Not a moment to grieve.
Sofia throws open the double door of her room, barrels across the threshold, and lets it slam behind her.
The bang echoes through the walls, sharp and loud and oddly metallic. The key falls out the keyhole, and the unreachable dust on the top of the sliders comes down in a cloud on her head. Sofia coughs, stepping away.
She never slams her door: when the room became hers, Baileywick was kind enough to answer all of her questions. How does it just slide shut by itself? she asked, among many other things. Was it sorcery or engineering? Pure engineering, he answered, patient and, she could tell, a little proud. From that moment on, she had decided to cherish the delicate architecture of little springs and oiled gears that keep it working, the small wonder of technology behind her pink walls.
Right now, she doesn't care about the door. All her care has drained away, pushed up and over by another feeling, by the frightening, unfamiliar white-hot anger bubbling up from beneath. Sofia lets the door slam and the key and dust fall to the floor and the air moves enough to sway the calling rope―and for a moment she thinks with hopeful dread it will be enough to ring it.
It isn't. She sighs out in the silence, but a garbled rasp of air comes out of her chest instead. Her breathing won't go back to normal, no matter how much she tries to slow it down―to breathe from her tummy and control it, like Sir Gillium says, when the horses can feel your fear, they get restless and unruly. The burning feeling presses in her throat, behind her clenched teeth, bypassing the tears that sting in her eyes—sorrow hangs heavy over her like the air of a rainy day, but her body trembles with heated blood, her guts are boiling. Her body, too, has gotten restless and unruly, and her breathing comes so fast she is getting lightheaded, her racing thoughts fogging over. She cannot quantify this feeling, she only knows it's bigger than her body's capacity, and it cannot contain it anymore—she is going to explode.
She stumbles to her bed and sinks her teeth and fingers into a pillow and lets go of the scream she had been holding in since―since when? Since Wormwood opened his stupid mouth! She thinks, scream curdling into a prolonged whimper. Since he opened his mouth, and told her things she never wanted to know.
Pillow still to her face, she falls back behind her tall bed, legs in a tangle and butt to the floor like a toddler, and screams until the muscles in her neck and face start to cramp, until her lungs won't take air in anymore. When the pillow falls from her slack hands, it has the print of her face on it: dirt from outside, teary eyes and wet nose and mouth, red smudges from her scratched arms. She leans her head back, letting it thud against the wall behind her, and sighs.
Sofia looks up, vision blurry, to the tall canopy of her bed streaked in lamplight; the room is too big, her senses whimper, there is nowhere to hide. Just like the day I arrived, she thinks. Except that time she could run straight into her mother's arms, and tell her what was wrong. Now, the only people she could run to for her troubles are… the very ones that caused them.
I trusted you! she wants to scream in Mr. Cedric's face. I thought you were my friend! I thought you were good! A new wave of tears bubbles up inside her, and this time it's not anger that pushes them out.
What is this? she wonders, as though floating above her own feelings, through the dull, throbbing pain in her sternum, like her lungs were full of straw and terrycloth. She puts a hand to her chest, still moving a bit faster than usual, her breathing still a bit rasped. It hurts more than grown-ups not believing her truth, more than them not listening. More than worrying about a test, more than the King's voice when it gets stern. It hurts different―it hurts like an absence, like something she expected to be there and then just wasn't, a missing step in a ladder that makes you trip and knock your first baby tooth loose. It hurts like Father's Day.
Her mind isn't racing anymore. Now, it is the stale water cut flowers die in, murky and full of deceit. She tries to remember what happened at the clearing, the battle and the aftermath―and there is little more than the white fog and the memory of desperate shouting. The things Wormwood told her, instead, arise from the chaos as stark and painful as cattle brands, still fuming.
Maybe it wasn't even true, she tries. Maybe Wormwood lied just to upset me. She could tell the raven was scared, and hurt, and angry―and when it's like that he has shown time and time again that that's the way he gets. Please, please let him be lying, she begs to no one. She feels every Princess that has ever come to her aid look down at her with pity. She clutches her Amulet, hopeful, but no glow comes to rescue her.
Not even the Amulet wants to help me, she thinks, and the huge room seems to cave in on her. Because there is nothing to explain, here, says a voice inside her. Her own, maybe, but firm and certain. Cold. There is nothing you can fix.
Finally, her ragged breathing placates, and her lungs can take air all the way in again. A special kind of tiredness is pulling at her―like post-derby exhaustion with none of the joy―but she finds it in herself to climb to her feet. Her bad leg pulses with strain, her arms itch, the soiled dress feels gross on her skin. I have to change, she remembers, for the guests. For the Feast.
