#marwick

Zelda looks at him, at the foot of the tree, especially elegant in the way only being a misty silver-white ghost can do. He kicks his foot out a bit, heels of his shoes scuffing at the roots running through the ground, breaking up the earth.

“You need to be around people once in a while, dear,” Zelda insists. A flick of her hand turns Marwick's eyes to hers, instead of where they were ignoring her somewhere amongst the branches. “There's another purpose to being Keeper besides the Dragon Boat, though I don't know what, but I don't want you to think just because you are Keeper you can't visit anyone. You don't need to stay there all the time.”

Marwick stays quiet.

Zelda's lips curl down a bit, disapproving, like when she found out he had thrown his sandwich into the marshes instead of eating it. "Marwick. You don't have to grow up so fast. I planned on you becoming Keeper later."

Marwick stops. He stares at the little frayed edges of her patchwork dress. He is suddenly very aware of the fact that his hands and arms were covered in scars from the Young Army.

“I know," he says. Then, “I don't think you had a choice for me growing up too fast.” He clenches his fist, angry lines curling around his calloused fingers, pale scars against dark brown skin. "I was in an army of child soldiers."

Zelda looks at him, and he doesn't not look back, gaze dropping down to the ground, to the dark forest soil. He barely hears her sigh. Then a bigger hand rests on his shoulder, warm and comforting, see through and not at all there. He hadn't realized he was close enough for her to touch.

Then she says, "Oh, Marwick," and he crumples, shoulders sagging down and eyes all wet and wanting to feel her, solid, but knowing he'll never be able to again.

He looks up at her finally, helplessly, frantic. Zelda is smiling, her eyes had soft and sad. She looks at him like she always does, like he is hers, a baby bird with a broken wing that can never quite be fixed. “I don’t want to go to the Castle," Marwick admits. "There are too many people I have to be.”

“You have family and friends,” she says, as if he sees them more than twice a year, as if his brothers have ever come to visit him instead of the other way around. “Be yourself and that will be enough for them.”

His distress at the thought must show on his face; her expression turns to pity. He would’ve turned bitter at that if she were alive, but she's not, and all he feels is numbness running through his veins.

“I’m sorry,” she says, which confuses Marwick, “I failed you.” That confuses him even more, because he is pretty sure he's failing her, if anything. A Keeper without a Dragon Boat. A Keeper with nothing to do.

“That's not true, Zelda,” he says.

“I failed you. I promised you'd get to be fourteen, and I failed you.”

“It doesn't matter, though.” Marwick presses his hand insistently onto hers, curling his very much present fingers onto her not-there ones, as much as he can without passing them through. It isn't that they aren't together, just that they're  overlapping from different places, right on top of the other. She took him in and cared for him, and he's not forgetting that. “I’m okay. I like being Keeper. I like the cottage.”

"You promised you'd act your age, Marwick," she says, quietly, sadly.

"I have friends," he says. If it's important to her, it can be important to him, though right now he's too numb to understand why. "I'll visit them, I promise."

"I'm glad," Zelda says, smiling finally, seeming to melt against the backdrop of the tree. “You keep your promises.” Then her eyes turn blank, like his when he was staring at the roots in the dirt. This one is directed at him. Blank eyes staring through blank flesh staring through blank skull staring through blank brain, right out through the back. She stares even past Marwick, towards the trees behind him and through that, too.

If Marwick looks in her eyes, he'll be able to hear all of her thoughts. Her irises have become holes

“Zelda?” he asks. His eyes are wet. She does not reply.

He lets himself out. 2.

The thing about Jenna, when friends and family are concerned, everything has to be a spectacle. Not a huge one, not really, but Jenna's all fire and brightness and love thrumming through her bones, and whenever he visits the Castle, even for a little while, she wants everyone to share her joy.

There’s an announcement of his arrival, last minute and directed at all available brothers. There’s an informal ceremony to welcome him, a breakfast at the Palace, Sep and Jenna and Nicko inexperienced in conducting it but supplementing their performance with excitement. Septimus always remembers all his favorite foods.

Two days after he shows up, everyone throws a party, and everyone comes. It’s all congratulating him on being the first male Keeper and thanking him for things he doesn't know and asking if he can tell them about being a triplet, maybe. Marwick gets asked a lot by younger kids if he can talk about this particular experience, because Matt won’t even acknowledge them if they ask him and Marcus lies about it so obviously that his tall tales conflict.

