Chapter 20 #2
I pull the sock back on and quickly cram my foot in my shoe when Mickey walks in. He comes over and slouches down in the chair next to me.
“You alright?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
He gazes at Torin before glancing over at me. “You really like this guy, don’t you?”
“I don’t know how to like people.”
“You’re such a liar,” he says as he closes his eyes. “Fourteen dead, but one hundred and two unconscious. Most have no visible wounds, no reason they shouldn’t be awake, but still… it’s almost like they’re in a coma.”
“It was like he… took their souls,” I say.
“Yep.”
“Are they going to die?”
Mickey shrugs. “I really don’t know the answer to that. Just… it would’ve been more if it weren’t for you and Torin. Way more… it might not have ever stopped until the whole world…”
We fall silent while we think about what a real possibility that was… and what a real possibility it still is.
“This whole thing was a shit show. I could barely help,” I confess.
“It’s not that you could barely help. Your magic is eventually what drove him away, but it’s like… how do mere humans fight against something like that? Humans and a god who lost all his power…” Mickey pauses. “Riley… what was beyond that Door?”
I think about how to answer this, because when I was dragged through that Door, Kit wasn’t with me, so I couldn’t see what was beyond it. “There was a man.”
“What’d he look like?” Mickey asks as Kit jumps onto his lap. He trails his finger over her forehead while he stares down at her. She leans into his touch, enjoying the scratches.
“I don’t know. It all happened so fast.”
“Do you think maybe it’s because Kit was on this side of the Door and you were on the other?” he asks as my vision suddenly goes dark.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“I’m holding up my middle finger,” I retort as I do so. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m getting at the fact that something happened to you, though I don’t know what or why.
But whatever it was… you haven’t been able to see since.
You use Kit to see,” he says as he pulls his hand off her eyes and picks her up so it seems like he’s looking right into my eyes.
“You haven’t been able to see since you ended up in the hospital when that woman using blood magic attacked the unit years ago. ”
I debate arguing with him, but Mickey’s smart. He’s probably known longer than he’s let on. Hell, maybe he’s known as long as I have. Mickey is very much the kind of person to know something but never bring it up out of pure laziness.
So instead, I just stubbornly sit here.
“Do you think by not answering I’ll forget everything?” he asks.
“It’s what you’d do.”
Mickey contemplates that before nodding. “One hundred percent. Want to tell me why?”
“Nope.”
“You’re an obstinate fuck.”
“Thanks.”
“Tell me why or I’ll summon someone to beat you up, and since you already look like shit, no one will know.”
I glower at him. “I’ll know.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he decides.
I sigh before giving in. At this point, what’s the use of hiding it?
“Honestly? I have no idea what’s going on.
Just… one day when I used my magic for something more powerful, I got this horrible pain in my eyes.
I thought it was from a headache or something, but it got worse…
it was like my own magic was attacking my body.
I talked to healers, doctors, anyone I could, but no one had any idea what was causing it.
I was told my magic was strong and stable with no strange disconnect.
I was told that I was completely healthy and that they could find no ailments. No one understood.”
“That’s why you tried taking smaller cases,” Mickey realizes. “Why weren’t you just honest with us?”
“You think I’d have been allowed to stay if I was?
I would have been removed immediately. I…
I very much believed that the Magical Interference Unit was my whole world.
I’d finally found somewhere I belonged and was terrified at the idea of leaving it.
That book… Torin thinks my ailment might be explained in that book, but we can’t seem to understand it. ”
“Weird how knowing what’s going on will allow me to better understand what to look for,” Mickey says sarcastically.
“I would absolutely love to kick your ass.”
“I know you would. So after it destroyed your eyes… do they still hurt?”
“Not as much as my hands. It’s spreading.”
“Can I see your hands?”
I sigh and pull my left glove off before holding my hand out to him. He examines it quite thoroughly.
“Do they always hurt?”
“No, only after using higher level magic, which causes the black stain to spread higher and higher every time. They’re only shaking because of what just went on. They really hurt right now, but it should begin to lessen soon.”
Mickey stares at my fingers for a long time, plainly lost in thought.
“You see now why it’s so important for Torin to get his power back? Who knows how much longer I can help, and we all know that horseman is going to return.”
“Horseman…”
“I don’t know, it’s what I’ve been calling him in my head,” I say.
“Horseman,” he repeats. Then he stands up and just fucks off without a bye or anything.
“Somehow he’s even stranger than you,” I mutter to Torin.