In which regret hits, and broken spells can't be restored.
Wormwood opens his eyes to a blur of purple, and wet hair in his face.
The Crocus...? Is he still at the top of the mountain, only his raptor-like reflexes standing between Sofia and certain death, the rest of his memories only a fleeting dream—? But the weight is different, and the shape is different, and he has to adjust his hold not to let the listless figure in his arms slip away. His ears are ringing, full of the rumbling sound of his own breathing. Slowly, in the still dissipating green smoke and the rain dripping down his temples, he blinks a gloved hand into focus, lying lifeless on the grey stones under him―under them.
Shaking his head, he looks around. He is kneeling on the bridge, heaving, just outside the castle's gates. His arms are folded tightly around Cedric, as though the sorcerer were going to be forcefully pried from his grasp any moment. The two guards at the gate are staring at them, too stunned to speak.
How did we get here? he wonders, fighting to clear his mind. What has happened, back on the riverside? It rains on his shoulders, but he cannot move, all limbs locked, smoke still too dense. He remembers Cedric falling backwards, remembers shoving the people aside to go after him, like he did with Sofia... his outstretched nails missing the edge of his robe by an inch. I must have Transported, he realises, and a shudder runs through his entire body. He must have leapt off the levee, clutched the sorcerer, and disappeared in a cloud of green smoke before they could touch the water. His instincts aimed for the tower, but the defence system bounced them back at the gates.
Still winded, he glances down at Cedric's face, and the now familiar sinking feeling seizes him again. The sorcerer's head lolls back, all of his limbs seem to hang, disjointed, a stringless doll draped across Wormwood's forearms. The rain falls in his face, light catching on the bluish cast of his lips. On his stretched neck, faint blue markings that he doesn't recognise. If it weren't for the feeble exhales rattling their way out of him, he could be mistaken for... somewhere, deep inside him, something whispers, you've made a mistake.
"E-everything alright?" a guard asks, barely recovered from their sudden appearance, making to step towards them.
Wormwood glares up at the men, and the look on his face must say either murder or bare despair―or both―because one of them steps back, but the other still asks, "Are you in need of assistance...? R-reaching the tower, I mean."
"No, stay... stay back," he grits out. He climbs to his feet and pulls the sorcerer up with him. He doesn't quite know how to lift him, but Cedric is the wrong size to hold by the middle like Sofia. The guard still inches towards him, but the mere idea of letting anyone even near Cedric... like a visceral pull, he needs to bring him back home, where he'll be hidden, safe. "We're fine. There was a little incident. Just let me through."
He folds his long sleeves around the sorcerer to shield him from their eyes, and though he's still uncertain on how to carry him, he strides forward. The guards let him pass, blinking and staring, and Wormwood makes a beeline for the tower's backdoor as soon as he's inside the walls.
It takes him almost the whole way, but he figures it out: one arm supporting the back, other arm scooping up the knees, lean back a little to compensate for the additional weight. He's halfway up the staircase when he hears the King's carriage land on the pad outside, and his instincts scream at him to make haste, precede it, make it to the lair before someone can see them.
He wonders what explanation the King gave for their sudden disappearance. What do I care? Now they have what they needed, Cedric did all the work for them―and he recalls how he had to shoulder the men out of his way, how no one noticed anything or lifted a finger. He's been hearing all about this kind of thing for ages, and yet it's different now, closer in a way he had no way to experience when he wasn't part of the human world.
Slam of the carriage door. Voices from outside. His legs surer with every step, he keeps glancing down to the unconscious sorcerer he's carrying. Cedric—a bundle of hostile angles last time Wormwood touched him—lies limp in his hold, rocked by the swift bounce of his step, face mushed into his shoulder. After talking about him all morning, the physical weight of his body is overwhelming, radiating heat as burning coals pressed into his arms and chest. And yet, the longer he carries him, the lighter he seems to become.
"We're almost there," he tells him. He thought they'd both be awake, next time they found themselves alone, the one-sided conversation a painful reminder of the past. He cannot take his eyes off the parting in his wet hair, still so neat, so near him.