The dress she is supposed to wear to the celebration is still spread on her bed, where she and Clover have left it. She has to change out of the bloodstains Wormwood's injured hands left on her, get ready, and smile for the guests like nothing happened. Don't cry, sweetie, Dad said, like he always says to them when they cry.
She intensely hopes Dad didn't really mean it when he said he would come and help her. She is really afraid she would say something she shouldn't say right now. Well, why should I keep their secrets, after all? They're not my friends.
Mechanically, she strips off the pillowcase, and takes it with her to the washroom. She undoes the clasp of her dress, and steps out of it as it pools at her feet, a soiled lilac puddle. Sofia looks down at the small tent in the fabric on the floor, puzzled for a moment.
Right, the Wand. I took it with me. The black Family Wand, made by the Well from the one Wormwood stole, when Mr. Cedric came to her with a torn sleeve and anguished eyes, when all of this started.
It scratched me, she notices, examining a red welt in her side. Her gown didn't have a pocket deep enough for a wand, so she tucked it under her petticoat, between her hip and the waistband, hidden from sight, still keeping their secrets.
Sofia washes up, watching the washbasin refill, watching the sponge soak up the pinkish water and scrub the rusty smell off her skin, and the stains off the dress and linen she must hide from the servants. She thinks of friendship, of secrets. Of the price of goodness.
Mr. Cedric and Wormwood were the Sea Monsters she had to fight at the Cove. There is no other explanation, no time for reassuring lies for, as much as her memories of the Well's clearing are fuddled, her memories of the Cove, instead, are crystal clear. Unavoidable.
They―he and Wormwood, her beloved Royal Sorcerer and his grumpy raven, her friends, her friends―did all the horrible things that still give her nightmares. They almost started a war between humans and merpeople. They hurt Oona, and almost got everyone drowned. Mr. Cedric's octopus arm left round red marks on her arm that stung for days. And for what?
She remembers, among all the rest, running to tell Mr. Cedric the whole story, so relieved that he, also, was safe and sound along with the rest of her family. And he listened! He listened, while all along, all along he had been the enemy she had struggled to defeat! All this for a comb, for power? She shakes her head. I don't understand.
And worst of all, she hadn't seen it coming. At all. Not in a million years. How could I be so blind? she scolds herself, her anger turning inwards, sickly and painful like a stomach-ache. No adult has ever been able to lie to her, not even her own mother. Sofia swats the water with both palms, letting it sting. How can I trust my gut now? How can I trust it ever again? She needs to scream again―not in a pillow but out loud this time, louder than ever—she needs to break something, to make enough mess that her mom will come check on her.
What's wrong, Sofia? she would ask immediately. This is so unlike you! And then… and then? What else? Sofia couldn't even tell her the truth, because she is still stuck keeping secrets for people that don't deserve it. I lied to my family for your sake, you horrible friend, she snaps at the imaginary Mr. Cedric before her, looking at her with his eyes so red, so full of guilt. You liar!
Wrapped in a towel, she strides to her closet to grab underwear and her first-aid kit. With enough luck, nobody has seen her dash bloodied through the castle as fast as her leg would let her. With enough luck, Dad is too busy to actually come help her, and will leave her alone instead. With enough luck, she will be able to keep herself in check, put on a face for the guests, and nobody will ask her nosy questions.
The vinegar stings on her forearms, just like it stung Mr. Cedric's wounds when everything started. She replays it in her mind as she gets dressed, sliding long sleeves down on her bandaged arms, doing her hair up to hide that she didn't have time to wash it properly. It is maddening to think of all she did for him—that, she remembers, her Amulet saved his life just today. To think of how much she tried to fight the world of injustice around him, to think of all she poured into their friendship, believing it was mutual, that he just needed a chance. And what did she have, the little girl from the village, but her good heart and her heap of chances to give? And she gave plenty, nurturing each with all of her love and care and admiration. And this is how he repays her?
It is wrong, she knows, she knows, to expect kindness to be paid back. A friend is not a thing to consume, and kindness is not currency. It wouldn't be kindness then, would it? It would be usury. But then… why would the Amulet reward her with magical powers when she does good things? Is it me, then? she wonders, is she as power-hungry as a sorcerer, deep in her heart?
I'm nothing like them, she thinks forcefully, with a viciousness that was never hers. I'll never be like them.
