they released Piper. They didn't bother to discharge her, because they weren't going anywhere until Lady Rene returned. In the meantime, she had been assigned a room in one of the upper levels, and her mechanical arm was in a box awaiting cleaning.
The arm she'd lost was her left. It had been cut off between her shoulder and elbow, which made the mechanical replacement one of the more complex models on the market. Normally, Piper was able to do most of the cleaning and minor repairs herself. Wynn would have done all of it if she'd let her, which was stupid, because Piper had to be able to tend it herself.
Still. Walking around in daylight without her arm was unusual. Normally, she only took it off at night, and sometimes she did let Wynn take care of it, especially if there were other things that needed doing.
But nothing else needed doing here. She knocked at an office. "Healer Edi," she said.
"Your wounds aren't bothering you this morning, are they?"
"No." Piper looked around. The hospital's banner hung above one of the windows. There were two soft chairs in the corner, and a full set of anatomical charts on the wall behind Edi's desk. "Wynn didn't come back to see me last night."
Edi closed her notebook. "Did you check the cafeteria?"
"Yes, but she doesn't typically eat breakfast." She paused. "Officially, Wynn is part of my unit. It's just us two, but… I am entitled to information about her care, if she is incapacitated."
A brief smile played over Edi's face. She leaned back in her chair and put her hands in her lap, radiating calm. It was no wonder she'd been made Lead Healer in Lady Rene's absence. Piper imagined that someone who didn't know how much trouble Wynn could get into would be reassured by that kind of smile.
"I personally tended to Wynn's burns and the injury to her back."
"Her back?" Piper took a step forward so she could close the door. She rested her hand on the back of the chair by Edi's desk but didn't sit down. "She didn't tell me her back was hurt."
"Some bruising. She said she was pushed down." Edi regarded her for a moment but refrained from asking her to sit. "She sustained a minor head injury when the fire blast knocked you down. Nothing to be overly concerned about, but there is some swelling around her eye. It should clear up within the next couple of days."
Piper ran her thumb over the top of the chair. "You didn't heal it?"
"Deep intervention is field magic, Lady Piper. I took down the worst of it. With the attention she needed elsewhere, I felt it was best to let Wynn's body run its own course." She sighed. "Her magic reserves were nearly depleted. Since they're linked to you, I didn't want to use them up completely on her eye. Her other injuries needed more immediate attention."
It took a moment to answer.
This was an issue they only ran into around other magic users. Most of Piper's connections weren't mages, or healers, and Wynn… didn't get along with enough people to bring them into intimate contact with others often. She tended to keep to herself when they were forced to keep close quarters with strangers. Once, their unit had been in a crash. Wynn had been so frantically attending to everyone that the responding mages had said they could see her magic moving over Piper and the others.
Of course, now it was just Piper. There were different assumptions when you were your healer's only knight. "Wynn and I aren't bonded," she said. "As far as I know, Wynn has never bonded with anyone. Before this year, our unit consisted of four knights and a squire."
Edi took a moment to absorb that. "What happened to the others?"
"They were killed on a mission. I'm not able to disclose the details." Piper looked out the window: this side of the hospital campus was lined with flowering trees. "Wynn came into the unit with our leader, Lady Anita. They had been together for six months but never bonded. And then there were so many of us."
"Her magic is still linked to you," Edi said. She shook her head when Piper tried to open her mouth. "She was very anxious about the attack. The magic you were hit with reacted unusually with the both of you. Her eyesight should not have been affected, and the crystals powering your arm should not have collapsed. If I had healed her vision completely, it would have drained the rest of her magic."
She imagined Wynn peacefully sleeping through this morning as her magic reserves rebuilt, instead of wandering off… somewhere. "I would prefer to have been consulted about that."
"All due respect, Lady Piper, but Healer Caldwell was repairing torn muscles in your leg at that moment." Edi stood. She also smiled, but it was clear the meeting was over. "I advised Wynn to meet with some of our students. We always encourage them to learn from healers with field experience."
Piper reluctantly smiled back. "Of course. Where do they normally gather?"
***
Piper stopped at the entrance to the courtyard. Some patients were out here — with nurses or visitors. There was also a cluster of healers in the corner.
It wasn't until she was nearly on top of them that she saw a knight was sitting with them too, a tall woman with long blonde hair. Her tunic bore a vaguely familiar crest over a sword. Not a city Piper had ever visited in person. To the knight's side, Wynn was settled with one leg folded underneath herself. She startled when she spotted Piper, but Piper had a hand on her shoulder before she could stand.
"That's not necessary."
"I thought you would sleep in," Wynn said. She pressed her lips together when Piper touched her cheek. "I'm fine."
If they'd been in private, Piper would have argued with her definition of fine. She was going to have to find Edi later to argue it, too. "How long do you have to wear the eye patch?" she asked, proud of herself for keeping her voice even.
"Two nights." Wynn glanced at the blonde knight and then back at her.
Hmm. Piper let go of her.