Marwick's not sure whether or not they know that he didn't know Marcus and Matt existed for so, so long, and now that he does he feels more like a wayward younger sibling than a triplet, an equal. He should probably tell them that it's not even an experience he's really had, and to go ask for thrilling tales of being a twin from Edd and Erik instead. It’s something to think about for next time. Marwick makes a mental reminder to his future self to bring it up with the little kids.

Lucy knits him a shirt. She presents it to him as soon as he arrives, so he won't have to do it with everyone watching him, distracted by what's in front of him and forgetting to double check for the possibility of knives pointed at the nape of his neck. She also gives him a book, all pictures of plants and cities from all over the world and maybe twelve words, tops. The only kind of book he'll ever like. Marwick has thanked her but wants to thank her even more; these gifts and what they mean to him deserve more than even just silent appreciation. Marwick thinks that she deserves a million new yarn balls, a meeting with the all available monarchy across the globe, legal ownership of the moon and then on. Lucy's own interests tell a bit of a different story.

The party is almost over by the time she pulls him aside. All the tenseness floods from his shoulders, and he sags against her. He loves Sep and Jenna and what they are doing for him, but too much noise has always bothered him, every since he fell into the river and could hear the rush of water coming up to meet him, like his heartbeat mirrored back, intensified. It's too much.

“Let’s get out of here,” Lucy says, an order and not a question, and really, she’s still a Gringe at heart, and who is he to deny her anything?

It takes exactly zero effort to get past Sam Heap, working as bouncer to keep the littlest kids out and the older people in. He winks, pretends to whistle and examine something off to the side, all the while unclipping the rope in a single practiced movement. That’s really nice, Marwick thinks. He’s probably going to give him one of the cool herbs he brought from the cottage, or maybe one of his daggers. Sam'll like that. Marwick gives him the thumbs up when the two of them walk out.

That’s how they get to Lucy's house. How their escape has turned into their own party, Marwick can’t exactly remember. It might have something to do with Lucy asking him if they could have a little party and him agreeing vehemently, but anything is possible.

Regardless, there are pillows on the floor. There are two bowls of salty snacks for Lucy to eat and Marwick to pick at. There is music floating in from the window, and Nicko Heap’s voice singing sea shanties to accompany it. He’s somehow agreed to let her braid his dreadlocks, even with his aversion to touch and jumpiness at people being behind him.

“Where's Simon?” he asks, if only to break the comfortable silence that’s making him feel kind of sleepy. He thinks that the comment works, though. He doesn't know where Simon is at all, and his face whenever he sees Marwick is sort of amusing, even if he feels a little cruel for thinking it. It's okay, though. Marwick didn't actually blind his eye or anything, and it was in defense of Septimus.

Lucy's voice comes out a little obstructed from the many peanuts in her mouth. “Marcellus is hogging him,” she complains, tugging a little to hard on his hair.

“Lucy, don't be daft, he works for him.” Marwick coughs to stop an unnecessary laugh from spilling out. He thumps a fist on the barrel of his chest. “You could demand for him to have normal work hours, maybe. I'm sure you're intimidating enough.”

Lucy hums. “Good idea. But he's not invited right now. This is more of sibling date.”

“Rupert's not here. And Matt. And Marcus.”

“A best friend date,” she amends. Then, “I wanted you to myself.”

Marwick doesn’t even try to keep himself from smiling, doesn’t cover his mouth with a hand, doesn’t move with the urge to make it look terrifying, exaggerated, instead of genuine. This isn’t any of the Heaps, as much as he loves them too. Even the mention of her being his older sister, considering him her best friend, is making his face feel hot. Her wanting him around is making his heart beat too hard against his ribcage, feeling too swollen and big to be at all healthy.

She’s eight years older than he is, a significant difference when you’re twelve and twenty, which they were when they first met, and it has never really mattered. The life-threatening situation they were in at the time helped speed the process along, but they went from complete strangers to allies to people who shared secrets and teased each other within days, despite him dissing her fiancee at every chance he got. Not once has Marwick felt like they aren’t equals, like they weren’t getting the same thing out of this friendship.

“Oh,” he says. There are a million and one other things that he could have said, his mind racing, but the only thing that came out was less of a word and more a result of having to breathe to be alive.

“Yeah,” says Lucy, both her smile and the peanuts still being in her mouth audible in her voice. She swallows. She laughs a bit. She tugs one of the three locks of hair she’s braiding a bit too hard on purpose. Marwick blindly tries to elbow her in retaliation and Lucy blocks it with her knee, stumbling a little, not as versed in self defense.