There is a glow out of the corner of her eye. Mr. Cedric's sphere, she thinks, marching to the cart and throwing open the little curtain. It comes away in her hand, flimsy, and fills her with scalding rage all over again. She flings it aside and lifts her hand back to slap the sphere off the cart. Is she allowed this? The precious, ancient thing entrusted to her care would crash on the floor and break.
Could I do it, if I wanted? Would the Amulet curse her for the damage, or for her hateful feelings? Never before the necklace had felt so heavy at her neck, not even when it put a frog in her throat. She deserved it, that time. She had been a horrible friend. Now, it's Mr. Cedric that would deserve to get cursed―How horrible, she thinks, ashamed of the thought itself. Maybe I am just like them, after all.
Her hand hovers, trembles, balls up into a small fist, and then deflates. A white flag with five fingers, posing gently on the yellow sphere, pushing the destructive instinct away, answering the call.
"Hello?" Sofis sighs, her voice a little hoarse from crying.
"Oh, Princess Sofia!" Mr. Goodwyn gasps from the sphere, his voice barely containing something she isn't sure is excitement or panic. "You still have the sphere and I was able to reach you, thank goodness!"
It is loud on his side of the call, a rhythmic background noise that sounds like galloping hooves, and carriage wheels pushed at full speed. She is about to mention it's not a good time, but holds it. There must be something she still needs to do.
And if the Amulet hasn't sent me anyone, it means I can do it on my own, she thinks. It means I have to.
"This is all going to turn out to be a big misunderstanding, I'm certain," the young guards tells him, sounding anything but certain. "You'll see."
Cedric gives a nondescript mutter, avoiding the earnest eyes seeking his, avoiding their involuntary call for reassurance. He has none left for himself, much less to give away.
The boy looks down then, and locks the cell with a heavy sigh. He hangs the keychain to his belt, shaking his head like he cannot quite believe what he just had to do.
Cedric lets his hands hang limply outside the cell, off the horizontal bar running across the door's width at waist-level. The guard fidgets a moment, beginning to step away, then pulls a small metal flask from his breast pocket, half-empty from the sound of it, and nudges it against his hand until his numb fingers close around it.
The water is lukewarm and it's been in there a while, but it tastes like fresh mountain spring on Cedric's parched tongue. He tilts back and upends the thing, shaking the last three drops out of it, like a man lost in the desert.
"Keep it―you know, for your eye?" Carl suggests, pointing at the side of his head. The other guard heaves a huff audible from the other side of the dungeon. Carl scrambles to grab the flask when Cedric brusquely hands it back to him.
"It isn't cold," the sorcerer deadpans, humiliated.
"It's all I can do for now," the guard says apologetically, splaying his arms in a helpless shrug. It's all he can do at all, they both know it. For all the pity he might feel, his alliance lies with the King. "Hang in there, alright?"
"Thank you, lad," he manages anyway, if a little between his teeth, renewing his efforts to avoid eye contact. Holding the King's gaze has depleted him.
The youth nods solemnly for a moment. Then, his gaze drops down and he stirs at the sight of the sorcerer's bare feet on the chilling stone floor. He gestures for him to give him a moment, and starts to look around, in the other cells and around the benches where gaolers used to sit and play cards and jeer at the prisoners, decades past, in different times. Cedric leans his forehead against the iron bars, cold relieving the pressure just a little, and sighs.
"Leave it, Carl, we'll be late," barks the stern voice of the other guard, still audible over the rustling noise. "It's a dungeon. You won't find a blanket if you look for the next age."
From the far left, Carl's voice protests, "It's freezing in here, man!" The rustling continues undeterred, as useless as it is stubborn. "He's sick, do you want to find him dead in the morning?"
Cedric runs a hand over the torn fabric hanging off his arm, then to the undamaged part of his forehead. The lad keeps saying he's burning up, but he doesn't feel particularly warm in the slightest, nor tingly or weak in the throat. He feels weak all over, numb and still lightheaded from blood-loss―but not feverish.
"There's the hay. The King said to leave it."
Leave it, Carl, Cedric thinks ironically, the side of his face stinging at the mention of Roland. Before he finds something else to blame me for.
"Here, then," Carl says, and passes something through the bars again. "Sorry, there's nothing else and―sorry."
And, back to him like a bad omen, the black cloak flops in Cedric's unsteady grip. He readily blocks all thoughts that rush at him as he touches it, chaining them as poached wild beasts.
"Carl," the other says, still firm but less than before. "Come along, I hear the carriages. They'll be needing us in the ballroom."
Right, Cedric thinks, as the guards' steps grow distant up the stone staircase. Right, the damn feast.
