Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Lord Mabon woke wrapped around Locke again.
This had stopped being surprising somewhere around day three.
What surprised him now was how right it felt.
How Locke’s warmth seeped into him like sunlight through autumn leaves, golden and necessary.
How that magic, raw and untapped and utterly Locke saturated the air between them, making everything sharper, more vivid, more real.
He’d been solid for weeks now. Fully present in the mortal realm in a way he hadn’t been in centuries.
The colors were almost overwhelming. Locke’s magic did that, turned reality up like someone adjusting the saturation on the world itself.
Every morning he woke to golds that actually glowed, reds that burned, oranges that sang.
And every morning, he woke touching Locke.
Not just touching. Holding. Arms locked around his waist, face pressed to the nape of his neck, breathing in that scent that made him ache with want.
He’d had a plan when he first arrived. A simple one: find the town’s celebration, amplify it, seduce half the population into a proper harvest orgy like the old days.
Music and magic and bodies intertwined until dawn, everyone drunk on pleasure and autumn wine.
He could still do it. One song, the right enchantment woven into the melody, and they’d all be his for the taking.
He didn’t want to.
The realization had hit him at the Briar House, watching Locke successfully summon that chaos ghost and bind it with pure determination.
That was when he understood: he didn’t want touch.
He wanted Locke’s touch. Locke’s laughter.
Locke’s terrible jokes and nervous rambling and the way he looked at Jack like he was something wonderful instead of something forgotten.
Two hundred and fifty-nine years in that empty castle, fading, waiting, watching the world forget him. He wasn’t going back alone. He refused to go back alone.
Which meant he needed to court Locke properly.
Which meant he needed to stop failing spectacularly at every attempt.
Jack.
He’d been going by Jack for weeks now, and the mortal name felt strange and intimate in a way his titles never had.
He carefully extracted himself from Locke’s sleeping form. The apartment hummed with his magic, vines climbing walls in burgundy and burnt orange, autumn leaves clustered in perfect corners. He’d made this place his. Now he needed to make Locke his.
Today. It had to be today.
He had a feast to prepare.
Locke woke to the smell of roasting meat and something sweet, like honey mixed with rich savory spices that saturated the entire place.
He blinked at the ceiling of his bedroom, Jack’s vines had crept across it overnight, weaving patterns that looked almost intentional, and tried to place the scent.
It was coming from downstairs. Strong enough to fill the entire apartment, rich and savory and making his stomach growl even though he’d eaten one of Jack’s elaborate dinners just last night.
What was Jack doing?
Locke sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Morning light cast dappled shadows across his rumpled sheets. The apartment was warm. Always warm now, like Jack had brought autumn itself indoors and convinced it to stay.
He pulled on sweatpants and padded toward his bedroom door. The smell intensified as he opened it; meat and bread and something fruity, like apples baked with cinnamon. His mouth watered. Whatever Jack was making, it smelled incredible.
Locke made his way down the stairs, one hand trailing along the banister that was now wrapped in vines.
The scent grew stronger with each step, almost overwhelming.
Not just food. Something else underneath it.
Magic, maybe? That crisp autumn-air smell that followed Jack everywhere, mixed with the char from a dying fire.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped dead.
There was a boar on the kitchen table.
A whole roasted boar, golden-brown and glistening with some kind of glaze, surrounded by what appeared to be who knows how many different dishes covering every available surface.
The kitchen table. The counter. The coffee table in the living room.
Even the mantle above the fireplace, where fruit piled high in arrangements that looked like art and threatened to topple onto the floor.
Flagons sat on every flat surface. Actual flagons, like something from a Renaissance faire, filled with liquid that smelled like honey and spices and made Locke’s head swim just from the fumes.
Jack was lounging on the chaise like a Roman emperor at a banquet, one arm draped elegantly over the armrest, his pumpkin face somehow managing to look smugly proud.
He’d positioned himself perfectly in a shaft of morning sunlight, his robes pooling around him in shades of sage and burnt orange, and he looked like he was waiting for applause.
“Jack, what is this?”
Jack sat up slightly, his carved features shifting into something that might have been a smile if pumpkins could smile. “A feast. For you.”
Locke looked at the boar. Looked back at Jack. His brain was still not processing. “That’s a whole boar.”
“Yes.”
“On our kitchen table.”
“Where else would one place a roasted boar?”
Three tiny shapes zoomed into Locke’s peripheral vision. Pip did a backflip mid-air, nearly losing his pumpkin-hat in the process. “ISN’T IT AMAZING? We helped! Well, Boss did most of it, but we SUPERVISED!”