When the stairs are over, he needs his hands to open the door. Very carefully, Wormwood hoists him onto his shoulder.
"There! We made it," he exhales when the lair door slams shut behind them, the familiar noise shaking something loose in his chest, some breath he didn't know he was holding. One way or another, he returned Cedric to his tower. Everything is still in place, he notes with a brief spark of satisfaction. "I can't wait for you to see it, when you wake up."
If, something murmurs, but he shoves it down. He shakes his head, and trots to the chambers downstairs.
"Now," he says out loud, to keep himself focused, to keep the voices quiet. "You should be dry, right? Sofia says you'll get sick otherwise."
With the sorcerer still slung over his shoulder, he pulls a few towels from the pile he and Sofia laundered a few hours before, then marches to the bed and makes a hasty job of spreading them. Then, a bit of at a loss of how to manoeuvre him, he just clumsily lets Cedric fall onto them, legs dangling off the bed.
Wormwood leaves him to roll up his sleeves and look after the next logical step: the fireplace. Usually only magical fires burn in there, and there's no wood except for Goodwyn's tacky furniture, so Wormwood pulls the Wand out and sets to conjure a flame. It takes a couple of tries, and only makes a small blue flame... but it can do, he supposes.
Wormwood himself is wet and cold, he just realizes when the heat licks his hands. He tugs his belt loose, and shrugs his robe off, leaving it on a hanger to dry by the fire. Wondering if ravens can catch colds, he turns back to the bed―and he has to shoot forward again to catch the sorcerer before he rolls off.
"Morgana's Mockingbirds, just in time―will you stop falling everywhere?" he hisses. Hooking a claw around the heel, he slips Cedric's shoes off, letting them clatter to the floor. Wet socks are just the worst, or so he's been told, so he peels away the squelchy grey fabric and flings it aside. "That should be better, right?"
Cedric doesn't answer. He still looks half-dead, pale as candle-wax and limp like a blade of grass floating in a pond. The fire's heat doesn't seem to be reaching him, Wormwood notes, holding his ankles between thumb and forefinger to lift his legs up on the bed. Where they brush against his forearm, his toes feel like little icicles.
He glances back at his hanging robe. Taking it off was just instinctive, as much as shaking the water off his feathers after a good flight in the rain. Cedric will never get dry if he keeps all this wet stuff on. With a sigh, he kneels on the bed and sets to the boring task of figuring out how to remove the unbelievable quantity of things he wears.
The robe is easy, but the vest has buttons, which take a bit of time to figure out. The suspenders he just slips off Cedric's thin shoulders, to free the shirt underneath. He ends up flipping him on his stomach to get the shirt off, soaked to the point that his entire undershirt can be seen through it. He is just pulling his left sleeve, momentarily distracted by the stitches in it, when Cedric's arm flops out of it. It has been wrapped in gauze, but the movement has tugged the bandages loose.
"Did I... did I scratch you so deep?" he whispers, taking in the four lines of dried blood, breath hitching. "I hadn't realised..."
Also, somehow, the full shape of his hand is still on Cedric's skin, in the same bluish hue he's seen somewhere. Has he stained him somehow? He continues his task, with each layer closer to the skin, growing more stressed he'll scratch him again even with his nails truncated. Swallowing hard, with just the very tips of his claws, he rucks up the undershirt to slip it off Cedric's head, mussing up his hair, and lets it fall to the floor.
Below the undershirt, the sorcerer's back is covered in purple stains. The most of it on his left side and spine, the mottling varies between bluish and reddish hues, to an edge of green-yellow, like watercolour paint. Wormwood tilts his head, trying to think of where he has seen something like this before.
As he dries him off with one of the towels, the raven makes a careful attempt to sweep the stains away, but they look like they are in the skin—Bruising, he finally realizes, noticing the slight swelling around the raised knobs of Cedric's spine. It hits him like a kick in the chest. Of course, he's seen it before, on other humans... it is blood, wounds trapped under the skin, redder when it's fresh, greenish when it's old and oxidised.
