In which Cedric isn't as enthusiastic as Wormwood hoped, and they try their hand at two-sided arguing.
Trigger warnings just for this chapter:
Emotional/Psychological Abuse; Minor Violence; Threats of Violence; Physical Abuse (NON sexual!)
(tbh they just argue and it escalates)
The silence hangs between them, as tense as storm air, as they walk side by side through the corridors.
They don't meet anyone on their way from the dining hall to the tower, and the only sound that accompanies them is the hurried clacking of Cedric's heels, and the fleshy cadence of Wormwood's own bare steps. Cedric hasn't let go of his cape.
"Wormwood?" Cedric whispers to him after a while, quick and unsteady, the way he does when he can't keep something bottled up anymore, "Is it really you?"
Wormwood hesitates, walking with his eyes trained to the creases of cloak pressed in Cedric's grasp. He's at a loss for words: if he answers, this time Cedric will hear him. Hear him. Disoriented by his silence, though, Cedric stops and releases him, imperceptibly stepping away.
"It is me," Wormwood finally manages, the sound of his voice almost too loud and sudden.
Cedric heaves a huge sigh of relief, hands crossed over his chest, and the silence seems to breathe open with him.
"Don't you scare me like that!" he snaps a second after, turning around with one foot on the first step of the staircase. "I was sick with worry! The lair is a disaster, I thought you were... taken or lost or―I thought you were gone!"
Wormwood gives a scoff, not at all intentioned to take any of that scolding tone right now. Has Cedric nothing better to say to him? Anything at all? His new legs are already aching from all the walking―he never noticed the castle had so many stairs―and his clawed toes won't stop catching on the hem of his cape. He is heaving after Cedric, who just quickly skips up the stairs with the force of habit, holding his robe up and going on a brief rant about his sudden disappearance. Wormwood makes to move forward, and perch on the sorcerer's shoulder to be carried―before he remembers the logistical impossibility of it.
They walk up the countless stairs in, again, silence. Wormwood tries to think of all the things he always wanted to talk about with Cedric. They are all gone, lost somewhere, like the end of the staircase that seems impossible to reach. Frustration is quick to run an itch up his neck.
Once they are almost at the top, it is Cedric that breaks the silence again. "Are you going to tell me how did you get yourself into this anytime soon, or should I take a guess?" he mutters, with an edge of hostility.
"Why, are we in a hurry?" the raven retorts, trying not to sound too wheezed.
They've finally made it to the landing and Cedric is letting them into the lair. Wormwood gives a glance to the gargoyle he used to perch on while Cedric went through the small ritual of retrieving the key and opening the lock. Didn't the gargoyle use to be much bigger? Its long stone fangs are level with Wormwood's eyes now. He steps forward after Cedric, still eyeing the statue.
"Of course! The less people see you, the less―careful!" Cedric lifts a hand to stop him, but it's too late: Wormwood's head smacks straight into the hardwood doorframe. Clicking his tongue, the sorcerer check for damage, craning his neck up as he did when he looked him straight in the eye, and Wormwood saw recognition hit him as the light of day. Like he just noticed, he says, "You are so... tall now."
"Everyone saw me, I had dinner at the royal table," Wormwood groans, rubbing the bump on his forehead and proceeding to scratch himself with his nails. He lets out a garbled exhale: what was the damn Well thinking, equipping him with claws on all his limbs?
Cedric, who had been staring up at him without moving, blinks out of his little entrancement. "Well, then, nevermind. Just sit down somewhere without hurting yourself, while I find a way to fix this," he says, as soon as the lair's door is safely locked behind them.
Wormwood half-expects Cedric to conjure him some ice, but instead he sees him climb, quick as a squirrel, up the ladder to the lofted library. Wormwood throws a look around the room, sizing up the spaces in relation to his human body. It feels so small now, almost cramped. There are more scattered books than usual, as if they were pulled out of the shelves in haste. Was Cedric looking for something? Oh, drat, he thinks, free hand grabbing the Wand in his cloak. He already noticed it's missing.
The raven refuses to sit down as instructed, a hand to his throbbing head; for some reason, words just won't come to him. Talking to the others hadn't been so difficult: seeing how easily that Miss Nettle was able to get in, he knew exactly how to get himself favour and hospitality for the time being. But Cedric, instead... how is he supposed to phrase questions, now that their established communication routes all went off the charts?