Lucy is still working on his hair, all deft movements, when the musicians start up a new song that wafts through the window, all jaunty and lively. He sees it instantly, a jolt of recognition sparking in her eyes, the way she suddenly sits bolt-upright. A slow smile spreads on her face, and he smiles back out of habit.

“I used to dance to this,” she tells him, dreamy, and although they have been friends since that whole debacle with the Light and the pirates and the Coven, he didn’t know she could to dance at all.

“Yeah?”

“Simon and I met in dance class,” Lucy continues, “and we got paired up because we were both late.”

“That’s romantic,” Marwick deadpans, and Lucy huffs out a laugh, tugs on his hair. He feels like he should be surprised about her apparent skill, but he’s noticed before that she moves with a dancer’s grace, heavy and stomping and light and fluid, all at once, come on, it’s obvious.

“So you know how to dance?” He can tell she’s revisiting old memories, and wonders, for a moment, what she looked like when she was his age, fourteen years old and temper that barely fits in her even now. “That’s cool.”

“I can teach you,” says Lucy, curling a short strand of her own hair around her pinkie finger.

The thing about that is, Marwick doesn’t doubt she’ll be a good teacher or that he’ll take to it quickly. He’s always been a rather fast learner. That isn’t it at all. It’s just that he’s never ever learned anything for fun and only fun, not even once.

But. Lucy is taking his hand and tugging, enough to get his attention but not enough to make the decision for him, and he’s reminded of another thing, that fun is meant to be a priority. That it’s meant to be a priority, and the Young Army was unnatural. And, well, he trusts Lucy, nearly the same amount he trusts Septimus, more than anyone, anything, in the whole world.

Marwick makes a show of being reluctant and pensive, something that no one in the room buys, and then agrees. “Finish my hair,” he says, very sure of himself, “And then we’ll dance.”

“Alright.”

“As long as you don’t tell Simon. Or any of your brothers-in-law,” says Marwick, even though he doesn’t really care about that at all, fake-doubt fake-clear in his voice, and Lucy laughs.

After a good few moments of practiced movements with her hands, Lucy scoots to the side so that she can look at her work. She thinks, curls the braid over his shoulder in the front.

Lucy smiles inquisitively, squints, rests a curled index finger on her chin. Then, “We kind of look alike.” There is no room in the statement for questioning, it being the usual misplaced order, as per Lucy's awfully endearing habit.

Marwick turns his head to look at the one mirror in the crowded room, mounted on the other side. He tries to make the movement go quicker to hide his slow reluctance.

What he sees is more surprising than he’d thought it'd be. Everything Marwick had noticed about him changing was noticed from looking down at his own arms or seeing his hair fly in front of his face. They were noted, crumpled into balls and then thrown in the mental garbage can, as he hadn’t really cared or thought they were significant enough to really think about it.

They really do look alike, if you look past the obvious.

Long, thick eyelashes, his meant for hotter suns than what is felt at the Castle, hers inherited from her mother. Hair, falling straight and heavy, surrounded by flyaway strands. Though his is shorter than hers, it feels just as long from the comforting weight of the braid on his scalp.

Their eyes have the kind of familial similarity that he and his brothers have, the kind that should have alerted them to the relation between the three of them, despite being in different barracks.

Hands. Criss-crossing little white scars, calluses on fingertips, hers from sewing and embroidery, his from holding daggers and untying rough knots.

Their heights are different. Their builds are different. They hold themselves in the same way, though, used to being underestimated by people who don’t really see them as people.

Eyes. Dark brown and upturned, with prominent eyelids, under thick brows.

Mouths. A disproportionately large upper lip, in the way that is interestingly unlovely. The one dimple in their right cheek when they both smile, genuine and real. The dark birthmark on the corner.

All of those birthmarks, in general. Little dark spots, like freckles but too far apart. Zelda says- said- his are cute, which means that Lucy's are cute. Marwick can agree with that part, at least.

The two of their appearances are kind of how he and Marcus and Matt have the same mannerisms, despite growing up a forest and a Castle apart. It reminds him of the stories Zelda used to tell, the ones that spanned back several centuries, how when he was eleven he once brought her flowers for what he thought was maybe her birthday, the first of January. It was the wrong day, as it turned out, but she thanked him and sat him down to listen to a story, one about the fates and their weaving, connecting the world and everyone in it to each other.

He thinks that this is maybe a sign that he and Lucy were always supposed to belong together. Instead of voicing this thought, he turns to one of his best friends and nods his head.

