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Lucy doesn’t mean anything by it, not really, when she says, “But I thought only girls could be witches?”
Marwick wipes the last of the quicksilver residue from the scrying bowl, tossing the cloth into the fire when he’s done. “Nah,” he says. “Some boys, too.”
“And it’s none of your business,” Septimus snaps.
Lucy stiffens in her seat, one hand coming up over the slight swelling in her abdomen.
“Sep,” Marwick says.
“Thank you for the Scry, Marwick,” Lucy says, not looking at Sep.
“You’re not a witch, so you don’t know.” Sep is a duck with a toy mouse: unwilling to let the thing go.
Now Lucy does turn to look at him, expression haughty. “And what do you know about witchcraft?”
More than most people realize, Marwick knows. Sep’s always been a sponge for Magyk regardless of type, mixing Physik with wizardry with anything else he can get his hands on. If Marcia hadn’t had first dibs, then Marwick suspects Sep would’ve been happy learning from Aunt Zelda for the rest of his life.
That fascination is the only reason Sep bothered to come today, in spite of being unable to help Marwick’s use of moon magic to Scry Lucy’s pregnancy, and in spite of not being nearly as close to Lucy as Marwick himself is. He'll never pass up a chance to see a new spell.
“I know enough not to ask stupid questions,” Sep says loudly.
Lucy flushes. “Marissa said that witches draw power from the moon by tapping their own cycles, that’s all. I was just curious. I don't think it's a stupid question.”
Marwick knows that, and he knows Lucy. Which is why he straightens up, looks her in the eye, and says, “Don’t gotta be a girl to bleed every month. But the cycle does help with witchcraft, yeah.”
“Oh.” Lucy’s eyes widen. Her face goes even redder. “Oh, I wasn’t — I'm sorry, Marwick, I didn’t mean to pry —”
“Like I said, none of your business,” Sep says. He’s pushed to his feet. Lucy is cringing back, that hand over her abdomen again.
“Sep,” Marwick says quietly.
“He’s doing you a favor, and you're just being a stupid —”
“Septimus.”
“— because he doesn’t owe you an explanation, doesn’t owe you anything.”
Marwick growls.
“No, don’t.” Sep shoots a glance at Marwick before turning back to Lucy. Towering, arms crossed. “You should know better than to go nosing into people’s business all the time.”
Lucy’s not flushed anymore. In fact, she’s very pale. And both hands are up now, covering that weak point.
Sep inhales. “If you think—”
“Four-one-two!” Marwick barks.
A very loud silence falls in the little cabin.
Marwick knows perfectly well why Sep’s giving him that hurt look. After all, it was Marwick himself who insisted they learn to use each other’s real names. Septimus never much cared when Jenna or Nicko accidentally slipped into numbers. Marwick’s always been the one to refuse 409. But 412 snaps Sep out of that righteous indignation, so Marwick can’t really bring himself to care.
Breaking his gaze, Marwick jerks his head toward the door of the cabin.
Sep’s mouth firms into a line. He drops his arms.
Stomping to the door, Marwick yanks it open.
Sep shifts his weight, gaze dropping.
Pointedly, Marwick steps outside.
With a sigh, Sep follows him.
Marwick leans back inside long enough to cast an apologetic glance at Lucy, who gives him a tiny smile with what looks like an apology of her own. Then he yanks the door shut behind him and turns to face Septimus. Sep looks more upset than anything, hurt confusion drawing his brows together.
“Sep...” Marwick sighs.
“What.”
Marwick holds up a hand to request a second. They are, neither one of them, very good with words. Young Army brats are like that, even the book-loving Magyk ones. What Marwick needs to say...
It’s that so many things are different now, than when 412 was the scrawniest and slowest and softest-hearted of the cadets in their platoon, and everyone had known that he wouldn’t so much as squash a spider. Back then, that’d never stopped 412 from defending 409. Back when Marwick had needed defending from the 200 decade and the cadet leaders. The older boys had laughed when 412 got in their faces, right up until they’d learned he was willing to back the threats with fists and rocks and cockroaches in their beds.
But 409 had needed defending back then, just like 412 had needed help getting through the Do-or-Dies and any scouting expedition that took them too far off the ground. At the time it’d been important, and it’d mattered. It'd been sweet, 412 being so brave. It's different now. Brave doesn't include shouting at people who are scared of you, and continuing to shout even after they apologize.
It’s the difference between being a scrawny little nothing without even a name, much less a title, and being the second most powerful wizard in the country. Sep isn’t a skinny 10-year-old Expendable anymore, and he can’t just go around getting in people’s faces.
“Lucy didn’t mean anything by it,” Marwick says at last. “And if she had, I could’ve handled it.”
“You don’t need to put up with this anymore,” Sep says. “You always—” He stops, blowing out a breath. He turns to stare over the marsh. Words fail him. They’re prone to do that.
Marwick scuffs a hole in the mud with the toe of one boot, watching the bubbles of worms coming to the surface.
“You never correct people,” Sep says at last.
He’s not wrong about that much: if 409 had been alone, if he and 412 hadn’t shared a smile behind the back of the cadet leader as a pair of grubby six-year-olds and clicked on the spot, then Marwick would’ve been suck in the girls’ barracks forever.
But it’s not easy, when it’s you. They’ve always been this way. Sep will freeze like a cornered rabbit the moment he finds himself up high, but throw himself off Wizards’ Tower to shield Marwick. Marwick once took on a whole pack of wolverines while unarmed to try and get back to Sep, but clams into silence rather than speak up on his own behalf.
