After Julia is injured by a possessed Quentin Coldwater, she finally gets over her paranoia to let someone heal her. Then they talk and drink tea. Mostly just appreciate a seven foot tall pink cow man and a five-foot-tall tiny human witch are just casually hanging out,
like you do..
⚠Talk of injury, vague mentions of trauma.
It hurt a lot more than Julia let on.
Quentin, the Mad Doctor possessing Quentin, knew exactly where to strike. It was only afterward, when Julia had escaped, she realized what had looked like furious stabbing had in reality been surgical strikes. Moving hurt. Breathing hurt. But Julia Wicker would not die from her wounds or go into shock. The ghost of the doctor wanted her awake and aware of what he was planning to do to her next.
It’d taken her almost a full day to make it back to her room. In part because she no longer trusted anyone. How could she believe anyone was who they said they were? (That was panic, adrenaline, but those feelings weren’t wrong, either.) She’d responded so calmly on the network. Full sentences. Try not to mention the injuries at all. Even as her fingers and body trembled, she’d been extremely careful not to announce to Derleth that she was easy pickings.
She’d found something to wrap up her injuries, make sure she didn’t give away her location in a trail of blood. Julia was clever and stubborn.
So stubborn, it’d taken her almost an hour of pretending she was fine to let Fandral dress her wounds. They still hurt. He couldn’t take away her pain or heal her. Julia was effectively benched, except for what she could write on the network.
Quentin was still out there. Kady was still out there. She wasn’t in a position to help either of them. Julia would have stewed her in her guilt if the mad doctor hadn’t been so good at inflicting the level of pain that he had.
Payback for being with Quentin when the ghosts were released in the first place, perhaps.
Maybe she thought she deserved to suffer.
Julia stayed mostly curled up in bed, having to convince herself Fandral being able to come in and out of their room was enough proof that he wasn’t possessed, to let him help her but mostly watch him leave to help others.
It took her days after the attack, after finally regaining the feeling of her room being a safe place, that she messaged Caduceus and asked for his help. (There had to be a price for that kind of help, right? Nothing could be that easy.)
It had been a strange week for Caduceus. One moment he was in his home in the Blooming Grove and next thing he knew he was on some college campus that was decidedly not in or near the Savalirwood. And probably not in Wildemount at all. He always tried to take everything in stride. If he was here, the Wildmother wanted him to be. He wasn't sure why but she was rarely direct with her instructions. Ghosts didn't faze Caduceus. A large portion of his family's property was a graveyard. Grieving families came in and out of their home and their temple on the regular. Caduceus had dug more graves than he could count over the course of more seasons than he could remember. Ghosts happened. It was a part of death. He usually tried to talk to ghosts to find out why they were still hanging around.
The ghosts here, however, were not as interested in conversation. And if they were, they were dishonest and manipulative. More than that, they were dangerous. Being a grave cleric made him well-equipped for dealing with ghosts. He could sense ghosts, had protection spells, banishing spells, and of course healing spells. But he was new. He didn't know how to really help. He had a strange device that connected to some kind of network (like a bulletin board contained within a small metal box). It was a form of communication he was still trying to figure out.
Mostly, he hung around the forest. It was where he felt most at home. Unlike the Savalirwood that surrounded the Blooming Grove with a menacing curse, this forest was peaceful, beautiful. Everything he knew the Savalirwood had once been. Even if he'd never seen it that way.
That's where he was when the small device buzzed. He was sitting in the dirt, legs crossed, surrounded by a circle of burning incense as he tried to commune with the Wildmother. It wasn't his first time attempting to since he got here, but every time he tried, he never got anything back. Sure, the winds blew, but they didn't blow with the word of Melora.
He picked up the communication device and looked at it. A message from one of the other people stuck on this campus. And she needed healing.
Caduceus snuffed out the incense and gathered his things, heading for the dormitory, for the room Julia told him he'd find her. He wasn't sure the extent to which she was hurt. Most of his healing spells didn't require material components, but he checked his pouch for the diamonds just in case. He nodded his head when he saw they were still there, untouched.
When he approached her door, he knocked gently.
"Julia?" A question posed in his soothing baritone voice.
By the time Julia made it to the door, she looked pale from the effort. She opened the door and, despite having seen him in person before, there was still something stunning about a seven foot, pink haired vaguely cow-shaped humanoid. She had to look up quite a ways to meet his eyes.
