In which the importance of the King's favour is highly overestimated.
"You've got some nerve," Cedric hisses through the sliver of open door. Indignation vibrates in his tired voice, the sound of it an almost surreal ring. "Coming to me for help after all you've done."
Wormwood angles his head to take a better look at him. "Neptune's Nettles, you look awful," he ends up blurting out.
He represses the urge to kick himself in the shin. It is yet another encounter that plays out very differently than what Wormwood envisioned.
Cedric is on his feet, which is a relief... but that's about it. He has deep bluish marks under his eyes, and the skin of his face looks dry and sallow, like a man who's seen no sleep in weeks. Cedric's shifty eyes narrow at him, chapped mouth pulling down into a dark, stiff frown.
"Good night," he spats, and slams the door in his face.
Wormwood holds back from banging a fist on it. Instead, he clears his throat, spying the line of light filtering under the door, interrupted by Cedric's shadow. He's probably standing with his shoulders against it now, nose up in outrage.
"The feast is tomorrow night," he tries. "There is little time, but now we have the chance to―"
A loud, derisive hah! reaches him from behind the door. "We? There is no we," Cedric scoffs. "I'm not doing anyone's homework. If you have been asked to do it, then you find a way to do it." Then, slyer, "I am sure you can manage, seeing how gifted you found yourself to be, Mr. Corax."
Wormwood blinks. He realizes he's been staring down at the handle for a while, but he doubts he could look Cedric in the eye even if the door weren't in the way. Right then, he keenly feels that all of this is for nothing, that he's just been deluding himself, trying to win over a man who has never forgiven in his life. Wormwood could present him with the Crown, the Amulet, and the restored Family Wand on a silver platter, and it wouldn't change anything.
"The... King wants both of us to work on it," he lies, in a last ditch effort. He waits for the results with bated breath.
For a moment, it seems like it might work: there is a twitch in the shadow, like the mention of Roland were a breath of wind through still leaves. Wormwood had thought nothing of the effect of the King's name and title on Cedric for so long, even found it a bit amusing. And now...
"He does? But after―wait." In his mind's eye, Wormwood can picture Cedric squinting again, distrusting. In a tone filled with loathing, the sorcerer snarls, "You're tricking me again. I don't believe you."
Be honest, Sofia would tell him. Just say how you feel. He inhales deeply.
"That's right, they asked me to do it," he snaps instead, taking a step forward, closer to the wooden barrier. That's not being honest, scolds the voice of his imaginary Sofia. I never said I was honest, he thinks defensively. Or nice. Or even remotely good at this. "They don't think you have what it takes."
Immediately, he realises it didn't come out as planned. He wanted to poke Cedric's competitive spirit awake, so he'll rise up to the challenge; instead, he just boasted about his own untarnished reputation. And that poor competitive spirit is prone to crumbling at the first push when Cedric's morale is too low. He should know.
"Well, that has never been news, has it?" Cedric clips, glacial. Wormwood slaps a hand over his face. "Now, I'm no expert, but not taking credit for my work might just help, don't you think?"
Defensive, voice muffled against his own palm, he starts, "I didn't take credit―"
"You were showing off, trying to prove you're better than me!" Cedric yells through the door, hitting it on his side, his voice cracking. Oh no, not again, Wormwood thinks. "Well, congratulations! Now everyone thinks you are so great! In a single day, you've taken away all that bit of recognition it took me a year to accumulate―and now you expect me to believe a word out of your lying mouth! You've got some nerve, I tell you!"
Wormwood groans in frustration. "Fine! Don't believe me, then!" Disregarding all other matters for the moment, he just goes back to the point at hand. "But I need to use the laboratory, at least!"
"Get your own!" Cedric shouts back in indignation. This time, Wormwood does bang a fist on the door.
He regrets it immediately. For once, it hurts. Nails into palm, splinters from the wood, no soft ribbon to protect his hand this time. And he can see in the line of light how the sudden noise has caused Cedric to step away.