"Fix... what?" he just asks in the end, a lot late for the normal rhythm of a conversation.
"This, obviously." Barely visible up on the lofted level as he crouches between the dusty books, Cedric's hand lifts and gestures to the whole of Wormwood. He isn't really paying attention anyway, Wormwood can tell from his tone. "I don't know what happened, but fear not, Wormy! We'll have you back to your normal self in no time!"
Wormwood's heart sinks.
His small heart of raven was never stranger to that feeling; every time a plan went wrong, he would feel his ribcage press down, his insides turn to lead. But now that this slow human heart does it, for a moment, he feels the floor itself crumble under him.
Cedric... isn't at all keen to talk with him, even if it's the first and only opportunity they ever had to do so, he realizes, falling seated on the stool. As he watches the sorcerer climb back down, he knows the disappointment shows bare on this alien face he's wearing, entirely too yielding to keep things hidden.
Cedric comes towards him, until he's standing right in front of him, book under one arm and an undecipherable scowl on his face. The same face Wormwood has been reading for thirty years is now as new and alien as his own, and he can't gauge his intentions at all.
He said he's been worried, Wormwood recalls, grasping at straws. But Cedric doesn't look worried as he lifts a hand to Wormwood's face and presses it with the pads of his fingers, tilting the raven's head one way and the other; rather, he seems tired, annoyed, dejected.
"This form is quite well done, actually," Cedric notes clinically. The raven snatches his head back, stung by the twinge in his slow heart. Even with a touch so cold and impersonal, it still beat harder, like a sparrow sated on breadcrumbs. "It's almost a shame to undo it. But of course, we can't have you stay like this."
"And why would that be?" Wormwood rebuts, covering in challenge the sting of rejection that hit him all over again. Cedric raises his eyebrows at him, the small crease of true incredulity appearing between them.
"Well, how would I explain it, for starters? Don't you hate it? And, pray tell, where would I put you?" he lists, gesturing again at the whole of him, like he were some daily nuisance to get over with as soon as possible. "Not to mention you know all of my plans, like some sort of overgrown secrecy hazard."
Caught off-guard, the raven bristles. "Those are our plans!" he snaps, outraged. "And I am not the one with no brain filter who is always plotting out loud!"
"I-I have a busy mind," Cedric retorts, taking a step back from him as Wormwood rises to his feet. He clears his throat. "Anyway, how did this happen? Have you got yourself cursed? Did you mess with the Amulet?"
Now that he's standing, the top of Cedric's head is level with his collarbone, and Wormwood is the one to look down at him.
He did give the Amulet brief consideration when he saw the Princess. Now he wonders if he should have snatched it from her when he had the chance, during the silly magic theatre he put on for them―so now he wouldn't have to stand there and be analysed and interrogated, and suffer the gaping void of Cedric's disinterest.
"No, I haven't!" he says vehemently, with a broad gesture of both his arms. Cedric's brow knits in incomprehension. Oddly, Wormwood feels a draught up his bare legs, like a sudden gust of wind. "Only an idiot would just... go near the damn thing without some Power-Plucking potion ready―why are you staring at me?"
The raven glances down at himself, following the line of Cedric's still gaze. The twig in his cloak, after hours of his moving and gesturing, ended up snapping. With nothing to hold it together, on his next inhale, the shapeless fabric slips from his shoulders and flops to the ground. Distinctly, he hears the Wand roll on the floor behind him, hidden from sight; the nape of his neck, where his hackles used to be, beads in cold sweat.
"Dear, Wormwood, have you had nothing under that the whole time?" Cedric asks, stepping back in haste, like a grasshopper scampering away from water. His hands come together at his middle, fingers struggling to undo the knot that keeps his own robe closed, and Wormwood feels the strange impulse to avert his eyes too. Cedric waves the purple cloth in front of him, in a frantic attempt to shield his eyes from the raven's form.
"I'm not wearing that," Wormwood scoffs, crossing his arms. Cedric manages to raise eyebrows at him while looking anywhere but him.