"This is Lady Piper of Falshire," Wynn said, turning to the assembly. Now that she was up close, Piper could see the badges on everyone's collars, indicating they were Green Meadow students. Even the knight was wearing one. "Piper, these are first-year students. This is Lady Iris of Doveport."
"I'm doing my emergency medical rotation," Iris said. She held her hand out and Piper extended her own. Iris gave a firm handshake. Her shirt covered her wrists, where her mage tattoo would be, so Piper had no idea what academy she'd attended. "Wynn said she studied at Blue Falls. Is that where you did your own rotation?"
Piper smiled and took the empty space that one of the students made for her, next to Wynn. "I'm not a mage," she said.
"But you have your own healer! That must be a story," Iris said, grinning and ignoring the way that the line of Wynn's shoulders went tight. "Care to share?"
"Wynn and I are on a patrol assignment until we're resorted into a new unit," Piper explained. That was all the explanation she was going to give in front of this many people.
Wynn briefly touched a hand to Piper's leg but didn't linger.
The students resumed the conversation they'd been having when Piper interrupted. It was extremely unpleasant. Apparently, the story of their ship getting set on fire had started a 'worst burn you've ever seen' contest. Wynn had way too much to contribute. It was all Piper could do to watch the birds flitting around the courtyard instead of interjecting that everyone at the table needed to reconsider their concept of polite conversation.
Eventually, a bell rang, and the students scattered to their first classes of the day.
Iris stood too. "I should join them," she said. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Lady Piper. Healer Wynn."
"Be well," Wynn answered in response.
She didn't pull back when Iris latched onto her hand and kissed her knuckles. It was the standard gesture between a knight and a mage who weren't personally acquainted. Piper still glanced away.
Lady Anita used to kiss the inside of Wynn's wrist — especially when Wynn was lecturing them all about some safety failing she'd witnessed or decided she'd witnessed. Wynn was not particularly fond of the gesture from strangers. When they'd been at court, she'd often linked arms with Anita, or even Ward or their squire Lucille, to keep her hands occupied.
Wynn turned back to Piper after Iris walked off. "I really did think you were going to sleep in. I was going to tell you about the eye patch when you woke up."
"It's okay," Piper said, her right hand clenched in her lap. "Make it up to me by joining me for breakfast before they stop serving for the morning. You don't even have to eat anything."
"Oh, sure. I really do like to watch you eat," Wynn said, rolling her eyes.
"Fortunately for you, I'm very hungry."
***
That afternoon brought clear weather. Apparently, much too clear to try to use the hospital library to research what may have caused the crystal collapse in Piper's arm. Instead, Piper insisted that it was the perfect kind of afternoon to stretch and spar.
Wynn refused to participate. She sat at the side of the yard with both legs folded underneath her and a book on her lap. It was an inorganic specialty book — she'd managed to talk Edi into letting her borrow it from Rene's office. Most of the text made almost no sense, but there were some diagrams that reminded her of Piper's arm. This was the kind of thing they should be spending their time on.
Instead, Piper was testing the weight of different staffs. Green Meadow hosted a physical therapy unit for the knighthood, so they had a wide selection to choose from.
Piper favored swords, but the hospital had kindly asked her not to overexcite the students. There were several first years huddled a few feet away from Wynn. Apparently, their next class would be 'right near here,' and they 'hung out in the PT courtyard all the time.'
After selecting a staff, Piper walked over to her. "Are you sure you don't want to join me?"
Wynn sniffed. "Yep." It had nothing to do with her eyepatch, either. And the leather strap holding the patch in place was absolutely not itching against her dark hair like mad.
Piper grinned and held her hand out, linking their fingers together. "Don't be mad," she murmured. "I need to exercise."
"I mean, you could take a walk, like a normal person," Wynn muttered. She glanced out at the courtyard. There was a man using a specially constructed pathway to test out a new pair of crutches, but the other knights were all looking at the staffs. "Whose healer gave you permission to try to beat them up?"
"No one's. Lady Iris should be here shortly."
"What?"
"We ran into each other when you were bothering Edi about that book," Piper said, ignoring Wynn's scowl. "We were discussing our recent missions and our education came up. She also studied under Sir Paul — after I graduated. But our styles are the same, so she said it would be interesting to test her skills against mine. We're not all-out sparring. She just wanted to see how I've adapted Paul's techniques to one arm."
Wynn shook her head. "If you get crushed, I'm not healing you."
At the other end of the yard, Iris appeared. She'd changed into an outfit more appropriate for sparring, with long sleeves that hid her arms from the sun. She waved at them and went to go pick up a weapon.
Piper ran her thumb over Wynn's knuckles. "What if I win?"
"Tell you what," Wynn said, blowing out a breath. She still thought this was stupid. Piper fighting one-armed in the field meant something had gone really wrong. But … she guessed it made sense someone would want to know how to fight if they were injured. "You knock Iris flat, I'll eat breakfast with you in the morning."