He could break down the door, if he wanted: the hinges are old and rusty. But once in, what next? Do whatever you feel like, Clover said. He could bully Cedric into helping him... probably. And then what? He always believed intimidation to be part of his nature, essential to his survival as the food he ate. He leans his forehead into the door, wondering what does he know about his nature, at this point.
In hindsight―a half-formed thought hiding in the back of his mind, as if it were too afraid and unprepared to come forth―he feels like his first instance of violence hasn't been all the way deliberate. What came over him in that moment, that anger like Fiendfyre, and the blind hate and disgust that pushed him to destroy all that made their life theirs... it doesn't much feel like part of him. He can't quite recall how his emotions used to work when he was a raven; they were much more clear-cut, he thinks, simpler to deal with. He lived in a world free of consequences, free of remorse.
And now, every time he thinks of Cedric's rucked up undershirt, his guts twist into knots. Now that he knows what is at stake, that he is used to the strengths and limits of his form, could he even bear to use force again to achieve the results he wants? Could he grab Cedric by the throat and leave blue stains and red welts on his skin, frighten him as he did before?
I couldn't, he thinks helplessly, sickened at the mere idea, truncated nails pressed to his mouth. The thought of having done it once is already too much. He wants anything but this for them, anything but this miserable fear game he started with his foolish actions.
Wormwood takes a deep, steadying breath. Cedric's shadow hasn't left the door.
"You can take back the recognition," he says, clenching his fist in unseen intensity, but not raising his voice. "Don't you see? This is a great chance! You can show them all what you are capable of. I was wrong, when I said you were unneeded here... I really―the kingdom really needs help now, and no one but you can answer the call."
Judging from the dead silence, Cedric doesn't seem inclined to answer the call. Wormwood rubs distractedly at the pinpricks of cold sweat on his nape, exhaling. He won't have to sing, will he...? Now, if a song would just come to him like it does for everybody else, he thinks in annoyance, then of course he would use it. But nothing ever came to him... he's a raven, not a songbird, after all. But if that's what it takes...
Then, as he is already mentally preparing himself, with an underwhelming click, the door opens.
He listens to the deadbolt's clang and watches the handle lower, in a dreamlike stupor. Cedric lifts his gaze from the floor and meets his eye―and the air seems to fill his human lungs all the way for the very first time, and for a moment he is overcome with the need to throw himself in Cedric's lap, warm folds of purple fabric around him, forehead to belt, and not leave the spot for a week straight.
"And why would you be following King Roland's orders, if I may?" Cedric asks begrudgingly. The two feet distance between them feels again like a rampart of hostility. "Shouldn't you be already implementing your grand plan to take over?"
"Maintaining his favour is convenient, for now," Wormwood lies, his voice too thick, almost breathless. "So I can study him, and gain his trust. Practical."
Cedric blinks. "Hm, good point," he concedes. His fingers grip the door, knuckles tense through the glove. "But if you weren't trying to take the credit, why did they all cheer for you?"
"Because we were casting at the same time, and these people have the observational skills of newborn mutts," Wormwood rattles off. "And I wasn't showing off, either."
"But then what―"
"I was just fanning the fog away, so you could work!" he blurts out, anxious to finally explain himself. "And so they would shut up."
Cedric stares, unmoving. "You... you were?" The raven gives a vigorous nod. Cedric clears his throat, propping a fist on his hip. As though he had to take back the bit of softness he let in his voice, as abrasive and unpleasant as possible, he clips, "Either way, even if I wanted to—which I don't—I couldn't help you. The ingredients need restocking."
"I've got it covered," Wormwood says, almost tripping over himself to show him the fold of his cloak, full of toadstools and roots and nipped herbs. "Positively ransacked the garden."
But Cedric barely glances, and gives a scoff. "Hm. A measly loot if I've ever seen one."
"This is all that was there," the raven rebuts, piqued. Just stepping into the gardens gave him the chills, almost getting lost in the mist and looking over his shoulder the whole time, leaping at every rustle like stalked prey.
"Yes, well," Cedric says, in forced derisiveness, grasping at straws, "if you really wanted to pull this off, you would at least have gotten Hocus Crocus."
