Nine days. He had received the mysterious letter exactly nine days ago. Whenever he held a secret, depending on its worth, Markl felt like he was under close observation from everyone around him. Nothing was safe unless it was hidden in the depths of his own consciousness. One thing he learned growing into a teenager was the ability to hide secrets - considering he had the perfect role model.
His eyes traveled to the circle of games in the corner of the room - Howl the center of attention. All the kids danced around him, and Howl beamed brighter than Markl imagined a magician of darkness ever could. Yet one thing was absolute - all of this, he did for Morgan.
"Markl." He jolted at his name, though it was only Sophie handing him a heavy stack of plates. It was Calcifer and Gwenda's turn to host their Friday dinner and while they finished the food preparations, Sophie and Markl offered their assistance to set the table. If his mind wasn't floating in the clouds or traveling to the childish games, the table would already be fully prepared.
"Oh, right." Markl relieved her of the plates and started placing them around the dining table as she returned to gather the silverware. While the soft clicks of porcelain on wood were not enough to drown out the infantile banter, he instead began replaying the contents of the letter in his mind. Every word of its promise to him.
Could what this person wrote be true?
Could they really show me my past?
He scrunched his eyes. Who even sent it? He didn't understand why it was anonymous or why they attached scorch marks as a part of the seal. Nothing made sense except the hope that this stranger was an honest soul.
All that circled his brain during training with Xarx that day was the letter, and Markl spent nearly every waking hour since then scanning Howl's bookshelves for anything on scorch marks. There was a stark difference between wanting to read a book and being forced to read one by his teacher, and Markl was engrossed by his own private learning. Though he discovered afterward that breaking a scorch mark seal enacted the curse, he also learned if he had waited any longer, the curse could have taken on its own liberties with more drastic effects.
Scorch marks were not to be trifled with.
When Sophie returned to the living room - now turned dining room for the special occasion - she noticed his spacy staring. Placing the clinking forks and knives on the table jostled the boy from his thoughts, but kept her concern running. "Is everything okay?"
Even Markl didn't have an honest answer. Since he read that letter, nothing had been the same.
Nevertheless, he enjoyed the secrecy of it. "Couldn't be better."
✧ ・ : * ✧ ・ : * ✧
He spent the entire night in a trance. As their family and friends gathered tightly in the small apartment - with a touch of magic, though, it didn't seem so compact - Markl remained lost in his dreams. He barely heard the conversations about Calcifer's strange new customer or Ryo showing off his cast-free arm to everyone. Wynne tried impressing everyone with a new rock molding spell Kenta taught her, and he patted her head softly, the way fathers do when showing pride for their children.
"Morgan's already begun potion-making." Howl said as he picked a heavy slice of angel food cake, "Although we've been trying to remind him that there are ingredient limits for a reason."
Everyone laughed. It was like a record on repeat - same laughs for the same, stale jokes and stories.
"He's so excited for his party next week," Sophie said, glancing quickly over to Morgan eating quietly with the Lee children. When he overheard his mom mention the party, he smiled wide with his tiny teeth.
"I'm gonna be seven!" He shouted, holding four fingers on one hand and three on the other.
Markl ate his meal in silence, a ghost in the nosebleeds of the main event. Had it really been seven years already? Morgan had no understanding of the days and months that led to his birth, but Markl remembered. He remembered everything. It was a nightmare that knew exactly when to come back and haunt him again.
He wondered if anyone else dreamt the same.
"So, Markl." He almost didn't hear Calcifer say his name. His vibrant, orange hair burned another reminder of that time. "You've been training under Xarx for a few years now. How's that been going?"
Markl gulped. Should he speak honestly or objectively? He'd learned quite a lot, that was a fact. But the way he trained was another story.
"Well, it's been good for the most part," he began, "I actually just learned how-"
"Griff, leave your brother alone." Lona whispered over her shoulder to the kids' table, though not as privately as she probably expected.
Markl lost his train of thought for a moment. "Um… right. Xarx showed me how to create-"
"Can you pass the strawberries?" Howl asked Sophie, who immediately turned her attention from the conversation to the dessert toppings.