Lucy looks delighted, like she had wanted more than anything for him to agree with her. She holds out a hand, asking.

Again, again. Who is he to deny her anything? He takes her hand, pulls her to her feet, and she teaches him to dance.

3.

If Marwick is in the Castle for more than a week, he offers to make himself useful.

He knows he's not expendable anymore. Septimus knows that Marwick knows he's not expendable anymore, but if he's not being useful, then, well, he doesn't know what to do with himself. It’s alright though, sometimes, maybe. He finds the mindset is useful for getting things done. For helping other people. Septimus always finds something for him to do. He's good like that.

This one has to be his favorite.

“Your right leg is great, but the left is over-correcting,” Marwick says, and kneels to take a kid’s foot and angle it in the right way. The second he does, the faulty leg he’d been eyeing is in the right position, with the right stiffness. “If you line your feet up properly you have the right base. The rest of the form will follow.” he stands up, wondering if he should pat the kid on the head to let her know he’s not mad at her, or disappointed. Sometimes he can come across like that, when he’s not paying attention.

To his utmost relief, the kid just nods determinedly and gets back to practicing her blocks. She doesn’t burst into tears or anything, like he’s always afraid they might, though it hasn’t happened yet.

Marwick teaches the class of six-to-ten year-olds the basics of sword fighting most evenings before sunset. It would probably be weird if they started crying only now. He still hasn’t memorized most of their emergency contacts for if they get hurt. He still hasn’t memorized most of their last names, though he knows their first ones.

Arianna. She’s almost terrifyingly smart for her age; whenever he explains or demonstrates anything she draws a diagram of it in the dirt with her wooden sword. Every time he corrects her form, she scuffs parts of the notes out with the sole of her shoe and redraws them, making edits. She takes his constructive criticism and listens to his implied cues and makes him feel just generally pretty inadequate. She’s got dark skin and beautiful little braids done fresh every five days, more put together than most adults Marwick knows.  

Lorcan. He’s only six but looks older, with curly dark hair and an excited smile. He bounces when he talks, but has the smooth neutrality of a diplomat. He talks to the other children like he’s making a business transaction, a proposition that will end with the other one being killed, though he isn’t unkind. He’s got an unnerving interest in the undead and occult, and a book about demons from his older brother that he insists on reading aloud to the class.

Kayla and Cassius. They don’t look anything alike and Marwick doesn’t think they’re even related. They’re just both the youngest and tiniest of the bunch, and he doesn’t even want to touch them for fear of breaking bones, though he knows that that’s unreasonable.

Eliza. She’s always got dirt on her cheeks and seventeen bandages wrapped around her leg, her elbows and knees scuffed. The girl tucks and rolls and dives even when the class isn’t supposed to be learning evading tactics. She’s smart too, but in a different way than Arianna. In a way that she can take his techniques that work for him and adapt them to work for her, without changing the concept. He thinks, out of all of them, she would’ve done the best in the Young Army, and then hates himself for doing so.

Barney Pot is the only whose surname he knows, if only because of Septimus accidentally calling him Hugo all the time, then correcting himself sadly and quietly. He’s not bad at using a sword, but he is bad at actually doing his repetitions instead of just plopping down on the ground to play with the lizards in the nearby bushes.

He’s doing it right then, in fact. Marwick stifles a fond but exasperated smile, kneeling down to Barney's height, keeping attention on the other children from the corner of his eye if only to make sure Lorcan doesn’t point his wooden sword at anyone again. He slowly raises an eyebrow at Barney, who looks simultaneously ashamed and confident. “What do you think you’re doing, kiddo?”

Then his eye catches the lights along the path of the Palace.

The lights that Maize Smalls lights only after the sun sets. The lights that means that the kids should have already long since returned to their parents.

“Oh, no,” whispers Marwick. He turns to the children, trying to keep his face level and expectant.

Arianna speaks. He can always count on her. “I’m going to go find Mum,” she says, then walks out to do exactly that. Good girl.

The other children don’t look as inclined to make his life easy. They stare up at him with pleading eyes, like a baby wolfhound, like one more minute. Marwick is definitely sure that he couldn’t even teach one other position in a minute, so he isn’t at all tempted by their dumb adorable faces and the fact that they seem to think that he’s pretty cool.

So, at least outwardly, Marwick just rolls his eyes and begins to shepherd the group with force. “No, nuh-uh. Sorry, but I'm the boss. Get out, back to your parents. This is my patch of the forest.” Some of the children plant their feet firmly on the ground. He’s strong enough to still move them, but his arms begin to strain.