"Is that a promise?" Piper asked. But Iris was nearly over to them, so she kissed Wynn's hand and let go without waiting for an answer.
Iris smiled at the both of them. "Healer Wynn. Lady Piper." She bowed her head.
Piper lowered her head in reply. "Lady Iris."
Sucking in a breath through her teeth, Wynn looked down at her book. The Green Meadow healers had fixed the burn on the back of Piper's neck quite nicely — her brown skin was smooth again, freckles still in place. They hadn't been able to regrow any of Piper's singed hair, but someone had gone in to clip it short all over the back and sides. It was like the fire blast had never happened.
Wynn flexed her fingers and resisted the urge to fiddle with her eye patch. Even though, maybe, just a little, it was starting to itch against her hair. Which had only escaped getting similarly singed because she'd had the hood of her cloak up when they were hit.
She had read the sentence at the top of the page three times when the first sound of wood hitting wood rang out. Thumb under the sentence she still couldn't understand, Wynn glanced up just long enough to see that the patients out for physical therapy training had stopped to watch the knights.
It wasn't a usual session — Wynn had watched enough of those, even though she and Piper had been on their own since… since the beginning of the year, to know that.
Piper was demonstrating her new preferred grip, and Iris was mimicking it. They knocked the staffs together a few times while Piper gave her notes.
"That isn't your dominant arm, is it?" Piper asked, watching Iris adjust her grip.
Iris grinned. "No. If I've got to fight with one arm, I figure my sword arm's out of commission. How'd you tell?"
"Posture," Piper said.
The next page in her book had fewer words and more diagrams. These were semi-familiar too. It showed the preferred system for latching the mechanical arm onto a patient's stump — something Piper could do by herself but that Wynn had to know as well. There had been a couple of instances where she'd needed to get Piper's arm off, quickly, to get at some damage or treat some other injury.
Tracing the lines of the drawing, she pressed her lips together. It was… she should already own this book. She should know more about inorganics by now than she did. There had to be something in here about the crystals that channeled magic so Piper could operate her arm without pause. But was she going to understand it? It wasn't as if she could re-grow the crystals — they would need to wait for new ones to be shipped in — but surely there was some way to shield against whatever magic had affected them. An inorganic healing unit would take half a year to complete, and even then, she still wouldn't be an expert. Wrangling half a year for study would be nearly impossible at the moment. Not with tensions between the Dynasty and the Empire growing stronger.
In a couple of months, their current assignment would be over and they'd be recalled to court. They'd be slotted into a new unit and sent back to keep the Empire from creeping farther into their territory. Maybe they'd go back to the plains. Maybe they'd be sent into the river-carved canyon the Empire was trying to dam up. Maybe someone in their new unit would…
Wynn stared at an incomprehensible description of how new power crystals were grown. New medical students graduated each fall. It would be fall when they went back to court.
It would make sense for Piper to be in a unit with a healer who'd studied inorganic magic and repair as their specialty, instead of someone who hadn't even taken the introductory lessons.
Someone sat down next to her and Wynn jumped. A woman in a loose, tan tunic and pants smiled at her. A patient’s clothes, though they didn't fit her very well. Short-cropped brown hair. "Hi. I just wanted to take a seat."
"Right."
"Did you come in with the one-armed knight?"
Wynn stared at her, a distant buzzing in her ears. "Excuse me?"
The patient blinked dark eyes. "Uh, sorry. I don't — I don't know their names, but I've seen the blonde around. But not the other one. Or you."
Wynn gripped the edge of her book. "Her name is Lady Piper," she said, stiffly. A visual sweep didn't reveal why this woman might be in the hospital, but Wynn’s magic reserves were still too low to do anything with.
"Right." The patient glanced at Iris and Piper, who were testing out different hits now, working up to swings that actually tested each other's balance. "My name is Efa."
"Wynn," Wynn said, after a split second of hesitation.
"I'm here for an annual physical." Efa raised an eyebrow at her, but Wynn didn't react. After a moment Efa said, "And you? And … Piper?"
"Minor injuries. You know how it is. Sometimes cowardly bandits decide that it's too hard to rob you, so they set your ship on fire instead."
"Uh…"
Wynn smiled.
"Right. Uh. I thought maybe, something was wrong with your knight's mechanical arm?" Efa said. When Wynn raised her head to stare at her again, Efa leaned forward and tapped a fingertip against the diagram open on the page. "You're reading about them."
"Routine servicing," Wynn answered, shortly. She shut the book without bothering to mark the page she'd been looking at.
Across the courtyard, Piper hooked the end of her staff behind Iris's ankle and tugged. A couple of the watching knights let out a whoop when Iris tumbled. She hit the ground fine — a little hard on one shoulder, the arm she'd been trying to act like wasn't working — and managed to roll into it and pop back up to her feet. There was a sharp grin on her face.
From where they were sitting, Wynn couldn't hear what Iris said, but she could see her lips move. Piper gave her staff a spin in return.
