"It's alright," Robert said quietly. "Better now and with me than with Khaat. And I know you'd like to give her what for about now. So would I. She knows better. I understand perfectly why she did it, but I don't have to like it. She's a determined stubborn woman who refuses to let go of her pain and only knows how to compound it. So, now she'd turned to numbing it.
"Katherine and I, neither one, see you as a screw up. The only one who sees you as that is you. Hard as that is for you to accept. But, you truly do need to know this. Your magic shorted out because you have bonded, for better or for worse--no pun intended, to Khaat. You now get your magic from her. You separated from her too long and ran out of magic. Let me show you something. "
He plucked out two strands of Rob's hair, without Rob's permission, and put them into a vial. He took an envelope out of his pocket and retrieved two more strands. "Watch," He nodded at the vial, He swirled the vial with Rob's hair, and the hair turned into a strand of blue shimmering light. Just a single thread. "There. That's you. Well, you as you are now. Observe." He put the two new hairs in the vial and swirled them again. The new hairs turned into shimmering emerald light. "Khaat," he pronounced the green threads. "Now, watch this." He swirled the vial a third time and the threads blended together into a beautiful turquoise light. "That's you now--really and truly. It takes her magic and yours now to make either of you work. Now--watch this." He drew out another vial that held a strand of pale green light. "This is what Khaat's magic looks like on her own. But there's more." He added two more strands of hair from a second envelope and swirled it. The new hairs became dark forest green light. "That's me," Robert said. He swirled the vial one more time and it produce the emerald green thread that Rob had seen in the first vial. "Khaat has gotten her magic from me since Remus died. She bonded to him and when he died, I had to bond to her in order to save her life. There wasn't enough of her left to do anything else. She gets it from me, and now you get it from her. It doesn't happen often, except in those rare cases where a deep love exists.
"It may not be what you want to hear but my guess is that you bonded to her the night she nearly died when she blew up that damned amulet because of your love for her. She does not know about any of this. If she lives, it will be because of you. I can help, but this" He shook the vial of blended magic, "this will be what saves her. What I did to 'fix' you was to, more or less, jumpstart you with a bit of my magic, since it is the core of what now fuels Khaat anyway.
"Getting her back will not be easy, but I presume it is alright if I go see her now? And are you coming? I presume you also want to know how this has affected Abbey."