Wormwood deflates. "I... did, actually."
He pulls out the pouch, the lame reveal almost a physical ache. He lets Cedric snatch it from his open palm, sighing, in his mouth the sour taste of disappointment. This really isn't going as planned.
But when Cedric opens it, thumb and index pulling the string and raised pinkie finger, a sniff is enough for him to recognise the real thing. It brightens his whole face in surprise, familiar small crease of incredulity appearing between his eyebrows. Wormwood has the incongruous urge to lean in and touch that small crease with his lips. Readily, he curbs it.
"You... really did get it." Cedric looks up, meeting his eye, and Wormwood's stomach backflips in his throat. "And... were you the one to do all this?"
And the door opens to him, if only a little. Wormwood has to squeeze his large frame through, but he has no complaints. He steps into the familiar space of the lair, their safe haven turned battlefield, and he feels as though he were sliding into a precarious, almost tangible bubble of trust. The too loud beating of his heart threatens to shatter the fragile air of the room, and he almost daren't take a step further, not even to put the new ingredients away.
He nods, unabashedly taking credit for the job done. Finally, he's seeing the workshop in a moment or relative calm, and like a painter coming back to his work once it's dried and rested, he can certainly testify that the place looks sparkling.
"Everything has been cleaned, organised, and put in alphabetical order; I brought in some of the new Helianthus they've planted... and I fixed everything that I―that was broken," he finds himself rambling, full of hope. Just then, he notices the roll of parchment under Cedric's arm, there like he just picked it up before getting the door. "And the index, of course. It was long overdue."
Cedric unrolls the parchment, and gives it a critical look. "Ah, yes. A child would have done a more intelligible job," he deadpans.
"Well, pardon me, I don't have much handwriting experience," Wormwood says, a bit sullenly.
A nerve-wracking moment of silence falls on them again, until Cedric finally heaves a sigh. He can do nothing to hide that touched glint in his eye, the same Wormwood saw when Sofia gave him his gold star, so long ago. It had been the first time Wormwood ever felt jealous of her.
"Fine," Cedric concedes. "I'll let you use the equipment, since you were so kind as to repair it―after the huge mess you've made."
Wormwood, finally feeling like he can move a step, goes to put the ingredients on the desk. Just then he notices that, pushed in front of the escritoire, there is an armchair that is not usually there.
"I haven't put this here," he says preemptively. On the desk, there is also an untouched plate of food, in the style of neither Cedric or his mother. "And this either."
"I know, of course." Cedric sets down the index, and peruses the new ingredients with the tips of his fingers. "It was Father. He elected I must rest and eat something... nutritious."
Wormwood throws a glance at the low bowl of beef stew, and the odd green mush next to it. It smells like cabbage, he guesses. Cedric hates cabbage. But then, to be fair, he isn't fond of food that is not sweets in general, when he even remembers to get some into him. Goodwyn had always been known to complain about his runty sapling of a son, with nothing of his stout figure and healthy appetite.
"Was your father here?" Wormwood asks, catching up with the implications. Unable to raise his voice above a mumble, he attempts, "Are you... are you alright?"
"Don't you have a potion to brew?" Cedric interjects. He perches on one arm of the chair, dish in his hand, and starts picking at the food with an old silver spoon. "By all means, don't let me distract you from your duty to King and country."
He seems set on watching him struggle. Very well, Wormwood thinks. It doesn't take him too long to find the potion recipe. A good start, he thinks, satisfied, as he props the book against the discarded ones and sets up the small cauldron on its left.
It comes with a burner under it, and he realizes he must make a fire. Without magic. Maybe... if it's only this one spell... but the thought of Cedric's energy sapping away from him, traveling all the way into the Well's treacherous mouth, and back to the Family Wand for him to use... the thought of Cedric's lips, blue in his wan face, his heart beating so slow and shallow―he cannot bring himself to risk it.
"Do we have matches somewhere?" he sighs, defeated. Cedric leisurely points the spoon to the top left drawer.