"I've been out in the west swamps — you know, Morley, Canton. Green Meadow is pretty far out from there, but it's where they sent me."
Wynn blinked and looked back at Efa. "Green Meadow is closer than any of the other hospitals to the west swamps," she said, frowning. That was why they had come here in the first place.
"I mean… Val Caverns."
"Val Caverns is a research and weapons production center for the crown, not a hospital."
"Oh, really? I see healers coming and going there all the time."
"And that makes a hospital? I mean, yes, there's a medical wing, but they're creating medicine and supplies and tending to injuries, not — Oh, damn it." Wynn started to stand but sat back down when Piper threw her a look. Iris had just managed to replicate the ankle-hook maneuver. Piper rolled back onto her feet and turned her back to Wynn. Ugh. "Knights," she muttered.
Efa laughed softly. Wynn's face flushed.
The hits the knights started landing were more serious. Wynn kept her eyes on Piper's feet, watching for wobbles in her balance, but none came. Iris pushed her backwards hit by hit, until they were in the center of the courtyard. Wynn couldn't see Piper's face — but she realized at the same moment as Iris did that all of a sudden, Iris's line of sight was straight into the glare of the sun.
Piper shoved her left shoulder down and then up, knocking straight into Iris's gut. She used her foot to pull Iris off her feet, and slammed the staff down flat on the ground next to Iris's face as soon as Iris hit the dirt.
The spectator knights whooped again, clapping this time.
"That was quite a show. But I guess my healers are probably expecting me," Efa said, hopping to her feet.
Then she held her hand out. Wynn just stared at it. She had calluses on her palm and a tattoo on her wrist. It was small, a single apple blossom, but Wynn had seen similar tattoos before. Efa wasn't just a knight — she was a mage.
"Wynn."
Wynn jumped, startled, and found Piper and Iris both watching them. Iris had her staff slung across her shoulders. Piper had hers planted firmly on the ground. She glanced at Wynn and then at Efa, who still had her hand outstretched and a bland if somewhat taut smile across her face.
Grimacing inwardly, Wynn held out her own hand. Efa bent and kissed her knuckles briefly. "Be well."
"Be well," Wynn answered. Apple blossom. What school was that?
Efa bowed her head to both Piper and Iris before leaving — not waiting to be introduced. After she had left the courtyard, Piper walked forward and swept some loose hair away from Wynn's eye patch. "Who was that?"
"She was here for an annual physical. I guess she was bored." She squinted at Piper. "Am I obligated to eat breakfast tomorrow?"
That did make Piper smile. "Breakfast is important."
"Breakfast is delicious," Iris added. She shrugged when Wynn glared at her. "I'm hitting the showers. Piper?"
"I'll be there in a moment."
Wynn waited until Iris was out of earshot to cross her arms over her chest. "Are you all exercised out now?"
"I would have preferred the weight of my sword, but mostly." Piper touched her cheek again. "I still don't like that they didn't heal your vision completely."
"I'd have slept through most of the day if they did."
Piper let go. "We'll disagree about whether that's an actual problem. I also still don't like that you didn't tell me about it."
"I was going to."
"We had a long trip here, Wynn." Piper held up her hand to stop her from protesting. "I need to know these things in the field. You can't…" She sighed, and ran a hand through the curls still left at the top of her head, untouched by the fire blast. "Let's talk about this after dinner."
"Fine."
***
The longer the day wore on, the worse Piper felt. Every knight she had run into had, of course, asked why she was there. Most came to Green Meadow because of the physical therapy offerings. There was an entire unit of five — three knights, two squires — who had landed here together after their healer was knocked unconscious during a skirmish. They had watched her spar with Iris and told her a little about the incident while they'd been putting their staffs away.
It made something in her gut twist to imagine Wynn knocked out on the floor. Her arm had been damaged as soon as the fire blast hit them, and there was no way she could have moved her to safety. With the ship on fire, and the crew busy trying to put it out…
Piper sighed. She squared her shoulders and knocked on Wynn's door.
Wynn opened the door almost immediately. She'd taken off her eye patch, and her hair was damp against her throat. She'd changed from the hospital-provided clothes into a newly cleaned dress she mostly wore while their traveling clothes were in the laundry. She must have showered right after dinner, when Piper had gotten waylaid by some students.
"Fuck," Piper said, staring. "Wynn."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine!" Piper caught the side of Wynn's face in her palm and forced her to turn her head. "Your eye is worse. We need to see Edi immediately."
Wynn's eyes had always been a steady, pale brown. Now her injured one looked gray. The pupil was blown wide, and it didn't contract even when she glanced up at Piper and the lamp fixed above the door.
"This is just a side effect of the healing process. It's going to look this way until it's better." Wynn huffed out a breath. "I have a theory about the magic those bandits hit us with."
"You can tell it to me on our way to see Edi."
"I don't need to see Edi!"
