92. Seb
SEB
By the time he realized what was actually wrong, it was far too late to do anything about it.
He’d sprinted back to the stadium, meeting the kid in the hall before the tunnel and accepting his gear as he spun and staggered down the dim opening.
He knew he was late; late enough that he didn’t have time to check how late he was.
Something was off. Weird. He knew it in the way he did in the hours or minutes before he got violently ill—floaty and woozy—only realizing that he was sick as he ran for a toilet to spill his guts into.
He was too distracted, too in a tailspin from the conversation to assess the problem, and assumed that Bellarius was the source of the ill feeling.
Hawthorn Bellarius is blackmailing me. Hawthorn Bellarius is going to tell my parents about Lily.
He should have known it; known that he’d gotten away too easily.
But he had too many plates spinning through the air right now—the curse, Conrad and the charges, the Elumnara, which he knew Lily was still pursuing, Lily herself—and he was no juggler.
Breathing hard, he emerged into the bright lights of the ring, squinting against the glare.
Danielson was already standing in position, waiting.
The official glared at him, as if he hadn’t known Seb for years, as if he didn’t know that he’d never been late to a bout before, would never be late voluntarily.
It reminded him of the double standard his parents had for him and Reg.
Reg transgressed early, often, without remorse.
Their rarity made the few blemishes on Seb’s record stand out that much more boldly.
And speaking of his parents…there they were, in the first row.
Seated next to Hawthorn Bellarius. As Seb ground to a halt in the middle of the ring, he watched Hawleyhurst vault over an empty seat and tap Seb’s mother on the shoulder.
She hugged Conrad warmly. She had never hugged Seb warmly, in his recollection.
His ribs ached. He searched, without turning, for Lily as he pretended to listen to the official, as he handed over his gear to be checked for tampering, as he received it back, not quite sure of what to make of the expression on the official’s face.
It wasn’t until the match began, until he moved away into zone two and tried to break the spell-seal that he realized what was wrong—he had no magic.
The weirdness he had felt, the strange quiet, had been a lack of magic.
He tried to cast, tried again. Nothing happened. His foil and his Orb were both empty.
He blinked as the world blurred around him.
Evan Danielson threw Birth of Kagutsuchi at his head.