“Hey.”
She opened the door and hobbled back a step out of his way. Moving hurt. Standing hurt. She propped her weight against the wall and didn’t want to think about how many steps it was either to the couch in the living area or back to her bed. She forced herself to smile regardless, even as she winced.
Despite how bad it was, it could have been worse. The mad doctor had only barely missed Julia’s achilles tendon, but there were other strangely precise injuries that hit their marks. It was a small miracle she had escaped.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. Normally, she would have invited him to sit, offered him something, made more of an effort to be polite. Julia still didn’t want to move from the spot she’d planted herself at. Instead she added, after taking a few small breaths so as not to exacerbate the wound under her ribcage, “Sorry this week sucks.”
Caduceus greeted her with a warm, half-smile and ducked his head just enough to walk into the room. "I'd ask how you were doing, but I've seen dead people with more color." He leaned his staff against the wall as he watched her do the same with her body. He was gentle with the way he grabbed her arms and slowly helped her to sit down on the couch. It was the closest place for her.
"How bad are you hurt?" He inquired as he sat beside her on the couch. "Are you poisoned? Blinded? Deafened? Anything broken as far as you can tell?" He had to lean down quite a bit to get a good look at any of her wounds.
"I can't say I've ever seen a ghost do this. Was it that woman who was possessed?" He didn't know anyone's names yet. His memory wasn't exactly the best in the world when it came to just about everything. But he was kind and gentle and soothing.
Julia smiled at his humor. She appreciated it. It wasn’t like the people of Fillory at all, which in her mind was a good thing. Really, everything about his gentle demeanor was what she appreciated having at that moment.
“The man. His name is Quentin.” Julia frowned. Out of those to become possessed, they had been her closest friends. She tried to brush it off as coincidence, but part of her wondered if it was punishment for her part in all of this.
She could have told Quentin no, convinced him not to use that key. “But they’re both friends from my world,” she added. “The ghost is a doctor of some kind, or likes to play at one. I’m not sure when it happened. He has access to Quentin’s memories, he knew everything about us. I’m pretty sure he was toying with me or I’d already be dead.”
It took skill to stab someone and miss vital organs and arteries.
When Caduceus listed off ailments, Julia smiled again. “I can see and hear you just fine. Nothing broken. No poison as far as I’m aware of.” Her body was tensed from pain, and if she didn’t place her hands against something, they trembled, which made it harder for her to cast.
“Not going to lie, I’m kind of excited to see what you can do,” Julia said. Only Julia would take getting stabbed as an opportunity to witness another kind of magic. At least there was one bright spot in all of this. “Is magic common where you’re from?”
Caduceus' mouth fell into a sympathetic frown. "That's awful that two of your friends have been possessed." He was sure there were worse things in the world, but he'd never witnessed any of his loved ones being possessed and it seemed to him like a pretty lousy thing.
"I don't know if magic is common. My family all has it. All firbolgs have some magic. Most of my friends can do magic except for Beau. She can punch ghosts, though, which is kind of like magic. Too bad she isn't here."
Her injuries were bad, but not bad enough to need a diamond or anything else for that matter. Just a wave of his hand and an utterance of "heal." Earthy green energy twined with a petal pink light emanated from Caduceus and surrounded the entirety of Julia's body. In the brief time that the energy engulfed her, all of her wounds knitted themselves together and he expected the pain disappeared along with them.
That half-smile returned to his face as the energy dissipated. "There you go. How do you feel?"
Julia could finally take a normal breath without sharp pain in her side. She used her first pain free breath to exclaim, “Holy shit that’s cool.”
She gave Caduceus a look. Did he understand how amazing that was? How rare a talent like that was? At least compared to the worlds she’d been to. Once upon a time, Julia Wicker would have searched for a way to his world just to study more of it.
Julia pushed down the implanted memory Marina had given her, of Our Lady Underground charging Julia to discover new magic. It had been a lovely lie, but now it hurt to recall the divine petition that never happened.
Instead she looked down and examined herself, removing the bandages Fandral had helped her with. She felt it, she could see it, and yet Julia still needed a moment to take in. “Thank you. I don’t think there are many people here that can do what you can. There’s a girl who can cry on people, I guess? But…” Julia gave a small half shrug.
His ability to heal wasn't remarkable to Caduceus. It was just something he could do, thanks to the Wildmother, and something he was always happy to do.