He had all but forgotten it was tonight. All those nobles and gentry, meeting with villagers in unorthodox mingling, celebrating the Autumn Equinox and the abundance it brings, to be shared by all as friends and equals. He sneers. He can already see it, each group standing as far as possible from the others, the young bored, the adults confused, the old outraged. And he can see the lavishly decked table, a royal buffet that wouldn't have been there without his efforts.
The King said to leave it. He is well used to going unrecognised, he thinks, exhaling in the cold air of the cell. But this goes beyond measure. At the top of the stairs, the iron door slams shut, and all falls to silence. Hope he chokes on it. Each and every morsel, he thinks. The white steam coming out of his mouth measures his strength waning, breath after breath. Just like his hapless father, the day he made him King.
Who would have thought, he ponders, that the occasion in which Goodwyn would save the King's life for the ninth time would be so mundane? Roland the First was already weak then, weak enough to cave in to the advice of his counsellors, and abdicate in favour of his son while he still had most of his wits about him.
Cedric too, as it's customary, ascended to his charge that same night. Royal Sorcerer of Enchancia to King Roland II. He had waited for so long—so long, that he thought such a day would never come, that he would grow old in his father's shadow.
The unsinkable duo their fathers made—Roland the First and Goodwyn the Great, thick as thieves since boyhood—couldn't have made a starker contrast with their sons, in their mid-twenties and never reconciled. The space between them couldn't be heavier, so full of silence and ill-concealed jealousy, and the smell of old matrimonial lace.
He was supposed to make a little speech and perform, to show his willingness to work at court, to be formally introduced as part of the Royal Family. He had studied the transcripts from his father's own introduction—a prodigy of seventeen, dazzling the crowd for two hours straight—and he didn't feel ready, but he was eager to give it his best shot, anxious to prove himself. Goodwyn's broad hands stayed clamped on him for the whole ceremony, as though by digging into his shoulders, he could make him stop shaking.
Then, right in the middle of Father introducing him, Roland the Old reached for a slice of ham and didn't mind the string. He made sounds Cedric never wanted to hear come from a man again, and he could do nothing but clutch his wand and freeze―but Father was ready on his feet and quick to act.
In the blink of an eye, it was over, and the old King and old sorcerer started to laugh the incident off while everyone was still fretting, like the good friends they were. What was that, the seventh time? Roland the Old chortled, washing the scare down with some wine. The ninth, my friend! Goodwyn threw back grandiosely.
Then, the Old King said, Goodwyn, why don't you show us something nice? For old time's sake. And the crowd joined in, cheering, and his father seemed to deflate in relief at his side. There, Cedric felt it more starkly than ever: his father would have kept him in his shadow till the day he died, had it been up to him.
Goodwyn, his mother said only, in a tone of warning, but Goodwyn pretended not to hear. She didn't have a hand on Cedric's shoulder, but he could still feel her talon-like grip in her voice.
I wouldn't want to bore the Young King, Goodwyn pretended to object. Cedric looked at Roland along with everyone else, but Roland was looking anywhere but him. He only straightened a bit in his chair, let the crowd ripen with suspense for a moment, then gave a courteous nod.
It's decided then! Dazzle us one more time, old friend. And so Goodwyn did.
The crowd gasped and applauded. Cedric clung to his school wand as though it were the only thing keeping him upright.
As Father ended up performing the speech too, guests cheering and shedding tears at his departure, Cedric was given a paper scroll with his new title, and forgot in a corner. His mother came to put her arm around him, squeezing his elbows against his ribcage, but being in public made it a feat of endurance rather than comfort.
Worry not, dear, she told him. One day, all of this will be yours. He didn't dare reply, afraid he might vomit if he opened his mouth. She seemed to take that running joke―him becoming King―a little too seriously sometimes. He willed his shoulders to relax, and felt her grip soften in response.
Only Mummy can make you all better. He nodded absently, watching Father pat Roland the Young on the back, beaming at him and his beautiful bride, like the proudest of grandfathers.
The cloak shivers in his trembling hands, like a curtain touched by a slight breeze. The cell is cold and dark, as any cell should, with a low hanging ceiling and irregular walls carved into the rock itself, maddeningly cramped. Slowly, he makes his way to the bench and sits on the edge, to be under the lone, barred slit of a window.
He feels around him the vague, wide shadow of an absence that is neither of his parents. It hangs, unfathomable to his weary mind, black and damp like the clotted layer of dust covering every surface, like the old mouldy hay and the torches ruined by the brackish air. The cloak smells horrible, up close. Blood and sweat and dirt, just like his own clothes, and yet—he has to steer away from the thought, from how familiar it smells.
