"Can't someone just—" I gesture vaguely with my good hand, meaningmagic it better.
"Sanguis healing requires a willing Sanguis practitioner." Her jaw tightens. "And since our only one just walked out..."
"Right."
"I'll take her."
Brittany. Standing in the doorway with her bag over her shoulder, black nails and blacker expression, looking like she's been here exactly long enough to see what happened.
"You're not in this class, Leigh."
"I was passing by and I heard the commotion." She looks at my arm. Then at the exit Ren used. "That's fucked up even for Sanguis."
Marigny opens her mouth—to argue, probably—then closes it. "Fine. Get her to the infirmary. And Grey?"
"Yeah?"
"Next week, I'll pair you with someone who isn't trying to earn extra credit through bodily harm."
The infirmary is in the basement of the main building, a long room with white walls and the chemical smell of antiseptic that doesn't quite mask the underlying scent of old magic. The healer on duty is a tired woman named Nurse Kellerman who takes one look at my arm, sighs like I'm the eighth bleeding student she's seen today, and starts stitching.
Without magic. With a needle and thread, like a mundane doctor.
"Sanguis healers are reserved for emergencies," she explains when I ask. Which apparently doesn't include a gash deep enough to see muscle.
Brittany sits on the next cot over, legs crossed, watching Kellerman work with a flat, unreadable expression. But I can tell she's angry. It's in the way her jaw is set, the way her black nails are digging into the edge of the mattress.
Twelve stitches. Kellerman wraps the wound in clean white bandages, tells me to keep it dry, come back if it starts to swell or smell, and maybe try not to fall on rusty metal anymore. I thank her and we leave.
Outside, the late afternoon sun hits me like a slap to the face, which I would’ve preferred to the beat down I just got. I sitdown on the stone steps of the main building and cradle my arm, still throbbing with my heartbeat. Brittany drops down next to me, pulls a pack of tissues from her jacket—black, little skulls on them, because of course—and hands me one without being asked.
"You healed me," I say.
She doesn't look at me. "What?"
"Day three. After the storm. My hands were all cut up from the sphere and you just—you didn't even hesitate. You pricked your finger and healed me like it was nothing."
"Itwasnothing. Healing cuts is basic. First thing they teach you in Sanguis." She picks at a thread on her jeans. "That's what I'm saying. What he did—or didn't do—that's not normal. For any blood mage, but especially not for him."
"What do you mean,especiallynot for him?"
She's quiet for a second, like she's deciding how much to give me. "Sanguis magic is about connection. Blood to blood. When you heal someone, you feel what they feel—their pain, their heartbeat, the way their body's trying to fix itself. It's intimate." She says the word like it tastes sour. "Most of us get used to it, but it's always there. This pull, when someone near you is bleeding. Like a magnet in your chest. You want to fix it. It's instinct."
"So refusing to heal someone..."
"Is like holding your breath. You can do it, but your body fights you the whole time. Every Sanguis student in that room would have felt your blood hit the sand. Their magic would have been screaming at them to help. It's what wedo." She meets my eyes. "And Ren Ashford—whatever else he is—he's the strongest blood mage on this campus. If I felt it from the doorway, he felt it tentimes worse. He stood right next to you, bleeding out, and he overrode every instinct his magic was giving him."
I let that sink in. "You're saying it would have been easier for him to heal me than to walk away."
"I'm saying walking away from that much blood, when you're that powerful, is like—" She searches for the comparison. "Like hearing someone scream for help and choosing to cover your ears. Not because you can't hear them. Because you can hear themperfectly, and you're choosing not to answer."
The afternoon is warm, but I feel cold.
"Why?" I ask. "Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. Ren's always been—" She stops. Starts again. "Within Sanguis, he has a reputation. He's generous with healing. Too generous, even. He'll stay late after combat training to fix bruises. He heals people in the hallway who haven't even asked. First-years worship him because he's the guy who makes the pain go away." She picks at her nails. "But there's this thing. Every now and then, someone comes along that he just... won't touch. Won't heal. Won't go near. And nobody knows why."
"Someone like me."