When he threw Cedric out, he must have landed on his back, on the cobblestones outside. There is no other explanation, it's the same as the stains on his arm and―he checks, seized by a horrible thought―those lines on his neck... they measure up perfectly, they all were left by his hands, when he gripped him... he gripped him hard enough to—
"I... I did this," he murmurs, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth, free hand hovering without daring to touch again.
He tugs the covers from the other side of the bed, and pulls them around the sorcerer's body, bundling him up. Desperate to focus on something else, his eye falls on his favourite roosting spot. He puts his hand on the clawed wood, the markings of his raven-talons so small under his large, sort-of-human fingers, darker than the deep brown wood. Even back when he was a raven, his claws used to leave marks everywhere, but never on Cedric, never deep enough to wound him.
"Don't worry, alright?" he murmurs, echoing Sofia's words in his fretting. As if in answer, his ice-cold skin finally dry and warming up, shivers start running through Cedric's prone figure. Wormwood watches him curl on his side, like a wounded hare in hiding. He tucks him in some more, whispering, "It's going to be alright. I've learnt a healing spell, just this morning. Wait here, don't fall."
Wormwood's robe is almost dry already, so he dons it and brandishes the Wand. He crouches on the floor, carefully lifts Cedric's arm out of the covers, and loads the healing spell, pointing the Wand at the mess of clotted blood and livid skin. As he waits for it to start working, he murmurs reassurances as though Cedric could hear him. He keeps Cedric's hand in his; it is movingly small in his broad palm, a pale acer leaf that he can unfurl with just the sweep of his thumb. Called to his mind unwanted, the image of the same hands trying to pry Wormwood's fingers off his spasming throat―
Your best friend in the whole world, Sofia's voice echoes, and the smell of the bed they've shared for years―clean linens and the same talcum powder from when they were fledgelings―brings him to lay his forehead down into the soft blankets, and wish it all never happened.
But it did, and a sorcerer's companion knows no magic can change the past. He called Cedric weak, revolting, and pathetic, and other terrible things he can barely recall, as if the blinding anger that overcame him ate away his memories. But he does remember how it felt: in the moment, it brought him satisfaction, a righteous sense of vengeance, to treat him like an enemy to annihilate—to unleash all of his fury, letting his actions hurt Cedric as much as his rejection had hurt Wormwood.
Seems like I've hurt him alright, he tells himself, bitterly. Cedric hates him now, he could barely stand being in that carriage with him... it was so clear from how he kept avoiding his eyes, and inching away from him. All they had is ruined, and he fears no magic or apology can ever bring it back.
"Old friend, I never meant for this to happen," he murmurs, his eyes to the floor, able to spit it out because―as in the past thirty years―Cedric cannot hear him. His vision gets blurry again, and doesn't clear until he blinks. "I was no better than... Roland, and all those others you've always despised. I am... so sorry."
When the hand gives a small twitch, clutching briefly around his fingers, he nearly jumps. For a moment, his heart swells in hope. Now he'll wake, pulled from his stillness by the regret in his voice, and Wormwood will bring him to see the workshop and the Crocus, and praise him for the amazing job he did for those ungrateful humans. And then, finally, finally they'll talk, like Sofia said and, somehow, everything will be alright again.
Expectantly, he looks up at Cedric's face. He doesn't wake.
Rather, he seems in some sort of distress, frowning and clenching his jaw and emitting a faint noise of strain, a sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip. Is the magic making it worse instead of helping, has he said the spell wrong? It didn't hurt at all when Wormwood healed up his own feet in the morning... but the arm isn't healing, and Cedric looks ill now, black shadows under his eyes, lips going blue again. Wormwood moves his thumb to his wrist, and the pulse in it is a shallow flutter, like the feeble wingstroke of a dying sparrow.
He breaks the spell off, so hastily a wisp of magic energy, barely visible like glistening smoke, hangs directionless from his wand for an instant. In a moment of intense focus, Wormwood stares at the faint trail, as it flows back not into him, the caster, but into Cedric instead.