Russet appeared next to him, adjusting his tiny vest. Even at thumb-size, he somehow managed to look prim. “A proper harvest feast requires forty-seven dishes minimum. We’ve managed sixty-three. I’m quite proud.”
Bramble perched on one of the flagons, arms crossed, his scowling pumpkin-face matching his tone. “He’s been up since midnight roasting that thing.”
Locke pressed his fingers to his temples. The smell was incredible, yes, but also overwhelming. There was too much. Too much food, too much scent, too much everything. “Jack, I have to open the shop in twenty minutes.”
“The shop can wait. This is important.”
“I don’t want to know where you got the mead.”
Jack stood, moving with that kingly grace he had, and suddenly he was right there, close enough that Locke could smell the crisp leaves and magic and something indefinably Jack.
His carved features shifted to something formal, almost stiff.
“In my time, a proper courtship began with the offering of abundance. The harvest shared between—“
“Courtship?” Locke’s eyebrows shot up.
Jack paused. The carved mouth flickered, triangular eyes narrowing slightly. “...A gesture of appreciation. For summoning me.”
“He’s COURT—“ Pip started, zooming closer.
Jack swatted the tiny familiar out of the air without looking. Pip tumbled, squeaking indignantly, his pumpkin-hat spinning off and landing in a bowl of what looked like roasted vegetables.
“That’s what you get,” Bramble said flatly.
“Ow!”
Locke’s throat went tight. His face heated but it was not embarrassment exactly, more like the flush after unexpectedly good news.
Jack had spent all night on this. For him.
Was Jack trying to court him? With a medieval feast and a crispy roasted boar and dishes that probably took all night to prepare.
It was overwhelming. But it was possibly the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for him.
“This is... this is really sweet, Jack. It’s just... a lot. Like, a LOT a lot.”
Russet hovered closer, genuinely concerned now. “Perhaps we overdid the cornucopia?”
Locke glanced at the corner where a massive cornucopia was indeed overflowing onto the floor, gourds and grapes and apples tumbling across the hardwood in an endless cascade that seemed to defy physics. “I don’t even know what half of this food IS.”
The jack-o’-lantern face deflated slightly. The carved mouth turned down at the edges. “You don’t like it.”
“No! No, I—look, the effort is amazing. Really. But how am I supposed to eat all of this? It’ll go rotten. With so many homeless people and others starving in the world it’s kinda hard for me to enjoy it. What I liked more were the small breakfasts you made.”
Jack’s whole posture crumpled. Not physically, he still stood tall, imposing, but something in the way he held himself changed. Smaller. Hurt. “Of course.”
“Told you modern mortals don’t do feasts anymore, Boss,” Bramble muttered from his flagon perch.
“I’ll... remove it.” Jack’s voice was quiet, dignified, and carefully controlled.
“The food isn’t bad! I mean, what I can identify looks great. It’s just—“
“Too much. I understand.”
Locke softened. He could see the effort Jack had put in, the hope, the trying. He walked over to the table, carefully navigating around dishes and platters, and picked up something that looked like a puffy donut but smelled savory. Stuffed with meat and vegetables, golden-brown and still warm.
He bit into it.
Oh god. That was incredible. Flaky pastry, rich filling, perfectly seasoned. Where had Jack even learned to cook like this?
“Okay you can leave those.”
Jack’s carved features brightened slightly. Not much, but enough. The carved mouth curved up just a fraction. “Truly?”
Locke grabbed two more of the hand pies and popped them into his mouth before heading for the bathroom.
“I need to brush my teeth and get ready for work. But seriously, Jack. Thank you. This is...” He paused in the doorway, looking back at the ridiculous, overwhelming, beautiful feast. At Jack standing there looking uncertain and hopeful.
“This is the most elaborate breakfast anyone’s ever made me.
Even if I don’t know what to do with a full roasted boar. ”
He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Jack standing in a sea of food, staring after him.
Not a complete failure then, Jack thought. Small victories.
The familiars settled on various surfaces, watching their boss try to figure out modern courtship.
“He liked the hand pies,” Pip offered hopefully, retrieving his pumpkin-hat from the vegetables.
“He also said it was too much,” Bramble pointed out.
“But he said thank you,” Russet added. “And he called it sweet. That’s progress, surely?”
Jack looked at the feast he’d spent all night preparing. Sixty-three dishes. Hours of work. And Locke liked the hand pies. At least pumpkin the plump cat was enjoying himself on the sliced glazed ham without a care in the world.
Modern courtship was going to kill him.