"Oh, suit yourself," he snaps, throwing the robe astride Wormwood's crossed arms, too impatient to keep his hands full. The raven gives an indignant caw, just the same as his old ones. "Just cover up, until I find you something―hm, decent."
Disgruntled, the raven studies the cloth thrown on him: he's seen Cedric put it on so many times, one arm and then the other, but he cannot be bothered. He just holds it in front of him; it's very warm, heavy with keys and trinkets tucked away in its countless hidden pockets. Cedric is left blinking down at Wormwood's bare, black-clawed feet. Something moves in the corner of Wormwood's eye, and he glances up in time to see Cedric look away. Can the Wand be seen somehow? he asks himself, trying to glance back at his shed cape on the floor, spine tensing. Has he understood everything?
He doesn't quite know why the matter causes him such unease: taking hold of the Wand was unplanned, but Cedric shouldn't be that surprised. After all, it's not like Wormwood ever showed particular concern for Cedric's possessions. It's his now, rightfully taken. Conquered. If Cedric wanted him to leave it alone, he should have been more careful―should have been the one to watch his back for once. He should have brought him along on his quest to get it.
It's not like the sorcerer can actually take the Wand back from him, anyway. From a human perspective, Cedric is such a small, scrawny thing―like a weed grown without much sunlight. Wormwood never paid any attention to his size in relation to other humans, but now it's no wonder none of them has any respect for him. He looks so young, without his sobering robe, in his knee-length breeches and magenta vest; not much more imposing than the Princess in peasant clothes. Still overly aware of his new face, Wormwood feels every muscle move as it pulls into a sneering smile.
He keeps his eyes on him until Cedric glances up again. "What?" they say in one voice.
"It might take a while, finding the right spell to change you back, and in the meantime..." Cedric considers, and he gestures at him for the third time. "You know what? I'll just transmute this thing into a decent robe. Hold it up."
Seeing his opportunity, Wormwood snatches up the black cape, grabs the Wand, and stuffs it into the purple one as he leaves it crumpled on the reading stool. A drop of chilled sweat runs down his back―but Cedric, distracted with loading his spell, doesn't seem to notice anything. As per usual, he thinks, between mock and bitterness.
At the expert twirl of Cedric's wand, Wormwood's cloak changes. The material becomes heavier, the shape more defined. It is textured to the touch, bunching solidly in Wormwood's hand as he grabs it, reminiscent of velvet catching under his talons.
"You need to close it, like this. There you go~!" Cedric lilts, once the raven has driven his arms through the ample sleeves.
A long piece of black cloth, slightly more sheen and trimmed in green, awaits in the crook of Cedric's elbow, as he tugs the front around Wormwood's torso until the fabric overlaps. In a quick, precise gesture, he secures the belt at Wormwood's waist, tying it into a bow out of habit. He blinks at it after a moment, quickly redoing it into a simple slip knot.
"Now! Underwear, something all humans and human-shaped creatures need. And shoes. But... wait... give me a moment."
Out of nowhere, Cedric's breathing became laboured. Bending forward to brace on his knees, like a weary runner, Cedric mutters that magic doesn't usually have this effect on him.
"I am not a human," Wormwood tells him, not bothering to keep his disdain in check. The things Cedric wears all look incredibly constricting, especially that bow he always has at his neck, and the clacking contraptions at his feet. "The robe is enough."
"Nonsense," Cedric says, still wheezed, with a patronizing wave of his hand. "Your feet will get blisters, and you'll get them wet and catch a bad cold!"
"No shoe would fit me," Wormwood argues, pointing down and wiggling the odd little fingers that compose human feet. "My talons are too long and arched."
Cedric makes a pensive noise, hands on hips. "Well," he says, sort of menacingly, "I recall someone being overdue for a trim, anyway."
"Oh no." With growing horror, Wormwood watches him fetch from a drawer the small clippers he uses to cut his claws. A chill runs down his back again, but for an entirely different reason. "Not the thing."
"Come on, it's going to take a minute, don't be a baby about it." The sorcerer coaxes him to sit, the same way he did when Wormwood's protest was in the form of alarmed squawking. "Should I get you the treats?"