“Can we get our dinner and come back to eat here?” asks Cassius.

Kayla beams. “Yeah, we’ll pick up our litter and everything!”

“No.” Marwick's gait starts to move even faster. “We stop at dinner time for a reason, and the reason is ants will eat you out here and I will cry if they do.”

“We didn’t even get’ta pluck out your eyes and summon an ghost yet,” says Lorcan, mournfully, chin tilting up so far that he can see Marwick even while he’s pushing he forward, hand firmly planted on his back.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he says, gentle, “but it is time for dinner now.” Then he pushes the rest of the children beyond towards the lights, watches them give up on staying with him, walking in a pack towards their homes, turning to wave every so often. Marwick waves back until they're gone, then turns back to pick up the abandoned wooden swords.

There is another person there.

Marwick stops in his tracks. His mind races, wondering how they could've been so close without him noticing. Wondering how he got so distracted. His hand curls around the sword at his waist.

“I wouldn’t have actually summoned a ghost, or whatever,” he tries to explain, words coming out way too fast and jumbled, “I don't even know how- I was just trying to get them to listen.  And I'd never do anything to scare them like that I swear, and anyway they see ghosts all the time-”

With that last word, his vision suddenly catches up to his brain. The other person is grinning. It’s just Jo-Jo Heap.

“I didn’t know you were good with kids,” he says. He puts his hands on his hips, like he had meant for the statement to sound like a personal affront. There's a half smile still on his face, reminding him a little too much of Marissa.

Marwick's brain fizzles trying to come up with what exactly about what Jo-Jo overheard made it seem like he was at all responsible enough to care for children. He tries to make up another excuse, or at least apologize in another way. “...Hhuh?” Nailed it.

Jo-Jo laughs. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He puts a finger over his mouth, like shhhh, but when Marwick really thinks about it that isn’t a gesture that makes sense for what he just said.

Jo-Jo shrugs a little, untangles part of his cloak from his arms, says, “You know, though, I bet we could get Jen to let you teach more classes.”

That makes no sense. It doesn’t make sense at all. Marwick's brow furrows. “I don't understand.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, just, they seemed like they were having fun?”

“Having fun? By threatening... to pull my eyes from my head?”

“That’s just ten year olds. They’re edgy.”

At that, Marwick can relax. Jo-Jo's been called edgy a few times too, despite being sixteen-going-on-seventeen. “Yeah, I guess,” he says, and mimics Jo-Jo's shrug. “They do really well when they listen to what I say. Good kids.”

“You like them,” Jo-Jo observes, then quiets a bit. He suddenly looks a little uncomfortable, fidgets with his fingers. He shifts on his feet a bit, then fiddles with something halfway out of his pocket- a flute, Marwick realizes. “Actually, Marwick, I, uh-”

The tenseness returns to Marwick's shoulders, and he stands all prickly and still, a solider. They stare at each other for about ten seconds and then Marwick blurts out, “Are you looking for Marcus and Matt?”

Jo-Jo blinks several times, says, “No. I mean. I’m not looking for anyone else. I’m here because– well, for you.”

Because that doesn’t sound creepy at all. Marwick’s mind is racing, filling him with momentary panic. He’s going to have to rename him from Jo-Jo the Forest Heap to Jo-Jo the wanted serial killer.

“Right,” Marwick says, voice all polite and level. There’s a short pause. He shifts, uncomfortable, and adds, “For, um, any particular reason?”

Please don’t say homicide, Marwick thinks.

“This is going to sound kind of crazy, I know-”

He’s going to say homicide.

Jo-Jo smiles sheepishly. “We, um. Kind of suck at sword fighting? Or anything with knives. Me and Erik and Edd, that is.” He pulls out his flute and turns it rapidly in the air, making a wooshing noise, probably a nervous tick but looking like a weapon, in Marwick's eyes. They always do. “You'd think we'd be good at it after living in the Forest, and Sam is, but me ‘n the twins are kind of- we’ve got different talents. Just saying.”

Marwick lets his shoulders drop in relief, his momentary panic flooding out of him. Jo-Jo doesn’t even look like he’d want to kill anyone, anyway, but it’s nice to sure, just to be safe. Letting your guard down never did anyone any good.

