Ernesto met Terrance outside of Maeryn’s door, and they nodded at each other. No words were needed to understand each other’s intentions. Terrance gestured at the doorknob, and the holy mage gently opened it.

  Inside was Maeryn, sitting on her bed, knees clutched to her chest and visibly trying to remain absolutely silent as sobs wracked her body. Neither of them said anything as they took opposite sides, sitting down next to her and scooching as close as they could. Ernesto started rubbing her back, and Terrance took one of Maeryn’s hands.

  They remained in silence as Maeryn slowly calmed, and her body stopped shaking. After a few minutes, she let her knees fall. And finally, she spoke. “Sorry. I must look a mess.”

  “Find me someone who can make an ugly-cry pretty, and I will show you a liar,” Terrance told her with a shrug. “That doesn’t mean you don’t need to do it sometimes.”

  “Literally everyone does,” Ernesto agreed immediately. “You think I wasn’t just as bad when my Master died? You were there for most of it, but half the reason I took so long getting down the mountain is that I needed a while to get it out. And trust me, guys are not pretty when we break.”

  Maeryn snorted out a wet laugh despite herself, and she wiped her eyes. “I just…” she trailed off, unable to find the right words.

  “Frankie and her fire?” Terrance prompted.

  Maeryn tensed for a moment, but forced herself to relax and heaved out a massive sigh. “Yeah. Frankie and her fire. I almost took it, you know?”

  Ernesto looked at her, confusion emanating from his posture and expression. “What?”

  “When my mana was in her. When I reached her core. I knew instinctively that I could take it. That I could take her fire and make it mine.” Maeryn closed her eyes, and squeezed Terrance’s hand tightly. “And I wanted to. I know, if I had asked, she would have given it to me without a second thought. But it would have wrecked her. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to her.”

  She looked at her friends with a haunted expression. “But I could have been whole again.” The air in the room seemed to echo with pain as she looked down once more. “I could have been me again.”

  Terrance and Ernesto exchanged a glance over her head, and held a silent conversation.

  ‘What now?’ the rogue’s face asked helplessly.

  ‘You’re asking me?’ the holy mage’s incredulous frown replied.

  ‘Yes. Duh,’ Terrance’s deadpan expression countered.

  ‘Ugh. Fine,’ Ernesto’s rolled eyes finished. He cleared his throat. “I know you don’t need me to tell you that you made the right decision,” he said slowly. “But I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get your fire back eventually,” Terrance added reassuringly. “It’s probably just being dramatic, and will come back right when you need it most.”

  The idea was ridiculous enough that a giggle escaped Maeryn’s throat. “I’m pretty sure that’s you, Terrance. Not fire magic.”

  “What, you think fire can’t be dramatic?” the rogue asked with a skeptical eyebrow. “Look in a mirror and say that again.”

  Maeryn’s mouth opened, then shut as her cheeks flushed. “I’m feeling very called out.”

  “Good! Because if your fire’s anything like you—which it is, since magic and personality are linked—then it’ll show up at the last moment and save the day like it was no big deal.” Terrance squeezed her hand firmly. “So maybe you shouldn’t think of your fire magic as gone.”

  “Gone is a heavy word,” Ernesto agreed. “On vacation? In recovery?”

  Maeryn blinked as something inside her resonated with that last suggestion. “In recovery. Yeah. I like that.” She looked down at her hands, releasing Terrance as she flexed them. “I’m in recovery. And so is my fire. And when we’re both ready, we’ll meet again.”

  The boys exchanged another silent conversation over Maeryn’s head in a matter of seconds. An impressed expression from Terrance met Ernesto’s sheepish pride, followed by a faux-haughty raise of the rogue’s chin as if to say that this outcome was inevitable.

  “You two done congratulating yourselves?” Maeryn asked flatly, hiding a smile.

  They both shot her surprised looks. “How did you…?” Terrance asked disbelievingly.

  “You weren’t even looking at us,” Ernesto commented in surprise.

  “Your silence is very loud. I could practically hear your thoughts.”

  Terrance narrowed his eyes at his fellow Zephyrian. “Are you sure that necromancy and holy magic don’t have telepathy?”

  “For the last time, Terrance, yes I’m sure!”

  Maeryn laughed, leaning backwards. She felt much lighter now. “Seriously, thank you both. I needed this. I can’t promise this’ll be the last time I need to have a solid cry about this, but… in recovery. As long as I can think of it like that, I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Good.” Ernesto patted her on the back a couple of times. “I think you should spend some time attuned to holy. The Warmth and Protection concepts are really useful for helping bounce back. I’ve been thinking about renaming Protection to Resilience or Recovery, actually. Because it’s about helping people come back from spiritual damage.”