He is the only one there, the first one in a long while, alone with the echo of voices above, coming to him muffled and distorted by the irregular stone walls.
"Here's what I get for trying to help," he tells himself in a loud, angry hiss, clenching both fists on his knees. The muscles in his left arm spasm at the motion. "For trying to speak up, for―ow."
Pain still pulses through his body as he moves, dull and unfocused, and it feels like it will never relent. He gathers the black cloak to his chest, bowing his forehead into it, sinking into the familiar scent trapped in it, sinking in the loss it represents. I got myself in here with my own hands.
"What a bloody idiot." He whispers, "What was I… what did I think I could change?"
The hinges of the narrow bench creak in protest when he scoots back a little, wrapping the cloak around the shivering wreck of his body, as though the dirty cloth could shield him, spare him his past and present sorrows.
"Why did I even think I would be strong enough to―I'm just not, I'll never be, I'm not enough… to be good or to be evil―" I'm nothing. "I should just―"
Disappear, say the black walls caving in above him, echoing like a huge yawn. He pressed his eyes shut into the fabric, and when he opens them there are shapes on his retinas, monstrous mouths in the walls, actinia and barnacles, dry thunder outside reminiscent of gurgling rock, ready to gobble him up. He looks up at the window to clear his vision, blinking furiously.
The moon is up, and against the shivering silver light, he can see something moving. Something sliding, out beyond the bars of his cell, around the castle. His breath hitches. Oh no, it cannot be. He is afraid, but this is no mind trick―is it? He almost wishes it were.
After a while, he isn't so sure of his perception anymore. He scoots back in a corner, pulling his heels up on the hard bench, trying not to see, not to think.
The incessant heavy slide grows louder. Gradually, even the barred moonlight grows blotted out.
The fine, pale blue cup exhales steam in Wormwood's face, still too hot to touch, even with room-temperature milk added in.
He steps away from it, hopping towards the edge of the table. His dehydrated body calls for liquids of any form, the circlet of pain over his head getting heavier by the minute―but his instincts tell him to stay away, no matter how tempting it might be.
"Oh, how fussy," Winifred the Wise hums. With a flick of her wand, she transmutes the tea into clear water. "Here. I was expecting a different form."
"You'll excuse me, I wasn't expecting this form either," Wormwood quips back, even if she cannot hear him, and dunks his beak to drink. Most of all, the most unexpected form in the room remains her, Winifred herself.
As soon as Wormwood managed to reach the tower―a true struggle, with his still-aching wing―he realised his undersized claws could never get the window open. Too exhausted and upset to think of a solution, he just tucked his head under his good wing, and went to sleep right on the damp windowsill.
He didn't get to rest much: at the first crack of thunder he jerked awake, struggling to find his footing on the wet stone, heart in his throat.
The guests are arriving, he noted, looking down, trying to control his breathing. There is noise and bustle in the castle yard, although the parking carriages are much fewer than expected. Predictable, he thought, as a second lightning flashed in the sky, who would want to go out in this weather?
While he was lost in thought, the window had opened behind him, making him almost fall back from the startle. And inside the tower, as though she were expected, waited Winifred the Wise―the real one, in blue jewellery and all her years―with tea for two ready on a little round table he had never seen before.
My spell has been completed, she told him, without a doubt about his identity or his role or his ability to understand her words. He did it, he succeeded, I could feel it.
Wormwood flew in, desperate for an explanation, and the change in air density made him fall off his wings and tumble on the unfamiliar round table. It looked like Winifred had been working for a while in there… a few hours at least, judging by the thickness of the air. The entirety of Cedric's equipment―cauldrons and beakers and mortars, all the things nobody had the time to clean or put away after they brewed the Grow-Fast potion―had been put to use.
He still hasn't asked what is she doing, or why. He drinks the water, and watches Winifred peel an orange with her long blue nails, quick as knife-work. She parts the fruit down the middle, plucking away the bitter white filaments.
"Here's a little one," she says, lifting a smaller slice, barely an inch long, nestled in the crown of the fruit. She hands the morsel to the raven, like she were bestowing a great gift on him. He begrudgingly accepts it, famished.
From the desk, where three juvenile ravens are nonchalantly perched on the delicate distillation tubes, comes a muffled snicker. He does his best not to turn and glare. He immediately recognised the three that almost made him leap from the cliff, earlier in the afternoon. And now they're here, hopping around in Cedric's stuff, like they had any right to be there.
