Chapter 24

T he next day, Salem woke to a still very sick dragon. Gregori's fever had broken during the night, at least, but he clearly wasn't doing any better. Salem fortunately had the day off, so he was determined to stick close and nurse his, er, boyfriend better.

This morning he took extra care to sneak out of bed, leaving Gregori sleeping, because right now sleep was the best medicine.

He thought about postponing his talk with Sora, but…Gregori had been true to his word and organized a Skype talk with him, and Salem was far too excited to postpone it. He had so, so many questions for the man. If he had possessed any idea of Sora knowing magic medicine, he'd have bent the man's ear during the wedding. It just proved he and Sam really didn't talk enough. Salem made a promise to himself he'd fix that because he was too disconnected from his twin's life.

Anyway, he took the call while sitting at his kitchen table so he could take notes. He'd ask more about colds, too, with the hopes of helping with Gregori's condition.

Promptly at nine, Skype started ringing. Salem hit Accept, feeling much like a new medical student, with the same kind of interest and anticipation. Learning new things was always exciting!

Sora looked a touch tired, as all fathers of young children were, but his smile was bright and without shadows. He spoke in a confident, unhurried manner, his voice smooth and pleasant. " Salem, nice to meet you ."

"Nice to meet you, Sora. Thanks so much for this, I honestly have more questions than anything after what Gregori told me."

" I'm hopefully full of answers ."

Salem had no doubt he would be. "All right, give me the basics here. What all can spells, potions, and magical medicine do?"

" More than what modern medicine can do ," Sora answered bluntly. " Off the top of my head, it can correct vision, heal torn muscles and ligaments, correct illnesses and deformities of organs, et cetera ."

He stared at the man, quite sure Sora was pulling his leg. "Are you…are you kidding?"

" I'm not even exaggerating ."

Sora felt like his brain was a gerbil on a wheel, starting to panic as it moved in an unexpected way. "For instance…?"

" Hmm, for instance, had a case yesterday where one of the mages fell off the roof while they were doing some building work. Broke their leg in three places, tore ligaments, including Achilles tendon, the works ."

Salem winced. Just a torn Achilles tendon took a year to heal. It was no joke.

" I expect them to be back to walking and working next week ," Sora finished with something like a smirk.

All thoughts crashed, rather in an ugly dogpile, right into each other. Salem made a croaking sound, tone tilting upward in something like a question, but he couldn't begin to formulate words to go along with it. A week. A week?! They should have been in a cast and physical therapy for a good year!

" Between healing potions, noninvasive surgery, and our own version of immobilization spells, they'll make a full recovery in very little time. In fact, let me show you a small piece of what I can do ."

Sora turned his head and said, " Hey, come here for a second ."

" What need, Papa ?"

" You, munchkin ."

Sora reached down and picked up an atrociously cute child. Thick, curly black hair, big brown eyes—the absolute epitome of a child model given life. This must be one of his twins, who Salem had seen from a distance when he was in Brazil. Damn, Sora and Ravi made cute kids.

" Setz dich bitte ," Sora directed.

The child plopped himself right on the edge of the desk at this direction, given in German from the sounds of it.

Sora lifted a hand and spoke a spell, most of which went right over Salem's head, but the second he finished, a thin red line flew out of his hands and drew itself in interesting lines all around his child. In fact—oh my god, it was drawing out the child's skeletal structure, then major organs, and hooo, there were numbers showing blood pressure, heartbeat, oxygen intake, the works. Like a magical monitor. But better. He could see in a glance everything he needed without taking x-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds, any of it.

Salem whimpered. "Please, please tell me you can teach me this spell."

" It's a little hard to do over distance ," Sora admitted. " Takes some practice to get the right hang of it. But I'll do my best ."

He released the spell, kissed his child on the head, and then turned him loose.

As the child ran off, he instructed, " Do not go flying without either me or your father !"

There was a giggle of pure mischief but notably no agreement.

Sora sighed. " He's already thinking of what to get into. I'm doomed. Why did I agree to two of them at once ?"

"I can't help you there."

Salem rubbed his head, feeling like his brain was going to leak out of his ears at this rate. "Sora, you did that so easily. Is it a basic spell for you?"

" It is. Takes no prep and only captured sunlight. As you just saw. Now, let me fully explain what all you can do ."

Sora launched into something of a Basics 101 lecture of everything, sometimes only giving an overview as he admitted it wasn't his specialty, but this was what he knew about it. Just the summary was enough to blow Salem's mind. What Sora explained meant a wholly different approach to medicine, one where Salem could defeat chronic illnesses, conditions, and injuries he could do precious little about with modern medicine.

Dammit, this wasn't fair. Sora held all of the knowledge Salem would give a limb to possess and here he was on a wholly different continent.

Salem fired off one question after another, trying to find magic's limitations and received basically this answer in return: While there were limitations, they didn't begin to compare to the limitations Salem already labored under. Salem could do vastly more with magic.

When Sora wound down from his lecture, Salem felt like crying. From frustration and envy, mostly.

"Sora." Salem huffed out a breath, already knowing the answer, but needing to ask it anyway. "Last week I had a situation where a little girl almost died on the surgery table. It should have been a routine appendectomy, but her grandmother slipped her food before the surgery, and she crashed on the table. We barely saved her. If I was trained like you are, would that have happened?"

" No ," Sora answered decisively. " For one thing, appendectomies are a very, very rare occurrence for us. All of the normal causes for appendicitis are things we can cure. Parasites, bacterial infection—all of those things we have potions for. The only time I've ever seen an appendectomy done was when the woman in question had blunt force trauma to her rib cage, and it was so bad it ruptured the appendix. We chose not to save it as there was already so much damaged, and we focused on the other organs ."

