Chapter Text
Del is twelve when the Ruby Warlock remarries. This new wife has twin children, a boy and a girl, aged ten. Del can tell from the first that this new wife has never wanted to be a mother and has never quite learned the trick of pretending. That doesn’t mean that she’s a bad person, or deliberately malicious. Just that the role she’s been handed by life doesn’t suit her.
A part of Del wonders if he’s supposed to find this observation tragic. In his experience life almost never provides people with the things they need, let alone keeps away the things they might not want. As far as burdens go, Nicholas and Kelsie are almost certainly at the better end of the spectrum.
The twins have hair in a deep honey-gold shade, wavy and thick. If they care one way or the other that their mother doesn’t want them, Del has never seen them give any indication of it. Most of their time is spent at boarding school, and for Del the pair of them appear and disappear with the end-of-term holidays and are rarely mentioned in-between, at least not by their mother or the Ruby Warlock. Del thinks about them a lot, but that’s just inside his own brain. There isn’t anyone he could talk about them with while they’re gone. During the months when they’re away, Del sometimes slips into the unattended bedrooms left behind. The furniture and trinkets are all as still and undisturbed as an abandoned dollhouse, waiting for two perfectly-made china dolls to reappear and breathe life into the air.
Del, despite being older, is shorter than Nicholas and of a height with Kelsie. His skin is paler than theirs and lacks the scatter of tiny freckles which they wear across their noses and the delicate skin beneath their eyes. Del’s skin is more like the blue-white of the skimmed milk that the kitchen cat drinks.
Del has been with the Ruby Warlock since before he can remember. He has to call him ‘Master’, or ‘sir.’ While spellcasting, Del has to call the Ruby Warlock by his name, which is Addanc. Names are powerful things, in spells. In Del’s head, he is simply ‘the Ruby Warlock.’
Sometimes the Ruby Warlock tells people that Del is his bastard child. Other times, he says that Del is a foundling taken in out of charity. On rare occasions, often occurring when an important visitor is in earshot, the Ruby Warlock even claims to have been married to Del’s mother and that the three of them were very happy together, for a little while.
Del does not know how much or how little of it is true. All he knows is this: he is an apprentice always, a drudge sometimes, and a son never.
He doesn’t mind not being a son. Nicholas has a hard enough time of it, and his mother only mothers him out of obligation. Being a son appears to involve, at the absolute minimum, a lot of questions about being warm enough, and about doing well at lessons, and keeping collars and cuffs clean of ink stains. Far easier, Del thinks, to be an apprentice. Del’s real name is Rowan, but he’s called that so rarely that he would have to pause and think before answering to it. His hair is straight as pins and falls in sooty locks across his forehead, darkest black-brown save for one thick streak of ashy grey above his right temple where the texture shifts from slippery-fine to coarse as wire.
Del doesn’t remember what caused the change but assumes it was some spell gone wrong that has since faded into the general blur of burns and scratches and torn fingernails that preparing ingredients and reagents has strewn across his past.
Kelsie and Nicholas claim to be jealous of Del’s life as an apprentice and plead with their mother to let them stay back from their boarding schools to learn at the Ruby Warlock’s side instead. Their mother— who doesn’t like Del, or indeed even think of him very much at all, since she treats the Ruby Warlock’s professional life as something well beyond the scope of her own comfortable world— simply smiles and laughs and shakes her head, claiming to be amused at the wildly fanciful ideas her children dream up.
They might as well have begged to become pirates or gods or candle-flames, for all the serious consideration she gives their pleas.
In those early years, the three children— if Del can be said to be a child in the same way that Nicholas and Kelsie are children— have a surprisingly uncomplicated, easy-going camaraderie. The twins spend a sufficient amount of the year apart from one another that they are pleased, rather than antagonised, by each other’s company during their holiday breaks. Del’s quieter demeanour doesn’t trouble them and neither does the fact that they have to teach him the rules to all their card games all over again every holiday, the knowledge having been pushed out of his head by incantations and recipes and other difficult things since the last time he saw them.
Nicholas and Kelsie are, to him, something not entirely unlike the black-furred kitchen cat; a friendly and occasionally demanding distraction that makes him smile and provides amusement. But the children who sometimes live upstairs are so different from Del that he never even considers the possibility of being truly close to them.
In many ways, he thinks to himself, he’s got more in common with the cat.
For the most part, life after the Ruby Warlock’s new marriage is not so different for Del from the life before.
Today is his seventeenth birthday and he gets out of bed, shivering in the autumnal chill before the dawn. His small, sparse bedroom is in the cellar of the house. For the most part Del likes that— it’s comforting to think of the warm dark earth on all sides, kept at bay by nothing but the thin walls of wood and brick. But when the weather starts to turn cold, the little room feels like a dark pocket of ice, a place for storing nightmares.
There are some plants that are best plucked as the sun rises, so Del pulls on his boots and climbs the staircase up and out to the garden beds behind the kitchen. When he was very young, that flight of steps seemed to stretch up forever, but now he is almost grown up and the stairs have diminished down to a less impressive size by comparison. His little room isn’t the deep-buried sanctuary he used to imagine it as, a place so far down that nothing from the harsh ordinary world could follow him.