Piper tightened her grip on Wynn's jaw and forced her to connect their gazes. Her good eye looked so startlingly different from the injured one. Piper's gut twisted again. "I'm responsible for you in the field. This is what I wanted to talk about. You need to tell me when things are wrong. You can't put yourself out of commission because you think I need shielding. I can't make decisions without knowing how you are. I can't keep you safe if you hide things from me."
Swallowing, Wynn pulled Piper's hand down. She took a step backward and Piper stepped into her room. Wynn put her hands on her hips. "I'm the one who's supposed to keep you safe!" She looked out the dark window, turning her bad eye away from Piper. "My magic will always come back. I can always heal myself later."
Piper took a couple of breaths, slow, counting to five and down again. It was a technique she'd been taught as a squire. It didn't help ease the twist in her gut or the aching heat blossoming in her chest, but it did keep the first thing she wanted to say from spilling out of her mouth.
"You used to tell Anita things. You didn't wait to talk to her."
"Yes," Wynn said, her hands falling to her sides. Her fingers were trembling. When she looked back at Piper, her face was flushed. "Well. Anita isn't here, is she?"
The room went silent.
Piper counted to three and opened her mouth. "That's a fine thing to say to a person. I didn't…" Take Anita away from you.
"No! You didn't! I did!" Wynn brought her hands up like she was going to shove Piper back and only caught herself at the last moment. Water welled up in her good eye.
Someone cleared their throat behind them. Piper spun on her heel, her arm coming up defensively, but it was just Iris. She'd changed back into normal clothes but was missing the badge on her collar that identified her as a student. She glanced back and forth between them and then made a gesture at the hallway.
"You may want to consider shutting the door," she said, gently.
"Thank you," Piper said, stiffly.
Iris didn't move for a moment. When she finally turned back the way she must have come, down the hall from where Piper's own room was, Piper did shut the door. She also turned around and leaned against it.
Wynn silently wiped the tears out of her eye. She didn't say anything as she dug around in the discarded clothes on her bed. It only took a second for her to find her eye patch and pull it into place. The angry flush was fading from her cheeks and she looked tired.
"I need to ask you something."
Wynn sat on her bed and stared at the floor.
Piper inhaled. They had been working together exclusively for nearly six months now. When their unit had originally formed, Wynn had been working with Anita for six months already. Then, she’d had to stretch her magic over four more people and … that kind of work interrupted things. If things had started to happen with Wynn’s link to Anita.
A healer’s magic naturally linked to anyone they worked on regularly, allowing faster and more effective treatment in the future. A healer who dedicated themselves to one patient in particular might find that magic link deepening into a bond — something that connected the two even when they were apart. Not that bonded pairs tended to be apart that often. The same thing could happen with mages who worked closely with knights.
"Edi and Caldwell both acted like they were reading a link between your magic and me," Piper said, slowly.
"I recharge your arm regularly when we don't have time to wait."
"My arm wasn't on me, Wynn."
Wynn waved dismissively. "Links are complicated. Anyone I work on regularly would read like that."
"Were you bonding with Anita when our unit formed?"
"No." Wynn stared at her. "Do you think I would hide a bond? Do you think Anita would have?"
Piper pressed her lips together. She wanted to sit down, but Wynn's clothes were taking up the rest of the bed. There wasn't a chair in the room. She missed their quarters on the patrol ship. It wasn't a very big ship, but it was fast, and it got them through the west swamps and the Tyld River with ease. And now it was charred in dry dock and probably wouldn't be repaired for months.
"I think," Piper finally said, "that you hide more things from me than I'd like. I don't like that Edi treated your eye without talking to me. I don't like that I didn't know your eye was damaged in the first place."
"You're not a mage. And you're not a healer. You don't get to make decisions for me, at a hospital or in the field."
"You consulted Anita about your injuries. When we went to Blue Falls after Ward and you fell down that ravine—"
"I had a concussion. I didn't think I was going to remember what the healers told me. That's why I pulled Anita in." Wynn narrowed her eye. "Why are you so bent up over this? I saw the Lead Healer here and she said I would be fine."
"Anita always…"
"You know what Anita always did? Listened to me. You want me to talk to you? I told you, I have a theory. I think whichever of the bandits cast the spell must have been using crystals to enhance the magic. It would explain why I reacted so strongly to it, and why the crystals in your arm reacted, too. I think." Wynn glanced at the end of her bed and Piper spotted a thick book on her pillow. "I'm going to ask some of the students about it tomorrow."
Piper rubbed her hand over her face. When she opened her eyes again, Wynn was suddenly standing in front of her, frowning. Piper jumped, her shoulders bumping against the door.
Wynn touched two fingers to her temple. "Do you have a headache?" she accused. Because only Wynn could accuse someone of being sick.
For the sake of peace, Piper did not say, I'm on my way to one. Instead she let Wynn press gently on several points across her head — both temples, her jawline, and briefly between her eyes — until the beginnings of her headache dissolved. Along with the twist in her gut. She probably shouldn't have let Wynn use her magic for that. It probably wasn't worth it.
