Tris & Izzie (6 page)

“
I
zzie, I love you,” I heard as I dreamed in the hospital. I thought Tristan was saying it, and I was so happy that he was alive.

But when I woke up properly, Mark was sitting beside my hospital bed, holding my hand, and I realized that it had been him all along.

Tristan wouldn't have said
Izzie
, anyway. It would have been
Isolde
.

Mark looked terrible. His face was gray and his beard was in that in-between stage where it didn't look rough; it just looked like he hadn't shaved for three days.

Could it really have been three days? We must have missed the homecoming dance on Saturday night. And I had such a pretty blue silk sheath and red heels that I had planned to wear, with my hair up.

I ran my tongue along my teeth, and they felt like it had been three years since I had brushed.

“Stay with me this time, Izzie,” said Mark. “Please, I can't bear it if you leave me.” He spoke with a sincerity that I could not doubt. Mark loved me absolutely. He would have been the one to save me if he had been fast enough. Was it his fault that it had been Tristan instead?

“Say something, Izzie. Anything.”

“Hi, Mark,” I said, because I couldn't think of anything better.

But he seemed happy with that. He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then he looked at me, his eyes shining with tears. He shook his head; then he spoke in a voice that sounded very small. “I shouldn't let you see me like this. I'll be back in a minute.” He let go of my hand.

I pulled him back, surprised that I felt strong enough to do so. I didn't feel like climbing a mountain or anything, but I felt better than I had in the ambulance. “Don't go,” I said.

Mark looked down. “I've been waiting,” he said. “For days.”

“I know.”

“Your mom made me go away and sleep a couple of times, but I wouldn't leave the hospital. I slept on one of the couches out there. I wanted to be here when you woke up. I had to tell you that I was sorry.”

“It's okay, Mark,” I said.

“No. I should have been there for you. I let you go out there by yourself while I was watching a stupid football game. I mean, it wasn't a stupid game. It was an important game for the football team and for the school. But you almost died.”

“Mark, you didn't know.”

“I know. I should have felt something, though. Don't you think? I knew you'd been gone too long, but I thought maybe you didn't want to come up and watch with us. I was annoyed with you, to tell the truth. Can you believe it? That was the last emotion I felt for you before I heard you screaming.”

“Mark, I was annoyed with you, too,” I admitted.

“My fault. Can you ever forgive me?” He was getting a little slobbery with tears.

“Yes, I forgive you. I already forgave you. But it was nothing, Mark. I'm fine now, right?” He was being so nice I should have felt loving back. Tristan wasn't even here, but my feelings for him were, and right now they were getting in the way.

“You had this terrible fever for the first two days. They gave you every antibiotic they could think of, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. And then, suddenly, it just started to go down on its own, and now you're awake.” Mark patted my hand. Then his hand drifted up to my neck. Then he was kissing me, lightly, on my eyelids and my cheeks and my nose and my chin. Not on my lips, though.

I was kind of glad about that. He was treating me like I was a china doll, so I was able to avoid a full kiss.

I guessed the love philtre hadn't worn off yet after all.

“How is Tristan?” I asked. “Do you know?”

“Oh. Yeah. I think I heard your mother say that he was out of danger. They thought he was going to die the first couple of days he was here. No one knew what was going on with him, but he had multiple-organ failure. Then somehow he just came out of it, about the time your fever went away. They're saying it's a miracle. They were afraid surgery would cause too much trauma, but his wounds seem to be healing just fine now.”

I wondered what had happened to his sword. Had he hidden it somewhere, or was it still out there, in the school parking lot? Would people think it was strange and start asking questions, start guessing that magic was involved?

“Can I see him?” I asked.

“Um, Izzie, you just woke up. I sort of want you to myself for a while. Is that too selfish of me?”

There were probably hundreds of girls who would kill to have Mark as their boyfriend, to have him standing over their bedside in the hospital, giving them butterfly kisses. But I wanted to see Tristan. That was all I could focus on.

“He saved me, Mark, and he almost died. I feel like I need to say thank you.” Would Mark buy that? I didn't feel like making up an elaborate story. I knew that at some point I would have to tell him the truth, or at least a part of the truth. If the love philtre couldn't be counteracted and it didn't wear off, I might even have to break up with him. But not right now.

“Maybe you could send him a note?” Mark suggested.

