As his arms wrapped around his sister, any protest fell on deaf ears and Rory held her tightly to his frame. He didn’t care if he caught it too; his most pressing priority in that moment was to make sure Elsie knew that she wasn’t alone in this. That she was never, truly, alone. He could only imagine how terrible she must be feeling, and how scared. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions but it certainly didn’t seem like some simple little spell that bing, bang, boom, they could just reverse. Taking in a deep breath of his own, he stepped back and nodded at her subsequent explanation. The book. He needed to see the book.
Striding over to the bed where the book still lay, somewhat open, he pulled out his wand. The page it was flipped to was blank and Rory turned a few of them with the tip of his wand, unwilling to touch it. Nothing happened. He muttered a soft spell then that lifted the book off the mattress and closed it. “How strange,” he mumbled to himself. Then, turning back to his sister, Rory offered her a braver smile than he perhaps felt. “We should probably have someone with a specialty in curses or dark objects take a look at this,” he suggested lightly, gesturing to the still hovering book by his side. He didn’t know if Elsbeth was going to love that idea, and perhaps it wasn’t as serious as a curse but it was better to know. For now, he debated taking her to a healer.
“How are you feeling?” he asked again. “Does it hurt?” Did she need tea or food or medicine? Was she tired? These questions and more tried to sprawl themselves across his face but Rory held firm to his calm demeanor. He could spiral later when she was under specialized supervision. The idea of keeping the subtleties of such a thing under wraps had not occurred to him though. His only priority was fixing the problem as quickly as possible.