Chapter 31

S alem was excited to be having his first official lesson with Sora.

How he'd ended up with Amaru and Evora in on this lesson as well remained questionable. Not that he minded. Evora seemed equally keen to learn, as medical magic wasn't her specialty either.

Well, the more the merrier?

They were in Evora's workspace. Sora only visited Brazil to help with certain situations, so he didn't actually live here. Her workroom was an interesting mix between classic witch-style vibes with herbs hanging everywhere, and a very functional kitchen with a stainless steel table. She'd pulled in several padded chairs so they could comfortably sit at the table and take notes, which Salem appreciated. Really, the place reminded him of his grandmother's workroom, which he'd been in and out of as a kid.

Salem had his tablet with him, which included a whole list of questions, and he was ready to ask them all.

"All right, so Sora gave me an overview of what maladies can be treated without surgery. Which is a mind-boggling list. I'm seriously amazed at how much medical knowledge was lost due to the damn war. But what I'm curious about is, what if surgery is necessary? Say you have an organ that's just toast. Due to a rupture, maybe, and there's an immediate need to deal with it. What then?"

Amaru perked up like this question was meant for him. "There's all sorts of things we can do. So, we will need to do an incision to draw the organ out, of course, no other way to easily break it down and remove it without taxing the body. And since the body's under stress already, that's a bad idea. So, small incision, about uh…dammit, what was the measurement again?"

"Inch?"

"I was thinking—uh—centimeter, that's it! Anyway, about a centimeter. Then we can chop up the bad organ and pull it free, before restoring it."

Salem followed up until the last bit. "Restore…what? The skin?"

"Well, that too, we can mend the surgery incision pretty readily." Amaru's hands gesticulated as he talked, like he was trying to draw in the air and describe at the same time. "But I meant the organ."

Nope, still wasn't making sense. At least, Salem's brain refused to process these words as sensible ones.

Evora made a noise of interest from her seat at the head of the table. "I remember hearing stories about old mages regrowing limbs. You know how to do that, Amaru?"

"Honey, I can restore broken cores, limbs are easy in comparison."

Holy shit, he really was saying what Salem thought he was saying. Salem just about fell out of his chair.

"You're telling me you can regrow ORGANS?!"

"We," Amaru corrected. "The second I teach you the proper spells and methods, you can do it too. We can even grow them in situ , although it gets a bit tricky if it's a major organ. Say, replacing a heart. You have to keep the patient in a medical coma for about a week before it's safe for them to get up and stuff."

Salem made a noise he'd never made in his life. He wasn't sure if he felt envious, flabbergasted, or if straight-up greed burned in his chest. He didn't just want this knowledge. He needed it. He'd never needed something so badly in his life.

Well, except Gregori, but that went without saying.

Amaru's lips quirked up in a smug little way. "I can see you salivating from here, Doctor Hunter."

"You're damn right I am. Organ failure?"

"Pfft, easy."

"Immune disorders?"

"Tricky, usually more potion and spell oriented, but doable."

"Chronic illnesses?"

"Do not exist in my vocabulary."

Sora cleared his throat to draw attention back to himself. Because he sat right across the table from Salem, it was easy to meet his eyes.

"Salem, you must understand how valuable you are to us, as a community."

Salem pointed a finger toward himself in disbelief. "You guys can replace limbs and organs, and I'm valuable?"

"While we can do the work, very few of us—and that includes the Abe Clan—have medical licenses."

The full implication of what Sora said hit Salem squarely, and he blew out an understanding " Ah ."

No wonder, then. They'd be able to treat their own here at home with no issue. But if something happened and they were drawn outside of their community? Then their hands would figuratively be tied unless they were willing to break laws in an emergency. Damn. Talk about a tough spot to be in.

"I'm one of the few who does," Sora continued with an easy shrug. "But I wanted to travel the world as a nonprofit doctor, so I went the extra mile to get the license. You can see, though, how we desperately need you. You're legal."

In a stunning moment of clarity, he completely understood what they were saying. Why they were so anxious and excited to teach him, to make him one of them. He might very well be better put to use here than at his old hospital. It wasn't like he was replaceable here.

The door opened and Ha Na waltzed in. "Oh, am I late? Did you start already?"

"Barely," Amaru assured her, waving her into the chair next to Salem's. "Still covering the basics of what all magic can do."

Salem rubbed his forehead, feeling like he'd been given too many surprises all at once. "I thought my first talk with Sora covered all of this, but it turns out that was the summary of the summary, in a sense."

"There's so much to learn," Amaru commiserated with him. "Sora's still teaching me what he considers basics."

"And I spent forty years with all the basics," Sora tacked on. "So don't rush, Salem. There's time."

Ha Na's eyes bounced around the group, her face lighting up. "Oh! Oh, he's staying?"

"I'm staying." Salem said this firmly because he one hundred percent meant it. "I'm not returning to America. At least for the foreseeable future, until we hit a make-or-break point. Like hell will I do that after what happened with Gregori."

Ha Na reached right over and hugged him, her hair smelling of citrus and sun.

"Thank you," she whispered against his ear. "Thank you so much. For loving Gregori enough to change, but also for staying. My own children will need you in the future."