Turns out the matches are too small for Wormwood to manoeuvre. This is a waste of time, he thinks, the second one snapping between his fingers. And I haven't even started yet.
"Fine-work is so much harder than it looks, isn't it?" Cedric taunts, in a downright nasty drawl. "Isn't it astonishing, how a newcomer with a stolen wand and a confident posture cannot, actually, take the place of a licensed sorcerer?"
Wormwood ignores him. Newcomer, he thinks, a bit bitter and a bit saddened. As if I hadn't been right here all these years.
"They think you're just sulking in here, you know," he tells him. Cedric doesn't retort, and the raven doesn't glance over to see his reaction. "A tantrum, the Stewart called it."
It takes him five more attempts, and as many snapped matches, to finally crack. He pulls the Wand from his sleeve. At his gesture, Cedric flinches and the still half-full dish almost flips out of his grasp, his eyes darting for the door. Wormwood's chest gives a small twinge.
"Alright," he starts, lowering the Wand and his gaze. I already said it once, he tells himself. He ends up spitting it out, harsh and low, like a curse. "I'm―sorry. Help me out."
"Well," Cedric rises from the chair's arm, all steepled fingers and strolling steps, as if he hadn't almost flung stew all over himself just a moment ago. He is trying to gloat, but his eyes are narrow with anger, and his voice has a slight tremble in it, a cord on the brink of snapping. "Isn't it a beautiful, deafening sound, the fall of the mighty? But, since you went around saying I've mentored you, then let me remind you: don't you know you can't do magic without the magic word?"
Wormwood breathes in, and lets out a long, long exhale. "Here," he says, holding out the Wand as if it were the sword that will knight him. Or take off his head. "Have this back. Please."
Cedric doesn't move, standing there for such a long moment Wormwood finally manages to glance up. His eyes, wide and trained on the Wand as though he were seeing it for the first time, have taken a strange cast, hard and lost and over-bright.
"The King's favour... matters to you a lot more than I thought," Cedric notes quietly, almost dejected. "I wouldn't have expected you to bury your pride, and give back something you've... conquered."
The King's favour. If only Wormwood could convey how low in his priorities the King's favour actually is. Maybe this is the moment he makes his apology, maybe this is his chance to fix everything. This is the moment he'll explain, and be heard. He takes a deep breath, setting the Wand down on the desk, so Cedric won't have to take it from his hand, and looking down at his broken claws.
"Listen, I..." he starts, "I... what I've done was―"
"Spare me whatever nonsense the Princess had you memorise," Cedric cuts him off. His voice raises a little, and shakes in strain as he continues, "I... I know you are just saying it because you need my help. Don't think you can fool me again."
Cedric's hand hovers above the Wand, inching towards it, but his eyes won't leave the raven's form. He looks like a fox attempting to snatch the wolf's meat, keeping an eye on him, convinced Wormwood will take the Wand away from him at the last second. Wormwood sighs, stepping back and turning away slightly. He cannot put Cedric's trust back together with a Fixatis spell, after all.
A moment later, a loud snap and a yelp, followed by a miniature lightning-crackle make him whip his head back around. The Wand topples back on the desk. Wormwood stops it from rolling off, and meets the sorcerer's horrified stare.
Cedric tried to grab it, the raven gathers, but had to let go immediately: the Wand has rejected him, just like that mermaid child's enchanted comb did.
"Really? A seal?!" Around the fingers he shoved in his mouth, Cedric snarls, "Oh, this―this is low! Even for you!"
"What―? No, I didn't do it," Wormwood says, frowning in confusion. Why must everything go wrong? he thinks helplessly. "I really have no idea why it did that."
Now, it would be easier for anyone to believe that Wormwood was being cruel again. How will he ever prove to Cedric he really knew nothing of it? The sorcerer has turned his back to him, standing hunched and motionless except for the slight heaving of his shoulders.
Wormwood cannot think of anything particularly convincing to tell him, besides, "Think, what reason would I have to make the Wand reject you, just now that I need your help?"
Cedric's breath catches.
