Crimson Red, Cerulean Blue

(Blue)

I’d heard from Green that Red tended to sleep in a lot, but I hadn’t really known how hard it was to wake him up until I actually tried it.

“Red? Hey! Wake up already!”

I slapped him across the face, since it usually worked in books and movies, but his eyes remained stubbornly shut. “Green, are you sure you did the healing right?”

“I did what I always do. Maybe it didn’t get through to his thick skull,” was her lofty reply.

I leaned back and sighed. “I am not dragging him all the way to Rogue City. Especially not over sand.”

“Then this is probably going to take a while,” Orange said nonchalantly.

After the explosion, after I’d pretty much coughed out both my lungs from all the dust and smoke, we’d found Red on the ground with a nasty-looking bump on the side of his head, unconscious. Green had healed him, but he was still playing Sleeping Beauty.

For, like, half an hour.

“It’s already taken a while,” Green grumbled. “In fact, it’s probably going to take about five whiles.”

I glanced at Red. “Make it six.”

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

“Nine.”

“Te – ”

Red chose that moment to open his eyes, sit up, and say in a very calm voice, “Hello.”

Which, I guess, was really all fine and good, and I would’ve been perfectly happy with that, only he followed it up with,

“I like blueberry waffles.”

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“Oh,” Green sighed.

“That does seem to be problematic,” Orange agreed.

We all turned back to Red, who responded by giving us a dopey-looking grin and announcing, “But cupcakes are yummy, too!”

“Green?” I asked nervously. “Is that normal?”

“Um,” she replied. “Define normal.”

“You may want to try the healing again,” Orange advised.

“Yeah, no kidding,” was her sardonic reply, which was pretty appropriate seeing as Red had now begun singing the cupcake song.

Cupcakes, cupcakes, raining from the sky

Eat up as many as you can find!

Green facepalmed and sat down, fingers sending healing magic into him as usual.

But nothing happened.

She tried again. Still nothing.

Green turned to us, an stunned look on her face. “It didn’t work.”

“What do you mean, it didn’t work?” Orange demanded. “Why didn’t it?”

I suddenly remembered the multiple scrapes and bruises all over my body and turned to her. “Wait. Try healing me and see what happens.”

She raised an eyebrow, but held up her hands and closed her eyes. My scratches slowly faded as usual – but the bruises stayed.

“That’s not right,” she murmured. “Orange, what do you think?”

“Interesting,” he mused. “The external injuries faded as usual, but the internal ones remained. Has that ever happened before?”

“No. Never.”

He studied her for a second. “How’s your magic supply?”

“Little less than halfway, I think. It shouldn’t be doing anything like this.”

“Did you get poisoned somehow?”

She hesitated, and I knew he’d hit the nail right on the head.

“Did you or did you not, Green?”

She didn’t look at him. “I… I think.”

“With what?”

“I don’t... I don’t know.”

“You’re lying,” I said softly, years of reading people’s expressions kicking in. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Something in Green’s expression hardened, and I knew she wasn’t going to tell us any more than what she already had. “I’m fine.”

She got to her feet abruptly. “Let’s move. We can’t stay here forever. Pretty soon, Argot’s going to find out about his little minion, and he’ll be zipping over here to find us.”

“With Red in this condition?” Orange asked, raising his eyebrows. “You have to heal him first.”

“He’ll live. He just needs a nap or whatever. Let’s move.”

To my surprise, Orange didn’t argue it any further than that – just called over his shoulder for Red to hurry up and come along. He did, but not until after I’d managed to convince him that we were going to a cupcake party. (As you might’ve guess, this took a little convincing and left a seriously awkward taste in my mouth.) Green led the way, refusing to look anyone in the eye.

We were halfway out of the valley before I noticed her rub her thumbnail for the twentieth time.

Ah.

On a hunch, I asked,

“Um, Green? If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your Mark?”

She stiffened, and I knew I was on the right track. “My Mark?”

Orange glanced over, realization dawning on his face. Faster than I would’ve thought possible for him, his fingers latched onto her arm and pushed back her sleeve.

“Wha – Hey!” Green jerked back, but he held on, studying her fingers. Slowly, he looked up at her, the closest thing to fury I’d ever seen in his eyes.

If I’d been in her shoes, I’d have been terrified. But she just fixed him with an angry glare as he asked,

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

She scowled. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Orange dropped her hand, his own fingers clenching into fists. “That was her, wasn’t it?”

“So what if it was?” she shot back, her voice bitter for a reason I didn’t know. “That’s none of your business.”

“None of my business? None of my business? Do not even go there, Green.” He kept his voice low, but there was danger in his tone, enough to scare me. “You cannot possibly tell me that – ”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Stay out of it.”

“This has everything to do with me. That’s why your magic isn’t working. And if it doesn’t, that puts everyone at risk. You should have told us.”

“I should have told you? And what about you? What about how you’re always lying about that stupid skill of yours?” she demanded, spinning around to face him. “How is this any different from you hiding your magic?”

Orange’s eyes widened, then narrowed in a way that spoke murder. He spoke through gritted teeth.

“The difference, Green, is that I’m not affected in any way by hiding my magic. How long did you think you could keep this from us?”

“Shut up.”

“You’re starting to sound like Red.”

“Shut up.”

“Do not – ”

Green exploded right there and then. “Will you quit trying to lecture me?! You’ve got no idea how it feels, Orange! I wanted to rip that stupid smirk off her face, but I couldn’t. I let her do this to me. I let her win. You don’t know how it feels!”

Her voice broke. “You don’t know how it feels to be willing to do anything for revenge. How it feels to fail. You just don’t know.”

Orange sucked in a breath, and for a second, I thought he was going to explode too. But he didn’t.

In a voice so quiet, it was barely audible, he snapped, “I know everything about revenge. Both sides of it. And it’s not that simple.”

Green didn’t reply, but she was practically radiating fury. She spun around abruptly, stomping away from us without a word.

Orange took a step toward her, but I grabbed his arm. Green needed to cool off a bit, and another round of arguing would do the complete opposite of that.

“What happened?” I asked, keeping my tone as businesslike as possible. (Not easy to do when you’ve got a furious Green and a nutso Red on your hands.)

“Her Mark.” His tone was mostly neutral, but I sensed a hint of his fury underneath it. Whatever happened to Green’s Mark, it was serious.

“What about her Mark?”

“Part of it’s gone.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” Orange’s voice held both terror and absolute fury. “Someone’s managed to erase her Mark.”