"You're welcome," he said with a warm smile. "That's what I'm here for." Melora had given him a purpose in life, a few purposes even, and he was happy to abide by his matron.
"Anyone can cry on a person, but I'm not sure what good that does. Other than getting you wet." It had gone right over Caduceus' head that the crying could heal somehow. He didn't think any further on it and instead turned his attention to one of his pouches where he rummaged for a moment.
"Would you like some tea?" He produced a sachet from the pouch. He gave the tea inside a quick sniff. "Oh, yeah, this is a good one. He was a very mellow halfling. Makes a nice, relaxing tea." Caduceus was already well aware of how weird his so-called dead people tea could sound to some, and part of him quietly enjoyed that. It could be pretty funny to creep people out. So many people outside the Blooming Grove had an uncomfortable relationship with death as well as the life that sprung from it.
Julia opened her mouth for just a moment, as if she were about to correct Caduceus about the healing tears, but then thought better of it. It wasn’t important just then.
There were two different types of people from New Jersey; those who proudly said they were from “Jersey” and those who said they were from Philly or New York. Julia was the latter, and as a New Yorker— a New Yorker who’d been to Fillory, no less— it was pretty hard to get her riled up.
Or if she was, she regularly pretended not to be to avoid insulting others, especially if they were from Fillory (assuming she had her shade).
No, it was something else she observed about Caduceus that struck her as important. How much attention and respect he paid to the dead. He might have been just ribbing her, she didn’t know Caduceus well enough to tell yet.
She should have left the safety of her room to go find Quentin, check on Kady, to help her friends and the others. The problem was Julia didn’t exactly know what to do, even if she did owe the rest of Derleth for her part in this week. So maybe tea wasn’t a bad idea. Instead of running head first with a half baked idea, like usual, maybe she needed to take a moment. Now that the pain was gone, she could think clearly.
“Tea sounds great.” Julia nibbled on her lower lip thoughtfully. “Where you’re from? Does everyone know magic exists? Like, if you were to cast a spell, would the average person be surprised that magic was real?”
He smiled broadly at her and looked around the room. "Do you have a kettle? And some cups?" It wasn't his place and he didn't feel right about getting up and wandering about, looking for what he needed. There were days when he would've, but now did not seem to be the time.
"Oh, yeah, everyone knows about magic. I saw a whole school where magic is taught. I think the campus was even bigger than this one." He tipped his head, a thoughtful look on his face as he internally reminisced about his adventures with the Mighty Nein.
"Thaumaturgy surprises people sometimes, but only because they never expect it. I don't know if everyone has seen magic, Exandria is a big world and I haven't seen much of it. Where I have been, though, and what I have seen, no one really bats an eye at it. There are shops that sell potions and spell materials in most of the cities I've been to."
He looked at her, pink eyebrows raised with curiosity. "Is it not like that where you're from?"
Julia got up, still impressed she could do so without even a hint of the pain she felt earlier, and went to the cupboards. Kitchenette was a generous term for the space with the fridge and countertop space at the end of the living area, but it was better than the last iteration of the dorm rooms.
“No,” she answered. Julia set out an electric kettle, filling it with water and plugging it into the wall outlet. “Magic is uncommon. Most people think it’s all myth, stories? Those who have magical abilities don’t usually know it until they’re older, and people who have it are secretive about it. So, magic schools, shops, supplies… you have to have the right connections to get access to any of it.”
Julia set out two cups and waited for the water to boil.
“But my world doesn’t have halflings or firbolgs, at least not that I’ve met. There are magical creatures, which is basically what anyone not human would be considered on my world, but they’re rare.”
Caduceus joined her near the kitchenette, sachets of tea in hand. His brow creased, just slightly, at the idea that he would be considered a creature. Although he supposed the two-toned fur that covered his body would qualify him as such to some people.
"Why are people secretive about their magic in your world? Why not share it with everyone?" Despite the time he spent wandering Wildemount with the Mighty Nein, he was still quite sheltered and naive in some ways.
He put the sachets of tea and water in the cups and let it steep. He could already smell the earthy aroma and smiled softly. Tea felt like a luxury, but one he could easily share with everyone. And the idea that his supply would be never ending thanks to these resets (whatever that truly meant) was very exciting to him. Once it had steeped for long enough, he lifted one cup and offered it to her.
