The Enchanter was nowhere to be found.

At first, it wasn't much to be concerned with. Sometimes he stayed up late conducting whatever research he was working on in the tower or in the library, and Aoife wound find him late in the afternoon, asleep on one of the sofas. Most days when he didn't show up for training, she simply went through the routine herself and used the time to bask in the quiet.

Things only became truly concerning when he didn't show up for dinner.

Aoife left the food untouched and immediately walked out of the room, letting the door swing shut behind her as she briskly made her way to the library. The room housed only shadows, though, the light of the setting sun streaming through the windows and illuminating the shelves in shades of deep orange. The tower was empty, as well, her legs protesting as she started the long trek back down to the main floor. He wasn't in the inner courtyard or the kitchen, and he certainly was not at dinner, though she did check one more time just to be certain.

That was how she wound up at the door to his room, looking warily at the carved flowers on the heavy wooden door. She knocked quietly as she spoke, hoping he could hear her on the other side.

"Hello? Are you in there?" No response. However, there wasn't anywhere else he could be. She wasn't meant to go in there- in fact, it was only of his few rules. If there was something wrong, though, wasn't it a rule worth breaking? Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Aoife opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was... not exactly what she expected.

It was a mess, but that wasn't surprising judging by the state of the tower. There were papers everywhere and discarded clothes in so many piles that she couldn't tell what was clean or what was dirty. However, the room itself seemed to have only the bare essentials. The walls were plain stone, devoid of decoration. There was a large bed with thick curtains, draped in green, a plain green rug covering most of the floor, a large desk, and a standing wardrobe. Other than that, the place was empty. No knickknacks, no personal items other than the papers, nothing that seemed decorative or individual at all. Aoife didn't bring much with her, but she at least kept her cloak and her embroidery box nearby. In here there was nothing that seemed his.

And... it was cold. Aoife shivered, realizing that if there had been a fire in the fireplace, it had died out many hours ago. Her gaze swept across the room one more time, nearly missing that the messy pile of blankets on the bed wasn't a pile of blankets at all, but a man. A man who suddenly began violently coughing.

A tiny gasp slipped past her lips as she rushed over to the bed, picking her way past discarded clothes and torn papers. She pulled down the green duvet just enough to see the Enchanter, coughing in a fitful sleep, white hair splayed out over the pillows in ghostly tangles and a fine sheen of sweat on his skin. Instinctively, she reached out and placed a hand on his forehead. Even through the fabric of her gloves, it was easy to tell something was wrong.

"He's too warm..." she mumbled to no one in particular. His fever was high. A slight flutter of panic rose in her chest, but she squashed it down. She didn't think Fae could become sick, but apparently she was wrong... or maybe the Enchanter had just enough human in him to allow that. Either way, he would be in trouble without some help.

Her first instinct was to build back up the fire in the grate, but that would take more time than hiking up to the tower to find medicine. It wasn't deathly cold in the room, and he had plenty of blankets. Fifteen more minutes couldn't make him worse than he already was, and the sooner she could get something in him to help with the fever, the better.

Besides the fever and the cough, she couldn't see any other symptoms. His skin didn't appear to be discolored, barring the silver Mark, and he wasn't lucid enough at this point to ask for any other things he might be feeling. Instead of trying to get any extra information from him in this state, Aoife went straight to the workshop to look for herbs.

As she moved towards the stairs to the tower, the thought crossed her mind that this could be the perfect time to run away. The sun hadn't yet set, so she would have enough light to see by to make a heading, and she could travel through the night and sleep during the day, when it would be easier to avoid the beasts in the forest that the Enchanter warned her about. She knew where the food stock was, where the clothing was, and even where there was a map in the tower that could show her the way to a new life.

She considered, and her feet slowly stopped moving.

It wasn't only possible- it would be easy. She'd run before. Granted, the last time hadn't worked out so well, but it wasn't the dead of winter and she would be prepared. Run away to a new life, a new place. Make a fresh start for herself using what little she knew about her magic now, and continue not touching people. Maybe she would go somewhere far away from Faerie this time, far enough that no one knew about magic or would questions why she wanted to be left alone. Live her life in peace. Erase all this.

Except... she couldn't really erase it, could she?

Aoife's hand drifted up to her neck, the tips of her fingers dipping under the collar of her shirt to trace the thin scar across her neck. She couldn't feel the slight raised texture through her gloves, but she knew it was there. Every line on her body and line on her heart stayed there like grisly ghosts, settling and seething and sticking to everything she did, to everything she was and everything she would ever become. Clothes could hide and mirrors could lie, and Enchanters could place locks on her memories until the day she died, but it would not change the power in her hands or the ache in her heart.

