William was in the hall on his way to the library when he was caught up in a sense-memory flashback. Gabe's arms around him, Gabe's lips on the corner of his mouth, the cure at their fingertips. His mind did a quick wait, did that actually happen? reel, and then hard on the heels of that was the sucking-pull of magic draining out of him.
He misstepped, catching himself on a tapestry, and for a single terrified moment wondered if the virus had mutated and if this was what it felt like, if Gabe had actually given it to him somehow by mistake. Then he thought of Bathory's Curse, thought side effects, and finally registered the fact that he was looking at a mongoose. Sitting in the middle of the corridor.
"Fuck," he said out loud. "I'm hallucinating."
He had a long staring contest with the mongoose that wasn't going well for him, and then Pete's owl glided in for a landing on his hastily-proffered wrist and offered him her leg with a delicate clack of her beak.
He read the message, very nearly conjured a quill to reply, and then changed his mind. The mongoose didn't seem to be going anywhere, and as long as he didn't walk off the edge of a tower by accident, heading to Pete's room was as good as anywhere else. He didn't even know if the owl was real.
"Are you real?" he asked, but she just ruffled her feathers at him and he felt a bit stupid. To Pete's, then.