Yuu heard from Azul only once after ‘the wedding incident.’ Ironically, it was the morning after, so bright and early that her brain had hardly restarted, when a nameless, faceless octavinelle student turned up on the doorstep of Ramshackle with a box for her. Then, in her tired haze of asking-no-questions, she nodded at the boy in question, who quickly booked it off the property. Yuu had no doubt that whatever reason the boy had for being there, Azul was probably letting him pay off a debt for running his errands. Still, it said something that the gift had arrived at the very first opportunity.

  Didn’t it?

  Yuu placed the box on the table during breakfast. Then, on the kitchen counter for safekeeping while she baked enough sweets for the Ace-Deuce combo still asleep on the couches. True to form, they, and Grim likely wouldn’t be up until lunch. She hummed as she swept the first floor, and cleaned around the box on the second. She dressed as normal, carrying the box with her, and even accidentally matched her shoes to the color of its purple ribbon.

  By the time noon rolled around, however, and she’d spent a solid hour organizing, and reorganizing her scant belongings whilst the box watched her from her bed, Yuu had to admit that she was stalling.

  The mark on her shoulder was really beginning to sting, as if it could sense her ignoring it. So, after the first sounds of movement rumbled from boys waking up on the lower floor reached her through the floorboards, Yuu pounced on the box, pulling the ribbon aside, only to find the box empty aside from a tiny bottle of ink.

  “Great,” she mumbled. “A night of worrying and bleeding over the man, and he thinks my pen needs a new cartridge?”

  She let the bottle fall out onto the bed, and an equally tiny folded paper fell after it.

  “Ah-hah!” she scooped it up victoriously. “Now we’re talking!”

  Unfolding it, she read:

  Yuu,

  The antidote in this bottle will stop the venom in the bite from spreading until I can find a permanent cure. Apply to the wound, and let set three minutes before cleaning.

  

  
1. A.


  

  It was short. It mentioned nothing of the night before, except to tell her that he at least remembered as much of it as she did…probably. However, the handwriting wasn’t his, and the box, though in his signature colors, looked professionally wrapped.

  “Okay… he sends a dictated note, and a dose of fancy octopus advil. That’s….sweet?”

  However, the more Yuu thought about it, the more agitated she became. Remembering the purple goo that had oozed out of the bite the day before, she’d known there was something malicious in the bite, and Madame Ashengrotto had said that it would…eat her alive? However, the woman had just seemed so dramatic, and Yuu hadn’t been in a state of mind to think about it, but now that she did, she couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. Did the dust take away he whole sense of self-preservation? She’d been poisoned!—er, Venomed!

  It was that panic rushing through her veins (which she tried desperately to slow down, as her veins had apparently been VENOMED,) that pushed her to shove on her shoes, run right by the Terrible Three munching pancakes in the downstairs kitchen, and straight to the healer.

  “Hey, Human! Where ya going?” called Grim.

  “Morning, Yuu! Why aren’t you eating with us?” echoed Ace.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Yuu?” Deuce mumbled, apparently still waking up.

  “Later!” she deflected, rushing straight out the door to the healer’s office.

  *

  The healer was unhelpful.

  “You attended a mermaid wedding?” he’d asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You were bitten by… a part-fish hybrid. Any known venomous tendencies?”

  “Well, the species itself isn’t venomous, but—”

  “The wound seems clean.”

  “Sure, but—”

  “And have you had any….adverse side effects so far?”

  “No, but—”

  “In that case, what we are looking at is a rather rare, but not unheard of case of an oral-vascular exchange of mana. It is certainly not deadly, but can create a localized mana influx in the skin, sometimes leading to discoloration, warmth, and residual emotional sensitivity. "

  Yuu's face went a shade redder than the mark itself. "A... magical hickey?"

  “In perhaps gutter-dweller’s terms, yes.”

  “I don’t have magic. What does that mean?’

  “If you do not have magic, then the science around the wound has limited research, but likely the energy from the magic would either burn you slightly, or simply take its course and fizzle out.”

  “What does ‘take its course,’ mean?” she asked dubiously.

  “Why, erm…”

  “You don’t know. Because there haven’t been any documented cases. And how amount if this thing was from a cecaelian?”

  “If that were the case, then there would be even less research from which to draw.”

  The healer knew nothing, she quickly gathered. And, if mermaid marks weren’t usually poisonous and this one obviously was, then he wouldn’t know anything about an antidote either.

  She swallowed hard. That only left…

  *

  “I’m so sorry, Yuu, but I’m afraid Azul isn’t here at the moment,” said Jade, when she knocked on the door of the Octavinelle male dorms.

  “Not here?” Yuu could feel her panic rising. “I got a note from him this morning, but there’s something I need to ask him.”

  “I apologize, but I’m not sure where Azul has gone.”

  It was frustrating news, but even she knew there was nothing Jade could do to control his Prefect’s every move. To expect as much would be ridiculous, but… well, maybe she was feeling a little ridiculous.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “I regret to say that—”

  She held up a hand. There were only so many rejections could hear when desperation was doing a haughty jig on one’s emotional doorstep.

  “That’s alright. He’s probably not the right person for this, anyway.”

  That certainly got attention, but, being Jade, he wiped the surprise away from his features as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Do you know of a way to send letters to residents of Atlantica?” she asked quickly.

  “Of course,” Jade’s placid smile returned. “Do you have an address?”

  “I suspect I won’t need one to send a note to the heir of the Banejaw family.”

  Jade, to his credit, took that statement in stride.

  “No, I imagine not. If you use the mirror system, I believe if you give it instructions as to the recipient, the mirror system should take it to the transportation mirror within their own home, although I doubt they read all incoming mail personally…”

  She shook her head, smiling.

  “They’ll read this one.”