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Balance Returned
Eliza opened her eyes to assess the scene. All the gateways were closed. The professors were scattered, bruised and bleeding, but quickly coming to their sense of responsibility. They picked themselves up from the rubble and began helping those who had been wounded. In the middle of all this destruction was the glass cocoon suspended only a few feet above the ground. Eliza looked at it curiously, she could feel Faye was still inside, but she felt something had changed about her friend. She walked up to the glass and placed a hand upon it. The surface was rough but cool to the touch. She pressed her forehead upon it and laid both palms flat on the surface.
“Are you sure you want to let her out?” asked Pal.
Eliza smiled, “I don’t think she’ll be a threat to anyone anymore.”
She gave the cocoon a gentle push and it fell to the flagstone patio and shattered. Inside retched and sputtered a woman so unlike Faye that Eliza felt she was seeing Faye for the first time. A version of Faye stripped of glamour. A Faye who was capable of harvesting innocent people’s souls in search of a cure. A Faye who did not care if universes collapsed. Not as long as she could be whole. The real Faye.
“You did it,” said Eliza coldly. “You freed yourself of your curse.”
Trembling, Faye tried to rise. She got slowly onto her hands and knees, and then raised herself painfully to her feet. Faye did have wings; Eliza could finally see them. But something was wrong with them. They were not shimmering like jewels the way faeries’ wings would. Faye’s wings were charcoal grey dappled with black. They were peeling horribly, large scaly flakes falling away. Her face was much altered, too. No longer could she pass for twenty. The face belonged to a woman in her sixties, and the hair that had been so boldly black mere minutes before was now streaked with gray. Faye turned to look at her wings and her horror showed clearly on her face. She touched the edge of one with delicate fingers and it dissolved into her hand.
“You’re a normal woman now,” said Eliza. “Bound only to this world,” Eliza was certain this had never been part of Faye’s plan. “A Mundunce.”
Faye looked nauseated. “This—this cannot be all I get. I’ve pushed the boundaries of magic, how can I be stripped of everything I am? I perfected the spell! The last few people—I separated the soul and the magic and put it back, they didn’t even feel a thing—I perfected it!” She looked wretched and desperate.
Eliza looked sheepishly to one side, “That’s a little bit my fault. The portals were hungry for energy and I wouldn’t have had nearly enough to close them all myself.” Eliza could not suppress a guilty smile that played upon her lips, “I might have directed them to help themselves to your power in order to heal themselves shut again.”
Faye looked fragile as tears welled up in her eyes. She looked so pitiful that Eliza nearly regretted her interference. She could tell her old friend was tired, and Eliza used Transposition to bring forth a chair from the Grand Room to the courtyard and directed Faye to sit upon it. Too drained to argue, Faye acquiesced in an instant and sat her tired bones gratefully down into the chair. She nodded quickly to sleep, perched uncomfortably in the seat.
Silence settled like dust upon the scene. Some moans issued from Holly Quaker who was being revived after having been overwhelmed by a discharge from one of the portals. Eliza scratched Pal on the head, just to give herself something to do. Together they observed the moment in silence, unsure what should happen next.
Professor Kent and Principal Crinwere finally extricated themselves from the others, once it was assured that all injured parties were in the safe hands of Nepi Teget, Professor of Healing. Healing students rushed to the scene as well, to assist. On approaching Faye, Professor Kent and Principal Crinwere looked grim.
“Well, it looks like Faye got what she wanted,” said Principal Crinwere glumly, a few small cuts played across their forehead. “No more need to apply to me for any more access to our private archives! She hasn’t got a drop of magic left in her.”
“I wonder why she decided to rip the world apart. It doesn’t make sense,” Eliza mused.
“From what we recovered in her room this morning, it looks like Faye was experimenting with prohibited magic. Taking tokens from her victims to practice what splitting their essence could do to them. She was never trying to take their magic to make herself more powerful, she was testing whether it was possible. With the other half of her soul in another reality, she had to break open the barriers between those universes. I think she wanted to emerge whole on this side. She was to open the doorway, split herself, bring the other half that was trapped in the other world to this one, and then reunite the two pieces. Why there were so many open doorways... possibly as a distraction? More likely Faye hadn’t had the chance to perfect that magic,” Principal Crinwere mused, “The fabric of reality is fragile. Pull one thread, the rest unravels.”
