Chapter Text
Petrichor and a heaviness upon her chest were what chased the remnants of Marcia's nightmare away. She lingered with her eyes closed for as long as she could, wanting the night to end but dreading the day ahead. It was silent. No rustle of sheets beside her, no breathing, only one heartbeat that she could hear and it belonged to Septimus down the hall. She listened to its steady thrum and breathed.
Something deep within Marcia's head ached. She pressed her palms to the bed on either side of herself and sat up. She blinked, and she saw DomDaniel's puggy eyes, leering down. She had to get moving. A glance at the clock revealed it was almost seven.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. They met lush carpet, and she dug her toes in hard until they ached as she shook her head to rid herself of him.
The nightmare lingered as she dressed, as she brushed her teeth and went downstairs to yell at the coffee pot and heat porridge over the stove. Outside, the rain came down as it had for days. They were firmly amid the clutches of autumn, but she felt winter in her bones, winter behind her eyes and in her chest like a foreboding Sickenesse. She couldn't quite seem to warm up. Not under her copious covers, not by the fire, not when she layered up on socks. She only came close when she was in Marcellus's—
No. It was better he stayed away. She couldn't give him her energy right now, nor her time. Her list of daily tasks was a mile long, and she had to keep trudging forward. Perhaps when she felt well enough, she'd stop by. She'd feel better in the spring. Perhaps then they could go back to normal.
Marcia's morning was dreadfully normal but in the dull way that sucked the life from you. She drank her watery coffee. She ate her watery porridge. She ignored the emptiness in her stomach and in her head. She went to her office, rifled through her papers, went downstairs to make some tea just for something warm to hold. She taught Septimus's theoretical, and when he left for the canteen, she sat at her big oak desk and stared at the wall all through the hour she was meant to be writing correspondence, trying to focus on anything but the buzz of anxiety in her blood and failing miserably. And then it was time for lunch, so she rushed through her correspondence until the great grandfather clock in the Palace clock tower rang for thirteen. She gave up on lunch moments before Septimus came through for his practical.
"We'll be working on Warding today. Warding, like we talked about earlier, is particularly important for an ExtraOrdinary Wizard for the sake of both the Tower and the Castle, but it does require a fair bit of energy. I do hope you had a big lunch. . ."
And a lot of energy it required indeed. Marcia Dismantled the simple Eavesdropping and Alert Charms upon her office with a hand. She built the Eavesdropping Ward back up with a string of words, an Incantation she had set Septimus to memorizing a couple days before. As it reestablished itself, the familiar tug on her Magyk was a physical thing that, when it was over, had her head pounding and her eyelids drooping. Odd. It had never felt like that before.
"Marcia, are you okay?"
She blinked, leaning back in her chair to hide the fact that she wanted to lay her head on the desk. "Of course." Such a simple Charm, a fourth year Charm for Apprentices, had her feeling like this? Like she had been warding for hours? A pit formed low in her stomach. Ε tore the Ward down with a wave. "Just a bit tired. How is your Incantation coming?"
This was a lesson in which she was increasingly grateful to remain seated for. After her demonstration, she watched Septimus attempt the Ward, offering corrections and advice where needed, and hoped in the tiniest corner of her brain that he wouldn't get it this time so they would not have to move on to the next and she wouldn't have to demonstrate again. She felt wrung dry, like she hadn't slept. A sharp pain stabbed deep within her skull.
And of course, Septimus managed the Ward somewhere around the sixth try.
"Well done!" She forced her facial muscles into a semblance of a smile. "Now Dismantle it."
He did an awkward wave in the air and frowned.
"Not like that." Had he even been watching? "Did you read about this in Ashbelle's book?"
"Yeah, I did." He stared at his hands as if they were some great puzzle to be solved. "But I was, er, kinda tired last night from my lesson and—"
She slowed the force of her sigh. "I gave you that text last week."
"Yeah, that's true, I'm sorry."
"It's fine," she said, "just don't make excuses for yourself next time. They won't convince anybody in the real world."
Blotchy red rose in his cheeks. He didn't meet her eye. "Hopefully there won't be a next time."
"Ensure that there isn't. Now, what do you remember from the book?"
She wasn't being kind, Marcia knew, nor forgiving, nor any of the good qualities she had been striving for ever since this boy came into her life and made her want to change. But some dark part of her reveled in speaking her displeasure as she used to, sinking back into her crueler words like she would a worn old jacket. It felt good. That pit in her stomach grew until she wanted to thump her head down, close her eyes, and not exist for a while. The I'm sorry she owed him sat like a boulder on the back of her tongue. She ignored it in favour of listening to him ramble off what he remembered of his assigned reading.