At one point, many years prior, Wormwood had to be accustomed to having his feet touched. Not an entirely unpleasant business, as it only required him to tolerate it for a second, and he'd immediately receive a little piece of meat, or a dice of apple. Rinse and repeat, until sometimes they forgot who was training who.
Cutting nails, though, is another business entirely, and he elects to avoid it whatever it takes... until he sees Cedric reach for the purple robe on the stool.
"You know what? You're right," he says quickly, dropping seated. "One form or another, it is overdue."
Cedric, used to never wasting momentum with Wormwood's whims, immediately kneels at his feet, folding his legs under him. Reticent―asking himself if all of this is worth delaying a discovery that will, sooner or later, happen―Wormwood puts a foot in his lap, so that he can easily hold it up, propping the heel between his thighs. It trails a bit of dirt from outside, an soot from the castle floors, but Cedric doesn't seem to mind.
Trimming nails, he always forgets, is not actually painful; just very boring and unpleasant. It requires patience and precision, because a raven's nails are so dark the quick vein can't be seen at all. Cedric snips away a bit at a time, feeling the tip with the pad of his index finger to make sure no blood is drawn, the jar of dittany ready at his side in case of accidents.
After a while, a sort of familiar torpor descends upon Wormwood, silence falling softly onto all his thoughts, until he's zoned out and over-focused all at once. He stares at the finely combed parting of Cedric's hair, his grey fringe framing what looks like a fresh scratch, a red and scabby line of dried blood. How odd, he thinks drowsily, I've never seen him bleed.
He breathes along with the minute movement of Cedric's shoulders as his hands move and work, savouring the light touch of his pale, gloved fingers against the onyx-black skin of his feet. Cedric is kneeling for him, like a devoted vassal, and by the time the strange flutter in his stomach makes it to his conscious brain, the trimming is completed.
"All done!" Cedric pipes up, after five minutes of eternity. Still on his knees, he steeples his fingers and resumes, "Now, if you tell me how you got yourself changed in the first place, I can..."
Startled out of his trance, Wormwood shakes his head to lucidity. He should have used this time to think of a convincing lie; he has a feeling it would be a fuss if it came out he used a Wishing Well to acquire this form. He keeps his second leg where it is, preventing Cedric from getting up and reaching the spell-book.
"Leave it. I'm staying like this," he ends up snapping. "From now on, you are going to keep that wand away from me."
Cedric just blinks up at him. "Wormy, you're being stupid about this," he mocks, with a condescending gesture. "It's just a little spell, nothing to be afraid of!"
Nothing to be afraid of. Wormwood stares down, at the nimble hands that just took care of his talons, the same way they've always done. The same hands that grabbed him without an ounce of care, and held him still even if he was scared and reluctant, to do just a little spell on him, just a little experiment. Even without human speech, Wormwood always made his point clear―and Cedric would just ignore him, just like he's ignoring him now. It seems clear that becoming human changed nothing for them.
"Is that so?" Wormwood asks, his voice cold and his middle simmering with anger. "Why don't we try a little spell of mine then, instead?"
"You can use spells―you can do magic?" Cedric asks candidly, instantly distracted even with Wormwood's foot still grinding into his thighs, preventing him from getting up. There's genuine surprise in his voice, a spark of interest for another keen mind set to magical experimentation―Wormwood snaps himself back from the connection. Cedric already had his chance to show interest in him.
"Let me show you," he says, letting menace grace his tone. With a deep inhale, he plunges his hand into the purple robe and retrieves the Wand, wielding it as it were his birthright.
Cedric's mouth falls open. "Is that...?" With surprising strength, he pushes Wormwood's foot off him and dives forward, grabbing Wormwood's wrist with both hands; his eyes, inspecting every twist and knot with feverish intensity, light up with recognition. "The Family Wand! Have I had it this whole time?!"
He makes to grab it, grinning between relief and incredulity. Wormwood snatches it away, like a wicked parody of the games they used to play back when Wormwood was barely fledged, and Cedric would dangle strings and quills and treats for him to grab, to see which of them was quicker.
"I'll be taking this," he says, flowing to his feet. Even back then, Wormwood was usually the quickest, and his knife-sharp beak would leave v-shaped intents in Cedric's fingers, but they didn't care, they didn't need to. "I need it for my trick."