All were silent, watching the faery wings on Faye’s back continue to dissolve.
“But what about the people whose magic she took?” interjected Eliza. “Will you be able to restore the souls that were taken?”
Principal Crinwere answered delicately. Melissa Sweet stood close by, ears strained to hear the answer. “Yes, it is likely we will. I believe Faye had discovered how to reunite the soul and magic with the body a few weeks ago. That’s why she was finally able to perform her spell. She knew she could separate herself and restore herself fully in just one world.”
“I don’t understand why she’s frail now,” wondered Professor Kent. “I would have thought she should be all powerful once her two halves were reunited.”
“That’s my bad,” said Eliza. “She would have come out whole on this side if I hadn’t used her magic to close the doorways,” she explained. “Her spell worked; she was fully in this world. But I needed to close those portals. More magic was needed to do that than even she had accumulated in her decades of practice. She was drained of every drop.”
Principal Crinwere and Professor Kent both looked impressed by this piece of information. The three fell into a contemplative silence broken only when Melissa Sweet spoke.
“Everyone who lost their magic has their soul and magic preserved somewhere, then? We can reunite them?”
“Have patience,” said Principal Crinwere. “We should be able to, but it may take some time. I believe Professor Claeg will be the most familiar with the magic required. He will be studying all the material Miss Griggs had before he jumps in and rashly tries reversing any curses.”
Melissa nodded, barely masking her disappointment.
Eliza’s eyes flickered uneasily between Professor Kent and Principal Crinwere. “Could someone use this magic to take people’s power? People who they think shouldn’t have it, or to punish people who use magic for evil?”
A shadow played across Professor Kent’s face. “Any magic that disturbs the soul of the victim, also disrupts the soul of the person conjuring. No doubt at first Faye did not realize that was what she was doing. She did not realize that what she was taking were souls. The act of taking a soul from a victim is of a most perverse evil. She was becoming more cursed with each instance that she used this magic. Dark magic does not serve a master; it only curses them.”
“—she used to be the life of this place!” exclaimed Principal Crinwere, “Everyone wanted to be friends with her. She made everyone laugh and helped everyone around her when they needed it—”
“—then around the end of last year, there was a shift,” said Professor Brown, stepping forward. “We all noticed it but thought it was because her fourth study proposal was rejected. We knew she wanted to solve her problem, and assumed she was becoming so focused that she was letting friendships fall aside.”
The frail Faye mumbled in her sleep, still seated awkwardly. Eliza looked at Principal Crinwere and Professor Kent, “Did you think she could be the one taking magic all along, then?”
“Not at all!” exclaimed Principal Crinwere. “The idea that such a lovely girl would begin cruel experimentation on students was beyond my imagination. I assure you; she was very well liked among the staff and students.”
Professor Kent said, “It was only this morning that we understood what had really changed. Faye started her experiments on magical creatures before moving onto students. She captured pixies, sprites, and faeries in the woods here. She started experimenting with them before progressing to humans. From her diary we were able to learn that some of the earliest experiments died from the shock of having their souls ripped away. She was very disturbed by the results, especially as her own father is a faery. She felt the sting of murder. But the shadow of dark magic had already taken its hold, and the experimentation did not end there. She discovered after a few failed experiments that the subjects were more likely to survive if that essence that she was harvesting was preserved in a vessel. That’s why you saw a collection of souls in that mirror. It helps the victims live even though they’ve been terribly altered.”
Eliza felt goosebumps, imagining Faye’s initial anguish at taking a creature’s life. She imagined the dark magic casting a shadow on Faye’s soul, compelling her to continue. Faye became unable to stop. Obsessed. Corrupted.
“Considering how much it warps the person who performs this magic, it’s unlikely anyone will want to try it for themselves, then,” said Eliza, watching Professor Kent’s reaction closely.
He knew what she was really asking, and answered plainly, “I cannot think of any cause worth mangling one’s own soul. A magic this evil... very unlikely, indeed.”
