Dean Hawthorne: Headmaster of a Magical Academy, page 9
“Dominic! Are you alright?” she cried, eyeing the hilt of the dagger that protruded from my back.
“I’ll live,” I responded, pulling out the blade before invoking a quick healing spell.
The effect of the incantation was just strong enough to stop the bleeding until I could see the school’s healer for more advanced care. Not believing a word I said, Luna patted the site of the injury with her paw, smirking when my face shifted into a grimace, the pain of the wound still present despite the lack of blood.
I grabbed her fluffy wrist, stopping any additional prodding and looked her in the eyes. “I will take care of it, I promise,” I assured her, “but right now there are more pressing issues.” I glanced back at Todd, the boy still out cold on the classroom floor.
Bending down, I grabbed his arm, ready to hoist him onto my back. Before I could lift him up, the door to the classroom burst open, a handful of students barging in, their wands out and ready for attack. I had to chuckle, knowing that the majority of them didn’t even have any attack spells in their repertoire.
Finding no snake demon in the classroom, the students visibly relaxed, putting their wands away as they rushed to surround me. All the questions came out once, everyone wondering how I defeated such a monster. I told them the truth—the beast was merely sent back to whichever dungeon it had been summoned from.
“Don’t worry everyone, the demon is gone. Right now our priority is Mr. Emerest.” I told the students as I started to lift the boy once more, Luna stopping me mid-bend to grab him herself.
With a soft bite to the back of his collar, she flung him on her back, not bothering to be gentle in her swing. With a look that said lead the way, she tilted her head toward the doorway.
I didn’t argue with her, my back already screaming from the effort of bending. Instead, I nodded my thanks and started walking toward the door, the students following close behind, our small group growing larger when we found even more students waiting out in the hallway.
“I don’t think you all understand the meaning behind the word escape,” I couldn’t stop the words from leaking out as I looked at all the people still present in the area.
They were lucky the snake didn’t come slamming through the doors of the classroom. If they heard me, no one responded to my quip, the lot feeling a bit useless overall and understanding that they probably didn’t react in the correct way.
“Do we have to worry about summoning something like that ourselves?” one boy asked as he jogged to catch up to me.
My eyebrows furrowed, frustrated that the students were now fearful of summoning magic.
“No, this type of magic generally does not call for beasts located in the dungeon’s lower zones,” I answered honestly. “I’m not sure how Mr. Emerest managed to tap into the demon’s frequency, but it’s something us professors will need to explore. Try not to worry too much about it. Besides, you still have much to learn before your lessons reach this point again,” I told the group, hoping to alleviate their concerns, but worry still clouded their optimism. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I hinted for them to take their leave, not bothering to slow down my stride, the health room door now within sight.
“How’s your injury, sir?” Lizzie was the only one to stay behind when the others went their separate ways, her eyes fixed on where the blade once pierced my skin.
“Something like this is nothing to worry about.” I smiled, trying to reassure her of my health. “It is time for you to head to your next class,” I informed her, shooing her away with a wave of my hand.
Her lips parted, but then closed just as quickly—whatever words she wanted to say, never leaving her mouth. With a final look at my blood-soaked robe, she left my side, rushing off to her next lesson.
Chapter
Fourteen
HEXEREI ACADEMY
When all the students returned to their regular activities, I opened the door to the health room, finding Katrina, Professor Blake’s apprentice, fiddling with a roll of gauze. At my entrance, the young woman glanced my way, her deep blue eyes full of worry when she spotted the blood on my robe.
“Dean Hawthorne! What in the world happened?!” she exclaimed, dropping her supplies before rushing over, her hands already pulling at the sleeve of my overcoat, trying to get a better look at the injury.
“I’m not here for me,” I told her, stopping her hands from their mission to undress me.
I turned toward the door, Katrina’s eyes following my own to where Luna stood with Todd still on her back.
“Oh my! What happened here?” She rushed to Luna’s side, placing her palm on Todd’s clammy cheek.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I mumbled, still finding it hard to grasp the situation, the outcome completely outside of what I thought possible for a first-year student.
“Bring him over to the bed.” Katrina gestured to the first medical bed in the empty row.
Luna complied, plopping Todd onto the bed, the frame squeaking from the increased weight. Katrina examined him, while Luna and I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting to hear his prognosis. Luna pawed at the ground, her eyes shifting from me to the healer.
Unable to remain silent any longer, Luna blurted, “You’ll need to be checked too!” Then when Katrina’s attention was gained, she explained the situation. “He was stabbed in the back, so he’s probably going to need some help healing as well.”
“Is that so?” Katrina asked, her attention still on the boy.
I didn’t respond, instead glaring at Luna and her inability to keep things to herself. She just shrugged in response, no remorse in outing me to the healer.
“How about you go and inform Jodie that the summoning classes for the rest of the day will be canceled,” I grumbled, figuring there was no point in both of us staying.
Accepting the order, Luna straightened her posture, and with a sarcastic ‘yes, sir,’ she rushed from the room, leaving me alone with Katrina and the unconscious Todd.