Cedric, his hand still outstretched, stares up at him. In a moment, the open disbelief on his face hardens to annoyance.
"Wormy, don't be absurd," he says, climbing to his feet, addressing him with the same air of condescension that makes Wormwood want to transmute him into a cockroach. "You know how powerful that wand is. I have others you can try... well, as soon as I get them b―"
"No, see," Wormwood interjects. "This is mine now."
At his words, the superiority finally melts off Cedric's face. In fact, the sorcerer blanches, looking stupefied for a long moment.
"Did... did you have it? Have you taken it?" he croaks out, slowly, once he has swallowed enough times to get words out. The spark of interest is long gone from his wide eyes, and his smile is only a faint shadow stiffening the corner of his mouth. "Wormwood... have you stolen my Family Wand?"
"I conquered it." The sorcerer opens his mouth to argue, and Wormwood has to shout over him, delivering all that he's been telling himself for the whole afternoon, "It's just like you said, the greatest instrument deserves the greatest of wielding hands. This is why I've elected to reassign this Wand to someone who can use it. Someone who deserves it."
Cedric flinches, like he's been slapped across the face, and it's good. Wormwood doesn't know why it comes so easy to hurt him, so natural, but the anger roars like Fiendfyre inside of him, and it burns bright in satisfaction at the crack of hurt in Cedric's voice.
"But―you cannot―I have coveted that Wand since I was still learning my Mutato spells! You know how important this is to me!" his voice shakes, more ripe with anxiety than anger, almost a whine. "And... this colour―what have you done to it?"
"Just a little trick," he lies, smooth and cruel. Nostrils flaring, whole body jittering with distress, Cedric stomps his heel into the ground.
"Wormwood, how―how could you?!" he gasps, overcome. Just like his eyes used to twinkle with amusement when they played their games, now too they have a faint sheen, that makes them glint in the low light. But it's not amusement. With a loud sniff, and his hands clenching into trembling fists, he implores, "This is all a joke, isn't it? It's not funny, you know it's not."
"About our little experiment," Wormwood cuts through, deaf to the nasal voice he can't stand anymore. "I'd need a guinea pig, but it seems that a sorcerer will have to do."
Cedric jolts back. "You surely don't mean―"
"Oh, yes. It's only fair, after I've been your lab rat for so long," Wormwood whispers, following as Cedric scampers away from him, circling around each other in the round room, cobras in a fighting ring. He bluffs, "I believe the strength gap between us has been inverted."
"Wormwood," Cedric keens, as the raven calmly stalks after him, his face schooled into severity. He watches the sorcerer back frantically into the wall, the curtains, then the stairs, hand clawing the wall for balance―and the burning beast in his chest stretches chills up his back, needle-like licks of flame, and feeds off the fear and unprecedented reverence in Cedric's voice. "I've never―never actually tried out a spell on you―not a single one!"
"Because I fly fast." He lunges with his free hand, grabbing Cedric's wrist as harshly as Cedric grabbed his feet when he sat unaware on his desk just the day before, watching him work, trusting. He has given his trust to such a pathetic, weak creature―the thought makes him sick to his stomach. "The spell I've been working on does the same. Imagine that: apparently, my wind is strong enough to blow in windows."
"It was you?" Cedric gasps, voice low, bringing his free hand to his head. That cut... he must have fallen on his face, as per usual. Not his place to worry about it, not anymore.
"I have yet to try it on someone, though. What you reckon will happen, casting one indoors?" He presses on, dangling the Wand from his claws. "You'd make a most fetching tapestry, don't you think?"
Cedric is looking everywhere but him again, left and right for an escape like a trapped mouse. With just a step further, Wormwood backs him into the table where his little play-castle lies, until his back bumps into it, making the figurines tremble. Staring down at Cedric's knitted brow, he can almost see the cogs turn in his brain.
"W-why don't you tell me about the theory first, instead?" he attempts, his voice fighting to come out, trying to overcome the anxiety that makes him shake and stutter. The pulse in Wormwood's hand is almost an undistinguishable flutter. "Wind spells are so tricky, you know how much experimentation they need before they work as intended, right? S-so let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?"