I grimaced in frustration. “Mark, I need to tell him in person. Will you go and see if he can have visitors?”

“Now?” asked Mark.

“Yes, please. I can't rest until I see him. You should thank him, too, you know. How would you feel if he hadn't been there for me?”

Mark shuddered and reached for my hand again. “Yeah, you're right,” he said. He moved aside and then I saw what was behind him. It was the most amazing floral display I had ever seen. Mark's fitting into the room next to all those vases was quite the engineering feat. They were on a couple of tables, on the floor, on the windowsill, and even on the shelves in the open closet. There were red and yellow and white roses, and tulips and orchids and daffodils, and daisies, and just about everything else you could imagine.

“What are all those?” I asked.

“Oh, they came while you were sick. They're from friends and teachers. The principal. The football team. The basketball team.” Mark waved at one vase after another. I was guessing that he had something to do with the teams' sending flowers, but there were still about ten left.

“And the rest?”

He smiled at me like a little kid. “They're mine,” he said.

“All of them?” It seemed a bit much.

“Whenever I was afraid you were going to die, or if your mom made me leave the room while they did some treatment, I called up and ordered another one. I didn't want to keep ordering the same thing, because you'd be bored with that. Also, I wasn't sure what was your favorite. So I thought if I got all of them, you'd be happy.”

“I'm happy, Mark,” I said. I was trying to be, anyway. He'd spent a lot of money, just to show me he cared. I should be wowed.

“I'll go find out about Tristan,” Mark promised. He stood up and went to the door. Then he turned back and waved. It was very cute. I really shouldn't care that he had no idea that daisies were my favorite.

He went out into the hallway, and I was relieved.

T
here was a knock. “Hi,” said Mom, walking in. “I saw Mark come out. Voluntarily. I figured that meant you must be awake. What did you need so badly that you sent him out to get it? I thought you would be glued to him for hours.” She made a kissing face.

“Mom!”

“Hey, I remember what it was like to be in love. Just because I'm old—”

“You're not old,” I said. “You're just …” She looked as bad as Mark, the lines in her face deep and dark. Her hair was mussed up, and Mom never goes out of the house without her hair looking perfect. Also, she had her shirt on back-ward, but I didn't tell her that.

“I'm just not someone you think about being in love. But I was, and I remember how all-consuming it can be.”

I was hoping she would say something about Dad. It would be the perfect segue into the subject of the love philtre, and then I could find out once and for all if there was anything I could do to counteract it. I didn't want to break things off with Mark unless I was absolutely sure.

But Mom shook her head and didn't say anything else about love. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Do you know anything about Tristan?”

“I saw him early this morning, about six. That was when he came out of the danger zone.”

“Was he really in multiple-organ failure?”

“Yes. Last night.”

“You said something in the ambulance, about humans usually dying from slurg bites.”

“That's why Tristan was in so much danger. Frankly, I was surprised that he survived long enough for the ambulance to get him to the hospital. If not for my potion and your … help, he wouldn't have made it that long.”

I held up my hand. “I got bit by the slurg,” I said. “Right there.” I couldn't even see a trace of it now. “Why didn't I go into multiple-organ failure, too?”

Mom looked away. “You must have a really good immune system.”

And Tristan didn't?

Then I thought of something. “Mom, I thought I was running a fever that day. Maybe a cold or something. Wouldn't that have made my immune system worse and not better?” Tristan hadn't shown any of those symptoms as far as I'd seen. And I had felt the first sign of a fever early that morning, when I met him.

“That's interesting,” said Mom.

“Did you give me a different potion from the one you gave him?” I asked Mom.

She shook her head. “I gave you both the same strengthening potion.”

There was something going on here. Mom was avoiding my eyes.

Was it possible that Tristan had magic and Mom didn't want to talk to me about it? His sword might have been magical. And having magic might have caused a different reaction to the potion Mom had given us both. Or to the slurg. I just didn't understand magic well enough to make guesses.

I would have to think about this later, when I wasn't in a hospital bed. “What about the school? Did anyone else see the slurg, with its two heads? Did they ask questions about magic?”

Mom shook her head. “As far as I can tell, no one saw the two heads. The hospital staff assumes the slurg was just a rabid dog, although the results of their tests on it were rather odd. Hopefully nothing will come from that and we can avoid any direct questions about magic.”