She used to believe that she would forever be a soul so unwanted that even the Reaper spat her back into this world. However, another part of her was beginning to revolt against that notion, however small that part might be. There was a chance, however small, that she might be able to live a normal life after all this was said and done. The Enchanter might be sneaky and crafty and keep secrets, but he'd promised to help her control her magic, if for no other reason than he needed her help. If she believed in anything at the moment, especially after seeing all of his research and dedication to this project, she truly believed that he believed he needed her. It was a shot in the dark at the best, not a good one, and only a vague chance of succeeding with both their limited knowledge bases about her powers, but it was the only real chance she had left.

Aoife hauled herself back up the steps of the tower as quickly as she could, breathing hard from exertion and cursing the fact that the place with all the medicinal herbs in the castle was so difficult to get to. The tower was a mess, as usual, with pages half-full of writing lying around here and there, stacks of notebooks thrown to one side and disorganized cabinets of ingredients with their doors flung open.

She only needed a few things to make a tea that would bring down his fever, but she needed them quickly, and the Enchanter's awful organization wasn't helping matters. The bottles were thrown here and there, dumped on their sides with contents thrown into disarray, many of them with faded or missing labels. Thankfully, Aoife was able to identify most of the plants by sight, but she hated to think what would happen if someone else came up here looking for things.

Then again, perhaps that was the point.

"Come on, where's the wormswort..." she muttered, beginning to open drawers. She'd have to go out and get some if she couldn't find it, and it wouldn't be good to leave him alone in this state...

Ah ha!

Aoife found it and the other ingredients as quickly as she could. Something to bring his fever down, something to soothe the aches, and something to help his body's natural healing process. It wouldn't smell or taste very good, but it would help, and that was the important part.

She took the ingredients and a pot back up to the Enchanter's bedroom and set to work, boiling the brew over the fireplace in the bedroom so she could keep an eye on him while he slept. He didn't move once, looking almost like a corpse as he lay in bed, pale and clammy. He took shallow breaths as he slept, the only indicator that he was at least stable.

"Enchanter?" she said hesitantly. No response. She gently brushed his hair away from his face, checking his fever again. "Come on, wake up."

"Aoife?" he said groggily, eyes fluttering open, but his gaze never quite managed to focus on her face.

"Drink this."

Before he could protest, she pressed the bowl to his lips, tilting his head up with her free hand to help him swallow. When she removed the bowl, he began coughing again, glaring at her with an expression of distaste.

"What the hell did you give me?" He looked up at her with bleary eyes, trying and failing to sit up before collapsing back onto the bed. Aoife sat the cup down on the nightstand with a clink before perching on the side of the bed, trying to straighten out the tangled blankets, though the Enchanter simply scoffed and brushed her hands away.

"You've got a dangerously high fever. It'll bring your body temperature down."

There was enough of the brew that she wouldn't need to make more, as long as she didn't let it cool. The reeking stench coming from the bubbling pot in the fireplace made her eyes water, but she needed to keep it warm for it to be most effective.

For now, she could at least keep an eye on the brew and keep an eye on the Enchanter at the same time. However, there were a few papers dangerously close to the fireplace that needed to be moved out of the way, so she carefully picked them up and carried them away from the flames.

The room was an absolute mess, but she wouldn't have normally touched anyone's personal items except that they were dangerously close to catching fire and burning the place down. The strange scribbles on the pages caught her eye as she moved them, and Aoife found herself looking closer at the pages.

She could see a few words here and there, if she squinted. Curse, wind, here, ground, leaf, land, stone, death. They were short and mostly scattered, but a few pages that she thought looked important she sat to the side, planning on telling the Enchanter where they were when he awoke. The few diagrams were much more helpful than the pages full of text, she thought, and she spent more time puzzling over them.

There were circles with smaller circles inside, lines connecting them. Maps, too. Many of them were covered in markings, territory lines drawn and redrawn in red, blue, and black-colored ink. Boundaries before the wars, boundaries after the wars, and... something else. There was a black boundary in a shape that could only be described as a blob, and another blob around it, and another around that one. Five concentric shapes, ever changing, ever expanding. There were four-digit numbers beside the lines, but Aoife wasn't sure what they stood for.

She would simply have to ask him later. There wasn't time to puzzle over it right now, not with a sick man in bed and a brew bubbling over the fire. This could wait.