"This shouldn't happen," he mutters. Nervously, he runs his thumb on the gloved knuckles clutched in his hand. "If I am the one who is casting, the energy should come from me..."
Notions written in large, friendly fonts on first year textbooks flash back to him. Magic is an energy that, conveyed through a catalyst, can cause change to occur. Magic comes from a sorcerer's core. The core is where their energy is stored.
How has he been enabled to use magic, actually? He has wished to become a sorcerer, but hasn't given any thought to the specifics. He is just a common raven, and non-magical creatures cannot grow a core, they cannot be trained to be magic users―and magic energy, to be used, has to be stored somewhere.
Wormwood glances down at the Wand he's gripping, a chilling suspicion seizing him: what if the Wand is not the only thing he has stolen from Cedric...?
It can't be, he tries to reason. Cedric looked like he was barely keeping on his feet after doing his own spells, and he still pushed himself to finish what was asked of him—that must be why he collapsed. Sofia said he hadn't slept... it is only logical to think nothing of it, isn't it? Merely exhaustion, not that anybody bothered to notice. But if instead...
"Oh no," he gasps, looking down at the hand in his, horror-struck. "I've nearly killed him."
From the moment magic has been given to him, he made use of it... intense use. He used Transport magic, even, twice. If all this time he's been―
"No," he tells himself, stumbling to his feet, swallowing convulsively. He leaves Cedric's hand, and he has no heart to look him in the face again. Not before he gets answers. "I have to be sure."
He flees the room in a whirl of black robes, Wand clutched in his fist.
Slowly, as if he were pulling himself out of a dark, gluey sea, Cedric comes back to his senses.
There is silence, a sort of stillness, and in the air, he can perceive an unfamiliar smell of rain and wet rib velvet. He blinks in the filtered light, taking in the weight of the duvet over him, and the uncomfortable damp chill in his whole body.
I am in... my bed, he thinks, and he feels his ribcage expand in helpless, nearly painful relief, it must still be morning, it was all a―but he doesn't even have the time to finish the thought.
When he glances up, the stripes of light crossing the canopy are incongruous with those he's been seeing in all the years he woke up in his chambers. It's not morning.
He pushes on his arms to sit up, but they are so numb he falls back down, his face into the towel on his pillow. There is a towel on his pillow... and his hair is damp. He was sleeping on top of his duvet, with several other towels under him and―he notices when the other half of the heavy cover falls from his shoulders―pretty much nude. Except, absurdly, for his gloves and breeches.
By now expecting his hopes to be crushed, he finally finds it in himself to glance down at his forearm. The scratches are there, scabbed and ugly, surrounded by bruised skin. Of course.
"Please, please, tell me at least I sleepwalked back here," he keens into his gloved hands, slowly pulling his knees under him. But there is only one explanation: he fell into the river, and someone has fished him out and hoisted him back in the carriage, somehow carried him back to the tower and... put him to bed. He shudders. "Oh, please, just... not Roland."
But it's a tie of unpleasantness with all three men in that coach, really. No, none of them would―they'd all cut off a hand rather than put it on me, that's certain, he reassures himself. It was probably a guard, someone I don't have to look in the eye. Yes. It's fine.
He stumbles out of bed—drat, his back is in agony—still rubbing his face, and drags himself to the washroom to rinse the sweaty film off his skin. He has no memory more recent than seeing the river under him, and yet... shouldn't he stink way more, if he fell in the river? But there's no other explanation...
He dries off absently, refusing to even glance at Wormwood's bathing basket on the thin wrought-iron shelf. He picks his scattered clothes to throw them in the laundry basket... which is empty. He halts, blinking in confusion. He clearly recalls telling Wor―reminding himself for the tenth day in a row that he should do laundry, just the previous morning.
"Am I losing my mind, here?" he asks to no one, scratching his head. Blacking out in the middle of the day, exhaustion and dizziness, memory loss... it can't be all nerves, can it? He tries not to think what it could all mean. In light of this, even the relief of being dry and clean isn't so comforting. And he still feels like he's been ran over, aching and sore all over... exactly the same as after that whole Floating Palace disaster. Except all the bruising, he thinks. That's new.