"So an extreme outlier."

" Pretty much. Your patient would never have needed surgery to begin with ."

Shit. Salem had just known that would be the answer.

He had lamented only days ago how he wished his magic could help save a child. Now, he was told it could. That all the information he needed existed right here in front of him. What else could he do but grasp it with both hands?

"Sora? Any chance you take apprentices?"

Sora grinned, laughing a little. " I already put together a bundle of textbooks for you. Had a feeling you'd want to know everything ."

"Well, yeah, duh!"

" To answer, yes, I'm happy to teach you ." Sora pointed downward. " Type in chat your email and phone number so I can send you things. "

Salem leapt to obey. "Are these books digital?"

" They are. Some of them are scans because they're so old. We don't dare pass around the physical copies. Makes them interesting to read. I highly suggest printing them out rather than trying to read them on a screen ."

"Got it."

" Sadly, I have to cut this short ." Sora sighed, glancing off to the side. " I'm due somewhere else in about thirty minutes. But start with the reading ."

"Sounds awesome. Sora, thank you so much for this."

" Not a problem. I quite enjoyed the conversation. You ask very good questions. For now, I'll let you go ." With a wave, he cut the connection.

Salem sat there for a good five minutes just trying to process everything he had learned. Failed. Too much input, he needed to buffer for a while.

Shit, to think he could do so much with magic. Half his skills as a surgeon would be obsolete, really, but for the benefit of the patient, it was a trade-off he was more than willing to make.

Although, dammit, he'd meant to ask about colds and had gotten so distracted he'd forgotten to. Well, he'd text Sora his question in a second. He wanted to check on Gregori first.

Too excited to sit still, he popped up and headed for the bedroom. He and Sora had been talking for nearly three hours, but Gregori still hadn't come out. Could be he was just sleeping his cold off still, but Salem had a million things to talk about, and it was time for him to get up. For more meds, if nothing else.

Pushing the door open, he singsonged, "Rise and—oh shit."

Gregori lay in a fetal position on the bed, making a barely audible low groaning sound, more felt than heard. He looked awful, and every doctor instinct Salem had kicked into overdrive in a flat second.

Diving for him, Salem knelt on the bed, first taking a rough temp with his hand. Gregori was cold and clammy to the touch, which wasn't great.

"Gregori. Gregori, can you answer me?"

Those dark brown eyes fluttered open before closing.

"Hurts," Gregori whimpered. "Can't…can't feel it."

"Can't feel…what? Can't feel your dragon form, is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah."

Salem could not find a word accurate enough to encapsulate his terror. There was nothing, for all his training, he could do to help Gregori right then. He didn't know enough about dragons to begin to even guess.

He was in well over his head and the nearest help he could call was in Brazil. DAMMIT.

His phone dinged in his pocket. Salem jerked it free, not caring who was trying to reach him. He'd call Sam, get Sora back on the line—oh. It was Sora who'd texted. So he had his number, thank god.

Punching Call, he put it on speaker and laid it on the pillow, grabbing the extra quilt on the end of the bed to tuck around Gregori, as he didn't like at all how cold he felt.

" Hi, " Sora answered, sounding surprised. " Did you already have another question ?—"

"Sora, Gregori's crashing," he interrupted. "He's in a fetal position, cold and clammy to the touch, and in pain. He said he can't feel his dragon."

" Shimatta, " Sora breathed. " That's really not good. Give me your address, we'll fly up immediately ."

"Thank you, and is there anything I can do in the meantime?"

" Get him on the roof, if you can. Outside. He'll do better outside, and you might be able to coax him into shifting. If he can shift, all the better ."

"Got it." Salem had no idea how he'd heft Gregori's ass up to the roof, but he was damned if he wasn't going to manage it somehow. "Do you have any idea why he's like this?"

" Only a guess. We worried, honestly, about him being up there with you. He's so very far removed from his clan, and a dragon has never done what he's done. His dragon could very well be in withdrawal right now. "

So this was Salem's fault. For being stubborn, for refusing to leave, knowing Gregori would never separate from him. For a full second, he hated himself.

" Text me his condition on the hour. It'll be impossible to call while we're in flight, but I want updates. We'll leave as soon as I can throw a saddle on somebody. I'll bring Dimitri and Sam up with me ."

"Please and thank you."

He hung up, then looked helplessly at Gregori. As fast as they would fly up here, it was still a good eight hour wait. Maybe ten. He wasn't sure how fast a dragon could fly. It had taken him fifteen hours to get back, but that had involved a layover, so Salem wasn't sure how to calculate it.

Gregori made a defeated sound. "Sorry."

"Don't you dare apologize to me for this," Salem choked out. Everything in him burned with regret, with shame, because Gregori had pushed himself this hard so he could stay with Salem. It should never have come down to this. "I'll be very mad at you later for not answering me honestly and telling me something was wrong, but right now, we're getting you on the roof. Uh. Can you stand?"

Gregori gave a slow shake of the head. "Hurts."

"Everything hurts, huh. All right, what's your password for your phone?"

"Same as…same as day we met."

This fucking romantic. What the hell was he supposed to do with him?

Salem snatched up Gregori's phone from the bedside table, only to find a picture of himself as the background on the home screen. Seriously, this romantic. Shaking it off, he pulled up the contacts and typed in fire . Sure enough, the number for the firefighters Gregori volunteered with was right in the contacts.

Gregori's eyes slipped back out of focus. Even answering those brief questions had completely wiped him out. It honestly terrified Salem to see how weak he was, but Gregori wasn't going to get better if Salem sat there and panicked.

He dialed the number, keeping one hand on Gregori all the time, hoping his dragon self would feel better with him right on hand.

The firemen were about to get shanghaied into helping him get a dragon on a roof.