"Hm," Wormwood pretends to consider. "Except putting things into practice is the only way to conquer kingdoms. As you pointedly keep ignoring."
"Ah, yes, t-the empirical approach is undoubtedly important!" Cedric says in an almost-whimper. "Certainly apt for c-conquering purposes."
He sounds like he did during those exams he used to worry about until he got sick. His wrist is shaking so hard in his grip. What am I doing, Wormwood thinks, as he falls to the temptation to squeeze unnecessarily hard, to feel the bones and tendons in Cedric's arm twitch helpless into his palm. His bluff wasn't that much of a reach, he realizes, he is so weak, his arm so thin and brittle; he could break it, if he wanted―just squeezing a bit more.
"How would you know?" he asks, repaying the condescension. "What do you know about conquering kingdoms, anyway?"
The raven points his wand at him, and the sorcerer shrinks under him. "Well, I―" he squeaks, "when... the Amulet―"
"Will you quit with the damn Amulet?!" Wormwood bellows, yanking the sorcerer so hard his shoulder collides with the play-castle, knocking it off the table. "It took me one meal at the King's table to realise how nonsense your plan is. You never had anything concrete. All these years―you had me run around and do your bidding! For nothing!"
Cedric is not looking at him. His eyes are to the floor, on the jagged bits of wood that were once handcrafted merlons and towers, coats of arms with the raven on a green field. The figurines, scattered around them, animate at the wave of Wormwood's wand. Tears well up in Cedric's eyes, and he says nothing.
"The people love this King. No one will follow your stupid rules. They will rally against you."
"That's why I've been waiting!" Cedric strains, free hand clenched to get his voice out. He kicks away the dolls that poke at his feet with their toothpick spears, stomping his foot. "I need the Amulet's powers―so no one will stand in my way!"
"The Royal Family will surely try. And what are you planning to do, then?" Wormwood asks, five crowned dolls levitate until their scribbled little faces are eye level with Cedric. In Goodwyn's most stern voice, the voice from cramming sessions and pre-exam grilling, he yells, "Answer me!"
A strange, fix-eyed look has frozen the sorcerer's features. Without looking at Wormwood, or really anywhere, he breathes, "E-exile them...?"
"Nonsense. They would reach to their allies, come after you, and you'll be overthrown and put to death. You will have to be faster: block all trade routes, and execute the royals before they do it to you."
He makes the figurines' little heads pop off their bodies with a small crunch. Like the castle, they were handcrafted with magic, during many evenings on the reading stool, back to the windowpane, feet in front of the space-heater, just the two of them. Wormwood is seized by the need to destroy their life in front of that heater.
Ruthless, he follows, "And Sofia too, of course: the Amulet's true owner must be destroyed. But it won't be a problem, will it? You already came so close to doing it, once."
The raven watches a convulse shudder crawl up Cedric's back as the last little head crunches off. He turns away, eyes screwed shut and his mouth trembling, as if Wormwood's words were daggers at his throat.
"I―that time was―" Cedric manages, breathless, as if talking took him the strength to move a mountain. "I was not myself. You know that, you were there."
"Oh, I was there alright," the raven says, softly, dangerously. "You transformed me without even asking. I barely made it out alive."
At a loss for words, Cedric doesn't reply. He doesn't talk often of their time as Sea Monsters, of what the spell did to his mind for the brief, disastrous time he was under it. He doesn't speak of the instincts eating away that thin layer of morality he keeps clinging to, nor of the remorseless murder that almost touched his hand.
That time, Wormwood had been intrigued: was Cedric really about to make the Princess vanish, blast her off the face of the world forever? Disappearing someone does lack a certain gory artistry, but Wormwood had never thought Cedric capable of killing.
The remorse came after, biting chunks off his sleep, pushing him to hide what happened even from the insightful eye of his mother. Ever since he was a child, there were certain lines Cedric wouldn't cross, certain parts of his mother's anecdotes that kept him awake at night. For the longest time, Wormwood had wondered what stopped him, what invariably pushed him to self-sabotage; and to think now that it was nothing more than fear... to Wormwood, the distinction is incomprehensible; human world or animal world, the stakes seem to be the same. Victory, or death.
