The bandages came off Wednesday morning.

I blinked a few times as my eyes readjusted to seeing things again and the amount of light in the Healer Wing.

The glass ceiling let all the light in.

Sealie held up three fingers in front of me. "How are your eyes Serafina?"

"I can see you holding three fingers in front of my face. I don't see anything differently than before." My vision was as clear as ever thankfully.

"Wonderful. That's very good to hear. Any pain, discomfort?"

I shook my head, "Nope. I'm okay."

"Then we're all good to go. You and Celica can go get some breakfast."

Celica was standing a ways off and waved at me.

"And your scar collection has grown by the way," Celica commented.

Fantastic. "How bad is it?"

"Just this side of noticeable," Celica added as she stepped forward and pulled out a mirror for me to see what the curse had done to me.

My first thought was that it wasn't so bad.

Most of my face was untouched. But my lower eyelids had pale scars that reminded me of fulgurite. But the scarring looked almost subtle. Almost. I didn't have eyelashes there anymore though.

Time would tell if they grew back or if they were gone forever.

But at the very least my ability to see wasn't damaged.

I could make this work.

(*********)

"Our brave leader lives!" Celica announced as we arrived at our usual spot

Why was she like this?

"You're okay!" Angelina exclaimed.

"I can see," I told her as she squeezed my hands from across the table. "Which is the most important thing for right now."

"But not without a bit of collateral damage I see," Russel commented.

I shrugged after getting my hands back. "Yep."

"Which brings the scar count to three, right?" Fethris asked.

I nodded, "It's ridiculous that I've gotten more scars in the past six weeks than in my entire life previously. If I didn't know better I'd think the school was the one cursed."

Runebringer had gone back to their usual table leaving me to only be around people who were in the know about my secret evil grandfather's bullshit.

And yet, despite all of it, I had yet to feel anything even close to regrets about coming here to the Towers of Nine.

(*********)

Ah Spellcraft. You never change.

"Gust may not seem nearly as exciting as Flare can be, however, if any of you have interest in weather magic this is the one spell you need to understand so intimately that casting it should feel like breathing."

Did Telvis use a wind pun on purpose or was it an accident? Either way I rolled my eyes.

"Quicksilver, why don't you demonstrate for us?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Jarec stepped up and peacefully awaited further instruction.

I nearly sighed in relief. Part of me was slightly paranoid he might try something.

Telvis snapped his fingers and a house of cards appeared on his podium. Made from Tarot cards of course.

I saw Jarec take a deep breath before exhaling blue wind that knocked down the cards without a hint of drama.

Someday.

Someday soon, I hope.

(*********)

History was mildly infuriating. As was the theme of this block of study I suppose.

"And don't forget," Dellik was saying as the class wrapped up. "You need to get those permission forms filled out by your Tower heads by Wednesday next week."

What permission forms?

As we left the classroom I tapped Russel on the shoulder.

"Umm…What permission forms was he talking about?" I asked.

Russel frowned for a second in confusion and then seemed to realize, "Oh right. You were…"

"Stuck in the Tower bored out of my mind yesterday. Yes."

"Dellik wants to take us to a nearby crypt."

Crypt? Was that safe? "Is he sure about that?"

"It's dated from when cremation first became popular for dealing with corpses," Russel explained. "No shambling skeletons for us." Why did he sound almost disappointed?

Small mercies, I supposed.

"Do I need to go get a form or what's up with that?"

"He asked to me to take an extra copy to Vivian if you and her want to go over that, assuming you want to or even can go."

"Thank you."

(*********)

Alchemy. Please be drama free. Please. I just want to get through today. Please.

Class itself was thankfully uneventful.

Either Gorgon had learned the concept of mercy or something was up.

We were given a small wooden crate of rock samples and told to identify them on the worksheet.

Not nearly as exciting as getting zapped in the face. Something I was actually pretty grateful for.

"Stewart, a moment of your time?" Gorgon asked in a way that didn't feel like asking as Celica and I started making our way out of the class.

Celica looked at me with concern for a moment but I shrugged at her before I broke off to go see what the professor wanted.

Please don't remove me from the class. Please don't remove me from the class.

"Did you need something, professor?" I asked.

"You voiced a concern because you knew about that, I assume." Gorgon said without preamble as he pointed to my left wrist. The cursed one.

"Yeah. I mean I didn't know it would do what it did but…yeah. I was worried."

"Is there a particular reason you've kept that secret?"

I let out some air as I tried to word it, "I'm mostly just following my Tower head's lead on that. She thinks it's best if I keep specifics on a need-to-know basis."

He nodded, "Don't think I don't know whose shade of green that was Stewart."

Oh crap.

"I can't say I'm surprised at her caution," he continued. "If Vivian Hearth says you need to keep that a secret I don't blame you for trying to find ways around it."

I didn't know what to say. I clenched the spot on my wrist and was again grateful for the gloves.

"I won't press you for details, the last thing anyone wants or needs is the wrath of Vivian Hearth. But for future reference if we're doing a project that you feel is either unsafe or impossible because of that thing you can substitute it for a paper on the theory of it."

Oh thank the gods. "Thank you, sir."

(*********)

Monsters was finally covering something that could reasonably pass as cute.

Except for the massive and very sharp looking fangs.

I will never be able to look at a koala the same way again.

"These little guys like to go after prey items only as big as they are, so the safest way to travel in forests that contain them is to make yourself look as big as possible or travel in large numbers."

Or just don't go wandering into the woods.

Especially if you know creatures that weigh up to forty pounds and subsist off of fresh meat and the blood from their prey is the only liquid they drink are in those woods.

No thank you.

I can think of several things I'd rather do.

(*********)

Jarec was acting suspicious. Not in the I'm-planning-something-with-the-others way. It was enough to make me wary.

He was impatiently tapping at the table.

None of the others were anxious like this.

"Okay since no one else seems to be asking, what's up?" I asked after a few minutes.

"Our coven's Grand Matriarch has called a coven meeting," Jarec announced.

Grand Matriarch… I remembered the Curse Breaker calling Vivian that.

"Are we in trouble?" I asked. It occurred to me that I knew nothing about how to properly address fellow members of the same coven. Did I even count? Sure I was the matriarch's granddaughter but my mother had run away with a human man. Compounded with the whole noble thing and suddenly a wave of nerves hit me.

I was way, way out of my depth.

"I think the uncles want a proper introduction. Considering you know now."

"Anything specific I should know about? On a scale of one to ten how proper do I need to be?"

Jarec laughed before answering. "Just be you."

He said this like 'just being me' hadn't already landed me in a heap of trouble in the past six weeks.

I had no idea if my flat stare registered to him.

"You do realize that 'just being me' got me challenged to a duel to lose the position of Tower Representative that you all forced on me," I told him.

"Forced is a strong word," Celica still refused to even pretend to sound sorry for doing this to me.

"You can still have it. I would be happy to step down and hand it over," I informed and threatened her.

I wasn't surprised at all by Celica's answer. "Oh hells no, you keep it. I have far better things to do."

"Is that going to be your default threat from now on?" Fethris asked me.

"If it works why mess with it?" I stabbed my fork into the chicken with perhaps more force than was needed.

"We are quickly winning the competition for the strangest Tower," Russel commented.

"I'm pretty sure we won that when we held a séance in our Tower and got a response," I admitted.

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