Chapter Thirteen
Marquis
Their journey to find wandwood was a most fruitful one.
Armloads of sticks carefully balanced with their little one promised a new selection of wands to come.
Caspian seemed to have an affinity for the wood, too.
He seemed to want to teethe on the best pieces, at any rate, and pointed to new sticks with a keen interest in them. He’d do well in the family trade.
Returning him to Nite that afternoon let them bid their farewells.
Nite probably needed some time with his baby to fill the void—or he’d be so emotionally wrecked, he’d be begging Rexford to expand their family again.
Empty holes in the heart seemed to make omegas a little more interested in babies. Worked for Mads at any rate.
That evening, Marquis dropped Mads off at the facility, kissing him goodbye a bit longer than was strictly necessary. Sleeping alone would be painful once more, but Marquis needed to make some changes. On his way out, he called his coven’s head of maintenance.
It rang three times as he waved farewell to the evening staff, and a gruff voice picked up on the other side. “Yeah?”
“Wiggins, would you mind seeing to some things around my estate?”
He grunted in response. The mage had quite the skill for repairing. His innate ability with magic and education in mechanical workings made him astoundingly capable.
“So, I would like to dispose of my bed. I wish for a new one.” Marquis cleared his throat.
“Need a new one?” Rustling papers on the other end capitulated into hasty scribbles.
“I will. Have a catalogue sent to Mads for all new furnitu—”
“Nobody does catalogues anymore, Marquis. I’ll have one of the ladyfolk nab him and take him shopping the next city over. What’s the budget?” He grumbled and sketched.
“I’ll be down working on wands, so try to keep it sub six figures, not over a hundred and fifty if possible. Any furniture he wants. I think the house needs a facelift that isn’t Doris.” Marquis sighed heavily.
“That’s a whole other ballpark. I’ll go take some photos, let Lydia design a few things, and take Mads on a spree. Anything I should know?” He grumbled as notes increased in the background.
“Prices have changed a lot since he recalls. Make sure he knows that he’s free to design a house he wants.
” Marquis picked at his fingernails as he stepped into the dim evening and stared at the moon looming in the distance.
He had mere weeks until Mads’s body would offer up a new chance at a family, and he’d take advantage of it with everything he had.
“No prices displayed. Got it.” He took more notes. “My boy’s getting a little anxious. Can I bring him by tomorrow? He wants one of your wands or nothing else.” Wiggins sighed heavily, as if the price of a Penumbra wand would break him.
“Absolutely. And you’re a coven member now. There’s a steep discount on our wands.” Marquis chuckled.
“And what’s that?” Curiosity piqued in his voice.
“A child’s first wand is free. A replacement wand is the cost of materials, and that goes to the coven’s fund, I do not profit directly off my members.” Marquis smiled at the audible relief in his voice.
“Don’t tell him it’s free. He’ll lose it in a month.” Wiggins sighed.
“Absolutely not. But for a child’s wand, we make two from the wood.
One is to replace it if broken, and it limits the power they can use.
We’ll replace it as needed, but after the first one is lost or broken, if it is so, he’ll learn quick.
” Marquis smiled up at the sky and bid farewell with the promise of giving the young lad a new wand.
In ten or so years, once Caspian’s magic grew too itchy to contain, there’d be a wand there for him, too. After all, he’d picked the wood out for himself just that very morning.
He’d almost made it to the car when Dr. Vans chased after him, breathing hard. Marquis turned in place and stared the doctor down. “How’d it go? What about my proposal?”
“I need a few days to work and have the house made ready for him. People will be by to take Mads shopping, and we agreed to run his heat.” Marquis shrugged, tucking his hands into his slack pockets.
“Good. Good. We need the room sooner than later. I hate to make this about patient capacity.” Vans sighed, running a hand through ruddy hair.
“If I brought him now, I’d be forced to ignore him for almost a week, and it’d be to a house made by someone else’s eye.” Marquis shook his head, the thought unsettling at the least.
“He may very well find his way to you on his own if you don’t act quickly.” Vans raised a brow.
“One would hope that facility security would be better than that.” Marquis grumbled as he checked his phone for messages.
“Can’t make promises. See to it your mate takes priority over playing with pretty sticks in your garage.” He waved goodbye and sauntered off.
“Pretty sticks… Garage…” Marquis grumbled and got into his car before throwing over his shoulder, “Mads gets out, and I’m coming for your head. He has no idea how to handle the outside world!”
“I’ll drive him myself. You have three days.” Dr. Vans gave the finger over his shoulder.
Marquis had work to do. Hopefully, Wiggins and his interior decorator would keep Mads settled.