She caught Wynn's hand in hers and kissed the inside of her wrist. Wynn went still. Mmm. The hospital soap smelled like oranges.
"I don't want to fight," Piper murmured, barely lifting her lips from Wynn's skin. "I don't like seeing you hurt. And I don't… I don't like that both Edi and Caldwell could tell that your magic is linked to me, and I can't."
"You're not a mage. It's normal. It's just what happens when you treat the same person over and over." Wynn swallowed. Piper didn't look at her face, but Wynn didn't pull her hand away, either. "It even took time for my links to the others to fade, after."
Piper kissed her wrist again. She thought she heard Wynn suck in a sharp breath.
"We would both be feeling symptoms if... If the link changed. If a bond started to form," Wynn rushed, her voice a little higher. "If you bond with a magic user, even if you're not one, you can draw magic into yourself. You could recharge your arm much faster. And we… we'd be able to feel where each other were. An advanced bond involves a psychic link. We'd know. I can't lie about something like that."
When Piper looked up Wynn's eye was wet again.
"If I'd been bonded with Anita, I could have warned everyone when she was attacked. We wouldn't have been surprised. Lucille and Ward would have… And you'd still…" Wynn looked at her, helpless. "Piper . "
"It wasn't your fault, Wynn. It wasn't any of our faults." Piper released her wrist to pull Wynn up against her.
Wynn balled her fists up in Piper's shirt. She put her face on Piper's shoulder and trembled for a minute, while the fabric on Piper's shoulder grew damp.
Her hair smelled like oranges, too.
Eventually Wynn stopped shaking and pulled away. She wiped her face on her sleeves. Her shoulders sagged. "It's my job to keep you safe, too."
Piper let out a breath. "I'm sorry for getting upset."
Wynn waved her off. "I'm not hiding things. It was just more important to get you into treatment."
They weren't going to agree about that. "We'll work on a better system for checking in before we leave Green Meadow. Tonight…" She hesitated, then drew herself up straight. "Tonight, we both need to sleep."
Wynn looked at the floor. "Yes."
Piper made sure she shut the door behind her. As she walked down the hall toward her own room, she thought she heard footsteps, but no one was there when she came around the corner.
***
It was some ungodly hour of the morning when Wynn woke up, sweating.
For a minute, she just lay in bed struggling to get her breath under control and wondering why she was looking out an open window instead of the rounded viewing glass that had been set into her room in the ship. Then, she remembered; she wasn't on the ship. The ship was in dry dock. It was why the air filtering in through the window smelled like grass and leaves and not salt.
It was why, when she sat up abruptly, the room spun around her. She had to squeeze her eyes shut and count to ten before she could put her feet on the floor. When she tried opening her eyes again, her bad one flared in pain. She fumbled in the dark for the patch she'd left on the end table.
After that, she did manage to get steady on her feet and out into the hall. She’d pulled on her boots but didn't bother with socks or with a robe. The bathroom was only a few doors down.
She washed her face and ran her wet hands through her hair. It hadn't been a nightmare. The ship had really burned. She'd really cried all over Piper. Damn.
Her head hung as she exited the bathroom, which was why she didn't see it coming.
A face, partially hidden by a scarf, flashed in front of her just as a gloved hand wrapped around her mouth and yanked her back against another person's chest.
Wynn immediately thrashed, but a sharp, magic shock ran over her spine and she could only freeze, blinking against the sudden rush of power. It was so thick it shut down Wynn’s reflexes. suffocating magic. In addition to the scarf, the person in front of her wore a hat pulled down low, shading their eyes in the dim hallway. They nodded silently and motioned for Wynn's captor to follow them down a staircase.
Her captor grunted with the effort of hauling Wynn down the stairs. Wynn's entire spine felt stiff and immobile. She could barely support her own weight, let alone move her legs. Or scream for help.
They passed through a well-lit exterior path to reach an unmarked carriage. No Dynasty shield. No noble markings. Not even the seal of a magical academy. Whoever had her was on their own.
And, as she was shoved into the carriage head-first, Wynn saw one other thing: the inside of her captor's wrist.
She had a sinking feeling that no Dynasty academy marked its students with an apple blossom.
***
Piper told three students that the seat next to her was taken before she decided Wynn wasn't coming down to breakfast.
Sighing, she bent to finish her eggs. Maybe Wynn was angry at her, after all. It wouldn't be the first time that Wynn stayed up all night, working herself into anger about something that had been fine before bed. If that was the case…
It could also be that Wynn simply didn't want to see her right now. They hadn't talked about the others in months. She hadn't… No, she'd known that Wynn blamed herself. Piper blamed herself, too. But she'd thought that Wynn at least knew, logically, that the blame was misplaced.
Their rooms were several floors up from the cafeteria. Piper walked against the morning tide of students filtering to classes, stepping to the side a few times to allow them passage. She carried a small paper bag with her. When she'd returned her plate, the kitchen staff had given her a custard pastry to bring to Wynn, in case she was hungry after all.