He takes particular care in tying his bowtie, so that the fingermarks on his neck can stay hidden. No one noticed, even before Wormwood gave him back his other tie, and the last thing he wants now is people starting to ask questions. But whoever carried him back must have seen the injuries... the sleepwalking hypothesis is still the top one out of the lot, he concludes, heaving a sigh.
Laboriously climbing the stairs to the workshop, he tries to prepare to see again the battlefield it's been reduced to. It must have reached apocalyptic levels by now, since Wormwood―armed with the Family Wand―took residence there, and undoubtedly proceeded to do his worst. As if anything could ever be worse than the raven's empty perch. And his cage. And the spot where they used to―stop it, he snaps at himself, just stop it.
As soon as he walks past the red curtains at the top of the stairs, though, he has exactly a split-second to notice the lair is neater and cleaner than it's been in years.
"Finally! Took you long enough, Cedric," Goodwyn the Great exclaims, his loud and gravelly voice causing him to clutch his chest and flinch. "What in the world were you doing? You know this portrait can't project me if you aren't in a ten feet range!"
Cedric pivots on his heels, following the sound of his father's voice. The movement is a bit too fast, and he has to grab the desk for balance.
"I had no idea, actually," he says meekly, hunching over slightly as his father's broad frame imposes on his space. He clears his throat. "G-good to see you so soon, Father."
"You would know, if you bothered to read Properties of Magic Paintings." Father sighs haughtily, without reciprocating the greeting. Without Mother around to scold him for it, his tone always gets a bit colder, more disdainful. "But of course, I entrusted my library to you for nothing."
The vast collection of rare books has been donated to the castle because it would never fit in the cottage at Mystic Meadows... but of course, he has to say it like it's some magnificent gift, bestowed upon Cedric out of pure benevolence. He used to do the same thing, coming home for Wassailia every year with hand-me-down books too advanced for Cedric's reading level as his only gift. Cedric sighs.
"So, how is Mother?" he asks in the uncomfortable silence.
"Hm, good, good. No melting hazards for a whole of two days now," Father answers, his attention elsewhere, running his full beard between his middle and forefinger, staring intently at him.
A deep unease settles into Cedric's chest under the scrutiny of Father's ice-blue eyes, taking in his still-damp hair and second-best clothes. The jab feels like a slap on the wrist, as though he overstepped again some invisible line, and the man who held him and spoke highly of him just two days prior were nowhere to be found once again.
"I don't like having to wait hours and hours when I want to reach you, Cedric," Father says. "We should put another painting downstairs."
Cedric feels the blood drain from his face. "I-I think we're fine like this, Father," he attempts, his voice lilting too high, nervously reaching a hand to unstick his wet fringe from his forehead. "I was just out of the tower a lot and... you know, I've built a dam for the village today and..."
Goodwyn is not listening to him. His usually ruddy face has paled, his eyes staring up at Cedric's forehead.
"This! What is this!" he yells, whiskers trembling under his wide nose. He shoots forward, grabbing Cedric by the shoulder to pull him down and push his hair back with his other hand, fingers stretching the skin around the light scratch he had almost forgot about. "How did you get it?!"
"Ow, Father, it's nothing―I just fell!" he yelps, incredulous.
When Goodwyn had held him, the sensation had lingered on him, and he could feel something cautiously unfurling in his chest, stretching towards that fleeting warmth like a frail crooked sprout out of a dried bean. Now, the brusque grip of Father's hands reminds him of a gardener uprooting weeds.
"Your mother," Father gasps, his voice nothing short of panicked. "She must not know. You mustn't see her. Promise me, Cedric."
"What? Why can't I see Mother?" he asks, tugging away from him, the icy unease seeping again into his middle.
There had been some moments, during the past year―the last one just the previous week, when the fake Amulet had vanished in his hand just when he thought he finally had it―when he had been tempted to call her and lay his head in her lap, like he used to do as a small child. There, she used to say, running through his hair with her long nails, the smell of her a bit cloying with perfume, but hers. Only Mummy can make you all better.