  Maeryn’s head whipped around to stare him in the eyes. “Say that last sentence again.”

  Ernesto edged away ever so slightly. “It’s about… helping people… come back from spiritual damage? Like having no goals left in their life? Or taking emotional blows?”

  That… that made perfect sense. Necromancy’s Spirit concept centered on the ending of one’s spirit via the completion of anything tying it to the world. Because the world itself weathered away anything that didn’t have a reason to exist. Of course its opposite meant healing the spirit. Renewing it. “It’s Renewal,” Maeryn whispered, feeling her understanding of holy magic expand. “Renewal… if anything would help my spirit heal, if anything would help me get my fire back…!”

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  She beamed at him gratefully. “Ernesto, I could kiss you.”

  “I think your boyfriend Jacob might object,” Terrance observed with wry amusement, and Maeryn shoved him unceremoniously, sending him sprawling across the bed.

  His squawk of protest startled a laugh out of Ernesto, and Maeryn rolled her eyes. “Not my boyfriend.” Then she took a deep breath and refocused on the holy mage. “Offer stands, just so you know. Seriously. Thank you.”

  He held up his hands to ward her off. “No, I’m good. You got it right, and I, um…” He coughed nervously. “I’m saving that for someone special. And, um, I’m not… into girls.”

  Terrance shot him a surprised look. “Seriously? Huh. I had no idea you swung that way.” He cocked his head in thought. “That would explain why I’ve never seen you with a girl. But I never see you with a guy either.”

  “We’ve been busy!” the mage defended himself. “I haven’t exactly had the time to start dating. And my dating options are kind of limited. You know, the necromancer thing? So it just never came up. Guess that makes me the definition of the gay best friend, huh.”

  “Dude, I need to bring you with me next time I have to meet some of the nobility,” the noble rogue told him earnestly. “You would not believe how many families are trying to marry me into them. Not all of them are girls, either. I am completely down to be your wingman.”

  Ernesto gestured wildly with his hands, suddenly flustered. “Not yet! Not anytime soon, in fact! Save the world first, figure out my dating life later!”

  “Now that sounds familiar,” Maeryn muttered quietly. Not quietly enough, though, as both her friends turned to stare at her leadingly. She arched an eyebrow right back at them.

  Terrance inspected her, then nodded at Ernesto. “It’s Jacob. I’d bet money on it.”

  “No, no, you’re right,” the mage agreed, then shot Maeryn a sympathetic look. “Hard to have a romance when you’re constantly on the move, huh?”

  She slumped, giving up on her admittedly half-hearted efforts to stay quiet. “Yeah. Doesn’t help with my fire gone—in recovery,” she quickly corrected. “Maybe when we’re done. If he hasn’t found someone else in the meantime.”

  Terrance patted her shoulder a couple of times. “We’ll get there. And if it doesn’t work out, then it wasn’t meant to be. Remember, you’re a wind mage too.” He poked her in the arm. “That means you know what Freedom feels like. And that there’s always a way to keep moving.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I know you’re right. Just sucks at the moment,” Maeryn grumbled.

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t found the right girl for me either,” Terrance told her with a shrug. “And remember, I still gotta find a fiance in a couple of years.” He eyed Maeryn speculatively. “You know, if neither of us has a partner by then… I wouldn’t mind being each other’s backup plan. Nobody could possibly take offense at the two of us hooking up.”

  “I’m flattered,” Maeryn told him dryly. But before it could possibly be taken the wrong way, she smiled at him. “I’m not saying no. But we should put that conversation on hold for a while. I want my fire magic back before I make any big life decisions.”

  “That’s fair,” Terrance conceded, clasping his hands behind his head nonchalantly. “I wonder what it says about the three of us, that not a single one of us has good romantic prospects at the moment. The Heroine of Geova, the Holy Founder, and the Last Nightshade. You’d think that one of us would have made it by now.”

  Ernesto looked at Maeryn with a wry smile. “You know, when he puts it like that?”

  “Yeah, it does sound weird,” she agreed. “But we’ll get there. So let’s finish saving the world so we can earn some downtime.”

  “I’ll drink to that!” Terrance enthused. “Hey, Manchego Mage, don’t think I didn’t notice you started branching into wine recently. You up for sharing? I’d be happy to give it a taste test.”

  “Sure, why not? Let me grab some from my room.” Ernesto left the room, and came back thirty seconds later with a tall bottle of wine and three glasses. He poured some for each of them. “This is my latest attempt. But fair warning, I only started a week ago, so don’t expect anything great.”