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Julia said. It was hard to keep at least some bitterness out of her voice, so she smiled to make her tone slightly sweeter. She knew. And being from such a different world he deserved an answer.
“Security from one another, I suppose. No one can take your stuff or stop you from attempting magic if they don’t know about you.” Julia nodded her head in thanks before taking her first sip of tea. She was quiet for a moment, either appreciating the tea or ruminating on another thought. “Security from the majority of the world that might not like something like magic existing. A few hundred years ago it was pretty common for people who were even accused of witchcraft to be executed, burned alive.”
Julia gave a small half shrug with one of her shoulders. “There’s also elitism. Some places claim they only want the best, the most talented. Both institutions like Brakebills and even the safehouses. Don’t really think I believe that anymore.”
Julia thought about her last safehouse, The Free Trader Beowolf. Richard had called her god touched. She buried that thought with another sip from Caduceus’s tea. “I’m not really sure what I believe these days. People use each other, I guess.”
Caduceus frowned at the thought of magic-users being executed. What a brutal world Julia was from. "Are the spellcasters in your world not able to use their magic to protect themselves against others? Be they thieves or angry mobs." Not everyone had the same level of power, but there was protection magic even among the most basic of spells. At least in Exandria.
"Your world sounds pretty terrible," he stated and took a sip of his tea. He couldn't help but smile at the rich, earthy flavor of the tea. The warmth of it washed over him and he felt more relaxed already.
"What do you think?" He asked, nodding to her cup of tea.
“Sure,” Julia said. “But there are a lot more people that don’t have magic then do. So most people protect themselves with secrecy.”
Julia didn’t try to defend her world when Caduceus said it was terrible. He wasn’t wrong. It certainly hadn’t been a kind world to her, moreso after she’d discovered magic was real. Instead of being able to wave her problems away, they became bigger and messier. Shade or no shade, Julia had a clearer idea of what kind of person she was, and it wasn’t something to be proud of.
She was relieved when he changed the subject to tea and smiled at him. It was a weak smile, but it was still there.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything. I know you talk like what you can do isn’t a big deal but that kind of talent? It’s pretty rare everywhere else. Everywhere that I’ve seen, anyway, and I’ve been to over a dozen different worlds now. You’re kind of amazing.”
A very faint blush could be seen just beneath the pale gray fur of Caduceus' face when she complimented him. "I don't think it's common where I'm from either, but nobody has ever made a big deal about it. I think my friends take it for granted. I don't mean that as an insult to him. Healing is usually a cleric's job. We all had certain expectations of each other, things we could rely on each other for to survive."
He looked down at his tea and contemplated it for a moment. A few bits of flowers had slipped out of the sachet and into his cup and he watched the way they drifted across the surface of the tea.
"I think every world is harsh." He moved his gaze back over to her. "Whether magic exists or not, whether people live in secrecy or not. People can be cruel. Or they just need to survive and they go to whatever lengths they have to." He took a long sip of tea. "You're nice, though. Every world is a mixed bag of people and it's very easy for the cruelty of the world to wear someone down. You're stronger than that."
Julia wanted to deny she was nice. She knew what lengths she’d gone to for magic once she learned of its existence. She didn’t have a missing shade to blame for the things that she did or the awful mistakes she’d made. And trying to atone for those mistakes? Only seemed to make things worse.
It was a hard compliment to take.
“I think you think too highly of me,” Julia said. She sipped her tea. “I’m not trying to debate you about it, I just don’t want you to be disappointed. My humanity is only here on a temporary basis, anyway. It’s probably only a matter of time before I lose it again.”
He did deserve that kind of warning, didn’t he? Maybe it was too soon to tell him, but anyone who thought about being friends with Julia probably needed to know what they were in for upfront.
“Part of my soul is sort of detachable. I didn’t show up here with it. It’s a long story. But if I die or am unable to take it back out before the reset and properly store it, then I lose it again. I’d say you’re seeing the best version of me, but I don’t think I’m winning any rewards there, either.”
Julia made a sort of shrugging expression with her eyebrows.
Her insistence that Caduceus thought too highly of her only earned her a broader smile. "If only you knew my friends. It takes a lot to disappoint me. Life isn't black and white and neither are people. We've all done things we're not proud of. We've all let things go too far. You're not special."