It wasn't much.
So she had to go over Warding basics from almost the beginning. The fog clouding her brain synapse grew thicker and made it hard to put her words together, to think beyond the current sentence, until she looked up and found Septimus confused. She took a slow breath. Closed her eyes. Nearly gave up on the whole venture and told him to come back tomorrow.
But no. She had a job.
"What are you unsure about?" She forced gentleness into her tone but thought the question came off more condescending by the way his shoulders tensed.
Damn. She was failing.
He managed the Dismantle, but his concentration flagged through the rest of the lesson, and his recitation of the Ward meant to guard against those in possession of Darke objects was clunky and halting. She knew why. She knew it was no fault of his own. No student thrived with an harsh, critical teacher. Shame made the boulder heavier and heavier. As the clock neared fifteen, she assigned his next homework and sent him away, but as he got up and reached for the handle of the office door, she called him back. The look in his eyes as he turned to her made it hard to look at him.
Anxiety.
She had caused it. She wondered if she reminded him of his drill sergeants from the Young Army, if she inspired that kind of fear. She was probably worse — she had promised to be different. She owed him the kindness no one until her had given him. She owed it to him to prove that the Young Army was the exception to adults treating him well, not proving his long-learned fears right.
She swallowed but found her mouth bone dry. "I'm sorry." She carved the words free from herself. "I know I have been irritable today."
You didn't deserve it, you're doing amazing, and oh, stop looking at me like that, I can't bear to see what I caused in your face. But she didn't say any of it, just let him nod and thank her and hurry away.
So she gave into her desperate urge and slumped over her desk, temple and cheek pressed to the cool wood, arms splayed, hair awry, very undignified.
That's how she lie for an indeterminable amount of time to the ticking of the clock, each heartbeat lancing pain through her head. Tears hid behind her eyes like prisoners. She would not — could not if she wanted to, which she didn't — let them fall.
That's how Marcellus found her. She didn't even notice the Wards tug at her Magyk as they allowed him entrance. The sound of the door as it opened spiked adrenaline through her heart, and she bolted upright. For a moment, there were two of him in the doorway until she blinked.
"Hello, my love." He came in as if it hadn't been a week since she sent him away. He shut the door and came around the desk, leaning down to kiss her head. He wrapped a loose arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. With the other, he set a to-go paper cup in front of her. The heavenly scent of coffee wafted toward her. "How are you?"
And all at once, Marcia wanted to burrow into him, nestle herself in his arms — or right within his ribcage, all the better — and never, ever come back to this world that devoured her every moment of every day. Fast as a riptide, her tears welled up but paused before they could truly appear.
"Marcia?" He crouched beside her, reached for her face. He was frowning. "I'm sorry I stayed away so long."
"I told you to." She pulled away. "I'm busy."
She tugged a stack of papers toward herself as proof. She opened her drawer, closed it, opened another, drew out a fresh pot of ink even though there was one already open on the desk. Anything so she would not have to watch his face twist into heartbreak like that.
"That is—that is all right," he said. He lay a hand to her back, tentative, like this was fresh and not over a year old. "I brought some order sheets that need filling out. Perhaps we could work together. Just sit together and work I mean, if that would be okay? I miss you."
"Fine." She clipped the word. Being so close to him made her feel like a volcano whose lava bubbled higher and higher, faster and faster. This was exactly why she had sent him away. If she exploded, she didn't know what it would look like. She didn't know if she would hurt him in the outpour, and she didn't know if she would be able to stop it. It had been so much easier this time last year when things had been new and they only met for dates at coffee shops and nice restaurants or picnics at the lake and left it at that. But this year... This year, winter had encroached fast and with it her anguish and all her old demons and habits and fears, and he knew her too damned well that keeping it from him had become unbearable, and unbearably hard.
"Wonderful." Marcellus got up. He ran a hand over her hair, pressed the back to her cheek. Without even looking, she knew his lips were pursed with worry.
All she did was stress him out — make him worry and hurt his feelings with her barbed wire words and push him away. And all he did was love her.
As if he knew what she was thinking, he bent again and kissed her hair, her temple. She still did not look at him. If she looked at him, she might lose her composure, and her composure was threadbare.
He rounded the table to the other chair and sat, pulled out a roll of parchment from his pocket, and laid it out before him. (She would not look at his face, but that didn't mean she wouldn't look at his hands.)
"Thank you for the coffee," she pressed out. The words grated like rocks against one another.
"My pleasure." A loaded pause. "Marcia?"
"Hmm?"