"You think I'm better than these three?"

"Once you're caught up, you will be." She leaned back, releasing him, her smile warm and grandmotherly. "Trust me. Sora and Amaru wouldn't be so excited to teach you otherwise. And you can still help the children while you're learning. Really, learning is a lifetime endeavor. You never really stop."

The truth of her words hit home. Salem believed this firmly as well. She was right, he shouldn't look at it as "I can't work until I've learned everything" but more of an apprenticeship. He'd learn while on the job. Although he'd definitely be cramming the basics in first.

"Speaking of, let's learn a spell." Sora scribbled something down in a notebook and passed it over to Salem. "This is the diagnostics spell. Try it on Ha Na."

He picked it up, accepted the bottle of captured sunshine Amaru offered him, and used it to power the spell. Which he pronounced very carefully.

" Shor dene zata na gev adi ."

The lines immediately drew themselves in the air above Ha Na. Exactly as he'd seen when Sora enacted this very spell. It was heartening for a full second before he realized he had no idea what he was looking at.

"Uh…I read this like a monitor screen last time, was I right or…?"

Sora stood from the table, coming around to his side, and started pointing. "You were right. The numbers above her heart indicate heart rate. Look at it the way you would a physical monitor."

Salem focused there and read aloud, "Eighty. All right, so I know heart rate is normal."

"Yup. Now, focus here below it. This is blood pressure."

"One twenty-two over seventy. Wow, Ha Na, that's an amazing BP for a woman of your age. I'd have thought you were forty with numbers like this."

She preened, pleased with herself. "Honestly, it wasn't so good when I first came into the clan. But with Sora and now Amaru monitoring my health, it's improved greatly. At this rate, I think I'll de-age."

"Physically, you've done just that." Sora gave her a smile before pointing to the next number, lower down. "You see here there's a red number."

"Oh, yes, right over the abdomen."

"What does it look like to you?"

"Hmm…perhaps a blockage?"

"Very good. There was a mild case of onset colon cancer, which we caught very early, and she's undergone treatment for it. It's why the number is red, but the one next to it is white, showing the improvement of the condition and that her small intestines are healing."

Wow. Treating cancer, even, without worries of it growing worse.

They kept going, with Evora also leaning around to see better so she could follow Sora's explanation. Salem frantically took notes and tried to absorb everything at the same time. It was incredible what all this diagnostic spell could do. He'd known this before, from Sora's explanation, but actually seeing it in person was something else entirely. There wasn't a disease, condition, or ailment that couldn't be detected by this spell. Even that was life-changing because, often, half the battle was diagnosing the actual problem.

Sora gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Those are the basics. Let the spell go now. We don't want to wear you out."

He let it go, although reluctantly, as it was so fascinating. "How long can this spell be held?"

"Depends. By yourself? About an hour, comfortably. If it's a group working? Days. Which sometimes happens." Sora returned to his own seat. "We had a case a good twenty years ago now where one of the dragons got caught in a terrible storm, was hit by lightning, and we all went into emergency mode to save him. Myself, my parents, and three of my cousins did a group working to repair the damaged organs, restore limbs, etc. But it meant we had to keep the diagnostics up for days to make sure he was healing, no blood clots caused trouble, or any of that. In fact, Amaru's met him."

Amaru popped upright. "Wait, I have?"

"Ha Na, too. Rashi, the amiable guy who helped lead people out of the caves and into the tent encampment."

"Oh my god! But he didn't have anything wrong with him. He flew into town several times for supplies, even."

Sora smirked. "The Abe do their work properly, you know. But he's an example of what it sometimes takes to put people back on the mend. It's not always easy, but it can be done, especially if we have multiple mages all lending strength to the patient."

Incredible. Truly incredible to think they were able to heal a dragon struck by lightning.

Salem looked Sora dead in the eye. "I want to be you when I grow up."

Sora just laughed. "Compliment taken, thank you. It's partially why I'm encouraging Evora to learn, especially since she's got a good eye for detail. If Evora, Amaru, and you all become the main physicians for the Valerii, I don't think you'll even need me to pop over here."

He might be right, but… "I'm still calling you for advice even after I get caught up."

"Fine by me. I'll call on you, too, when my kids get into something. Because let's face it, they'll get into something."

"They're kids." Salem sat back in his chair. "That's their job."

"They do it too well, some days. Okay, for this meeting, I vote we set up a schedule and a training regime. As we just said, there's too much to learn all at once. Amaru, you're still catching up on current tech?—"

Amaru gave a defeated sigh, like technology was not only insulting him but also his mother by advancing so quickly.

"—so let's do this. Salem, walk Amaru through what you do in a surgery. Let him watch videos and such so he can see how the tech operates. Then the two of you can figure out what equipment he can make to work with the magic we'll teach you. I'll take you every other day with Evora, teach you the basic potions to treat most ailments, and then gradually advance up to spells. Sound good?"

Really, it was the only reasonable method of attack. "Sounds good to me. Can I have homework?"

"Oh, you're getting homework," Sora promised in a tone of doom. "You, Evora, and Amaru."

Was it wrong Salem was really excited to hear this?