Chapter Twenty Nine
Becoming Emily

 

Everything was a daze after that. Emily remembered being picked up by Jenna, his head hurting too much to even move, too exhausted to think. He blacked out a few times, vaguely aware of the fact that his environment was changing. Rain. Broken concrete. Then the inside of a vehicle. More rain. A couch. Voices drifting, in and out of the periphery of perception.

“—w is Havelock holding up?” 

“Barely keeping it together. Can’t blame the man.”

“What happened, Alistair? Two spirits and an attacker? This isn’t a coincidence.”

“I have theories,” Lord Mangrove said, “but not now. How are you feeling?” He knelt down in front of Emily, who was slowly forcing his eyes open. 

“M’head hurts,” Emily mumbled. “Where is everyone?” He looked around but everything was a little fuzzy. “Jenna? Sarah? Simon?” He realized how tiny his voice sounded, almost like the mewling of a kitten. 

“In the other room,” Mangrove said. “We decided to put you in here where it’s a little darker. You took a pretty nasty blow to the head.” Emily looked around. He looked like he was in some kind of reading room, bookcases lining the walls. Behind Mangrove stood Lady Lalonde, her arms crossed. Lord Mangrove tapped Emily gently between the eyes, and all of a sudden it felt like a wave of cold water gently ran down his body. He shivered, but the pain seemed to go away with it. “How’s it now?”

“Better,” Emily said. “Much better, thank you!” Lord Mangrove gave him a slight smile. Now that his vision wasn’t being clouded by pain, he got a good look at the man. Despite the fact that he was supposed to be an older man, Mangrove had a young energy about him. Maybe it was the perfectly manicured goatee and the slicked-back greying hair, or the sharp eyes. 

“Okay, good. The thing is, I only took away the pain for a moment,” Mangrove said, and immediately, Emily grew worried. “The problem is that magic is a bit… complicated. Healing magic especially. I’d rather not use it on someone’s brain unless I have to, and I’m worried that you —” he pointed his finger in Emily’s face, “— might have a concussion. But I also didn’t want to turn you back into a human in front of everyone without your permission.”

Emily frowned to himself. Did the headmaster suspect something? “Why?” Lord Mangrove raised a solitary and extremely accusatory eyebrow. 

“Hmm,” he said. “Quite. The point still stands. I believe the best way to make sure your brain isn’t bouncing around your skull with a few unsightly bruises would be for you to switch back.” Emily looked at the door. So his friends were on the other side. Including Jenna. Wait, that made her the only one who hadn’t seen him in his human form yet. 

“Alistair,” Lady Lalonde said, “a word.” The Headmaster seemed to hesitate for a moment before getting up and joining his colleague. They were a few feet away and were speaking quietly, but Emily suspected they’d forgotten that cats had better hearing than people. “Don’t push the child,” he heard Lady Ellen say. “It’s clearly been through a lot. Now isn’t the time.”

Lord Mangrove shook his head. “On the contrary, Ellen, if either she or the Witch doesn’t deal with this now, it’s likely to come up when we don’t have the time, and take it from me, you do not want that particular bomb to go off in a life or death situation.” He put his hands on his hips demonstratively. “Trust me. She’ll be okay, and I’m pretty sure the Witch will be too.” Emily tried not to look like he was listening as intently as he was. Who were they talking about? Sarah? That didn’t make sense. 

“I think we should make sure it’s healthy, and then debrief them as quickly as we can. Without Vigours, whoever did this will do even more damage. We have to be ready for the next attack, and we’ll need capable agents in the field,” Lady Lalonde said. “We can’t coddle them.”

“It’s not —” Lord Mangrove sighed and rubbed his face. “Fine. But if this goes sideways, you owe me a week.”

“A weekend.”