I thought that we were safe when it came to Tristan. After all, if his sword did have magic, he wouldn't want it to become public any more than Mom did. But how did I feel about him having magic and me not having it? Did it change anything?

Not really. It just made it more obvious that I belonged with Mark, and I had to get rid of any feelings from the philtre that I had for Tristan.

“And now I have a confession to make, Izzie,” said Mom.

I blinked up at her. “Good, because I have a confession to make, too.” More than one.

Mom's eyebrows went up.

I figured I would start with the easy one, to see how it went. “About the protection potion you gave me to carry around—I used it up, and I didn't tell you. That's why I didn't have it when the slurg attacked.”

“You must have used it on something pretty important,” said Mom. “What was it?”

I felt a little silly that I'd thought Mel Melot was the worst thing I had to worry about. I shrugged. “There's this boy at school, Mel Melot, and he was bragging about having magic. He had this wine bottle that never went empty, and he was manipulating people with his magic. You always say that's wrong.”

“So you used the protection potion on him?” asked Mom.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I thought he was reaching for some-thing in his pocket, and it was just a spur-of-the-moment reaction. But it didn't work.”

“What makes you think that?” asked Mom.

“I thought— You said it was to protect me. In case of danger. But it didn't hurt him at all.”

“That potion wasn't supposed to hurt any humans,” said Mom. “It was supposed to neutralize magic. And I suspect it did that. Any magic on or near that boy was instantly neutralized.”

The magic wine bottle? So maybe breaking it hadn't mattered at all. Or maybe we had been able to break it because of the potion!

“You never told me the protection was just against magic,” I said.

Mom sighed. “I wanted you to have a normal life, Izzie. I didn't want you to spend your childhood worried about slurgs coming after you.”

I hadn't even known that slurgs existed.

“That's why we came here after your dad died. To get you away from things like that,” Mom said.

“I thought we came here because you didn't want me to grow up around people who had magic, because I didn't have any,” I said.

Mom went very still.

My mind leaped ahead. “Mom? If I had saved that protection potion for the slurg, would Tristan have needed to help me?”

“I don't know,” said Mom. “If I'd taught you properly about slurgs and how to use the potion properly—Izzie, I lied to you. About you not having magic. That's my confession.”

“But the test,” I said. “The one I failed.”

Mom shook her head. “Izzie, you never failed a test. I made that up. I was trying to protect you, but it may be that I put you in even more danger—” She cut herself off.

I didn't fail the magic test? All this time, I'd thought I would grow up normally, graduate high school, go to college, maybe get married someday. Be Mark's girlfriend, because what else was there for me to do if I didn't have magic?

And now—

The slurg had said it smelled magic on me. I'd thought it was the love philtre. But why had I healed so quickly? Was that because of my own magic?

“You lied to me,” I said.

“How much do you remember about your dad dying, Izzie?” Mom asked.

“I remember being sick, and Dad was sick, too. And you gave me a potion, but Dad died before you could give it to him, too.”

Mom stared at me. “What do you really remember?” she asked.

I hesitated for a long moment. “A dream,” I said. “A huge serpent with scales who devoured people and other creatures, fairies and mermaids and such, just for their magic. And I remember feeling so hot I thought I would burst into flames. And Dad—he was hot, too. I thought that was because he had a fever.”

“I let you believe that because it was easier,” said Mom.

“He didn't die from a fever?”

“No, sweetheart.”

I thought of the slurg, which had been an evil, magical creature sent to destroy me. “That serpent?” I said. “It was real?”

Mom didn't say anything. The answer was in her eyes. “When your dad died, you had just used magic for the first time. You didn't know much about it. You only used it accidentally. I thought telling you the truth would be dangerous. So I told you that you didn't have magic, and I did every-thing I could to make sure you didn't realize I was lying. I wanted to make sure your dad's enemy—and his servants— couldn't trace your magic scent.”

I couldn't believe it. My whole life I had believed that I had no magic, that I would have to live in the regular world. And it was a lie?

“You have to understand, Izzie. You were five years old. You were so small. I always knew I would have to tell you the truth when you grew up. I was just waiting for the right time. But it never seemed to come, and you seemed so happy thinking you didn't have magic. I started to wonder if you didn't want to remember it, after what happened to your dad. Then you made up that love potion, and I began to wonder—”

“So I used magic to heal myself after the slurg attack?”