Sep turns, taking a step toward him. “You don’t need to put up with that anymore.”
“That’s up to me, innit?”
“Not if you’re just going to... to stand there while Matt and Marcus call you the wrong name!”
Marwick slings an arm around Sep’s shoulders, yanking him roughly until their sides are pressed together. He starts pulling tangles loose from Sep’s perpetually wild head of curls. In wolverine, this would mean something like I still love you, even if I’m not very happy with you right now.
Sep tilts his head up, letting his eyes fall closed. Wolverine for I trust you.
“They called me what our parents called me, and it was an honest mistake,” Marwick murmurs into the top of Sep’s head. “And I didn’t have a chance to say anything to them because you did it for me.”
Sep makes a hmph noise.
Honestly, “Mandy” isn’t even the stupidest or most inaccurate name he’s ever had. “409” still wins on both counts. Plus, Marwick may have, slightly, bitten Boy 178 just last month when 178 had called Sep “frog eyes” to his face. So he supposes he doesn’t have much room to argue.
“You need to stop letting people say the wrong thing,” Sep insists.
“And you need to stop yelling at them when they do.”
“I just...”
Marwick hums, and frees another messy curl. They both might’ve gone a little overboard on the having-hair thing, now that they’re allowed. At least Marwick’s formed into nice locs with a little help from Sam, while Sep’s just became an ever-expanding bird’s nest.
“Then why won’t you let me tell Lucy off?” Sep scowls. “I can, Catchpole isn’t here —”
“So don’t become him.”
Sep yanks free sharply enough that he leaves several golden strands tangled between Marwick’s fingers. He doesn’t say anything, his mouth pinched together and eyes wide.
There Marwick goes again, using the wrong words.
“Marwick...”
Marwick doesn’t apologize. “You’ve always said — he never hurt us.”
It was true: Catchpole never hurt them. Never hit them or held them down. May have even been trying to protect them, in his own way. Late for role call, ice water over the bedsheets, and it wasn’t the Young Army but pneumonia that killed you. Talk back, lose your meat ration, and when you collapsed from fatigue the next night out, it was not the Young Army but the wolverines that did you in.
Catchpole’s voice had rung across the water even as Marwick struggled for breath against the current’s drag... “Leave it! Four-one-two, I said leave it!” audible even over the river’s rush and 412’s desperate screams. The Young Army didn’t kill 409, but it didn’t stop the river from doing the job. Four months later, and it hadn’t raised a finger to save 412 from the frog-eyes either.
“You have power,” Marwick says to Septimus. “Don’t be careless with it.”
“I’m not.” He’s standing in parade rest; a different boy would be hugging himself. “I don’t, Marwick.”
The worst Expendable Boy 412 could do, when he’d gotten that fire in his eyes and that snap in his voice, was throw a snowball with a rock inside. The worst Septimus Heap, Extra-Ordinary Apprentice and twin brother to the Queen, can do... Well. Merrin Meredith destroyed half a city and killed over a hundred people, with one-tenth of Sep’s power.
“Explain, when you need to.” Marwick tries for a smile. “But don’t be a prat about it. And tell Lucy you’re not going to turn her into a frog.”
For a second he thinks he’s said the wrong thing again — wizards kidnapping people to make frogs of them was another of Cadet Leader’s favorite stories — but then Sep smiles. “Yeah, right,” Sep says. “I just...”
Marwick makes another wolverine noise. A huff of agreement, but also the kind of noise to convey it is what it is.
And then he does I still love you, you stupid prat the human way. A hand cupping Sep’s chin to tilt his head up. A soft kiss on the lips. A searching look, followed by a muffled laugh when Sep hooks a hand behind Marwick’s head to pull him back in.
They are, neither one of them, very good with words. But this they can do. And it’s not as though they much need words anyway, not with each other.
Lucy looks up, when Marwick shoves the door open again. She still has both hands clasped around her belly. There’s a long silence, during which Marwick scuffs at the ground some more.
“Sorry,” Sep mumbles, at last. “About before.”
“I’m sorry too.” Lucy’s eyes are shiny, Marwick notes with a thrill of horror. He doesn’t know what to do with crying women. “I was being rude.”
Right, then. Marwick thumps the Scry bowl back down on the table between them, splashing a quantity of water into the basin. “What else do you want to know?” he asks.
“Oh!” Lucy brightens, and Marwick relaxes. “Can you ask what the baby’s name will be?”
Marwick stares at the water. He does not comment on this being the stupidest question he’s ever been asked. No shapes rise to the surface, likely because he isn’t bothering to work any witchcraft at the moment. Instead he waits, and frowns at the water as if in concentration.
Sure enough, the answer comes the old-fashioned way. “I do hope his name will be William,” Lucy sighs. “I’ve always wanted to have a baby named William.”
“Yep.” Marwick points at the bowl. That was easy enough. “Says right here, he’s going to be William.”
“Oh wow.” Lucy leans in close, peering at her watery reflection next to Marwick’s. “I can’t wait to tell Simon — he’ll be so pleased.” She glances up at Septimus. “We were hoping for a boy named for your Uncle William, and now...” She gives another fond sigh.
“Glad Marwick figured it out, then,” Sep says, straight-faced.
Marwick doesn’t know the words for the look he gives to Sepitums then. Something about I let you sleep in my nest. Or your scent would be known to me among a thousand others. Or else the feeling of another boy pressed close to your side, the two of you against the rivers and wolverines and tallest trees. Or maybe the look is wordless because of what it means: that he knows, and is known, better than any mere words can convey.
"William," Lucy sighs, rapturous. And now Sep does crack a smile.