And They Were Roommates(47)

“Cavalier Captain Robert, Charlie,” he huffs as he approaches. The blazer tied around his neck flutters into his eyes, briefly revealing the number-three pin on his collar. He smacks the blazer away. “What a serendipitous coincidence to spot you yonder. I just now returned from the sister academy to acquire their correspondence.”

“Charlie’s ill,” Robby tells him.

Blaze latches on to Robby’s blazer sleeve. I can barely make out the alarmed look behind his seaweed bangs. “Charlie is a fellow warrior. He cannot fall ill. What if the fated day strikes?”

I’m still so desperate for an answer about my disease that I don’t care about Robby’s lack of professional doctor experience, let alone that I’ve been allowing him to see this much of me up close for several minutes. “You must know at least some medical basics, especially if you want to go into veterinary medicine. I bet you study this stuff in your free time for fun. You’re second on our ranks.”

Robby sighs, which means I’m right. He points beyond the five crisscrossing paths and marble fountain in the Halo, toward the outdoor picnic tables circling Dix. “Fine. Let’s discuss there.”

The three of us walk over, where another familiar face sits. Xavier, pounding down a bowl of rainbow marshmallow cereal with his lucky spoon.

Blaze shrieks and bolts over. He tosses himself over Xavier’s shoulder, which is Blaze’s whole width, and yanks out the spoon. “This lucky relic I bequeathed you is not for feasting. Only for warding off malevolence.”

Xavier’s mouth twists. “Can’t it do both?”

Robby tosses his binder onto the tabletop. It’s so heavy that Xavier’s bowl of cereal leaps into the air. He sits beside Xavier. “Charlie needs help.”

Xavier checks me up and down. “You do look whiter than usual.”

“He’s sick,” Robby says.

I collapse on a seat across from them both. “I’m sick.”

Blaze sits on my side of the picnic table, placing a tiny hand on my forehead. “Do you have a high temperature?”

More like a volcano in my brain. “Yes.”

“Stomach pain?”

“Yes.”

“Loss of appetite?”

I haven’t considered eating since Jasper’s sparkling apple juice last night. “Yes.”

“I’ll be blowed,” Blaze mumbles, eyes spreading wide. “You have been poisoned.”

“What?” Xavier and I say.

Blaze covers his face with his palms—as if his seaweed hair wasn’t already doing enough of that—and whimpers like he’s on the verge of tears. “By the arachnids.”

“Oh,” Xavier and I say.

Robby pulls lined paper and a pencil out of his binder and writes something down. “If you’re overheating, then this may not be stress. When did your symptoms first show?”

“Last night,” I answer.

“What were you doing?”

I hesitate, since Robby is the last remaining member who doesn’t know the truth. “Writing love letters for STRIP.”

His eyes go big, but he’s quick to revert to a professional demeanor. “Where?”

“My room.”

“You were alone?”

“I was with Jasper.”

Blaze gasps beside me. “Jasper poisoned Charlie.”

“No,” Robby says without looking up. “Did you run into anyone else yesterday?”

I tilt my head. “I guess? We had classes. I ran into my friend at the sister academy from a distance. A group crossed over to plan for the mixer.”

Robby’s pencil abruptly stops moving. He neatly files the paper back into his binder. “This is an incurable sickness I’ve heard of many times in the STRIP Crypt.”

My hope soars. “What is it?”

“Lovesickness.”

The world slows to a stop.

I misheard him. “What did you say?”

“Praise the powers that be within the Ring of Ancestral Darkness!” Blaze tugs on my blazer sleeve, shaking my whole body. “My comrade is no longer poisoned.”

Robby grins. “Who from the sister academy caught your eye?”

“I—None of them,” I squeak.

“Jasper can send a letter to her for you.”

I try to answer. All that comes out is a wheeze.

A blurred Xavier clasps Robby’s shoulder. I think. I can’t see straight. “Give bro a break. He’s so high on anxiety that shrooms wouldn’t compete.”

“Charlie would never take shrooms,” Robby grumbles.

I shoot out of my seat and thrust a finger into Robby’s face. “You’re wrong.”

Robby blinks in surprise. “You would?”

“No, I don’t possibly have this disgusting disease you’re talking about.”

“You mean lovesickness—?”

I lean over the table to slap my palms against his mouth. “I said no.”

“Say no all you’d like,” Robby says, his voice stifled through my fingers. “Scientifically, the hormones involved in human attraction can’t be turned off because you tell them to.”

“If not one of the sister academy students,” Blaze says beside me, “who else did you engage with yesterday?”