"Alright," he bristles, gesturing his wing to them to make his intention clear even if Winifred can only hear his high-pitched jay voice. "What are they doing in here? And how did you get in?"
The three puff their feathers in rude greeting, completely unfazed by his hostility. One of them―the female with hooded crow markings―needlessly relays his words to the sorceress, in human speech.
"Oh, of course," Winifred says, waving a hand distractedly. "These are my eyes and ears. Just a couple stones I had lying around."
"And we picked the lock, 'course," the she-raven adds. Duh, caw the other two.
Hell, Wormwood thinks, with genuine dismay. Rock-ravens, of all things.
"I enchanted Misie with human speech, so she will help us talk," Winifred explains, tapping the she-raven's beak with the butt of her wand, making her grok quietly. "Since you're still recovering your strength."
He wants to ask how long he has to wait for this recovery, the matter somewhat pressing. It is maddening to not know if the spell actually worked, or if he and Cedric have failed completely. He hopes it explains his aching wing―itching to know, figuratively and literally. But he holds it: who knows how much he can trust the very person that put them into this whole Familiar predicament in the first place.
The three ravens ask aloud if he has fallen asleep, and he seethes. Is he going to have to trust the very person who brought rock-ravens into his territory, for crying out loud? Rock-ravens, the fruit of Cedric's favourite spell in the whole world, and Wormwood's most despised one.
Albeit a fairly advanced transmutation spell, Cedric had been able to do it very young and on his first try―so he told Wormwood―and therefore it gained a special place in his heart. He would make dozens of them, he said, and help his favourite flock win its routine turf fights against the local seagulls, down by the sea. Rock-ravens, pitiful creatures with barely the lifespan to brush into the sky's caress, before turning back to cold, lifeless stone.
Oh, he had lived in fear of the day Cedric would tell him that he, too, was no more than a stone he picked up one day on a whim. That there had been dozens before him, and there will be dozens more after him, the pitiful pebble he named Wormwood.
"By the way, flesh-raven," Misie says, pulling him from his gloomy reverie, "you gave us a scare today at the cliff! That took guts, lemme tell ya. Shows that u got 'em."
The other two join with a, "Yeah, impressive!" and a, "We aren't really after your turf. We were just scouting. And sure, Mistress was gonna smash us if we killed you―but we couldn't resist. You just get so angry."
"I am angry in this very moment," Wormwood warns them, hissing through his beak. They laugh, like he just told the funniest joke of the year, and to his own consternation, he already feels less murderous towards them.
"You are quite easy to play," Winifred observes, eyeing how his ruffled feathers smooth back down. "No wonder that Well got to you so fast."
Wormwood inhales long and steady, a couple of time. "So you knew," he says, directly to Winifred even though he'll have to wait for Misie to relay. "You knew what was going on here."
"Not everything," Winifred replies after a while. "Not even I have all the details. You seem to have stumbled into quite a mystery."
"So you have nothing useful for us," he says, so rudely that the she-raven shoots him a warning glance, and omits. He eats an orange slice, and it takes him three entire bites. The water in it seems to rush straight to his head, replenishing his blood-flow almost instantly. His mind clears, bit by bit.
"Wasn't I supposed to die, after my initiation?" he pushes himself to ask. "We were both toeing the Threshold, there. We were told I had to give my life to save Cedric's, and I did. So why am I stuck like this, instead?"
"Are you that opposed to being given a second chance?" Winifred gives a noncommittal shrug. "Most probably, Cedric interrupted the initiation at the right time to keep both of you alive. As a result, your current form is compact, to save energy, and promote faster recovery." She pushes the rest of the peeled orange towards him. "Give it a few hours, and you should be able to shift again, to whatever form suits your needs."
He eats another slice in silence, chewing absentmindedly though this form has no use of it. If the thing was interrupted, what will Cedric's conditions be when he wakes up…?
"It's a pity I will not get to see your human form, though. I have grown quite curious. They tell me you make quite the remarkable specimen." The glance he receives makes Wormwood feel quite bare under his black feathers, and in a brief moment he thinks he understands why humans put clothes on. "I always knew my son could… think big, so to speak."
"I—no, Cedric didn't—the Well transformed me," he splutters, feeling the heat flare around his beak, without knowing why.
Winifred shakes her head, interlacing her bejewelled hands around her cup. "No, dear, the human form of a Familiar takes shape during the initiation. I am willing to bet yours has stayed the same. It has proven to be both efficient and easy on the eye, after all."