"Promise!" Eyes wide and a bit bloodshot, Father hisses, "She... she must not know."
"Know what?" Cedric almost-yells, his voice sharp in exasperation.
"That you bled, son." In a quick motion, Goodwyn pulls his wand from his sleeve and taps him lightly over the head. Cedric recognises the faintly metallic tinge of his father's favourite healing spell, and rubs the smooth skin left in place of the scratch. His father is still muttering under his breath, "It fell, how could it fall?"
"Father, it was only a little scratch, no reason to make a fuss about it," he tries again, involuntarily apologetic. Self-consciously, he traces his fingers over his left forearm. "How could what fall?"
Father is looking around the lair, ignoring him. He appears to be looking for something. Oh no, Cedric thinks, stomach backflipping, trying to think of a lie to tell, don't ask about the Wand, don't ask about the Wand.
"Where is the raven, Cedric?" Goodwyn asks suddenly.
"I sent it to polish―huh? You mean W-wormwood?" he says, his voice dying on the name. His arm, back, and throat sting unbearably for a moment, pins and needles combing over his nerves. He glances at the window, twitching, trying to gauge what time it might be, and to keep his focus. "Probably... probably out to get himself some food. His mid-afternoon snack, yes. But why?"
Father paces around, agitated, without answering. Cedric follows a few steps behind, waiting for an explanation that won't come anytime soon. He's never seen Father like this before.
"Alright," Father says out of nowhere, his voice commanding, "I will attempt to redo it. Hold still."
"Redo w―" Cedric freezes on the spot, questions and weak protest dying in a squeak.
A powerful spell is already loading in the air, prickling on his skin like static, as he watches his father wave his wand in an intricate motion, the magistral flick of his wrist above his head. He cannot recognize the pattern, but he can feel its vibration down to his very bones―his beakers, whole and aligned by height on the shelves and cabinets, clink together like wind chimes.
He cowers in fear. Goodwyn needn't say any magic words, but the silent spell resonates with the rumble of a thunderstorm, pulsing loud in Cedric's throat. Even though he bites the inside of his cheek not to scream, he can't help but raise his hands in front of his face when the engulfing black beam reaches him, nor the high wavering whimper that tears from his chest.
The spell never touches him. Through his fingers, he watches it bend around him, as if his body heat were a shield more powerful than his father's magic.
"Godmother's Gargoyles," Goodwyn hisses, so angrily Cedric fears he's thinking he has shielded himself on purpose. "It's broken. My charm is broken, and I cannot redo it!"
"W-w-what charm?" Cedric dares ask, his voice almost shrill, shaking from head to toe. "Did I... have a charm on me?"
"Yes, Son, can't you recognise a Protection Charm when you see one?" Goodwyn spats, swatting his question like a fly from his thoughts. "You've had it on since you were six years old."
Cedric blinks, a strange feeling making his chest grow tight. For a moment, just for a moment, he was led to think his shortcomings might have a magical cause, and instead... "A Protection Char―?"
"Can you remember the last time you got a scratch on you, Cedric?" his father asks, almost rhetorically. He starts pacing around again, pulling books from his shelves, taking a moment to mutter that at least he deigned to put the poor things in proper order, finally. "Do you know why is that?"
Through racing thoughts, Cedric tries to recall. He's had sets of armour fall on him without injury. He has fallen from his flying machines, slammed into candelabra, slipped and hit his head more times than he can count... only in the past year. Then, in the past years, he scalded his hands on a metal ladle, fell into a haystack from the back of a flying horse, was tripped countless times down the school stairs. And thinking back even more...
"Answer me, Cedric," Father demands, in that way of his, saying his name all in harsh consonants after every question―and Cedric's train of thought is lost. Suddenly he's twelve again, and Hexley Hall isn't giving out gold stars for mediocrity, and his father is looking at him, staring him down from the length of his wide nose, and he feels again like his only place for him is with the other insects, dying crushed in Mother's mortar.