  “Cheers,” Terrance and Maeryn said together, then all three sipped from their glasses.

  It wasn’t bad, Maeryn decided as she continued to drink. She wasn’t one to drink much, but she wasn’t completely unfamiliar with alcohol. Her parents had introduced it to her on her thirteenth birthday, as was Geovan tradition. And one of Agatha’s lessons on hunter training was getting everyone steadily more and more drunk so they could properly experience how helpless it made them.

  “It’s poison,” the Grandmaster Hunter had told her flatly as Maeryn nursed her first—and so far only—hangover. “A fun one, at times, but poison nonetheless. It will kill you if you abuse it. And I will kill you if your drunken ass gets someone else killed.”

  Maeryn thought about stopping, but shrugged it off and took another sip of Ernesto’s wine. It had a nice fruity taste, and the alcohol had a decent bite to it. But if she paced herself, and drank plenty of water, it wouldn’t get worse than a light buzz.

  An hour later, the world was spinning. “I don’t… I don’t understand,” Maeryn slurred, her body swaying. She flopped backwards onto her bed and tried not to look at the ceiling; it was trying to hypnotize her with its spirals. “I could drink this much easily before, without getting dizzy at all. It should have taken at least… two more glasses to get me this drunk.”

  “Maybe your fire magic used to—hic—burn the alcohol out of your system faster?” Terrance suggested, hiccuping in the middle of his sentence. “Wow. Your wine’s got a kick to it, Munster Meister.”

  “Oh. That makes sense,” Maeryn whispered. “But now my fire’s off in la-la-land.” An involuntary giggle escaped her. “And now I’m there too!”

  Ernesto grinned at her lazily, pouring another glass and nearly pouring too much before catching himself. “Whoops! I’m pretty sure if you find it, we’ll all blow up.”

  “You’re not wrong!” Maeryn agreed, her smile trying to stretch from ear to ear. It kind of hurt, actually. “Have I mentioned that I love you guys?”

  “Not out loud,” Terrance told her sincerely. “But we knew.”

  “Once we finish saving the world, you better not up and vanish,” Maeryn scolded. “I’ll kidnap you if you try. Don’t test me.”

  “Scary,” Ernesto commented idly. “I think she’d do it too.”

  “She would!” Terrance agreed. “Guess we gotta keep in touch. Such a sacrifice.”

  “It’s tragic.”

  “Quite sad.”

  Maeryn threw a pillow at the two of them. It went right between them, and she glared at the pillow like it had betrayed her. “You two are mean.”

  “Nah. You’re just fun to tease.” Terrance patted her foot affectionately. “We love you too, Maeryn,”

  “Yep,” Ernesto agreed chipperly. “But that was the last of my bottle. So I guess we’re done for now.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” she admitted. “I am very, very drunk.”

  “At least you’re in your own bed,” Terrance pointed out. “So you don’t have to get up again.”

  Maeryn brightened. “You’re right! Are you gonna be able to get back to your room?”

  “I’ll manage,” he promised, getting up and immediately leaning against a wall. “Hey, Ernesto? You good?”

  “I’m fiiiine.” Ernesto drew out the last word, trying to get to his feet and stumbling back onto the bed as his balance betrayed him. “Okay. Maybe not fine. Gimme a few minutes?”

  “Take your time. Bed’s comfy,” Maeryn invited. “Just don’t ask me to move.”

  “No, no, up you get.” Terrance clasped Ernesto by the wrist and hauled him to his feet. They both immediately almost fell over, but managed to find an uneasy equilibrium. “Together?”

  “Together,” Ernesto agreed.

  They walked unsteadily to the door, using their free hands to brace against the walls, and Maeryn laughed at them as they fumbled with the knob for a few seconds. “See you later, boys!”

  “Later, Maeryn!” they called back together.

  She smiled as they finally made their way out. She felt so much better now. “I wonder if this is why some people like to drink when they’re sad?” she mused aloud. “It’s fun. Probably shouldn’t do it much, though. Don’t wanna be that girl. And Agatha would kill me. Slowly.”

  She nodded very seriously to herself, and then decided that her best move was to sleep this off. Actually, now that she thought about it, sleep sounded awfully tempting. Not even bothering to undress, she wiggled up to her other pillow. “Just a nap,” she promised herself drowsily, her eyes fluttering shut. “A few hours…” She interrupted herself with a yawn, and decided it wasn’t worth finishing the sentence.

  As she descended rapidly into sleep, her last thoughts were of her friends, and how very grateful she was to have them in her life.