“How is he?” I asked when the silence became suffocating.
Her fingers were on his wrist, checking his pulse as she nodded to herself, taking mental notes of his condition. “Yep, Yep. Uh-huh,” she mumbled to herself, seeming to ignore my concerns.
Looking in his eyes next, she pulled open his eyelids one by one, shining a quick light into them with her illumination spell, the glow concentrated to the end of her wand. After another minute or so of checking his vitals, she turned back to me, acknowledging my presence at last.
“He’ll be fine!” Her cheerful tone filled me with relief. “His physical condition is normal. He is just experiencing the side effects of mana overuse. It’ll take some time for him to absorb enough outside mana to replenish his reserve. He’ll be a bit fatigued for a couple days once he wakes up, but other than that, I assure you he will make a full recovery.” She smiled wide, happy to be able to share the good news. “I would suggest explaining to this student the dangers of depleting one’s mana to such a degree in the future. Repeated occurrences can lead to permanent damage.”
Her advice was common knowledge, but I hadn't thought to explain mana consumption to the first-years, thinking they would all be familiar with the concept by this point. I made a mental note to make sure the professors were including this information in their curriculum, but I was already pretty sure they were, Todd’s strange behavior and reckless summon had been limited by him depleting his mana.
“I’ll do that. Thank you for your assistance, I will leave the boy in your care.” I expressed my gratitude, already heading to exit the room.
“Not so fast, Dean Hawthorne!” She stood up abruptly from her little rolling chair, giving me a stern look I could feel without even needing to face her.
I froze in the doorway, cursing under my breath; I had hoped she’d forgotten what Luna said.
“Come right this way. You can have a seat here on the bed,” she told me in a sweet, but forceful tone, pointing to the next empty exam bed in the row. “Now your familiar said you were stabbed?”
“That’s right,” I responded obediently, heading to the bed she had directed me toward.
“By what exactly? A pencil…or wand?” She started listing ways a professor could be injured in the classroom.
Taking a seat at the edge of the bed, I replied, “A dagger,” purposefully keeping my answers short.
“A dagger! Were you doing weapon’s training? Exactly how did this happen?” She gasped at the admission, the mention of the dagger spiking her concern.
“No, I was teaching a summoning class,” I mumbled, almost afraid to tell her the truth as I reflected on the absurdity of it all.
She let the information sink in for a minute and then gave me a look that asked, ‘Really?’ “Are you under attack? Are WE under attack? What exactly happened?” She jumped to conclusions, glancing around as though she expected the enemy to pop out of thin air.
“No, no. Everything’s fine. You can calm down, Miss Kuller.”
“Please just call me Katrina. Did you at least catch the bastard?”
My gaze unconsciously drifted to Todd, the boy’s color having returned although he remained unconscious. Katrina followed my line of sight, landing on her patient, her mouth dropping open with the realization
“Wait…you mean him? Really? What in the world happened?” Her tone when she asked the questions revealed a mix of both concern and excitement, the woman enjoying the break from her mundane day to day duties of healing minor scrapes and bruises.
“How’s your training going with Professor Blake?” I changed the subject, hoping she would stop with the questions.
Even I was in the dark as to exactly what caused Todd’s breakdown, but as the Dean of the Academy, it was my job to figure it out, the safety of the students being my top priority.
“Don’t worry, sir, you are in excellent hands,” she answered my small talk with reassurance, assuming my question meant I was wary of her healing abilities, considering she was an apprentice.
“That’s not what I meant,” I told her, her expression letting me know she didn’t believe me.
“I can heal most wounds at this point, so your injury should be no problem. It’s just fixing broken bones that I still struggle with a little bit,” she paused, her eyes fixed in the distance as though she were remembering some memory.
A moment later, she shivered back to the present, shaking off whatever it was that happened in her past, my worry about her skills increasing just a little bit.
“Alright, I’m ready for you now.” She pulled a tray of medical supplies over to my bedside, the last item being the swivel chair as she took a seat on the small chair. “I just need you to remove your shirt and lay down on your stomach on the bed. You did say it was your back, right?”
“Yes, around here.” I stood up, waving my hand over the area coated in blood, knowing her question was asked in jest. Receiving a small smirk from the banter, I started removing my robe and the tunic I wore underneath.
Even with my back turned to her, I could feel Katrina’s stare, but I assumed she was searching for the injury. That is at least until I turned around, her gaze holding on my chest. I glanced down, wondering if there was another injury I had missed, but I found nothing. I looked back up, ready to get the healing over with, my eyes meeting her own.
“Everything okay?” I asked when she didn’t respond right away.
She snapped back to reality, shaking her head to regain her focus before gesturing to the bed, wanting me to lie on my stomach.
“Everything’s fine, I just was a little caught off-guard,” she mumbled, and I smirked to myself, realizing she was admiring my physique.
“No matter,” I responded, hoping to get rid of any awkwardness she felt.