The ravens whoop briefly, but Wormwood fails to register part of her words, looking away. Efficient? It didn't prove to be much efficient, since he wasn't even able to—
"Easy on the—what?" he blurts out then, incredulous. "Ma'am, Cedric… despises my human form."
Winifred snorts delicately, and he wants to claw his face off for opening his mouth.
"I know my son, dear," she says. "Why do you think I never suggested he makes his way into the royal bed, back in the day? A legitimate heir is certainly an easier claim to the throne than good old usurpation, don't you think?" A pause, and a gaze that grows distant, almost rarefied. "But he's never been one for these courtly intrigues… and no Queen would do for him, anyway. A mother knows."
"It would have been forbidden, in the first place," Wormwood argues; he keenly feels that some layer of meaning is going over his head, some new human mystery escaping him, and he doesn't like it in the slightest. "If history serves, nothing good has ever come from mixing the royal bloodline with ours."
Ours, he said, without thinking. He sighs inwardly, bracing, but the sorceress makes no remark. Maybe Misie took pity on him, and opted to censor his foolishness.
"History has legitimized far worse things, dear," Winifred says, her eye glinting. "But it doesn't matter anymore. Those plans are old and buried, that poor barren girl died in childbirth, and what can you do with this useless peasant Queen, anyway? A long line of wasted opportunities, nothing else. If I have any consolation, at least, the progeny for the tower is safe in Cordelia's hands."
For a few moments, Wormwood is at a loss for words.
"You've put your children to good use, I see," he says in the end, clipped.
Winifred starts, "Well, goodness, why else would I…?" she trails off, clearing her throat. "My children are a great blessing. They are a wealth of possibility, extended over my own lifetime. They are… my greatest treasure."
Something about her sentence makes his skin crawl, rising the short mantel of feathers at his neck. In his mind's eye he sees Cedric, calling the contraption of the week my most prized possession, with the exact same inflection. He shudders.
"So, you are finally a Familiar, dear Wormwood," she says conversationally, derailing his train of thought. "I've waited so long for this moment. I suppose you have many questions, and I should tell you now that I don't have all the answers. Familiar Magic is a narrow field."
"About that," he starts. "We've been told that I'm not… a magic parasite anymore. Can I do magic on my own, now? Without Cedric dropping every time I flick a wand?"
The sorceress chuckles. "Such a pragmatic bird," she says, giving him a poignant look. "Indeed, once you have a wand to flick, you can use your own magic."
"And you don't happen to have a spare to lend me, do you?" he asks, almost tiredly.
Winifred, of course, shakes her head. "I never travel with more than one wand on me. It isn't safe." With a cols, displeased tilt of her mouth, she gestures to the empty bin the spare wands usually occupy. "I was counting on Cedric to keep his stack intact."
"It wasn't his fault," Wormwood says, in a tone that makes Misie roll her eyes at him. He tries something else. "How can you be sure that a Familiar is able to use magic independently?"
"Because the pact between warlock and Familiar is based on mutual benefit, not on consumption," she says. A shiver runs down his back. "You didn't drink away life-force during your Initiation: through contact with your warlock's blood, you were able to re-establish a balance of energy in both your systems. Which… wasn't much in the first place, but still enough to drag the both of you back from the Threshold."
"This sounds like a lot of personal deductions," he says, sceptical.
Without defensiveness, Winifred replies, "I am confident in my reasoning. But as I said, the recorded literature is indeed very scarce."
"Naturally," he sneers. "What better predicament to put your only son in, than one you can't even do research on."
"Things are what they had to be," Winifred answers, but her eyes are somewhere else, so far above the tower, above all of them. "How they were supposed to go, once Goodwyn's interference has been removed. In the end, it was all for good."
At her words, the horrible vision he saw on the seastack surfaces in his memory. Then, he sees it continue, as though he had been there. A child with white witch-streaks, afraid to go outside again, biting his knuckles until the skin thickens, tough and leathery, ready to crack just short of bleeding in the winters to come. His mother fits his first Apprentice gloves on him, to make him stop biting.
Wormwood cannot imagine what courage―what foolishness it took that frightened child to climb that hollow trunk and save him. Or maybe, just like Wormwood could barely stand to watch that vision, Cedric too couldn't leave another child to weep alone in the dark.
"When we found you, I recall how instinct guided Cedric precisely where he needed to be. And I knew, then, that my debt to Artemisia was repaid, and that fate was on my side."
May I keep him? Says the small voice, from a buried memory. Where had it been, all these years? You must, Winifred's voice answers. He has no one but you, now.
