Chapter Text
Even after the adrenaline slowed, Jestro explained he wasn’t wounded. Even his eyes stopped hurting after getting out from the sunlight’s glare on the glass. After helping people out of the rubble, he just wanted to join Clay in the hospital wing. He couldn’t explain more, but the nurse tapped her full clipboard thoughtfully. She smiled at him and let him in.
Clay sat with his eyes closed, a blanket around his shoulders. It took a record-setting two minutes for Jestro to convince him to properly lay down. A hospital bed was a hospital bed, after all. They stayed in the silence of the remaining part of the castle, steadily remembering and silently forgiving both fresh and scarred wounds.
Jestro finally thought back to that day, when Clay took the fate he might have asked for, and the shudder of fear he had benched rose up again.
"Clay?” he asked quietly. “Are you awake?”
He nodded without opening his eyes.
“When I… When we were fighting, I picked up a shard of the Forbidden Power. I thought- I don't know what I thought,” he admitted, and explained what happened atop the Colossus. He sighed sorrowfully. “I mean, didn’t the spells I tried in school just turn things into pigs? Sorry if this is a bad time, but do you think… Do you think using Monstrox’s magic for those first few months… might have affected me permanently?”
“No, I actually thought something like that might happen,” Clay replied. He opened his eyes. “If you have it in your blood, as I recently found out I do- magic just moves in you naturally.” He smiled a bit sadly. “I needed another magician if I would have a chance.”
“Right,” Jestro breathed. “Your mother- You, a wizard…” He laughed off part of the worry. “That’s actually kinda cool. But-” he started, confused again, “you thought I might absorb enough magic to fight? Where did you come up with that?”
Clay couldn't help but laugh, sitting up. Jestro blinked, blushing, but Clay quickly gestured that he wasn't laughing at him. He got himself under control but didn’t stop smiling.
“Because you’re my brother.”
There was a pause.
“Jestro? Did you hear me?”
“I’M WHAT?!”
Clay shushed him quickly, laughing again. “Don’t scare the others!”
Jestro quickly took to frantically pacing so as not to shake Clay by the shoulders. “What in the name of Knighton do you mean I’m your brother?!” he whisper-shouted.
“Yeah, I was caught off-guard too,” Clay admitted. “But as I understand the story…” He explained the situation several years ago of Wanda Moorington and a knight, how after Wanda finally caved to Monstrox’s spell, Merlok was around to find Clay. The knight looked after Knighton with the second son for a while, unable to find Merlok while Monstrox’s spell kept Wanda's mouth shut. Monstrox was defeated and the knight and Wanda were lost in battle just in time for Jestro to be old enough to survive on the streets, where Merlok found him. And they knew the rest. “So… as Wanda and Merlok share a magical line-”
“Wait, they’re RELATED?!” Jestro exclaimed again. He stopped. “No, wait, I already knew that.”
Clay nodded eagerly. “So as they shared a line, it was passed to us. Magic- totally different from book spells- as soon as we were forced to figure it out.”
Needless to say, it took a while for Jestro’s head to stop exploding. But once he did, he sat down, melting into the stiff chair. It was certainly a load off the fears of Monstrox stalking him in ghost form.
“Brothers…” he laughed quietly. “Yeah, I like the sound of that.”
“Mom had a hunch, she tried to prove it as soon as you came spying,” Clay laughed, then grimaced. “Oh, she's gonna be mad for not getting to tell you herself.”
Jestro smacked his forehead, that implication sending him again. “Oh jeez, how are we going to tell everyone?”
Clay smiled rather mischievously. “The king will definitely throw a celebration once everything is cleaned up. First I was thinking we could tell Macy-”
“Mustache of Merlin, she missed you so much,” Jestro interrupted excitedly. “You guys are getting married, aren't you?”
“What!” It was Clay’s turn to blurt. “It’s- it’s too early to say that!” He mumbled more about still technically being a peasant boy- though he wasn’t sure if Wanda would join the king’s advisors again-
“Okay, okay, I can wait to be the best man!” Jestro assured, laughing. "Should we tell them all at once? Ooh- What is Ru- Wan- our mom even like? How long did you know about this?"
Clay promised to explain everything eventually. So they chattered more and more elaborate plans for telling everyone, the last months swallowed like drops in the sea.
“Er… Wanda?” In her long gray dress, she was well camouflaged among the rubble. She was digging. Her eyes were dry and stern, but more like his big sister’s than a stranger's.
“Merlie,” she greeted evenly without stopping.
“Are you looking for something?”
“Care to help?”
“Did you… Did you see what happened on top of the crown?” Merlok asked.
“I got enough of it. Thought I’d give them a moment to catch their breath.”
“Of course, of course.” He smacked his lips uncertainly. “As I recall, Jestro’s spellcasting at the academy only turned things into cows. When he was trying levitation spells. I mean, with Clay, I understand, but…”
Her expression was dormant, but something in her voice twinkled. “It’s like Father taught us, remember? You wanted to teach everyone learnable spells. I wanted a legacy of magicians.”
Merlok rubbed the screen where his temples would be. “But- I thought Fletcher disappeared with Arthur, then I took in Clay-”
“I still have to figure out if there’s any hope for finding Arthur. But that’s the second order of business.”
“Then-” Merlok stopped, connecting the dots. “Merlin’s mustache,” he breathed. “Is that why Monstrox waited so long to go after-? Stars and sparks.”
Wanda chuckled, then something caught her eye in the glittering mess. She held a hand up for him to stop where he was. With her free hand, she pried loose a purple, glowing shard, which must have been in the center of the Colossus.
Merlok bristled but told himself not to panic yet.
She brushed off the shard almost tenderly. The glowing briefly rose, twitching with a sound like a groan.
“Stoneheart, sweetheart!” the shard realized aloud, then chuckled. “Found your way back, huh?”
Wanda looked at him coldly. “Employee review time,” she said, pointing a finger in the air. “In all honesty, you haven’t done very well behind the wheel. Sloppy strategy, lazy retreat maneuvers, and truly obnoxious monologues.”
“Huh?” Monstrox asked, wondering if he got some rock in his ear- which was made of rock.
Her eyes darkened once more. “It was one thing to go after my magic, my brother, my friends, but my sons?”
Monstrox chuckled nervously as she cackled with a thousand curses, curly hair bristling with electrical energy. She then sighed contentedly.
“You’ve been demoted to direction’s keeper while we look for the Wizard’s Council, perhaps with some help from my brother to make things faster,” Wanda explained matter-of-factly. Continuing to the shard, holding it up to the light, “I will decide when you get a new form, and if you want it sooner rather than never, you’ll make it easier for me to find the rest of the wizard’s council and our family.”
Monstrox began to scoff.
“And if you don’t,” Wanda added. “I’ll see to it that you spend the rest of your natural life as a paperweight.”
Monstrox gulped and spoke no more.
Merlok grinned as he tossed her a satchel, which had held his shield as they had lacked the time to build a proper holster. She dropped Monstrox inside. “It’s good to have you back, Wanda- if I can presume?” he asked with a nervous smile tickling his mustache.
Wanda grinned. “Was I truly gone?” she asked, smartly but gently, remembering their past fight. “Or was I just different?”
Merlok puzzled over the thought. It had been years since seeing his sister. Not only memories, but people can change in that much time. “I don’t know!” he admitted.
She grinned again, her eyes agreeing. “Knew I’d get you to admit it one day.”
Merlok chuckled. "If you'd be so kind as to relieve my terrible confusion," he smiled a bit awkwardly, "shall we go check in on my nephews?"
Wanda sighed, taking in the bittersweet smell of freedom. "I'd like that."