And, well, he’s definitely had this conversation before, a bit more teary, with the kids who saw this class wasn't for them. “Well,” he says, almost practiced, his slightly hypocritical speech, “that doesn’t negate your worth, at all. You aren’t less useful just because we’re in some bloodfest universe and your aptitudes work for stuff other than attacking people. Being useful isn’t even the most important thing, anyways. It doesn’t even list. Did someone say something? Was it Matt or Marcus? I can duel them for you, I think.”

Jo-Jo cuts him off with a pearl of laughter, setting his flute down. “Marwick. If we got into a close range fight, we’d die. Teach us too? And also give Sam some pointers, maybe?”

Oh.

Jo-Jo smiles at him tentatively, fondly, when he stops dead. It’s an expression he’s only seen on Septimus or Lucy or Zelda before, like what the unusual thing he just did was endearing and not annoying or creepy or weird. Marwick is vaguely startled, feeling like his heart is swelling abnormally big, pushing against the inside of his ribs, but in the other way. The okay, good way that’s not bad. They want him.

He’s quick to reply, if only to get this conversation over with. Not because he thinks he likes the idea of hanging out with the four of them even more, outside the setting of the Forest and away from the undercurrent of fear he used to carry with him wherever, whenever. Not really.

Regardless of the reason, Marwick swallows the lump in his throat and nods. “Sure thing.”

4.

There is nothing different in how he is around his brothers, except that sometimes they see him now. It’s okay, though, Marwick’s done this too. In the way that he sat across from them at Jenna and Septimus’s birthday and looked into his own eyes staring back and didn’t see, in the way that they knew that there had been three of them but never saw that it was him. Knowing they were family was like flipping a switch, almost. Like realizing an absent you had, a gap in your heart.

But at the end of the day, it’s the same. Like watching a boy fall into a fast flowing river just inches away from you, like sitting across from each other at meals and having snowball fights and speaking in the same voice. The three of them never saw at all. All what-if and could-be and we-should’ve-looked-for-each-other-more but they still didn’t notice, even when they were staring each other dead in the face.

But they’re all trying, and that’s enough, most of the time.

Marcus and Matt have a cramped little flat near the Gothyk Grotto, with a bunk bed and far too low ceiling and a thousand rugs, and then basically nothing else. It’s way too comfy, this flat. Marwick could just lie on the floor and be out in a flash, which is probably dangerous. But he doesn’t care, even after Septimus threw a heart shaped pillow on him. Why his brothers have one is beyond him, but it’s so soft that naturally Marwick just lets it sit in his lap like it belongs there. It’s seems like it does, anyway. He has never not had this exact pillow in his lap.

“Player on your right, so Marwick. This card's hypothetical: you get a million crowns but they can only be spent buying expensive presents for the people you hate.” Marcus peers up at him over his deck. “What do you do?”

Marwicks moves his piece forward on the board, then attempts to lean back against the wall and mull over his answer, but the wall is too far away and he just sort of falls over. He blows hair out of his eyes and says, “I’d buy things they hate. Some really awful things, like a lifetime supply of that stuff Sep likes to eat.”

“Hey,” says Septimus mildly. He pokes Marwick in the side.

“Like, cabbage sandwiches, especially. Sent to their house everyday.”

“Hey,” says Septimus, less mildly. “Anyway, that’s not even that bad. They can sell the sandwiches for money.”

“But wait,” Marcus interrupts, now perched on the only other pillow in the room. It’s a nice pillow, more of a cushion, but Marwick’s pillow is better. “Who’ll even buy sandwiches like that? I mean, they’ll go bad really fast and they don’t sound that appealing to begin with.”

“You know what I would do?” Septimus asks, ignoring Marcus. “I’d keep the money my entire life, making sure the person I hate knows that I have it but won’t spend it.”

Matt cracks a smile, cocking his head to the side in a way that all three of them do, all the time. “Wow. Ruthless. Your turn, Marwick.”

Marwick draws a card, sees it’s one of the wordy ones, tosses it to Septimus. He catches it easily.

“This card says that Matt has to go to jail,” says Septimus. He taps two of his fingers on his chin, reading it out loud. “The player to your right spends three nights in prison. They miss three turns unless they pay fourteen thousand in bail money.”

Matt does not have that much in bail money. In fact, he has negative money already. Matt frowns, leaning across the rug to inspect the card; Septimus holds it above his head with one arm, uses the other to push him back. “Okay, now you’re just making things up.”

“It says on my card that you’re a sore loser,” adds Marcus adds. He's no longer sitting like a normal person; he's hanging upside down, with his legs hooked over the top bunk and his head inches above the ground.

Marwick snorts, running with the joke. He picks up another card and pretends to read it. “This one says that you’re bad at this game, Matt.”