He drew the old ink pot toward himself and dipped his quill. "You'll let me know if there is anything else you need, right?"
"Mm-hmm."
"I am here for you." He wrote something, and she got the impression that he was playing at casual for her sake. "I hope you believe that."
"Mm-hmm." She couldn't get anything else out lest the tears in her throat clog her voice and give her away. Her composure was a ragged thread.
Silence. She stared at the first paper atop her to-do pile. It was a form from one of the Ordinary Apprentices asking permission for an excursion with their mentor outside the Tower. She signed it and flipped to the next. A Manuscriptorium report form asking for all details of Magykal experimentation going on at the Tower for the month. She stared at it. It was 29 November. Of course this form was due tomorrow. She hadn't even begun tracking down the details, the experiments, who was doing what. She hadn't even started because she'd forgotten. Ink blurred before her eyes. The scritch scratch of Marcellus's quill itched her eardrums.
She sighed, her vice-like lungs allowing her the first big breath she'd had in a while, and rifled through the rest of the stack and signed a few quick things. She kept an eye out for experimentation reports, but they weren't there. She reached for another stack. Nothing, but she did have three of Septimus's essays she hadn't graded yet from last month and funding requests to approve and missives to answer — and then she found her to—do list.
Patrol and secure Palace wards
Put in request for Manuscriptorium texts
Schedule lunch with Dandra
Meeting with Jenna
Tower Experimentation Report by 30/11
Angela's birthday party
Write Marcellus
Research module 17
Write up lesson plans
Write tests for modules 16 and 17
Schedule eye apt
Yearly check of Dungeon Number O—
She grabbed up her quill and slashed a line through "Angela's birthday party". She had gone last Friday, but she had been so exhausted that she had left after an hour. She hadn't even stayed for cake. She'd gone back to her rooms and passed out on the couch, and she hadn't gotten anything else done that day, which had left her drowning further. The memory left a sour taste in her mouth. She tossed the damned list aside. She had written it days ago — days! She felt Marcellus's eyes on her and ignored him.
What should she do next? The experimentation report was a long, dull, detailed affair and took precedence, but Septimus's module 16 test was tomorrow, and after today, she needed to keep some stability with him. She couldn't postpone without unintentionally giving him the impression that she thought he couldn't handle it, that his lapse in memory today made her think of him as unfit or god forbid dumb. She knew he thought like that sometimes. She had to keep pushing him. She had to make sure he knew she thought no less of him, but oh, she had so much to do. She flexed her fingers and reached for the experimentation report. Maybe if she stayed up tonight she could get this done and write Septimus's test in the morning.
Oh, she was so unfit for this job. Alther had never warned her there would be so much paperwork. But this wasn't Alther's fault. She was doing exactly what she had accused Septimus of doing earlier and making excuses. And she was doing exactly what she hated to do and wallowing in her own misery. But she wasn't strong enough to set it aside. Her focus fought her like a writhing beast every step of the way. She couldn't pin it, no matter how hard she tried.
Marcellus appeared at her side, resting a hand on her knee, his brow creased. His eyes were shadowed as if he weren't sleeping either. Guilt wrenched hot behind her naval. Her breaths came fast and shallow.
"—right here. I'm right here. Talk to me, darling, please. What is it?"
She heard him, but the fog in her brain kept her from understanding. She lost the battle. She fell forward and clutched onto him, pressed her face into the side of his neck. He pulled her from her chair and into his arms proper just as the tears came, and they flowed as they had threatened to for days. And she was weak; she let them. She weeped like a child in his arms, cried so hard that she could hardly breathe.
"I can't do it, I can't do it anymore, I can't, I can't. . ."
Perhaps she could be weak this once, just to get it out of her system, and then she'd get back to work.
But the longer she cried, the more she felt like she might never be okay, like this kind of tired was here to stay.
"I'm so tired," she found herself babbling, as if he could fix it. "I'm just so tired. Septimus and I did warding today, and I did one demonstration and felt like I'd been—been warding for—for hours, and I have so much to do, and I can't stop having nightmares—"
Well, she hadn't meant to say that, but it loosened the band around her lungs.
"—and he's everywhere and I can't—I just can't. I'm so tired. I sleep and it only gets worse. I'm failing at everything I do."
"Failing?" His voice had an edge to it as if he were alarmed, but his hands on her back and in her hair were gentle. "What do you mean?"
"I'm so behind on everything I need to do," she cried. "I'm irritable with everyone, I made Septimus feel horrible today during his lesson, and—and I sent you away—"
"You have not failed me."
He did not often cut in when she was speaking. She fell silent.
