Free Preserving the Ingenairii by Jeffrey Quyle

weeks’ worth of sore muscles.   He missed the ability to use his healing power to smooth away the little aches and pains of life, as he had done so frequently before.
                     The door vibrated from a solid knock shortly after Alec had climbed out of the tub to allow Patrick his turn to soak.   Still damp, Alec opened the door to see Delle and Brandeis standing expectantly in the hallway, with a pair of guards behind them.   “Good Lord!   He is here!” Brandeis shouted first.   “We haven’t heard a thing about you in months!   It’s so good to see you,” Delle said, deeply moved by the sight of Alec.   He grabbed his hand in a fierce clasp.   The two Locksfort cousins dismissed their guards upon confirmation of their visitor’s identity, and they abandoned Patrick to finish his bath as they went down to the public room to grab a table.   Alec knocked on the doors of his companions’ rooms as he passed, and soon they had filled a stout wooden table in the public room of the inn’s bar, which was mostly empty in mid-afternoon.
                     “We went to the stables first, and I saw your horse there, with the black patch on his shoulder.   He’s still a beautiful animal,” Brandeis observed.   “He looked like he’d been ridden pretty hard recently,” he added.
                     “He has been.   We’re on a mission,” Alec replied, jumping right to the heart of the matter.   Delle and Armilla were on one side of Alec, renewing their acquaintance, while Brandeis and the Oyster Bay guards were across the table and Berlisle was on Alec’s left hand.
                     “How is Noranda?” Alec asked intently.
                     “I’m glad to see you for your own sake of course,” Brandeis answered, “ but as soon as Delle said you might be here, I was more glad for her sake.
                     “She’s fallen unconscious these past few days.   She needs your touch to revive her,” he added, looking and sounding confident that Alec could heal her of her mysterious malady.
                     Alec had expected to hear that Noranda had fallen unconscious as well.   He had pulled energy from his farthest depths to heal her when he had brought her back to life in her tomb, and he knew that Cassie and Imelda had gained healer abilities after similarly extraordinary healing experiences.   He paused before giving Brandeis the explanation about the seriousness of Noranda’s situation.
                     “Has she been healing people with ingenaire abilities?” Alec asked first.
                     “Yes, occasionally,” Brandeis answered.   “She doesn’t do the big things like you do, or the important things like treating my hangovers, but she does take care of children and other people very often.   She’s made people in the city actually like the Locksforts again!”
                     “Noranda has the same illness that had struck all the other ingenairii.   Whenever one tries to use the power, they fall unconscious, and stay that way.   Ingenairii Hill is like a hospital right now with rows of beds,” Alec explained.   “I haven’t tried to use my powers in a long time, so I haven’t fallen ill, and I don’t dare to try.   Right now I’m on my way to the Pale Mountains , to find the cure so we can bring them all back to health.”
                     “I wondered why you were here so discreetly,” Delle spoke up.   “I expected more ceremony, not to mention some advance notice, when you returned to Stronghold.”
                     “So you’re saying you can’t just heal her right now?” Brandeis clarified the answer he didn’t want to hear.   “I thought you had arrived as the answer to my prayers,” he continued after Alec gently shook his