"So, now you've really made it clear what you think of me," he says, speaking between his teeth, words like sandpaper, turning away again when Wormwood steps cautiously around him to look him in the face. "You really must think I don't deserve that wand."
"I didn't put the seal on it," he repeats, worried. Cedric's eyes have that same empty look to them, as when Wormwood was hurling insults at him. "I want you to have it back, believe―"
"So," the sorcerer starts, almost a snap, in a tone of forced, too loud small-talk. His stung hand is still clutched in the other, in a white-knuckled grip, and his mouth is nothing but a thin colourless line. "Tell me, Mr. Corax, how do you like life as a dirty leech?"
Wormwood's breath hitches audibly. He knows. Before he can even think of something to say, Cedric continues, still looking nowhere with that terrible fixed gaze.
"Thanks to you, I had the chance to spend a lovely afternoon with my father, begging him for scraps of explanation, as he popped my vertebras back into place, and yelled at me not to tell Mother." Sarcasm dripping, he spats, "I had the most wonderful time, as you can imagine. You have my most heartfelt thanks for that."
So, there was something wrong with Cedric's back in the end. For a moment, Wormwood feels ready to spill everything, confess all he's done.
"A... mess happened," he says instead. His arms flop at his sides, gesturing limp and vague to the whole lair. "I've done all I could to apologise."
"Of course you did," Cedric sneers. In a bad imitation of Sofia's voice, he squeaks, "Just say you're sorry, and everything will be alright! Here's a list of what to say and do to convince dumb Mr. Cedric to help you out!"
Wormwood frowns. "It's not like that," he says, between offended and desolated. "I did follow Sofia's advice, but―"
"Marvellous. What a nice little team you make. All for a lousy apology the purpose of which you don't even grasp. Let's get this over with." Cedric swats the small cauldron off the desk, and summons from the storage the biggest one he has―an impressive thing that can old a barrel-full―allowing it to fly across the room so carelessly Wormwood has to dodge it. "So you can get out of my sight."
He lights the fire under the cauldron's sturdy pewter feet, with a wand-flick so harsh the desk almost goes up in green flames. Wormwood steps back.
"I didn't do it," he attempts again, but Cedric acts like he hasn't spoken.
A flurry of emotions is rushing through the raven. Spikes of anger make his stomach clench on itself, and that odd wet feeling of guilt weights so much he can barely shoulder it. He wants to grab Cedric and shake him. He wants to wrack the window open and fly off. He wants to fall to his knees and beg. They are too many and too contrasting to act on any of them, or to even start sorting through them. Too absorbed in his own thoughts, for a moment he doesn't hear the sorcerer asking him to reach for the roots on the desk.
He doesn't snap out of it until Cedric claps his hands an inch from his nose, and barks, "Are you going to follow my instructions, at least, or do I have to do everything myself as usual?"
The raven blinks. The handclap has snuffed out the endless debate in his head, as though it were one of the workshop's enchanted candles. From that moment on, Cedric speaks to him only to give orders, and Wormwood is almost grateful for it. It is a relief, not being confronted, and instead working together towards a common goal.
No distractions, emotions numbed, the raven carefully weights pinches of eggshell powder on the delicate desk scales, trying not to blow away anything with a sigh. It still makes him ache a bit, to see half the Crocus and half the Helianthus roses skilfully and mercilessly minced, without hesitation. At least, he tells himself, now that Cedric agreed to help him―or, honestly, do most of the work―they'll be able to get back at the King.
Cedric has never been one for cold silent rage, though. The barely contained nervous energy in his gestures as he continues to methodically sort, select, and chop, gives Wormwood that low feeling in his gut, the one that feels like oncoming storms. The raven wishes he would go back to his usual feet-stomping and whining. That, he would know how to deal with.
"Grow-Fast Powder in one night," Cedric mutters, between caustic and genuinely perplexed. The potion, with its base of water, minerals, and grass trimmings, smells like the garden after its weekly clip, with a strong magic tang to it. "What am I, a miracle worker? There's not even time to actually powder it, I'll have to drag all the canisters around..."