He pressed a hard kiss to her head and murmured, "You have not failed me, Marcia. All I want is for you to let me in."
She wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. She knew it, she was failing—
"But I know to do so is easier said than done. You have not failed, my love. You have not lost me. You will never lose me."
She readjusted, pulled herself closer, the wet spot on the shoulder of his shirt as evidence of her tears compounding her shame. "I'm even failing at being strong."
Hearing herself say it aloud reenforced the knowing that she was pathetic.
"Marcia..." He sounded pained now, and oh, she always hurt him. "You are so strong. I wish you could see yourself the way I do. I admire you for your strength every day, even now."
Involuntarily, her chest heaved with a single sob. If he only knew... He squeezed the back of her neck, smoothed his hand up and down her back, turned his face in towards hers so his cheek met hers and he could whisper in her ear. And she listened.
"I love you. 'Tis all right to have moments where you are not all right. It does not make you weak; it makes you human. You cannot do everything all the time, especially not under so much stress. I had a feeling you were having nightmares. I had a feeling you were struggling more than I knew. I wish I had said something, but you pushed for space, and I was not sure what was best. I'm sorry I have not been here for you like I should have been."
"You tried," she mumbled.
"I did. But not enough it seems. I am here, Marcia. I want to help. I want us to be a team."
She shuddered with a wave of silent tears and calmed again with the pressure of his arms around her, holding her to him.
"I am here for you unconditionally," he whispered. "I want to know you. I want to know you even on the days when you don't feel strong. I want to know what to do when you have nightmares, or when you have a headache, or when you're overwhelmed. I don't just want the good moments. I want all of you, my love, all of you. You are my life. You are everything to me. I am here to stay."
He thought the world of her. Her chest cracked in a hundred different places.
He shouldn't.
But the part of her that wanted to believe reached for his words like a flower pushed its face toward the sun, hungry and seeking and hopeful.
They lingered like that for an unknowable time until Marcia had no more tears left in her body, until she sat with her arms draped around him, near boneless with exhaustion. But his hold never wavered, never slackened. He never ran out of soft reassurances. At last, she dragged herself from his embrace.
In the late afternoon sunlight pouring in through the window, she couldn't look at him.
But he took her face between his hands and kissed the space between her brows. "Let's go up to your bedroom, hmm? I'm sure you are exhausted."
"I can't." She tried and failed to muster a smile. "I have so much to do. The Magykal experimentation report is due tomorrow and I haven't even started. I'm so behind."
He pursed his lips. "To be quite honest, Marcia, I think a bit of sleep now is what you need to be productive later."
She glanced down, studied the buttons on his shirt, and back up, finally, into his deep brown eyes. She lost herself there. Oh, how she had missed him. "Will you..." She closed her eyes. She could do this. "Will you stay?"
He smoothed a thumb beneath her eye. "As long as you shall have me."
Remembering what he had said, that he wanted to be by her side, she asked, "Overnight?"
"Of course, my love."
"Okay," she breathed. "Thank you."
"Thank you." He pressed a kiss to her lips. Her chest eased, and she breathed into it.
"I guess I'll have a quick nap." She opened her eyes again and took him in. One more thing. She could ask one more thing. "Will you wake me up so I can work?"
His eyebrows drew together. "Yes, I shall."
He tucked some hair behind her ear and rose, holding out a hand. She took it and allowed him to help her to her feet.
Upstairs, they moved about her bedchamber in their practiced routine. She undressed, and he dug around her dresser for a nightdress. Once donned, she climbed into bed and, exchanging his shirt and trousers for a pair of soft pants, he joined her.
"Marcellus?"
"Hmm?" He looped an arm around her and pulled her close.
Her head sank into the pillow beneath it. She blinked into his face a few inches from hers. He looked at her like he wanted to do nothing else, open and patient and waiting and hers. She wasn't sure what she had been about to say — I'm sorry or thank you or I can't do this without you or I'm scared to close my eyes and dream — but whatever it was, she lost her courage.
"Lay on your stomach," he urged, smoothing her hair back from her face.
She did. The mattress compressed as he leant up onto one elbow. He stripped back the comforter to her hips but left the sheet in place, and he set about rubbing her back in the way that turned her to jelly. She melted further and further into the mattress, humming.
Marcellus and his perfect miracle hands. Her eyelids sank of their own volition, and she turned her head to nestle deeper into the pillow. He chuckled, worked his way to her neck where his fingers kneaded knots that she hadn't even realised had formed.
She couldn't be sure, but the world morphed into something soft and kind around that point. Half awake, her thoughts came sluggish and muddled and full of the rain that pelted the window outside. He moved on to her hair, and she slipped away. . .