“Deal.” The words they were saying seemed to be playful and jovial, but their tone was anything but. They both turned back to Emily. “Sorry about that. A little difference of opinion. Ellen… We think you’re actually not in that much danger at the moment, and that it’s probably better for us to ask you some questions about what happened first, while it’s still fresh in your memory. I know it’ll be unpleasant, but —”

“You have to catch Cunning,” Emily said, “I get it.” He stood up on his four paws and hopped off the couch. “I’m ready.” He wanted to get this over with, in part because what he wanted was not to think about what had happened any more than he had to. He knew he’d be lying awake with the events of the day running through his head anyway. 

He also wanted to go lie down, and maybe get his head checked out by the nurse, because he was still a little worried by the concussion thing Lord Mangrove had mentioned. Lady Lalonde gave him a smile. “Very eager, I like that,” she said. The corner of her mouth curled up just a little bit, and Emily felt his little heart skip a beat. She was still as impressive as ever. Lord Mangrove held the door open. It was a fairly normal living room. Jenna, covered in a blanket, sat on a large sofa, flanked by Benjamin and Jacob who both had their familiars wrapped in towels on their laps. Opposite them was another sofa, where Leah was lying down with Sarah curled up next to her. Her arm was wrapped up in bandages, and Professor Falls was kneeling next to her. The Professor had been crying.

“Sorry to worry you, everyone,” he said to the room. “It looks like our cat is doing quite well, although I’ll recommend a doctor’s visit nonetheless. Now.” He gestured for Emily to return to Jenna, and he did so quickly, hopping up onto her lap and turning around to face the Headmaster. “… about what happened…”

“There’s no easy way to talk about this,” Lady Ellen said. “You were attacked. Because of the actions of the brave Professor Vigours you’re all still alive.” Professor Falls, a hand over her mouth, walked out of the room as quickly as she could without running. 

Lord Mangrove put his hands behind his back and began to pace. “What we can not do now is let his sacrifice be in vain. The more we know, the better we can stop this from happening again.”

“He said his name was Cunning,” Ben said. His jaw was clenched tight, and he kept running his hand over Simon’s head, who occasionally reached out to give his hand a small bite of acknowledgement. The boy looked like he was dealing with it all badly. It made sense. Emily was barely able to think. The two Headmasters looked at each other, and then shook their heads. So they didn’t know either. 

“He said,” Jenna said quietly as she began to pet Emily maybe a little harder than was necessary, “he was after the Heart of Primaris.” She paused and looked up at Lord Mangrove. “He said it was a spell, and that you and Lady Ellen both had a piece of it, and that he did too. And then — And then — And then —” Her voice kept getting caught in her throat, making it skip, and Jacob wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close to him. She wasn’t able to get out anything more than tears. The two of them were gently petting Dennis, who also seemed like he hadn’t quite realised what had happened.

“Hrm,” Lord Mangrove said. “I was afraid of that. Very well, since you already know, I’ll give you the whole truth.” He leaned on the back of Leah’s couch and looked at all of them. “The Heart of Primaris was the first spell. The spell that gave all of us the ability to do magic in the first place. When the entire spell is used, all its parts connected, it can change the flow of magic. For the whole world.” His face looked like it was carved out of stone, his grey eyes boring into them. “The Headmistress has a piece of it. I have the last. We erased all memory of the other parts, so that this knowledge can’t be abused. We can’t even use it. If he truly found a piece of it, then he’s already one of the most dangerous people in the world. Whoever he is.”

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“It looked like he was controlling the Spirits. Or at least keep them from attacking,” Jacob said. “But that’s not possible, right? They’re not even from this world.” The two Headmasters looked at each other. 

“You’re right,” Lady Lalonde said after a moment. “It’s not. The Spirits are why we train from such a young age to be able to fight. Since the age of Primaris. If we were able to make them do what we wanted, we would’ve done that a long time ago.” She looked at the kids. “Is there anything else you can tell us about him? Anything that could help us?”

“He acted like he knew Professor Vigours since he was young,” Emily said. “And I think he wasn’t expecting all of us to be in town. Is that something?”

“It could be,” Lord Mangrove said. Then he looked at Lalonde. “Regardless, Ellen, I think we’ve put them under enough stress for one day, yes?” The Headmistress looked at him, her expression soured a bit, but she nodded. “Obviously,” he added, “you’ll not be attending classes for at least a week. Heal. Relax. I’ll also request that you check in at the nurse’s office at least once a day for counselling. You’ve been through a lot.”