The hallway where their rooms were was deserted. Piper knocked twice at Wynn’s door. No one answered. Frowning, she leaned against the wall. Several minutes passed and Wynn didn't emerge from the bathroom down the hallway, either.
The door slid open with no resistance when she touched the handle — it hadn't been shut all the way in the first place, let alone locked. Piper tensed, staring at the gap into the room. But there was no time to wait, and she stepped inside.
The room was only in minor disrepair. Wynn had piled all of her clean laundry on top of her bag. The book she'd been studying lay on the end table. Her covers were kicked back, and socks were draped over the footboard. It looked exactly like every room Wynn ever stayed in.
Except … no Wynn.
***
"Have you seen Wynn?" Piper asked without preamble.
Edi leveled a sharp look at her. There was a professor and a student in her office. The professor raised an eyebrow and the student sagged back into his chair in obvious relief for whatever Piper had interrupted.
"No, Lady Piper," Edi said. "I'd also thank you to knock first next time."
"Wynn isn't in her rooms. The kitchen staff haven't seen her. The groundskeepers haven't either. Neither have the students she was speaking with yesterday — I found several of them on their way to first period."
That did make Edi's expression change. "Scott, come back at lunch," she ordered. The student jumped up and fled. The professor sighed and shook her head. Edi gestured at the empty seat, which Piper reluctantly took. "What makes you think that there's cause for alarm?"
"All of her things are in her room, except her night clothes and shoes," Piper said. "She always puts her shoes on before leaving her bed when we're staying somewhere with a common bathroom. And her door was unlocked."
"Did you try the library?" the professor suggested. When Piper shook her head, the professor walked over to the scrying mirror in the corner. She made a gesture and the image of a man at a desk appeared. He looked startled when he realized someone was calling him. "Richard," the professor asked, "did you have a guest healer visit this morning?"
"Gina, you're the first person I've seen since I got here."
The connection blinked out, and the professor turned around. "Unless she's attending a class…"
"We have some security measures in place," Edi murmured. "Normally they are used for children who wander off when someone looks away."
Gina moved aside to grant Edi access to the scrying mirror. Piper watched and understood none of the gestures Edi was making. She also didn't recognize any of the chanting. It didn't usually bother her that she didn't have an in-depth familiarity with magic. She'd always served in a unit with a mage, like Ward, who could provide that kind of support. It was clear that if she and Wynn were going to remain a two-person unit for much longer, she needed to do some studying.
It took several minutes to get a result. Piper watched Edi for most of it, but eventually had to look out the window. She hated waiting. The wind was high on the campus that morning: she could see trees bending against its force.
Finally, Edi turned to face her. "Healer Wynn is not on the grounds of Green Meadow."
***
Once they were off the hospital grounds, Efa removed the scarf from her face. Whenever it looked like Wynn was stirring too much, she shocked her again. Each shock was worse than the last. It wasn't painful, exactly, but the crystal Efa used kept flooding Wynn's magical systems until she couldn't hold any more. It felt like her body just shut down against the onslaught.
Eventually, Wynn woke up with feeling back in her hands but too much stiffness to even consider moving.
She flinched when the other woman pulled her hair away from her face. "There, there, little thing," she murmured. She lifted Wynn's eye patch and clicked her tongue disapprovingly when Wynn cringed. "That's not going to do at all."
This woman still had her scarf over her face. Wynn had no idea who was driving the carriage, but whenever it slowed, the woman turned away from the window. So far no one had insisted on opening the door.
"Efa, help me get her up," the woman said.
Efa started to protest, and the woman glared at her. Together, they got Wynn propped up in the corner, breathing hard just from the exertion of being moved around. Gods, she needed to get on her feet and stretch.
"Tell me about your eye," the woman said.
Wynn glared at her.
Efa reached across the small carriage and grabbed her wrist, hard. Wynn had to bite her cheek to keep from crying out. "Do as she says," she ordered.
Wynn swallowed her scream and panted out, "You're not a knight at all." Which might have had more of an effect if Efa hadn't just laughed at her.
"Oh, you haven't figured it out?" The woman hummed and shrugged. "I suppose we're far enough away that no one who tries to stop us out here would recognize me."
She reached up and took the scarf down from her face.
Wynn stared and then lunged forward. "You asshole!" she snarled, lifting her hands as much as she could. She was pretty sure she saw Efa raise her crystal again, but Iris caught her by the shoulders and shoved her — hard — against the corner of the carriage. Wynn's head bounced off the wood and made the vision in her good eye go blurry for a moment.
"Hold still or I'll have to let Efa take care of you. Again," Iris ordered. She must have lied about being a mage, too, if she couldn't use the restraint magic herself. But she was strong enough that she easily held Wynn in place until she stopped squirming, too tired to keep fighting. "Now. Tell me about your eye. When will you be restored?"
Wynn tried to concentrate on anything other than how badly she wanted to lie down. Her back hurt so much. "Healer Edi said two nights. So not until at least tomorrow."