"It's because you never explain how much effort goes into what you do," Wormwood notes, a bit sheepishly. Not that anyone would listen to him, if he tried. "You try to make everything look easy, when it's not."
"It is supposed to be, when you are the son of the Beloved Goodwyn the Great," Cedric retorts, surprising Wormwood with an actual answer. Sort of. But then he catches himself, and slathers on the nastiness once again, "Good thing I have another pair of hands to assist me here, otherwise it would really be a lost cause."
Wormwood grunts. He has been assigned the task of cutting up dried moonkelp stalks into thin stripes, and it's harder than expected. The stalks are though as leather, and he gets impatient with his clumsy hands, still so unskilled at anything that requires strength and precision at the same time. It seems like it's either one of the other for him now: the same limbs that he would use to play air currents like a harp—drawing from them the perfect, lightning-fast turns that are the envy of all flying creatures—are now reduced to fumbling around the knife handle, awkward and oversized.
Cedric leaves him to struggle, and goes through with the next step, dumping a scoop of firewood ashes from the heater straight into the cauldron. The greenish mixture clots up into boiling mulch clumps that give off a strong smell of rotten eggs and decay.
"Now, that's appetizing," Wormwood deadpans as Cedric hurries to open the window, coughing a little.
A passing glance to his half-finished stew, the sorcerer quips back, "Hm, still better than Father's cooking."
Wormwood is seized by a rush of amazement so intense his knife sinks through the stalks and deep into the cutting board. He can see Cedric sobering up, opening the window with a more forceful gesture than needed, angry at himself for having lapsed out of his angry demeanour for a moment. Maybe it is like Sofia said, Wormwood thinks with renewed hope, yanking the knife free, he doesn't want us to be apart either.
After a while, when he has left the sliced kelp to soak in water, he washes his hands and tentatively steps at Cedric's side. He's focused on the potion, as it goes through the critical cycles of melting and solidifying, smell ranging from foul to earthy and back to foul. In apparent unawareness, Cedric takes a step away from him, and lets out a nasal hum of impatience.
"It won't be ready in time at this rate, and there will be no feast, and it will be my fault, as usual," he mutters, shaking his head.
Confronted with Cedric putting distance between them, Wormwood's first instinct is to go after him. But that goes against Sofia's advice, and he himself likes to be left alone when he's in a mood. Though saddened, he holds still.
"Well, my fault, technically," he soothes. "I was the one asked first, so the responsibility is mine."
"They always find a way. You should know how it works here," Cedric huffs, rolling his eyes. "You should know better than anyone else."
"I won't let them," Wormwood tries again. Cedric is right, of course, but every word out of his mouth feels like a jab. Wormwood supposes he deserves it. "I'll speak up for you."
Cedric ignores him. "It's no use, I have to try and splice it with the brewing shortcut... I need the second volume, the one with Father's notes on it."
He looks around, spotting it with innate sense. Wormwood spots it because he's put it himself on the top shelf in the morning. They move at the same time to get it, Cedric wedging a foot on the lower shelf to hoist himself up, Wormwood stepping behind him to simply reach for the book and take it.
His chest bumps into Cedric's shoulder, and the sorcerer goes inhumanly still under him, forgetting his climb halfway. Wormwood forgets his hand up, distracted by the tangy scent of milk-vetch in Cedric's hair.
He must have bathed, rinsed himself of the horrible night they spent apart, born anew into clean clothes and a mask of dry anger he can't keep up. The scent of him is warm, familiar, and brings him back to the hostile forest and the thin strip of fabric he clung to for sanity. The ribbon doesn't look constricting around Cedric's neck anymore. He blinks, his mind fogging up. He cannot help but lean in, as if he could still perch on his shoulder, brushing against that reassuring, living warmth. Safe, he thinks, almost drowsily.
"W-will you maybe let me climb down?" Cedric snatches the book from his forgotten hand, and squeezes himself under his arm to get away. His free hand clamps to his nape, rubbing the goosebumps of the raven's breath from his skin.
Wormwood shakes his head, turning around to follow him, full of confusion and a bit colder under his black robe.
Accidentally a creep, Vol II.