Nowadays, Del understands that there’s nothing but a lack of curiosity keeping the Ruby Warlock from descending down into the cellar. It’s not a safe place. It never was. There’s no such thing.
The dew has frozen into a thin frost on the plants, and Del’s hands sting as they’re mottled white and blue and pink from the cold. He can’t wear gloves for this task— any potency gained from the dawn picking would be lost without the touch of skin to keep the delicate energies in balance.
Today, he knows, is the day when he’ll have to decide what he wants to do about his situation. One way or another, something has to change.
He is an excellent apprentice. He prepares ingredients meticulously; he labels and sorts and cleans the work benches in the laboratory; he can titrate or distill a potion to perfection. He can kill a chicken for its entrails and wishbones and feet and then prepare the remaining carcass for a meal, wasting nothing.
His lessons and skills make him the perfect attendant, but are not the makings of an eventual spellcaster in his own right. That has never been the Ruby Warlock’s aim; Del has been brought up to be a helper, not a student who will one day gain mastery.
But he is a better learner than the Ruby Warlock planned for. His eyes are quick, his brain quicker. He has a sharp intelligence that absorbs more lessons than intended. And now, seventeen years old today, Del knows he’s gotten too good. Very soon the Ruby Warlock will notice that the child in the cellar is very nearly a man grown, and therefore a threat.
He is too good at spellcasting, and too clever at borrowing the Ruby Warlock’s wand and knife and brazier when nobody’s looking. Very soon he is going to have to decide whether he wants to kill the Ruby Warlock or to run away.
Del’s weighed each option, considered the pros and cons on either pathway, but is still torn by indecision. A small, childish part of him is reluctant to admit that the choice must be made at all. If that little part of him had its way, he’d live down in the cellar forever, getting up to pick icy leaves at dawn until the end of time.
Life has taught Del to be pragmatic, though, and so with a sigh, he carries the new plant cuttings into the kitchen and puts on the kettle to boil. Today he’ll make a choice. Today he’ll decide.
He fixes breakfast for the Ruby Warlock and the Ruby Warlock’s wife, makes the day’s bread, and gives the kitchen cat some milk in its bowl. It purrs and butts its head against his ankles. Del leans down to give the animal a fond pat on its head.
There’s a quiet tap against the frame of the door out to the garden, which Del left open to let some fresh air into the cramped little room. He straightens up from petting the cat and turns. He’s surprised to see one of the village girls that Kelsie is friends with standing there.
“You’re Kelsie’s step-brother, aren’t you?” she asks with a small smile. “We don’t see you in town much.”
Del shrugs. He’s never thought of himself as being step-brother to the twins; that would imply that any of the family considered him to be a part of it.
“Kelsie posted me this. Said to give it to you,” the girl goes on. Instead of holding out the letter in one gloved hand, she holds out the other hand for him to shake. “I’m Alicia.”
He shakes her hand perfunctorily, but when he tries to pull away she squeezes his fingers for a moment and gives him another smile. “I work at the butcher’s shop. You should come down the hill and say hello sometime.”
She hands him the note and turns to leave.
Del leans against the door frame and watches her as she picks her way between the rows of plants in the garden. He can tell when somebody is flirting with him, even if it doesn’t happen particularly often. He doesn’t leave the house and its grounds enough for it to happen often. Alicia was definitely flirting with him.
It isn’t that she isn’t pretty or friendly— she’s both— it’s just that Del has never been interested in anybody, not like that. He feels very old and very tired inside his skin, and romance and love and flirting have always seemed like things which have nothing to do with him.
There are a lot of things in the world that other people have which have nothing to do with him. If he loses this apprenticeship, he’s not sure there’ll be anything much else left that’s his at all, except for magic.
Before he has a chance to open the letter from Kelsie, one of the bells from upstairs rings. One chore leads into another, and hours pass before he gets a minute to himself again. His hands are sooty from topping up the fireplaces (the day hasn’t grown any warmer than it was at sunrise, and the house is large and drafty, so there are a lot of fireplaces for Del to contend with), so he heads back downstairs to wash his hands at the kitchen pump before handling the envelope.
As Del passes by the Ruby Warlock’s upstairs study, he hears muffled voices from inside and stops to eavesdrop. Nobody’s ever bothered to teach him that it’s not well-mannered to listen in on other people’s conversations. Even if they had he wouldn’t care. Del spends too much of his life afraid of genuine dangers to bother getting worried about whether he’s being properly polite or not.
He can tell, by the wavering echo that lingers after each word and sentence, that the Ruby Warlock is talking to somebody via the obsidian scrying bowl that’s always kept polished to a perfect reflective shine.
“—you truly no longer want him. Name your price. I’ve been meaning to invest in another live specimen. There’s a limit to how much substituting a familiar can accomplish. I haven’t been able to set up anymore trapdoors in the city since the last child got used up. Do you imagine how trying it is to only have one point of access to a metropolis? Most inconvenient.”