He is awash with forgotten memories. He knows, now, that at the age he fell from his nest he wouldn't have survived. In his very first memory, he knows now, Cedric's high-pitched voice notes, Look, mother, he has green eyes. He remembers the nest-like warmth of the crook of his elbow, where he kept him tucked for the trip home. He remembers the huge, too-slow human heartbeat, close enough to be life-giving. He remembers how it picked up at his mother's words.
He would have never imagined, at the time, that he would grow to be given life by the blood in that heart. The hands had always been the ones to feed him, until he was strong enough to peck for himself, and then some more out of pure enjoyment. They ate together, the scrawny child with the juvenile raven cawing impatiently on his shoulder, sharing dishes, picking around favourite morsels, developing the same tastes.
Wormwood recalls the first fall of his life: as they both grew stronger, they started wandering the woods together, adventuring. Wormwood learnt to grip securely with his talons, but never enough to hurt; Cedric lost the fear of the ground opening under him, won over by curiosity. Winifred would send them on missions to pick ingredients―for the cauldron and for the stove alike. Ragweed, and gooseberries for a pie. Hemlock, and plump violets to simmer in sugar until encased in a perfect, sweet crystal. Death caps, and glossy chestnuts to roast on the fire.
The chestnuts were always his favourite. Sticky young leaves and spiked pods that never pricked Cedric's fingers. The glossy fruits, usually triplets and sometimes not. Here's a baby, Cedric would say, and give the small, crescent-like nut to his raven, to exercise his young bill.
He shakes the memories off himself, sure that if he were in his human form his eyes would be damp. The longing ache in his heart has no place under Winifred's cold eye.
What will I do with him, Mother? Cedric asked during that first walk. You'll make him your Familiar, his mother answered. The child laughed. He had a gap in his smile back then, an eyetooth that would take a while to grow in. It gave him a little, endearing lisp, and lots of trouble enunciating his spells.
But why, Mother? I'm a Royal Sorcerer, not a witch, he said, Goodwyn-like patronizing mixed with genuine puzzlement.
So he will be with you forever, and make you strong enough to be King.
"What I don't get," he starts, "is why you have started this at all. There are easier ways to get a good bond between a sorcerer and their animal companion. I would know, everyone at school had one."
"None like you." Winifred smirks. "You must understand I haven't decided to start anything. I simply observed, and followed suit. Animal companions are commonplace, but true Familiars are a rare find. You don't see that many witches with them anymore, nowadays." A pause. "Some time had to pass, but my intuition was clear that fate would allow Cedric his chance to face his fear, and win."
"And you think he's won?" Wormwood asks, bitter.
Cedric's mother can give him nothing better than a shrug. "He can never win. Not truly. Just like my berk of a husband, he has some good in him… but it takes more than heart, to be good. It takes talent, it takes perfection. And he… is gullible, and anxious, not really the strong sort, never was. The truth is, the path of evil is the only place to hide that kind of flaw."
With Winifred laying her true thoughts bare, he feels like he understands more of Cedric now. It is satisfactory and sad in equal shares. Most of all, it's infuriating. Even his own mother doesn't see him.
"He is nothing like that. You don't know as much as you think," he says, bristling.
Misie just looks at him tiredly. He intensely wishes his form was restored, so he could speak for himself. He sees them now, the intentions of Cedric's parents clear as charted territory on a map. Goodwyn misguided attempt at protection, and Winifred's ultimate, indomitable desire to rule. Everything has its place in Goodwyn's world. A wife to tame and reconcile a rival Clan. A son for the tower, a daughter for the bloodline. Everything has its role, and doesn't stray. Goodwyn's line, they take care of kingdoms and obey their kings, but Winifred's line… they have higher aims, and lower means.
"You," he says, addressing the she-raven directly. "Who are you trying to protect? It isn't my sorcerer the one with flaws to hide, here. This is nothing compared to what she did in the past, and if she could bear to set a spell so binding, she can bear the consequences, too."
"You know I cannot tell her that," Misie finally says, in raven-speak. "She couldn't bear the thought of having harmed her beloved son."
"You think she really cares? You think this is love?" he asks. The coldness her Imago had shown towards their life and death comes to mind, clear as sugar crystal. "This is control. And what she can't bear is being dead wrong."
"I… will admit this truth," Misie says, bowing her head minutely, "but these are human dealings, and I cannot speak it."
"Oh, I will speak it myself," Wormwood declares, scoring the table with his small claws. "Stay assured."
Tfw you need to roast your mother-in-law, but the translator isn't having it.