He took another sip of his tea and contemplated her detachable soul. Now that was something he'd never heard of before. "Isn't there a way to attach it permanently? Seems like there should be something…" he trailed off as he mentally went through his spells. Even for a healer who spent his whole life with the dead and ghosts, reattaching a soul was pretty well outside his purview.
"And where do you store it? That's very interesting. In my world, souls go to the Raven Queen after they've left the body. I don't know how you'd even go about getting it back let alone where you'd store it when it's not in use. Do you feel less compelled to put it back when you've taken it out?" He didn't mean to bombard her with questions, but he was incredibly curious and fascinated.
You’re not special was not the sort of line Julia ever thought she wanted or needed to hear. She smiled despite herself. It probably shouldn’t have made her feel better. The idea that anyone else might have fucked up as badly as she had in the last couple years was awful.
But she couldn’t quite stop herself either.
At least until they talked shop. Then Julia lit up in another way, particularly in her eyes. She had something new to figure out, another problem to solve.
“Normally, it would be permanent. It’s the reset that makes it ‘detachable’. I arrived here without my shade, the part of my soul that contains… love, innocence, hurt, guilt… Shades, when they’re removed, along with other departed souls, go to the Underworld where I’m from. And if I don’t store it between resets, that’s apparently where it will go back to.”
Julia didn’t know what part of that explanation wasn’t quite correct. Loki hadn’t told her everything about how he had retrieved her shade.
Julia moved to retrieve the box Loki had gifted her shade in and showed the completely ordinary looking box to Caduceus. “But if I put it back in here, because removing shades is something I know how to do, it stays until after the reset, and I can put it back in at the start of the next week.”
"The soul is outside of my realm of knowledge. Maybe it works differently in my world anyway. Bodies, remains, are the realm of the Wildmother." Caduceus tilted his head to the side thoughtfully.
"There are soul fragments in my world. I didn't know him personally, but my friends knew this tiefling. Mollymauk. I think he had a fragment of a soul until I resurrected him. The Mighty Nein all seemed to love him, so I guess even a soul fragment can be good. Maybe part of his fragment was the shade?" Caduceus never spent much time thinking about souls. They were nebulous, ineffable. What came from the earth, and returned to it, made more sense to him.
He took the box from her and examined it, turning it over in his hands, opening it. "Is it magical?" Although he asked her, he whispered to himself to quietly cast detect magic on the box.
The box was enchanted, reacting to Caduceus’ spell with a soft, greenish glow. Julia, however, was looking at Caduceus with clear alarm on her face.
“Mollymauk was here.” Julia was trying desperately to replay their interactions together. Purple Guy. Had he his full soul then or just a piece? What was the deal with when he lost his ability to speak? Julia should have paid closer attention to him. She might have learned something. That is, assuming the rules for souls were similar? Were they not universal? Julia had liked Molly, as much as she could have then. She’d been without her shade then.
Her focus shifted to the box.
“Loki enchanted it. He was the one that found it. Somehow-- my shade. We were in Fillory but even then it shouldn’t have been possible. I… honestly didn’t question it at the time.”
Julia still wasn’t entirely comfortable questioning it. What if the answer meant having to give it back up? Honestly, it seemed better not to know.
Caduceus looked at her with an expression of mild surprise. "Mollymauk was here? That's...huh." His brow furrowed with confusion then. "When was he here?" Curious as he was about whether it was after his resurrection or somehow before it. Not that he understood the measurement of time here any better than back home.
He looked back down at the box in his hands, at the soft light it emitted in response to his spell. "This Loki must be some talented mage to be able to enchant a plain box to hold a soul."
He offered the box back to her. "Why should you question it? Souls get trapped sometimes. Sometimes people with good but misguided intentions trap hundreds of souls on a fragment of a city drifting through the Astral Sea…" The unnatural horror of Cognouza still frequently popped into his mind. He had never seen anything like it before and he hoped to Melora he never would again.
"I should think you'd just be happy to have it back."
“A few months ago. One of the patterns I’ve noticed is we tend to get people here from the same worlds, people who know each other. But the worlds we actually visit? We almost never get people from those worlds.”
There was one exception: Fillory. But Julia didn’t intend to complicate matters just then.
“If you’re here, and he was here, chances are more people from your world could show up, people that you know or know of.”
Julia wasn’t sure if that news would be something Caduceus would be comforted by or worried with. She watched him carefully, but didn’t press.
