Changes

Now, on the one hand, if the “short-term” could just extend to getting her leg fixed, she would at least not be a literal sitting target. But that bizarre story she was spinning around herself was the equivalent of the tale of the little boy who yelled for help in the woods once too often... the more she talked, the less anyone would even pretend to listen. The less they listened, the wilder her story would become. Eventually no one would take her or the danger she was in seriously. And that would be when she was in the most danger of all.

He couldn’t think... he just could not think of a way to tell her this without making her angry.

Everything else was, oh, gods, the same old problems. Nothing had actually been done about them. Bear and Lena still were unable to grow spines and just deal with their parents.

And he still hadn’t done anything remotely useful about these killers except to uncover that they were (probably) in the pay of the Karsites, and that had been by purest accident.

Nothing had changed. They were all circling the same stagnant problems, accomplishing nothing. And from the way things looked, they would keep circling the same stagnant problems forever.

At that moment, Lena’s voice hit a particularly piercing note, at least to his ears, and a lance of pain stabbed through his temple. He clapped one hand to his head and swore.

At least that shut them up.

“Mags?” Amily said. “Are you all right?”

No, I ain’t all right, an’ anybody not completely balled up i’ ’er own liddle center uf ’er own little universe ’d see thet!

“Headache,” he said, between clenched teeth. And when Bear started to get up and come over to look at him, he confronted Bear with a snarl, making him back up a pace. “Don’ touch me, Bear! I ain’t some whinging li’l soft thing whut’s never had wuss’n a broke nail, all right? It’s jest a headache.”

Bear fidgeted with his glasses. “Sometimes headaches come from something worse—you might have —”

“I been looked over,” he snapped. “I been looked over good. Nobuddy found nothin’.” He squinted at all of them. “I jest need somethin’ right now that ain’t squallin’ an’ whingin’ an’ argufyin’. Like mebbe some peace.”

Bear frowned. “That’s not a—”

“Don’ say it,” he growled. Bear backed up another pace.

“I think we should go,” Lena whispered. She looked—scared. Did he look that ferocious?

Evidently he did. Amily looked as if there was something about him she was suddenly unsure of.

So unsure that she picked up her crutches from beside the chair by herself and struggled to her feet without any help from him. “I think we should go and let Mags get some rest,” she said, but she did it with a look at Lena that somehow managed to imply that it was Lena who was at fault.

Or at least, that was the way that Lena reacted.

But mercifully, before they could get into it again, Bear got them all out the door.

Mags started to throw himself down on the now vacant bed, when he realized that Amily—

::I’ve got it,:: Dallen informed him. ::I’m not letting them past me till Bear boosts Amily up on my—there we go.::

For one moment, Mags was even feeling a surge of resentment against Dallen for interfering, but he throttled it down and cursed himself for letting pain get to him that badly.

But this was, without a doubt, the worst headache he had ever had in his life. For a moment he was tempted to call Bear back and beg him to have a look—

But he’d been looked at. Four—five—six Healers? He’d lost count. They’d all gone over him to make sure he hadn’t been poisoned secretly or cracked over the head or something else. And they’d all said he was fine.

Gotta be the heat. This was the worst summer he could remember.

::Thanks,:: he told Dallen briefly, and even that single word hurt his head to project.

Quarrelsome voices and hoofbeats moved out of the stable. It seemed as though now they were arguing about which of them had given Mags the headache.

Except, of course, that was not what they were fighting about. It was just the excuse to fight. They might not recognize, as he had, the underlying causes, but they certainly felt those causes. They knew, all three of them, that they were getting nowhere. But at least two of the three weren’t willing, or weren’t ready, to do what they had to to solve their situation,

“Treat th’ cause an’ not th’ symptom,” he muttered. But if you couldn’t make yourself face the cause?

“Hellfires,” he growled. He levered himself up out of his bed and laid down on the floor. At least it was cooler there.

A lot cooler.

He closed his eyes and prepared to wait out the pain.

That, at least, was something he was good at.

But the next thing he knew, it was morning.