"But once you kill them all," Wormwood goes on, "the people will come after you, their torches lit and their pitchforks sharp, to avenge the silly little royals they love so. And will you be prepared, then, to kill off half this village? To fight the guards of this very castle? To fight the curses the Amulet will punish your deeds with?"
"Enough!" Cedric shudders again, shying from the very idea of killing the damn brat. "I won't, wouldn't―I didn't think this far, but I wouldn't―"
"You are just afraid, the same coward you've always been," Wormwood says coldly, and though he knows where he's aiming, this time he is the one who can't quite look. "Some pathetic failure who has nothing, except a place he doesn't deserve."
"L-let go of me, I'll think of another way, something better," he hears Cedric's voice beg, someplace under him. He can't look. "Let go, you're s-scaring me."
"Oh, am I?" he snarls, giving another yank to the arm in his hand, sharp talons cutting through the thin shirt. "Doesn't feel so good when it's done to you, does it?"
He shoves Cedric's arm away from him, as if it were some crawling insect. With a noise of ripped fabric, his nails come away trailing blood behind them. He refuses to look.
"I'm sorry―!" Cedric yelps, voice cracking in a pained cry. "I promise, I will never do it again!"
"What good are the promises of someone like you?" he snarls, the Wand forgotten as he lunges again and seizes the sorcerer by the throat. "You are disgusting."
His hand squeezes in with satisfaction, the neck not offering much more girth or resistance than the wrist. He lifts Cedric off the floor, his body dangling like a weightless rag from his grasp, feeling his feet kick helplessly at his shins, his short useless nails sink into the back of his hand.
"Please, I―" Cedric chokes, gasping and stuttering, reduced to a laboured rattling of air against his palm. "This time―this time I will―"
"Nothing but some pathetic, grovelling thing," Wormwood hisses. "I cannot believe I have tolerated you all these years. You revolt me. Get out."
At his words, some desperate fire blazes in Cedric's eyes, narrow and watering in his flushed face. Even his spasming throat seems to stiffen, pulse and sinew biting back into Wormwood's palm.
"You get out!" he spats through clenched teeth, reaching to kick him in the stomach and yanking his hand until his grip relents enough to let him talk. "This is my lair! You can go, if you can't tolerate me anymore―is my father's Wand not enough for you? This is my place!"
"Says who? I've been here for as long as you have," Wormwood snarls back, pulling his hand up higher so the limp kicks can't brush him anymore. Everything in his chest has hardened to one solid block, no leaks, no tight feeling. The lie comes to him, perfect and deadly like a poisoned arrow, and he needn't look to aim true. He draws his arm back, holds his breath, and shoots. "In fact, the King wants me as the new Royal Sorcerer."
Still dangling from the grasp of his hand, Cedric stops struggling. All traces of emotion wipe from his face, a blank slate devoid of anger, fear, indignation. The colour drains away until he's left a pale, wide-eyed statue―a likeness of himself that will shatter to pieces when Wormwood lets go of it.
"What...?" Cedric breathes, his voice a feeble exhale with no trace of tone behind it. "King Roland has...?"
"That's right. No one wants you here." With a flick of Wormwood's wand, the backdoor slams open. He strides forward, releases his grip and lets Cedric fall to the ground. "Out."
He doesn't shatter. He just falls onto the landing in a heap. When he tries to climb back to his feet, Wormwood conjures a blast to hit him, sending him to disappear out, out, out, into the wall of rain pouring as waterfalls off the eaves.
The backdoor slams shut, an inch from Wormwood's nose. He stands in the dark, blood roaring in his ears, breathing as hard as when the pain of transformation was changing him. What has he been changed into? He looks down at his hands, and only then realizes he tore loose Cedric's yellow bow.
He wraps it around his fist and tugs, certain it will be enough to rip it. It does not rip.
The raven turns away from the door, but as the rumble of his blood quiets down, the silence swallows him all at once, and he cannot move a step. Wormwood steps back, thudding his shoulders into the doorframe. He slides down it until he's sitting, alone in the dark, stolen tower, his hands full of stolen things.
Upstairs, on the stool they used to sit on to plot together, still full of warmth and keys, the purple sorcerer's robe lies forgotten.
A+ premises there, Wormwood.