Septimus leans over to his left, peering down at the card Marwick is holding. “And there’s even a fine print!” He plucks it out of his hand, eyes going wide and mouth opening into an incredulous ‘O’ shape. “It says right here that you’re broke.”

To his left, Marcus grins, half-fond and half-cheeky, his eyes narrowing. For a moment, he looks more like Marwick than Matt. “It also says that I’m better looking that you.”

Marwick nods, all straight faced, accommodating. “The lettering is very small.”

They reach over without looking to high-five each other, missing the first time. The second time they do it the movement is flawless and totally cool. Matt's frown is getting deeper and more exaggerated by the second.

“Okay!” says Matt, throwing his hands up in the air, “I get it! Blah, blah, blah, it’s always make fun of Matt time. Matt accidentally bit a rock once, Matt always loses his tunic! The newest one is that Matt sucks at this game! Add that to the list of dumb stuff you’ve made fun of me for, I guess.” His hands falter in the air for a while longer, mentally grasping for more things to complain about. Instead, they fold in front of his chest, hard, a defeated look on his face. “You all,” he says, erring on the side of a grumble, “are so annoying.”

Marcus laughs again, louder, looking as delighted as he ever possibly could be. Marwick hides a smile of his own behind an inconspicuous hand, before catching Septimus's eye and succumbing to laughter as well.

“You're not bad at other games,” Marcus says reassuringly, still upside down. He lets an arm drop down and uses it to ruffle Matt's hair clumsily, all dead weight. "Just awful at this one."

“Yeah,” says Septimus, his face open and happy. He seems to be forgetting the fact that this is the first board game he has seen Matt play, ever.

Marcus flips upwards, then nimbly jumps down onto the floor, landing on Marwick's left knee. He blindly reaches sideways to grab the front of Matt's shirt and tug him towards the fray. He makes it there, knocking over board game paraphernalia in the process.

“The four of us,” Marcus says gravely, wringing an arm around Septimus's neck, “make for a grand time.”

Marwick tenses, but relents to his whims. As if he had a choice. “If either of you drop out of the game and make Sep the default winner, I'm leaving the Castle forever and never coming back,” he says, only half-joking.

“I’d come after you,” retorts Septimus, as if that’s a good comeback.

"No," Marwick says, "I'll be doing important things in my cottage and you'd be sulking in the corner because I don't make cabbage sandwiches."

Septimus throws his arms in the air, hitting everyone in the face, and then apologizes, says, "Marwick. Listen. That place has the best cabbage on earth and you just squander it on those rabbits-”

"Have you ever eaten cabbage from anywhere else?" Marwick wants to know.

Septimus admits that he has not.

“Adorable. Can we shut up and enjoy the moment?” says Marcus. “Like, this is a good moment.”

5.

Zelda is leaning back in the one the chairs near the fire, her face blank and her eyes soft. It's almost winter, but the Big Freeze hasn't reached the Marshes right now, not yet. The warmth in the cottage is nearly palpable, all scattered cushions and leaping flames and the blanket Marwick has wrapped around him, made of patchwork pieces.

"I'll have to go soon," Zelda says, and Marwick looks away.

"Not now. It's too cold out," he says, deliberately misunderstanding. His bare feet scuff at the floor, worn and wooden and shining from all the cleaning he does that Zelda forgets to do.

"Marwick," she tries, softly prodding. All quiet and concern and undying patience. "I'm worried about you."

"You don't need to be." Marwick sniffs, hard.

“Come here.” Zelda beckons him, and he gingerly steps forwards. She reaches out and grabs her his hand, her grip stronger than he expects. "I'm spending more and more time in the past these days. I'm scared one day I won't even remember who you are."

Marwick stays quiet.

“I have some things I want to tell you. And I want you to try to always remember them.”

“Okay,” Marwick says, all hushed and soft, too young even to his own ears.

"There's people who care about you, dear. Your friends. Your brothers." Marwick winces, and she pretends not to notice. "I'm not the only one. You need to surround yourself with them whenever you can. Promise you'll visit the Castle often."

"Okay," Marwick repeats, his eyes damp.

"Promise you'll never overwork yourself. Do your job but don’t forget to have fun too," Zelda continues, and Marwick feels more tears form as he realizes what she is doing. A final impartment of wisdom, before she’s too far gone to have any to give.

"I won't."

“I mean it. You make fun a priority, alright, dear?“

Marwick nods.

“Don’t worry about what other people think.”