"I... I don't recall," he squeaks, starting to panic. Daring to raise his voice a bit, clutching his scratched arm behind his back, he defies, "Maybe I'm stronger than you think, and that's why I've never been injured."
Father stops in his tracks for a second, and laughs. A sort of bitter, single bark.
"Of course you're not. I put the Charm on you after you slipped into that crevice, out on the seastacks near the village," Father says indifferently. "You scraped away half your skin, broke your arm, almost froze to death... and then you couldn't climb out, and just waited for the tide to come in and drown you. I had to cut a performance in the middle, and rush back to the village, because your mother sent a whole flock of those rock-ravens of hers to summon me. The King was very displeased."
Cedric has missed half of what his father is saying. Old memories are rushing through his mind, as pages flipped too fast to read―the weight of the water, the maddening sting of salt on his limbs, the chorus of caws amplified through the rock to a deafening cacophony. His mouth as dry as after a mouthful of seawater, he has to fight his way out all over again.
His father doesn't notice anything, still talking, and he gesturing to the whole of him, in a brusque way that hurts him somehow, without laying a single blow. "A clumsy, sickly child like you... we had to keep you all in one piece, somehow," he says. "I did the Charm myself, guaranteed to last a hundred years! But it broke the very evening I sent you home with the Family Wand." He taps his own wand. A truly advanced sorcerer can always feel when his major spells are broken. "What did you do? Did you use the Wand to tamper with it? Or that Amulet you're obsessed with?"
"Father," Cedric attempts, swallowing painfully, "I didn't even know―"
"The important thing is that your mother does not know," Goodwyn interrupts him. He opens one of the books, landing on the right page on the first try. "I'll block her access to the portrait for now and―" Then he turns, and really looks at him for a long moment, making him squirm again. "Son... do you always look this much like a drowned rat, or have you already gotten yourself sick?"
Cedric, the fresh discovery of his lost invulnerability still ricocheting in his mind, can only answer in a weak murmur, "I'm alright."
Father just shakes his head, and loads a physical scan on his wand. Cedric resigns himself to standing and shouldering it: even if he protests, Father won't listen. He wants to ask why mustn't he see his mother, but again, Father wouldn't listen. If only he, too, could grab him and yell, from now on, you'll keep your wand away from me! he would do it, he must admit.
"Cedric," Goodwyn says, again in that hushed voice that is so unlike him, as he reads his son's health in the configuration of light dots on his wand, "you appear to be injured—were you in a scuffle? And Son, you've been walking around on a slipped disk for a whole day. What happened here?"
"Have I? Well, you did say I've always been clumsy," Cedric says, not bothering to control the slight hysterical lilt in his voice. He places his hands on his lower back, and makes to push his shoulder-blades together. "I'll just pop it back in and―"
"No no no, you'll make it worse!" Goodwyn, a glimpse of real concern in his eyes, raises a hand to stop him. "Just―hold still, Son."
This time, the metallic taste of the healing spell is strong enough to make him gag, and he feels a shock down to his fingertips as his back snaps back into alignment.
Grabbing the edge of the table and cringing, he whimpers, "Why, thank you, Father." In a moment, though, it's like the weight of an anchor has been taken off his shoulders. He stretches, his mind in a brief haze of relief. "Much better now."
"It's not all," Father says gravely. "Your energies have been depleted so severely, it put you at great risk... nearly in mortal danger!" With a flick of his wand, he summons one of the armchairs stored downstairs, and pushes him on it. "You must rest, immediately. Have you lost consciousness in the past two days?"
"I... just now, in fact," Cedric admits, shifting uncomfortably in the cushioned seat. "But as I was saying, I was building this dam and I couldn't just leave it―wait, did you say I almost died? By using my energy for magic?"
"No, no, you cannot exhaust your own energy like that, that's not how it works. There must be something... hold still," Father says, loading yet another type of scan. "There it is! Just like I suspected. There is a link system, a stream of energy going from you to... a few other entities, at least three. I cannot see what they are or where... Son, what have you gotten yourself into?"