***
The next morning, Marquis woke with a snort at the clang of his phone’s chime. Sawdust stuck to his arms and crumbled over his lips as he sat up. Wiggins? He stared at the screen with itchy eyes. Yep.
He rose to stand and answered his phone, voice full of morning depth. “Hello?”
“I have Artie with me. You up for company? You sound like you just woke up.” Wiggins hesitated.
“Oh, yeah. Come on back to the workshop. I pulled an all nightery.” Marquis rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and unlocked the door.
He opened it just in time for Wiggins and a little silvery-haired boy to walk in.
A dark stain at the tips of his hair made Marquis wonder if he’d dyed it in his last coven.
It was common for that silver to be covered up.
“Hello, little one. I have some wands for you to look at.” Marquis ushered the boy in and pulled a few drawers out, wands stacked one atop another, most unfinished.
Shaping wandwood was the easy part, but the carving and enchanting took time.
Most people never paid extra for the artwork, but one didn’t get a wand of their quality without taking the time to personalize it.
For a Penumbra, it was included in the cost. One could tell a Penumbra from another wand just by the carving oftentimes.
Artie followed his father, eyes wide, spanning his gaze across Marquis’s workshop.
Marquis had looked up the boy in the coven’s records.
He was not an omega, a rather up-and-coming mage with no known proclivity toward omega or female.
At thirteen, he had plenty of time to decide.
With Rexford, it’d been easy. By the time he was nine, he was already having little boy crushes and had no interest in girls.
And some of the magazines that Marquis had found… It was a safe assumption.
Artie liked computer games, and his magic was budding around electronics, so it might be safe to assume he would be something very useful to the coven. It behooved Marquis to make sure the boy was well supported.
“The selection isn’t that big for starter wands, but one will fit you.
” Marquis gestured toward one of his tables, a tray sat out with four blank wands laid out.
The flash of disappointment in the boy’s eyes made Marquis reach for the tray, fingers brushing the wood.
Each one of the wands sang for him, the hum of magic almost like a note through his soul—one of the fine perks of being a wandmaker.
“They look plain, but I carve the wand to suit you once you pick it. The wand must be personal.” Marquis smiled when the boy brightened a bit. He moved his hand from one wand to the next, then back, selecting a lightning-felled ash branch. “Yggdrasil, the ash tree. A good choice.”
Marquis lifted the wand and turned it side to side. “I carve them to match the mage. And you like computers and electronics?”
The boy nodded. “I really like Dr. Who, and it would be really cool if it looked like a sonic screwdriver.”
Marquis chuckled. “Doctor Who has changed immensely since I listened to it on the radio long ago. So, knowing what I know about Doctor Who and having met you—I’ll tailor it to you. It will be your sonic screwdriver.”
The absolute joy in the boy’s eyes spread with such visceral bliss that it would likely ruin all saint’s eve, full moon, and eclipse day presents for a long while.
“Thank you, Covenmaster!” Marquis delighted in the kid’s reaction.
Rexford had made his own wand back in the day.
The process had been instrumental to his training, holding the legacy in case anything happened to him.
So, he’d never gotten to see the joy of giving Rexford his first wand.
He’d gotten to see the pride of having done it himself, which was better but different.
Caspian would be the same, would make his own one day.
With the wand back on his workbench, he bid Artie and his father farewell and set to work carving a matching set of handles, the design unique, somewhat futuristic, and inlaid with silver wire slid into a narrow channel just to emphasize the mechanical nature of it.
And from there, he checked his phone, finding it late at night as he finished. He did his best work late.
The work came natural to him—fluid, aided with magic and a skilled hand. And the wands, they weren’t identical, but they each had their charm. If he lost or broke the first one, it’d be a show of the evolution of his story, like in Doctor Who.
He put the first wand in a case and the second he labeled and put away, filing it under Penumbra clan. And, since he wasn’t tired, he freshened himself up, got a cup of coffee, and tied in on the other salvaged wood as, one by one, he gave his lathe quite a workout.
Half starved and exhausted, he came out of the workshop, went into his house, and startled. Everything looked different.
Furniture had been rearranged, a new couch in the corner, paint—the scent of it fresh in the air. Spelled on, of course. The hum of magic lay in the place. He stumbled through the kitchen, obtained the ingredients for a sandwich, to wolf down before he smiled, wandering up to his bedroom.
The bedroom furniture was different, the wall color changed, bedding new. Even the carpet had been done away with in favor of a rug and hand-carved wood.
He’d planned on simply falling into bed and sleeping a full twenty-four hours, but the new blankets and pillows didn’t deserve the level of filth he’d accumulated.
“Shower it is, I suppose.” And so, he bathed and went to bed where he could dream of a future with Mads in it once more, without the guilt of Doris lying next to him.