"Mmm. Not ideal, but I can work with it." Iris patted her cheek. "Buck up, little thing. We only need you for a week."
"A week?"
"You're going to help out some of our friends, and then, you're going to help us." Iris laughed when Wynn gaped at her. "It won't be so bad. You'll be using your magic the way you're meant to — healing people! And getting us past some pesky healers-only security."
Wynn shifted uncomfortably. Her heartbeat was starting to calm down. But there was no way she could fight her way out of this carriage. The curtains on the windows were drawn shut, so she didn't even know where they were.
"I'm not going to help you." She scowled. "You can't make me."
Efa grinned. "What, you're going to let us present you someone burned and bloody and not help them?" she asked. Wynn faltered, and she snorted, stretching herself out along her bench. "Healers are so easy."
"That is why we're going in through the hospital," Iris murmured.
"Going in where?" Wynn asked.
Iris just tapped her finger against her lips. "We'll get to that in time. Relax, little thing. On my word, Efa won't shock you again unless you start to give us trouble."
***
The hospital had no security to lend to Piper. However, there was a knight on the grounds who was being discharged that day after recuperating from an infection. The knight's bonded mage had arrived on campus that morning to retrieve her. Both of them agreed to assist.
Piper had also wanted to take Lady Iris with her, but she wasn't in her rooms. Nor had she reported for her first or second period classes. One of the other students said she'd seen Iris talking a walk the night before, but that she hadn't been at breakfast that morning. Piper thanked him for the news and swallowed a scream.
She fired off a message to Doveport for confirmation of Iris's credentials but was pretty sure what she would hear back: no knight, no mage by that name. The message wouldn't be returned until later, though, and they needed to move.
Wynn knew how to defend herself. There had to be more than one person involved in this. Wynn had only known basic self-defense when she'd arrived with Anita, but Ward wasn’t about to cart around somebody who didn't know how to use a knife. He'd forced Wynn to study with him near daily until she could cut her way out of most small altercations. Whoever this was would never have been able to take her without magic or directly from her room, where her knife had been left with her bag.
"Lady Piper," Lady Olivia said, when Piper met them at the stables. The hospital was lending them three horses.
Lady Olivia was from the mountains. She was short and broad, and the woman standing next to her was different only in coloring. Olivia had pale hair and the other woman dark. She inclined her head as Piper approached. "My name is Warden Petra."
"Warden," Piper answered, startled. She glanced between them. "I… am honored by your offer of assistance."
Olivia grinned at her expression. She hadn't mentioned her mage was a Warden .
There weren't many Wardens in the Dynasty. Wardens oversaw the mages in different provinces of the kingdom, had teaching privileges at all the magical academies, and could apprentice any magic users they found during their travels. Wynn herself had been brought to a hospital for training after meeting a Warden during her childhood.
"Sir Antonio is my cousin. If word reaches Blue Falls that one of his healers was taken and I did not assist, he would… be displeased," Petra said, the corner of her mouth turning up.
Piper had met Sir Antonio — once. She wouldn't want to displease him either. She also had the feeling that maybe Petra wanted to say something more like pitch a fit , which was what Wynn always said when threatening to report someone to the Lead Healer of Blue Falls.
"Do you have any theories on why someone might have taken Wynn?" Olivia asked.
"The only people we've encountered recently were the bandits that burned our ship." Piper shook her head. "I keep going over it. They were trying to get into our cabin, but the door was locked. We found them when we were coming down from the captain's quarters. I didn't… At the time, this didn't seem important, but they went after Wynn before they went after me."
Petra made a thoughtful sound. Olivia shook her head and began loading Petra's small bag onto the horse she'd been allocated. Petra watched Piper do the same but didn't speak again until they were all on their horses. Edi had been able to pinpoint that Wynn left the grounds via a delivery route that cut through an herb garden at the back of the campus.
They rode out. Petra stared ahead. "The other Wardens have reported some attempted thefts lately. Stores broken into but nothing taken."
"Why would someone break in and not take anything?"
"Because what they were looking for wasn't there," Olivia said.
Piper frowned. "You think they took Wynn because they want her help finding something?"
"I think they need her help sneaking into a place they can't get into on their own. The stores that were broken into were part of small armories, for emergency defenses. The military Wardens haven't been robbed yet." Petra steered them toward the herb garden. "The would-be thieves mostly rummaged through explosive materials, but what they wanted has never been something non-military Wardens keep at their hospitals or academies."
Piper raised both eyebrows and waited.
Olivia cleared her throat. "She's talking about combat-grade crystals."
"Those," Petra said, sighing, "are only grown in Val Caverns. Nowhere else stores them. Only active knighthood-mage units carry them. They're too unstable to be handled or stored otherwise. The Empire has had very limited luck with growing their own."
"It wouldn't be im possible to get to the Cavern armory through their hospital," Olivia added.
A combat-grade crystal would definitely crush the medical-grade ones that powered her arm, too.
Piper was absolutely going to make Iris — whoever she really was — answer for this.