Typhoon & Tempest

Chapter Twenty Four

Lily was wary as her two old teachers approached Niall's bed. It was paranoia fueling her distrust, seeing as her old PE teacher was in cahoots with Yuric the whole time she'd known her, but Lily knew Principal Lauren and Ms Marlowe had good intentions as they stood opposite her with the battered nymph lying between them.

"So, tell me Doctor," Niall joked, brushing his hair off his forehead. "Will I live?"

Henry Lauren smiled. "You've had a concussion, Mr Guthrie. You'll be back on your feet in no time."

Niall raised an eyebrow, smiling at being called mister, but Lily's attention snapped to Ms Marlowe stepping forward to his bed. The teacher surveyed his bruised wrists and bloody temple under her thick lashes, looking sly as she took in the dirt and blood streaked through Niall's white hair and the dark violet eyes never meeting her gaze.

When the teacher raised her hand to rest on Niall's forearm, Lily tensed. Ms Marlowe paused and looked at her former student in the new Supernova light. Lily couldn't help flicking her gaze between the fairy and the nymph, wondering what she was going to do.

"I'm just checking his wounds, Lily." Ms Marlowe's grin was as sharp as a knife.

Lily clenched her jaw as the veins in the fairy's hands flared purple, along with her eyes, and her magic draped over Niall's pale arm like a waterfall. He squirmed seeing the healing magic coat his body like dew.

Ms Marlowe frowned, a bead of sweat forming on her brow. "This...is unusual."

Henry Lauren leaned over Niall's bed and examined the bruises still there. "Your magic seems to be over the wound, Aisha."

"Yes but it's like there's no wound there. I feel like I'm trying to grasp a string in a whirlwind."

"Niall constantly floats above the ground as a nymph, maybe he's like me and can't be healed?" Lily asked but the hope of someone being like her died when Ms Marlowe shook her head.

"No, with you it's a whole other depth. This just needs..." The fairy narrowed her purple eyes and her magic, instead of pouring like water, snapped into mist. A purple, smoky haze gently breezed around Niall's arm before landing on his bruises, instantly healing them. "...A new technique."

The Principal cocked his head to the side. "Interesting. Upon hearing he floats, and my guess is you recalling he's an air-based supernatural, you turned your magic into a nature his body is familiar with."

Ms Marlowe's snake-like grin returned as her magic drifted to Niall's temple, healing the wound and the concussion wrapped around his mind. "Yes I did."

"Excellent work, Aisha."

"Thank you, Henry." Ms Marlowe looked to Lily, taking in her unharmed body and the wary expression on her face. "I spoke to some of my contacts about healing the impossible, they enlightened me and gave me the idea of new techniques."

"Such as?"

"Well, turns out the world is hiding more than we thought." Ms Marlowe shrugged, waving to Niall. "There are nymphs and phoenixes here, for one, and we never knew. I asked a contact in Egypt, a scholar, and she asked an old friend in Russia. They asked someone in Ireland, then Scotland, then Puerto Rico, and I finally got a response back from a new contact in Colombia - who knew someone in Cuba - that described healing rare supernaturals as 'a theft of clarity and a heist in illusion'."

"What does that mean?" Lily asked, her mind churning at the countries Ms Marlowe named.

With a wave over Niall's non-bruised skin, Ms Marlowe's smile twitched. "'Make the healing magic appear akin to the magic its host is gifted with', is what I translated it as."