"How to create light trails." Markl finished quickly. He scanned the table; only Calcifer and Gwenda seemed to have heard him, and probably because he sat directly in-between them at the head. Howl and Sophie, Lona and Kenta, were lost in their own worlds.
With their own children.
"Light trails are pretty advanced," Calcifer replied. Markl shrugged his shoulders and ate slower, but consistently. Maybe if he kept stuffing food in his mouth, no one would ask him more questions and he wouldn't have to talk over three people just to finish a sentence.
It made him think about the letter's promise - and how its curse was already partially in effect.
The rest of the night, he was a taciturn figure - obedient and silent. He laughed with their laughs, smiled with their smiles, and he realized how easy it was to match their joyous personas even when he felt like a complete outsider. He replied "yes" and "no" throughout the night, and finally a "thank you" before departing with the Pendragon family.
Back to the Pendragon home.
Howl held Morgan with a secure grip as the little boy slept peacefully over his chest. His low snores resonated over his shoulder, and Howl patted his back gently. He whispered to Sophie that he would tuck Morgan in bed, so she strolled sheepishly to their bedroom. Markl stayed in the main room just a moment longer, watching father and son like they were a movie reel.
As Howl lulled Morgan with sweet nighttime tunes, he cautiously walked only on the wooden floorboards that he knew wouldn't creak. He sang sweet promises to the boy who was too engrossed in his dreams to even hear his father, yet that only made Howl's words seem more assuring. He held the same grin that Kenta wore earlier for Wynne - and for some reason, that was just enough for Markl.
They wouldn't notice him slamming his bedroom door shut. They wouldn't notice him take each book that Xarx forced down his throat and fling them across the room until their pages were creased or ripped or the spines were cracked. They wouldn't notice how even in the solitude of his own space, he refused to let his broken tears fall freely.
He fell to the ground and pressed his back against the bed, staring at his faded reflection in the darkness. He wasn't a Pendragon, even if that was his surname. He wasn't anything since the day he lost his identity. He was a nameless, faceless, poor little orphan. He tried so hard to be like them, to belong to them, and yet it still wasn't enough.
He wanted to punch a wall or a door or the mirror - or Howl.
As he quivered and inhaled shaky breaths on the rough carpet, as he grabbed his hair so tightly that strands plucked out from his head, only one question looped in repetitive torture.
Would it really be that hard to leave this all behind?
His eyes directed to the unorganized pile of papers on his desk. Underneath it all was the letter. It took no time at all for the young magician to push himself off the ground and throw the papers aside until he found it. He read each line, every word, as carefully as he had the first time.
If you wish to know the truth of your past,
You must abandon all you have become.
Only then will you discover what you desire.
Sign in blood for the genesis of your revelation.
He grazed his ridged fingers over the graceful cursive words, deliberating if the price was worth the reward. To finally know his truth was everything to him, who knew absolutely nothing.
✧ ・ : * ✧ ・ : * ✧
They followed her down the dark stone streets until Lily Angorian walked up the steep stairwell to a brick house. It was squished between houses on either side, all of them lined in perfect unison around the curve of the road. All the brick homes in this area looked the same - a bland uniformity.
"Welcome to my humble abode." Lily said as she fitted the key into the door and flung it open in a dramatic wave. Her aura reminded them of Howl in his younger years, and still with the uncanny atmosphere of Martha. She walked in with a casual stride, while her three guests waited warily on the front step.
She tilted a smirk in their direction. "Don't be shy. You haven't even seen the inside yet."
Kenta tensed - that was his worry.
A small two-story apartment on the exterior, Lily's interior was a mansion. Gwenda and Wynne gawked as they entered, eyeing all the extravagant designs and decorative pieces that brightened the space. The main room was wide and encompassed a living and dining room all in one. The staircase curved upward around the corner while a secondary staircase dropped straight to a lower basement. In the center of the back wall was a mosaic fireplace fit for display.
"Wow…" Gwenda whispered. This was nothing compared to her and Calcifer's apartment in Porthaven, though it reminded her very much of Howl's castle. From colorful paintings to floating lights to miscellaneous knick-knacks - most with magical properties, they assumed - all sorts of oddities and exquisite decor fitted every inch of Lily's home.
Wynne beamed. "You live in a castle!"