Everyone got up. Emily suspected they all wanted to go lie down. He knew he did. Leah was being helped up by Lord Mangrove, and Sarah jumped down on the ground, suddenly saw Emily, and hurried over, almost knocking him off his feet. “Thank you,” she purred. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.” She kept repeating it over and over again. 

“Wh— What for?” he said. She knocked her forehead into his. 

“You saved Leah’s life, dum dum.” It was clear Sarah was trying to keep a lighthearted tone, but the breathless relief in her voice was witness to how terrified and exhausted she’d been. All Emily could do was nudge back. 

“Why were you in town?” Lady Lalonde suddenly asked as they were on their way to the door. They froze. “It’s a miserable day. Has been all week. No reason to go into town when it’s this bad out, and everything’s closed on Sunday in Trewood.”

Emily slowly turned around. “We were just…” he started, and then his voice petered off. The Headmistress’ stare nailed him to the ground. Behind her, Lord Mangrove held his hands behind his back with a tired expression. 

“You wouldn’t be the first to try and sneak out,” he said. “Family, I’m assuming?” Benjamin was the first to capitulate, nodding softly. Then Dennis took a step forward. 

“It was me, Miss!” he said loudly, although the effect was a little diminished by the fact that he was no larger than a particularly hairy pumpkin. “It’s my fault. I wanted to go see my family and I pressured the others into it.” He looked over his shoulder at a flabbergasted Emily. “And especially don’t be angry with Emily. He was only trying to help me.”

“We can discuss potential visiting rights,” Lord Mangrove said quickly. “Exceptions have been made in the past and considering recent events I’m sure we can m—”

“You know Emily’s a girl, right, Dennis?” Jenna said with confusion. Lord Mangrove squeezed his eyes shut. Dennis smiled up at her. 

“No, he’s not. He’s a boy, but when he’s a cat he’s just Emily.” The whole room grew silent. Everyone looked at Emily. Very faintly, he heard Mangrove whisper to Lalonde.

“You owe me a weekend,” he said. 

“I —” Emily said. “I’m sorry, Jenna.” He looked at Lady Lalonde. “Could you…” She nodded and touched her brooch. That weird, sickening wave washed over him, and he knew he could turn back into a human now. 

“Emily, what’s he talking about?” Jenna asked. Squeezing his eyes shut, Emily stood upright and felt his limbs stretch as he slowly became human again. He was faintly aware of a pressure on his head — no, his brain — slowly releasing. He presumed that was the concussion going away. But he kept his eyes closed. This was it. Now Jenna was going to know, and that he hadn’t told her sooner would come back to bite him. She’d hate him for the fact that he’d held Jonathan a secret from her, that he wasn’t a girl like her, no matter how hard he wished he could be. 

“Um,” Simon said, “what’s happening?”

“I’m not sure,” Lady Lalonde said. “I’ve never seen this before.” Jonathan opened his eyes. What were they talking about? He looked down at himself. He was absolutely human. Well, mostly. It seemed he was still changing. In fact, he didn’t stop changing. He could feel it in his limbs. It was like being underwater, currents pulling him up and down and left and right. His equilibrium kept shifting. He looked at his hands. One second they were rough, like he knew them. The next they were more slender, softer. Then back. It was a constant shift, back and forth, like a flickering television screen.

“I have,” Lord Mangrove said. “Rosewood, look at me.” Lord Mangrove had a command of his voice that was almost impossible to resist. Everyone looked, but only one person had their gaze returned. “Choose. No guilt. Just you.” He glared at Ellen for a moment, and then back. “I’m sorry. But I think this is where you choose.”

The shifting carried on for a few more seconds. Then it stopped. Everyone stared, and who could blame them? What they’d seen was something few people ever came close to seeing, and after the events of the day, this one felt almost insignificantly significant. 

“Emily?” Jenna asked. 

“Yes,” she said.