Mom shook her head. “That's not what your magic does. And besides, you had to use it before the slurg came. That's how it tracked you, through your magic.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and I wondered how I had healed myself. “But that's not what we need to think about right now,” Mom said.

It wasn't? “What, then?”

“Izzie, the slurg is the least powerful of the minions that the serpent will send after you, now that it knows the scent of your magic.”

“The least?” I said.

“I need to prepare you as soon as you get out of here. I'll make some potions for you, and—”

“Mom, don't you think it's time you taught me how to make my own potions?” I asked.

“Oh, Izzie, you can't make potions,” said Mom.

“Why not?”

“You're not a witch,” she said. “You never have been.”

“Then what am I?”

“You're an elemental sorceress. You take after your father. Your magic is different, more powerful than mine and maybe than his. That's why they are after you, the slurg and the rest. I will tell you all about it as soon as we get home.”

I thought about the other confession I had to make. Compared to what Mom just told me, it seemed insignificant. She couldn't get mad at me about the love philtre, not after what she had done.

“Mom, you know that love potion from the Internet that I was working on?”

“Yes,” said Mom. “The one you said was for Brangane?”

“It
was
for Branna,” I said. “But—it's complicated. I ended up taking it. And so did Tristan.”

“Hmm,” said Mom. “Well, luckily, it was a bogus recipe, especially without a witch to put in her magic.”

This was the hard part. “Mom, I sort of figured it wasn't going to work. So I dumped it out: The recipe from the Internet.”

“Nothing to worry about, then,” said Mom.

“Well, except that what I drank—and Tristan, too—was your love philtre. The one you left in the cabinet from that wedding. Remember?”

Mom's face went white. That seemed like a bad sign. “You took my key, opened my cabinet, and stole one of my potions?”

I don't think I had ever seen my mom angry before. I'd seen her crying for Dad, for people who died in her ambu-lance. I'd seen her frustrated by politics, but never truly angry. Her eyes were strangely dark and unfamiliar.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I really am.”

“Which one did you take?” Mom asked.

“The one in the yellow bottle. It smelled a little of ginger.”

Mom didn't say anything for a moment, but her eyes seemed to go normal again.

She stood up and shook out her hands. “Well, thank good-ness for that.”

“For what?” I said, surprised.

“For you not understanding my potions.”

Huh? “What didn't I understand?”

“Next time, maybe you will think twice before stealing my potions and trying to use them without any instructions. Or trying to use any other magic you are not trained in, for that matter,” said Mom.

“Okay,” I said. “So can you deactivate the love philtre?” That was what I wanted, wasn't it?

“No,” said Mom.

“Then … what can you do?”

“A properly activated love philtre is impossible to change,” said Mom. “You know that, Izzie. We've talked about love philtres before, and how dangerous they are. No one should ever be forced to take one against his or her will, precisely because they cannot be reversed. Once you are in love because of a love philtre, it is forever.”

“But—Mark—” I said. “He's the one I love. He's my real boyfriend.”

“Too bad,” said Mom cruelly. She was watching me, and it was almost as if she was enjoying this. “You shouldn't have played with magic you didn't understand, Izzie. I hope you've learned a lesson you won't soon forget. Magic can be dangerous.”

“But, Mom—this is real life. This is about Tristan, and Mark. And me.”

“I know what it's about. Better than you do, I think.” Mom stared at me, her arms wrapped around her shoulders.

“So I'm going to be in love with Tristan forever?” I asked.

“What do you think?” asked Mom.

“I wish—Mark doesn't deserve this.”

“No, he doesn't. But life is hard,” said Mom. “Especially when you're sixteen.”

That was not what I wanted to hear.

“You need your rest, Izzie. I'll come back and talk to you later. Maybe I can find Brangane and bring her in.”

“Oh, is she here?”

“She's been here almost as much as Mark has,” said Mom.

“With Tristan?” I asked, jealous.

“No. In the waiting area.”

Good
, I thought fiercely.

Mom went out the door, leaving me thinking about Tristan and magic. I'd never told Mark the truth about Mom's magic. Maybe that was because a part of me knew I had magic and I didn't want to tell him that, either. I wanted to be unmagical and to live an uncomplicated life with him. Or I had, until I met Tristan.