“I used to stain pine boards with pecan wash for some peddlers to try and hawk it as maple.” He pursed his lips.
She stifled a laugh. “But you’re thinking like a wandmaker’s mate.”
Her fingers, oily, red from cold, cracked, and nails dirty, reached for his own and squeezed. “Now, let’s go roast these and hope Marquis shows his face so that I might invite you two to dinner.”
Mads gasped as she made the offer, fretting over his clothes and hands.
“You’re the partner of a wandmaker. Wear stained fingers and calluses with pride.” She lifted her chin. “I like you. You complement Marquis far better than Baron.”
And as they finished tinning up the pecans in a few bygone cookie tins with some newspaper between layers, Marquis finally showed his face. A victorious grin turned to confusion then delight as he greeted Morgana. She gathered the pecans, gave Mads a kiss, and swept off with her son, only the tail end ofher conversation piquing Mads’s ears on her way out. “I like that one far better than Damien. Is he really who you want?”
No hesitation. The smile practically radiated in Marquis’s voice before the door shut. “I’ve had my fair share of dalliances, Mother, and not a one of them made me smile like he did.”
Marquis would be worth every twinge of pain to come.
Mads stared down at a cup of cold tea in his cupped hands; leaves clumped at the bottom. It wasn’t often they spelled words. He stared at them for the longest time before Marquis returned and leaned over his shoulder for a kiss.
“Ahh, Mother’s party tricks.” Marquis chuckled.
Mads blinked in surprise. “What’s it say?”
“‘Welcome to the family.’”
Chapter Seventeen
Marquis
Having Mads on his arm once more, he strolled into the council building, veering toward the upper floors by force of habit. Mads tugged him the right way and they descended concrete stairs and followed the scent of antiseptic and misery. Mads didn’t seem to react negatively. He slept fitfully, and he was prone to drifting off in thought more often than he had been, but that was part of healing, Marquis supposed.
Dr. Vans’s office stood open, the male at his desk once more leafing through papers. He brightened when they approached and rolled his chair back, fingers tented. “You cut your dosage in half, correct?”
Vans looked to Mads first, him being his patient and all. It seemed fitting as Vans rose and led them away from his office to a side room and an examination table. The equipment in there was severely outdated, but mages didn’t need the most sophisticated technology all the time.
“Of course. Nite stopped me this morning from taking the full dose before I corroborated with you.” Mads offered an uneasy smile as Vans gestured him to sit on the table. Marquis settled in a seat nearby as Dr. Vans had Mads lay back. He lifted his shirt on command, and Vans coated his belly in a viscous fluid right over his omega line.
“I didn’t realize your dosages weren’t stable. Anything I should be wary of?” Marquis frowned as Vans pulled a device on the end of a coiled cord along with him as he double gloved and stared at a black-and-white screen that whined at some inhuman frequency that seemed to chip at his ears through the bond he shared with his familiar.
“Well, considering things,” Vans said as he touched the device over Mads’s belly, rolling it back and forth rather like a searching massage, eyes locked onto the screen.
Marquis wasn’t certain what he was looking at, but when Vans locked onto something, he held the device still and zoomed in. Vans extended his hand to Mads, wrist turned. “Would you, dear?”
As if accustomed, Mads pulled the top glove off of Vans’s stack and angled his head up with a worrisome expression that sang of unease and joy in beautiful harmony. Vans drew his wand from his pocket, a rather plain and varnished thing he kept meticulously sanitized. With a flicker of a spell, he whispered under his breath. Magic mostly relied on innate knowledge of the elements a mage worked with, intention and direction. Spoken spells were rarely a thing done unless there needed to be fine tuning. And in the language of sages, Latin, his words spoke of medical terminology Marquis struggled to translate. He brushed over words:augeo, macto, definitus, sagaciter, parvulus, novus vita, gravida. To amplify, to magnify, to enhance. To define that which was small and precious—new life. For the good of pregnancy…
“Snakes and spirits…” Marquis choked on his own words as the screen magically enhanced.We’ve done it…
On the screen before them curled the fine image of a tiny little new mage life curled in on itself, heart little more than a flickering pulse of cells. Vans used his wand to rotate and zoom in on the image, the view shimmering in a place so intimate that even Marquis would never be able to touch. “Do we want to know the most likely gender? There’re no genitals visible at this point, but I can often tell from the vascular pattern with about eighty-six-percent certainty!”
“Please?” Mads sat up a little, still clutching to the used glove. Marquis’s mind spun, trying to process it all as Vans did some sort of counting of visible veins.
“I can safely rule out alpha; omega is iffy, but we’re looking at a girl most likely.” Vans changed view of the little lima bean within Mads and pushed a button so that a grainy black-and-white image spit out of a printer on the side of the cart with an offensive screech. “Gestational age looks correct. Size is good. Placement of the placenta… Oh boy, it’s posterior, so you’re going to show sooner than later.” Vans drew his wand away, handed Mads the device, and stripped his gloves surreptitiously before handing Mads an antibacterial wipe to clean up.
The astringent smell of alcohol flooded the room as Marquis took a shuddering breath.
“Well, say something, man! Your omega looks like he’s about to cry, he’s got a very full bladder, by the by, and you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Vans threw a dirty glove at Marquis, making him splutter as the wet rubber left a residue on his face. It tasted vaguely of that clear glue that children put in school boxes, sweet and plasticine.
Marquis sputtered and wiped his face before tackling Mads with a firm hug and what he meant to be a hum of appreciation that came out as a wail of a sob. “A baby girl! A girl. We’ll have a baby! Ours.”
Mads clutched to Marquis and took a deep breath, body shuddering. “A little witch.”