“You know I don’t,” Marwick says, temporarily affronted, and Zelda smiles at his indignity, hugely and crinkled at the eyes and mouth, in a way that makes it obvious how they got there in the first place.

“If you don’t know what to wear, overdressed is better than being underdressed. Look at me!”

Marwicks lets out a wet little laugh at that, Zelda in her patchwork dress, looking more like a tent than fancy wear.

“When you meet the right person, you will know. Never waste your time with people who aren’t right for you.”

“Keepers aren’t supposed to get married.”

“We’ve broken one tradition so far.” Zelda looks him in the eyes, says, “The role of the Keeper has changed. We are changing with it.”

“Alright.“

"Promise you won't take on too much weight." When he hesitates, she adds, "Marwick, there is value in acting your age. Promise not to forget that."

“Promise,” Marwick says, nearly too torn up to speak anymore. Tears sting at the corner of his eyes.

“And when I’m gone and you’re Keeper all on your own you are going to feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. And, Marwick, dear, you’re going to be terrified. But just know that you’ll figure it out, and it’ll be just fine, in the end.”

“Okay.”

“And sometimes it gets really hard. One thing you have to remember is that you're just as important as whatever you are Keeping. You understand that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"You're doing good. I'm proud of you, dear. If it ever gets too hard, tell someone. Jenna or Septimus, maybe. Being alone is not fun, I know, I've done it for a long time. I think Keepers have done this for too long, all alone. If you need a partner, a team, ask for the Queen’s permission, and then go ahead."

“Z-Zelda?” Marwick prompts, when she’d stopped speaking for a few long seconds.

“Never forget how proud I am of you. How much I love you.“ The grip on his wrists tightens.

“Of course I won’t,” Marwick chokes. He tries to wipe the tears from his eyes, but it’s too much. “Zelda- Zelda, I love you, too.”

"I know, dear. One more thing."

Marwick tilts his head to the side, asking. This feels unreal, like a dream, like his head is spinning and making up stories, like he’ll wake up tomorrow in his bender in the Forest and realize that nothing has happened, nothing at all. He's only been with her for three years. This is too soon too soon too soon-

"Promise you'll remember me?" Zelda's voice breaks on the last word, and Marwick flings himself into her arms, bony chin bumping the cushioning patchwork on her shoulder, clutching her tight.

"I promise," he says, tears stinging hot as fall down hard and fast, and she holds him there for a long, long time, his grandmother and mentor and best friend and mother all at once.

  I was never very good at being a host but a demon in my apartment was not something I'd prepared for at all. I felt as though I ought to offer him a drink and also make him leave as quickly as possible. I settled for asking him if he needed a glass of water.

 The demon said that no, he did not need a glass of water. I pictured him nursing a Coke or a bottle of iced tea and discarded the idea of hospitality altogether.

  He sat in the battered armchair by my coffee table with his forearms braced on his knees looking unsettlingly ordinary. Or nearly ordinary. Someone properly ordinary, say, an actual person, would have moved a little, and probably would have eyes that went somewhere instead of being flat and lightless like the dark side of a two-way window looking into a small empty room, though that was one of the things about him I was trying not to focus on.

  “Anyway,” I said, as competently as I could muster, “what sort of grave portent have you brought me this time? Death omens? Two ominous statements for the price of one? I'm in horrible danger, time to pack a bag? This is all starting to feel a bit like a mortal peril pop quiz.”

  He grinned at me. “You should have a bag packed already,” he said, “for emergencies. I really thought we'd made that clear by now.” He stretched out his arms and hands, starting with his shoulders, and I wondered if he, or his body, really did get stiff, or if this was just another thing he did to look unconscious and ordinary and trick my lizard brain into thinking he was a person and therefore safe. Being manipulated made me scowly, and so did his quips, and so did the fact that I couldn't stop baiting him back, so I scowled at him to try to make myself feel like I was at least keeping up.

  “I've got a few death omens,” he said, settling back into formation. “Would you like to pick one out?”

 “I don't have time for the run-around.” Scowl. Be assertive. Stop trying to out-quip someone who's been bored for a thousand-odd years and probably picked fights with Oscar Wilde for the hell of it and who besides which has absolutely no moral boundaries. “Will you just explain why I had to let you into my apartment after business hours?”

 This time what I tried not to examine was the pleased look on his face, like a cat that had manouvered itself onto an inappropriate table, but of course that long light smile was all I could see. “Your home is being watched,” he said. “I think it's best that I remain here tonight.”