If anything, I considered it a compliment. All of my adventuring and working for the Royal Guard kept me disciplined enough to maintain a good portion of my muscle mass despite my advanced years, so I could understand her reaction, and it was nothing to dwell on.
“Alright, let’s take a look at this wound, shall we?” She accepted my offer to ignore her initial reaction, returning to her professional demeanor. “It seems like there’s some blood pooling under the skin. I’ll have to drain it first before I can heal the wound with my magic,” she said thoughtfully, keeping me in the loop, but I knew she didn’t expect a response to her plan, so I just lay there like a good patient.
Reaching for a blade from her tray, she placed the cool metal against my skin and without so much as a warning, she sliced into my back in the same spot that once housed the dagger. I clenched my fists to endure the pain, my back suddenly feeling wet.
“He really got you deep,” she mumbled, holding a cloth over the wound, trying to seep up the blood as it poured from the new cut in my skin. “And you really just put a band-aid on it…I’m surprised you didn’t pass out from lack of blood.” She sounded a little annoyed at this point, so I thought it would be best to respond, even if she wasn’t looking for an answer.
“I stopped the bleeding,” I told her, seeing nothing wrong with my healing spell.
“Yes…you did. On the outside. But if you’re still bleeding internally, you can still die. You’re lucky your friend said something when she did…if it were left up to you, who knows what would’ve happened. Maybe you would’ve just passed away in your sleep tonight and nobody would be the wiser.”
I couldn’t refute her claim—after all she was the healer. I just hoped she was exaggerating. The pain still felt manageable, so much so that I probably would have just let the ‘band-aid’ do its job.
Knowing there was nothing I could say in my defense, I remained quiet, letting the young woman reprimand me for disregarding my own health. After listening to a whole speech on how I needed to take better care of myself, she finally said the wound was clean and ready to be healed.
I lay still as she began to chant, the point of her wand directed at my injury. With each word, the magic grew stronger, and I could feel the skin being stitched back together. While healing magic wasn’t painless, suffering through the process was worth it when an injury, one that would normally take weeks to heal, was gone in a matter of minutes.
When she finished, she placed a strip of gauze over the area, securing it in place with a few strips of tape. Propping myself up on my elbows, I craned my head back to examine her work. As I stared at the white square, I found myself wondering if the bandage was even necessary, already having decided for myself that it wasn’t.
My question must have been written on my face because when she met my gaze, she responded, “This is so you’ll remember that you were in fact injured. The skin around the area will be a bit weaker for the next twenty-four hours. Take care not to get stabbed in the same place again, Dean Hawthorne.” The excited and chipper apprentice I had walked in on earlier was gone, replaced by annoyance for my actions, leaving her responses a bit short.
“Thank you,” I responded sincerely, and she exhaled roughly, her attempt at letting go of her built-up frustrations toward the situation.
“Just be more careful, please. We don’t need the dean of this academy perishing over something so insignificant.”
“You’re right, you’re right. I’m very sorry. In the future, I will be sure to come to you for even the smallest of injuries,” I promised, albeit a bit sarcastically.
“That’s all I ask.” She smiled widely, ignoring the tone of my voice.
With the treatment concluded, I pulled on my tunic and headed toward the door, knowing for my next step I would need to set up a meeting with the council. The discussion of the incident was crucial and, as a unit, we could figure out what our next step should be, if anything. As I passed Todd’s bed, I gauged his condition one more time, the boy still unconscious, his breathing strong and steady.
The silver locket around his neck caught my attention, reminding me of the earlier conversation that took place between him and Jeremy. Wondering if it was at all related to the summoning circle, I decided to investigate it for myself, the trinket giving me a bad feeling. Katrina was busy with her notes, her back to me, so I gently picked up the locket, the small motion undoing the chain from around his neck, the material surprisingly brittle.
After making sure he was still asleep, I opened the locket, my breath caught in my throat, eager to know its secrets. I don’t know exactly what I expected—maybe just something that would explain what happened in the classroom—but the necklace was empty, the shiny metal reflecting my image on its surface. I held it closer to my eyes, wondering if I was missing something, but again I was left disappointed, the locket containing nothing of significance.
Placing the necklace in his vest pocket, I hurried out the health room door, no closer to finding out the truth behind the appearance of the snake demon. As I closed the door, I pulled out my wand, ready to teleport myself straight to the council room.
Chapter
Fifteen
HEXEREI ACADEMY
The council room was located on the opposite side of the building, but with magic, I appeared in the room in a handful of seconds. The space resembled my office in coloring, the dark wood giving it a professional appearance; instead of desks, however, a large table sat in the middle of the room, chairs lining either side.
Despite having space for the large group of council members to meet, the majority of the time the room sat empty, the in-person meetings only happening a couple times a year. Heading to the back cabinet in the corner of the room, I opened the double doors, pulling out a crystalline ball mounted on an intricate pedestal before heading to the table. Placing the instrument on the table, I sat down at the chair at its head and placed my palms on either side of the magical communication device.