Students had begun creeping toward them from inside the school now that the commotion had passed. The sun was shining on them once again, and all picked their way around the boulders, through pebbles, sand, and broken glass. Mashu pushed through the other students to run to Faye’s fragile figure. He touched her forehead gently with his thumb. A fat tear fell down his cheek. He turned his gaze to Eliza questioningly. She tried to communicate with her eyes that she would explain everything later. Mashu seemed to understand because he turned back to Faye wordlessly and lifted her into his arms.
“I’m going to take her to Professor Teget,” he said, and carried Faye carefully toward the Healer. No one stopped him. There was no reason to.
A crowd of students now formed a half-circle around the ruined courtyard and Eliza started to feel self-conscious. She knew she was older than most of the student population, and she was standing apart from them with the professors who, to younger eyes, looked like her peers. She felt peculiarly out of place. She belonged to neither group, and yet she belonged to both. She was a student, and she stood with the people who fought to protect the school. It was Professor Brown, of Cooperation with Beings, who broke the silence between the two groups.
“A terrible curse was unleashed here today,” she called to the crowd. “And even with the combined force of our faculty, we were no match for it. We were fighting a losing battle.”
An expectant hush fell over the crowd, but many eyes were already looking directly at Eliza. Blushing, Eliza had a vision of many students watching the events unfolding with their noses pressed against the stained-glass windows from inside the school. Many had already seen what happened.
Professor Brown continued, “It was our newest student, who joined us a month into the school year and worked many long hours to catch up, who reminded us what magic is. Magic is not offensive, nor defensive. As the rest of us were flailing around ineffectually against elements from worlds beyond our own, it was Eliza,” Professor Brown stopped next to her and put a hand on her shoulder, “who was the one who used magic for what it is—energy. She did not fight it, she did not resist it, she did not attempt to overcome it. Eliza did what none of us were courageous enough to do. She redirected the energy, allowing it to flow as it wished and using its own momentum to return balance.”
Eliza felt her face burning. She wanted to be a celebrated witch, of course, but she felt like an imposter standing there receiving recognition for something she did without really thinking about it. It was an obvious solution. Surely anyone who had thought of it would have done the job just as well as she had.
Professor Brown pressed two fingers to her lips, lifted those two fingers towards Eliza then pressed them against her own heart. The other professors followed suit, using the same gesture. All the students did the same. Pal purred loudly on Eliza’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Eliza, for your services to our school,” said Professor Brown and clasped Eliza’s hand into a firm handshake. The professor made her way back through the crowd toward the school, her long skirt dragging in the red sand. The principal was next to approach Eliza.
“Thank you, Eliza, for your contribution today,” Principal Crinwere grasped her hand in a strong handshake and followed Professor Brown into the school.
Each faculty member shook Eliza’s hand, except Professor Neach who had been severely injured and was not conscious. Then the students came forth, timidly at first but eventually pushing forward enthusiastically. They all wanted to shake Eliza’s hand and give Pal a pat on the head. They had none of the gravitas the professors had. They were charged with awe and enthusiasm. Melissa reappeared in front of Eliza after a few minutes of this, tears of joy streaming from her eyes, and she threw herself heartily into Eliza’s arms. Eliza eagerly returned the hug.
“They’ll be able to cure us,” said Melissa, “Vigilante justice might not have worked, but we got there eventually!”
Eliza nodded energetically at Melissa, “Yes, you’ll be cured, I’m sure of it!” Melissa sobbed a laugh and choked a croak-y “Thank you” before rushing through the crowd and up the steps into the school. Eliza had no doubt that she was heading to Professor Claeg’s office immediately to offer any help she could.
Eventually, Eliza had been thumped heartily on the back so many times that she was beginning to feel overstimulated. Sparks of electricity began crackling at the tips of her hair and Pal, who had received many pets and ear-scratches, was also beginning to flick his tail in irritation. Politely, Eliza extricated herself from the crowd of admiring students and removed her wand from its holster at her waist. She cast a spell on herself that made it difficult for anyone to focus on her, and darted through the halls until she reached the safety of her dorm.
Eliza and Pal collapsed onto the bed. She looked at him, a perfect shining black cat, and smiled. “You’re the best friend I could ever ask for,” she said.
Pal curled up into the crook of her arm and together they lay there, quite still, simply existing. After so much tension and adventure, it was good just to decompress. Several people knocked at her door as the hours passed but it could all wait. Right now, Eliza wanted nothing more than to share a few quiet moments with Pal.