Del knows that voice; it belongs to a magician that the Ruby Warlock has known for years— the Coral Sorcerer, an even more powerful spellcaster than Del’s extremely adept owner. Del has never liked the man. Even by the indifferent standards by which he judges all the magical adults he’s met there’s something in the way that he looks at Del that has always felt... appraising.
Now, that creeping feeling Del has always had on the back of his neck in the Coral Sorcerer’s presence makes complete sense. He truly was being evaluated, judged for his suitability as a future spell ingredient.
Del feels a little sick and desperately hopes he’s misunderstanding the conversation.
“Careful,” the Ruby Warlock warns. “He’s more powerful than you might expect. That’s why I’m keen to be rid of him.”
All right, so it seems he wasn’t misunderstanding, then. Del barely dares to breathe.
The voice echoes and ripples from the scrying bowl.
The Coral Sorcerer laughs.
“There are easy charms to block the magics of a child, Addanc. Don’t fret on that account.”
The Ruby Warlock doesn’t respond immediately.
Del wants to believe that this is because the Ruby Warlock is hesitating. That he’s having second thoughts about selling off the boy he sometimes claims as his own son.
It’s a hard lie for Del to tell himself, though. He knows it’s far more likely that the Ruby Warlock is pausing to consider how much money he can make.
“You can come collect him in the morning,” the Ruby Warlock says. Del moves away from the door as quickly and quietly as he’s able. Down the stairs and back into the kitchen, the cat is lazing in a sunbeam, washing itself as if there isn’t a single thing wrong in all the world. Del goes over to the sink, works the water pump a few times and scrubs his hands clean with harsh soap. The gritty texture against his skin is rough enough to wake him up a little, enough that his eyes begin to sting and he has to blink several times to clear his vision.
Despite Del’s pragmatism in the frozen garden just a few hours earlier, his certainty then about the need to run away, there’s still a sharp cold thread of pain in his heart. He feels angry at himself as he dries his eyes. It’s so stupid to get upset when he’s got things to do that have to be done as quickly as possible.
He feels as if he can’t properly get his footing on the stairs as he climbs down into his cellar.
A leather drawstring pouch that used to hold a set of runes is more than sturdy enough to withstand a spell to make the inside bigger than the outside, so Del casts it twice and shoves all his spare clothes and some of his bedding as well into the space created.
Then he adds in some of the harder-to-get reagents that he might need for potions or spells. Del’s glad that most of the supplies for the Ruby Warlock’s work are kept in the room where his apprentice sleeps. It would be too difficult and dangerous to risk a trip to anywhere else in the house on the way to making an escape.
Del’s bag contains an extra shirt and pants, a waterproof cloak, some spare socks and underclothes, a screw-top jar of beetle wings, a stoppered flask of powdered snakeskin, and a small silk purse full of shards of wood from an old Ouija board.
He has very little money saved up, but doesn’t dare go hunting through the house in search of more. Every second counts, as there’s no telling when the Ruby Warlock will appear to prepare Del for collection in the morning.
Tying the leather bag to his belt, Del climbs up the stairs out of his cellar for the last time. He doesn’t stop for a nostalgic last look. In a way, maybe leaving like this— with no time to plan or wallow in emotions— is better. It makes him concentrate on what’s important.
Del cuts through the garden beds and out into the fields beyond, moving as quickly as he can from cover to cover. When he’s a few miles away, he stops to get his bearings. It’s only then that he remembers that Kelsie’s letter is still in his pocket.
Her handwriting is all loops and flourishes, which is a nice change from the boxy, angular calligraphy that most spell books and tomes are written in.
Del
Since this letter is being delivered to you directly, I don’t have to speak in code or mince my words. Nicky is in trouble. I hate that the three of us are so far away from one another for so much of the time. The most sensible course of action is for us to run away. Come to my school as soon as you’re able & we will set out to help and collect Nicky.
If unable to assist please send reply informing of such.
xK
Her words make Del smile. Perhaps he has a little luck on his side after all. This might be exactly what he needs: a game of running-away played by children who have no true danger in their lives.
A day or two of indulging Kelsie— Del highly doubts it’ll ever get far enough to involve Nicholas as well— will make it easier to run away in earnest when the time comes. It will make the whole transition feel less abrupt, more lighthearted.
The night is very dark once he’s past the periphery of the illumination from the house’s windows, and Del’s grateful for that small mercy. Every moment that his escape goes undetected is another step toward freedom.
Kelsie’s school is a two days’ ride away. Del decides that flying is his best option, but that he should wait until morning to attempt going such a distance in a form he isn’t used to.
In the meantime, he pauses for long enough to find a fairly straight and sturdy branch in the underbrush. Fresh wands aren’t as reliable as broken-in ones, but any wand is better than none at all.
He turns himself into a girl and then back again, trying to keep his walking pace as even and rapid as possible through the transformations so that he doesn’t lose too much momentum to the exercise. Twice, and then a third time, he shifts back and forth between form and gender. When he’s confident that the wand will manage a full swap, he turns himself into a girl and stays that way.
When the sun comes up, Del steps out into the open and transforms into a crow. It feels good to fly and to give his aching legs a rest. As long as he can avoid being shot down by poachers, the rest of the journey to the school should be easy enough to accomplish.