"Nothing!" Cedric recoils, arms wide in helpless exasperation. "Father, I haven't done a―"
"Your levels are still terribly low," Goodwyn interrupts him. How were you even on your feet, I wonder?"
Cedric wonders himself. It would explain why his spells have been failing so much these days... more than usual. And the weariness that seems to cling to him. But... aside from Wormwood's transformation, nothing new happened―
"Son, I'm afraid you have a leech."
"Wishing Well," Wormwood booms, slamming both his hands on the smooth stone edge. "You lying, fiendish abomination, what have you done?!"
He ran like a madman, down the stairs, out the backdoor, behind the castle and into the dried-up gardens. Finding his way proved difficult, because the fog now engulfs the maze and the hedges, but he followed his senses and ran forth, until he had kicked the broken gate open and marched into the clearing as though he had three armies behind him, ready to back up his demands.
The serene metal face, unfazed, just blinks politely at him. "I have granted you three wishes, as it is my purpose―"
"Murdering Cedric was not in my wishes!" Wormwood howls, breathing still ragged like that of a wolf after a chase, his fist coming down on the cold metal with a knell-like sound.
"All that ambition you showed me... where is it now, Your Majesty?" the Well murmurs.
Its voice and cadence sound different, Wormwood notes distantly. The high monotone is now less slow and mechanical, closer to natural speech. Closer to a human voice. The raven's skin crawls.
"For wishes of such magnitude, one would think a single human life to be a very small price. And you were so lucky as to stumble upon such an abundant supply of magical energy!" the Well says, with something akin to a laugh. "Truly, when you fed the fruits of your wishes to the little sorcerer, I thought your plan to be most well conceived."
"The blackberries," Wormwood gasps. Just like he feared. Of course... the following morning, Cedric was already showing signs of being unwell. Through the fruits, the Well has channeled his energy into Wormwood. That's why he collapsed, this is what I've done―"No, no, you are correlating events that are not―this was never my plan. I never wanted this."
"Oh, but you did. You made them correlate," the Well murmurs suavely. Something rustles in the clearing, but there is no wind, and almost no leaves to rustle. "You wanted destruction, and fear, and power. You wanted this kingdom at your feet. You wanted results."
"Not at this price!" Wormwood yells, to make himself louder than the Well and the words it keeps twisting. "I―this conquer was taking ages, I just wanted to live long enough to see it―to use magic, I just wanted to get something done."
He lowers his gaze, to the dead grass under his feet, fists trembling in fury and anguish. Desperate, he demands, "I want to go back. I want my wishes undone!"
"You did bring me a very handsome payment. I hadn't had such a surge of power in years," the Well concedes, with a hint of mockery. Wormwood clutches the stolen Wand in his sleeve. "But still, the rules are rules, and you are all out of wishes, raven-child."
Something slithers near Wormwood's foot, brushing his ankle. He hops away in alarm, but he hears it come after him again, invisible in the dense mist. He kicks blindly at it, stomping hard into the ground. Something squelches between his toes, like the mud on the village levees, and the water-moss in the forest meander. When he looks down, heart in his throat, he sees a vivid green vine heavy with crushes fruit, splattering his toes in purplish red.
"What is this―?" he snarls. A few more vines slide on the ground, forcing him to back away. "The bramble I made... why is it moving?!"
"After it had a taste of that magic, it cannot bear to be confined here any longer," the Well says sweetly, voice curling at the edges with a slightly distorted sound. "It wants more."
"C-cedric's magic?" Wormwood asks, horrified, hands clenched into fists. "What does it mean, it wants more?"
"It means, dear Wormwood," the Well wheedles, calling him by his name for the first time, "that if you bring the little sorcerer to me, I shall share with you a boundless supply of magic energy, to use as you please."
Wormwood doesn't stay to hear the rest. Cold with dread, the raven bolts, vines slithering under his running steps, ready to coil and grab.
They don't stop snapping at his ankles until he's out of the maze, and almost at the rose garden.
Accidentally a creep, a Wormwood story. And remember kids, never bridal carry someone with back injuries. Guest star, Goodwyn the Great.