When it came to the topic of her soul, Julia hedged, “I am…”
There was a but that came afterward, one she wasn’t sure if she could continue or not.
“Some days it’s harder to bear than others. I know I can’t go back to how I was, not if I can help it, but… sometimes I wonder if I’ll have the strength to put it back in each week, knowing I’ll have to take it out and put it back in every week I’m here.”
Caduceus had a lot of questions. He usually did. However, with malevolent ghosts on the loose, he decided it was probably better to not throw a bunch of questions at Julia. At least not right now. He had a small number of spells he could use against the ghosts and would be better served being useful than curious. But he did have one question that couldn't wait for later as he finished off his cup of tea.
"Does it hurt? When you put your soul in and take it out." He'd souls back into dead bodies a few times before, but that was different. The dead didn't feel. He couldn't imagine what it felt like, physically or mentally, to pull one's soul out and put it back in.
Julia’s lips curled into a small, charmed smile by his question. It was sweet and she appreciated his concern, even if it was an almost inappropriate moment to express it. When she shook her head no, she managed to release the smile from her face.
“No, not physically. When I remove my shade at the end of the week? It feels like a relief. No guilt, no pain, no flashes of the things that happened or nightmares. I feel amazing without it. Incomplete, but amazing. When I put it back in… it can be a lot. It’s getting easier, I try to remove my shade as late in the day as I safely can so I don’t get too used to being without it again but… Yeah, suddenly having a conscious again is kinda a bitch.”
It was a remarkably easy spell to cast. Julia could do it without material components, without words, just a simple one handed gesture. It was too fucking easy. It wasn’t a commonly known spell, but then thankfully its psychotic nature meant it would remain somewhat obscure.
She wondered if Fillory’s gods, Ember and Umber, had invented the spell for their amusement. It sounded like something they would do.
Caduceus was thoughtful for a moment. He set down his empty tea cup, and stared at it for a while before finally speaking.
"It sounds nice. To not have that part of your soul. To never worry about pain and guilt. All the bad things that haunt us in life." He turns away from his empty cup and looks at Julia once more.
"But what does it do to love?" Caduceus had met a lot of vile people in his life, people who very well seemed to be lacking their own shades, but they were never happy. Never really fulfilled.
Julia answered him honestly, “I don’t think shadeless people can love. I had memories of it, of people I could remember loving and caring about, but it’s not really a replacement for the real thing.”
Julia finished her tea and set it down on the counter.
“I was kind of a monster. I did some really terrible things, even to people I cared about. I know I can’t go back to that…”
But also, if something happened and Julia lost her shade again, she knew she would go back to that. The longer she stayed in Derleth, the less likely she would hold onto her shade. That wasn’t even considering she didn’t have her shade back home. So whether she stayed or returned, having her shade was temporary either way.
“I’m trying to appreciate it while I can. Even the parts that make it painful. I have to make myself try to remember, so if something happens, maybe next time I won’t make the same kind of mistakes.”
"I hope that nothing does happen. Love is the greatest force in any world. Maybe if something happens, maybe if you do lose your shade again, you can hold tighter to those memories of love. Of what it feels like. Because it's love that makes us who we are." A small, warm smile spread across Caduceus' face.
"I suppose, though, if it's temporary, that would help you appreciate it all the more. Like life. Life is short, we don't know when it will end, and we should use those facts to make the most of it. To appreciate that we're here and alive and able to do the most wondrous things." Caduceus realized how simple it seemed and yet, well, life really could be that simple. People were the ones who complicated things after all.
Julia found herself smiling, genuinely, at Caduceus’ thoughts on love, even when that smile did not reach her eyes. Because she knew who she was without love, and it frightened her just how Julia she still was without those pieces.
But what she said was, “You’re right.”
Because talking about it was hard. He was kind to her now. She wondered what this new friendship would be like without her shade, what it would think of her, and if it could survive such a thing.
“Thank you, for everything. Healing me, tea, listening…”
Caduceus smiled brightly. "You're welcome. I'm always here if you need any of those things. Or food! I like to cook." His smile broadened and crinkled the corners of his eyes.
"In the meantime, you should rest. You might be healed physically, but I'm sure it was a draining experience. Send me a message in that weird little metal box if you need anything." Caduceus picked up his staff and gave Julia a nod before heading for the door.
"Take care," he said, just before disappearing into the hallway.