Lily chuckled. "Seems like it sometimes. These are just some objects I've picked up over the years." She clutched onto the neck of an old, acoustic guitar and placed it on a metal stand. "I'd be happy to let you practice your skill with any of these."
Wynne stared wide-eyed at the opportunity until Kenta stepped in. "Her source is verdant. These objects might not be appropriate."
Lily shrugged. "No harm in practicing with other source magic. I try not to limit my ability to only fortunetelling."
Kenta groaned as Lily walked upstairs to prepare their room for the night - and only tonight. In his mind, they were leaving as soon as possible. There was still so much they didn't know about this woman, and frankly what he did know wasn't satisfactory to ease his anxiety. As cautious as he was around humans, magicians were a whole other suspicion.
"We struck lucky." Gwenda said, "This place is amazing."
"I wouldn't call it luck." Kenta retorted. "We hardly know her."
Gwenda rolled her eyes. "You just think everyone is out to get you. Aren't you the one always telling me not to make judgment calls against magicians?"
"This is completely different. We can't-" But Gwenda and Wynne were already strolling through the open room and paying no mind to him. Wynne was mesmerized by the bookshelves that lined the walls. Books of all shapes and sizes propped next to one another with names of authors she'd never heard of before. She was still a beginner at reading, but the names of these books on magic were enough to excite her premature mind.
Gwenda ran her fingers over the antique couch that stood as a spectacle of the atmosphere. The blood red color was such a bold statement in an already heavily designed room, though she couldn't help but feel it fit the space perfectly. Its velvet fabric sent chills up and down her arm, yet it still seemed more comfortable than the couch in her apartment. She wondered how Calcifer was able to rest on such prickly and stiff cushions after shutting him out the other night.
Closing her eyes, she dreamt he was there with her now - a glimpse of his spirited orange hair, a pinch of his amber skin, and the whimsy in his smile. All of these only existed inside her mind, especially that smile. Gwenda hadn't seen it in a long time, and contemplated when she would finally see his normal, fantastical persona again.
She wondered what happened to the fire demon she met all those years ago.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Gwenda shuddered awake and turned to see Lily standing directly behind her. She glanced at the elegant fireplace, where Lily had focused her attention. Even without the presence of a burning fire, it still speckled from the blues and greens and yellows of the mosaic design. It reminded her of the grey, concrete fireplace Calcifer had for so many years.
For someone with flair and style, Howl didn't seem to pay mind to Calcifer's domain.
Gwenda sighed, her spirits downcast. "It really is. I can only imagine how the colors shine when there's a fire."
"Speaking of which," Both women turned around, Kenta standing a fair distance away. "You never answered my question from earlier, Lily."
Like an interrogation, the young witch became the new focal point. Her dark hair glistened under the twinkling lights that sparkled along the ceiling. Kenta held his arms crossed over his bulky chest, awaiting her response.
She reached into her high-waisted pants pocket and pulled out the stainless cigarette lighter, opening and closing the lid with quick movements of her thumb. "It was my spell that turned the fires green. I used him to find you, or rather anyone who could see magic. He's very particular about the people I meet, you know, but was just as curious as I was to find you."
Gwenda and Kenta scanned a glance toward each other, then back to Lily. They were especially leery of their next question. "He?"
Lily flipped open the cigarette lighter, this time pressing hard on the wheel that sparks a flame. Its potent green color rose as it had before, though an eerie chuckle faintly echoed throughout the room. The fire twisted and morphed high and wide, reaching far above the witch until all of its fire had departed from its tight constraint. The sound carried with it as the green flame resided in the fireplace, and the mosaic design glittered like a million stars lit up the sky all at once.
Lily didn't flinch.
Curiosity pushed Gwenda forward and cemented Kenta close to his daughter, yet they were all amazed as a pair of impish, purple eyes and a wide, sharp smile grew in the center of the fire.
The fire blurted out a roaring groan. "Oh, finally to be out of that wretched tiny box. I can actually breathe real air again." He formed tiny arms from his flames and cracking fiery knuckles. The fire turned to the gawking faces that stared at him, and all he could muster was a sly smirk. "Now, don't look too surprised. It's like you've never seen a fire demon before."
