Page 19 of The Lost Art of Finding Where You Belong

He managed to drag himself upright, returned the basket to the kitchen, and began to make his way to Brannal’s rooms with the blanket, where he ran into Nisal.

“There you are!” they said happily, brown eyes sparkling. “How would you like to help with making salve again?” They eyed him more closely. “You all right?”

“Fell asleep after the picnic. Didn’t sleep too well last night. Trying not to be the saddest thing that ever sadded just because I’m on my own at the moment.”

They gave him a sideways hug, and he leaned into them for a moment.

“It’ll be all right,” they told him. “Distraction?"

He nodded. Hopefully he couldn’t go wrong helping with the salve.

The doctor greeted him warmly. She was a no-nonsense older woman with graying hair and perceptive dark eyes. She eyed him carefully but seemed to decide after a moment not to say anything about what he assumed was his disheveled/sleep-deprived and/or too-sad-to-be-polite-in-public self.

She made sure he was scrubbed clean, then set him to work.

Nisal started talking to the salve first this time, but Perian wasn’t about to let his salve get left behind. He’d started it the first time they’d made salve together, when the doctor had explained that it seemed to work better if mixed by hand. Perian had figured encouragement couldn’t hurt.

They spent the next hour or so telling their salves they were going to be the most amazing salves in the world.

The doctor, when she emerged from her office, looked bemused.

“We figure it can’t hurt,” Perian admitted with a slightly embarrassed shrug. He cleared his throat. “Is Life Magic really gone forever?”

They both looked at him curiously.

“I mentioned it to Renny,” Perian explained. “Just that it used to exist, because I’d never heard of it before you mentioned it, Doctor. She wants to look into it more.”

Nisal grimaced a little.

“It’s been lost for over three hundred years,” the doctor said, eyes sad. “Destroyed in the Great Cataclysm, when so many people died.”

“And demons were pushed back into their world and the breaches sealed,” Perian finished, because he knew at leastsomeof their history.

She nodded. “Exactly so.”

He made a face. “But no one can figure out what happened? Or, I don’t know, figure out how to do it from any of the old books?”

He was probably not the first person to have had that thought.

It was Nisal who shook their head. “There are very few books about Life Magic. We’re not sure anymore if there were never very many or if they were destroyed or lost over the years. The Mages have most of the small number of remaining books, as they have the biggest repository of magical knowledge, but we have a couple that at least mention it. The thing is, they’re not books on how togetLife Magic. As far as we can tell, just like with the elemental magic, you have the ability or you don’t. And no one has the ability anymore. Even if the books had instructions, which they don’t, they don’t give anyone an ability they don’t possess.”

The doctor said, “I once had the privilege of reading a book about Life Magic that mentioned something like ‘charging up’ before a great working. I am given to understand this is not quite like elemental magic.”

Nisal shook their head. “No. We can all exhaust ourselves, of course, and we should be well-rested, but I wouldn’t call it ‘charging up.’ Is it just a change in language, or is it a completely different process? I think they assume a level of knowledge and comprehension that we just don’t possess anymore.”

Perian nodded. “I guess that makes sense. It just seems such a shame. Truly no one, in all this time?”

Nisal shook their head again. “Not a single person.”

They’d been more than lucky to survive the Great Cataclysm, to only have small pockets of demons appearing in the centuries since rather than being nearly overrun by them. Losing Life Magic and so many lives seemed like a high price topay, though.

When the doctor judged the salves had been mixed adequately, he and Nisal pulled their arms out, scraping as much of the salve back into the vat as possible. The doctor handed Perian a towel, and he made the mistake of trying to move too fast or something, and swayed, his vision suddenly going fuzzy.

There was nothing like having a dizzy spell in front of a doctor. She and Nisal both sprang into action, getting him to sit down, peering into his eyes, checking his pulse, and asking rapid questions to try to ascertain what was wrong.

“I’m fine,” Perian told them. “Just moved too fast or something.”

“When did you last eat?” the doctor demanded.

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