***
She woke when to darkness. Throwing a heavy, blind hand out to her side yielded the knowledge that Marcellus was gone, and not recently so. The sheets were cold. She shot up, heart pounding away the rest of her sleepiness.
He couldn't have left. He said he would stay.
Her heart rate increased at a painful pace. She scrambled out of bed, kicking aside the sheet as it caught around her calves, and stood with a hand on the bedside table as the world righted itself.
Think, Marcia. All this over a man.
But Marcellus always kept his word, at least to her.
She listened and heard it, what she hadn't been listening for as she awoke: two heartbeats.
She made her way for the door and the stairs beyond. But no. She paused before descending, one hand on the banister. The heartbeats were in her office.
What on Earth?
She opened her office door and found Septimus, Marcellus, and Alther pouring over parchment at her desk. She spotted her to-do list at Marcellus's elbow. He sat in her chair, gold spectacles perched at the tip of his nose, as he analysed a scroll. Septimus didn't even look up as he scrawled on a long parchment. Alther Caused a page to flip in a book laid out on the desk and kept reading.
Marcellus looked up with a smile and stood, rounding the desk. "Hello."
"Hi." She cast another glance over the scene. "What's happening?"
"How did you sleep?" He cupped her face in his warm hands.
She glared. "Don't evade the question."
He knew she hated that.
"Done. I think." Septimus set his quill back in its pot of ink and blew on the drying page. "Let me just look over it..."
"Look over what?" Marcia's voice rose.
"Alther, could you please send over that to-do list?" Marcellus asked.
Alther floated it over, and Marcellus caught it and handed it to her, one hand still on her shoulder.
"We have been trying to, ah, lighten your load a little as the phrase goes," he said, his thumb stroking her skin.
She squinted at the list and found several items crossed out. "Put in request for Manuscriptorium texts", "Angela's birthday party", "Write Marcellus", "Write tests for module 16", and "schedule eye apt" all had lines through them.
Marcellus came close and points to each in turn. "The Manuscriptorium request was easy. Septimus found your list of books and filled out the form. He will post it in the morning. You don't have to write me anymore as I'm already here. Alther read your module 16 notes and dictated a test for it."
"You can look over it if you'd like, but I remember Warding pretty well," Alther chimed in. "I think you'll be satisfied with what I came up with. I haven't gotten to module 17 yet but I'm researching it now."
"And your eye appointment is now scheduled for next Saturday with me. I am trained in optometry if you recall. I am perfectly able to conduct it myself, and I thought it might make it easier to get it out of the way with someone familiar, avoid all the hassle."
"Okay, yeah, I think it's good." Septimus leaned back in his seat and stretched. "Go ahead and check the Experimentation Report off the list."
Marcia's heart had yet to calm. Septimus, the only one who could hear it, cut her a sympathetic look the length of a second before looking away.
She stared at what remained of the list:
Patrol and secure Palace wards
Schedule lunch with Dandra
Meeting with Jenna
Write up lesson plans
Yearly check of—
It all seemed much more manageable. Well, except for the last item, but the rest felt that much easier as long as she didn't think about it until it was happening. She looked up at Marcellus, Septimus, and Alther, who stared back, awaiting her response.
They had done this all for her.
Marcellus reached for her a millisecond before her breath hitched, but she tensed and shook him off, Septimus's and Alther's eyes burning into the back of her neck. Just as there had been nothing that could draw the tears out for weeks, there was nothing that could stop them now. She held them back as effectively as she could hold back a wave with bare hands. She dashed at them, turned to the door, and left, Marcellus close behind.
"Is she okay?" she heard from behind her.
"Let her be. She'll be—"
Marcellus shut the door and laid a hand to her back as they made for her room.
She twisted away from his touch, pressure building under her skin and threatening to explode. "Go, Marcellus."
"I will not leave you."
"I know I asked you to stay," she bit out, her chest heaving, "but I don't want you to. You don't owe me anything. You don't need to take care of me. I don't need caretaking. You don't need to do my work for me. I should be able to do it myself. I don't need you."
He didn't so much as flinch. "I'm here all the same, and I'm not leaving."
"I don't want you." She threw up an Eavesdropping Ward around their little section of hallway. If they were doing this, no one was going to hear. The Ward shuddered, established itself, trembled, and fizzled out. She tried again, and it dissolved faster, her Magyk a sputtering candleflame. Her chest burned. She clutched it and stumbled the remaining feet to her room. She threw open the door, stepped inside, grabbed the handle and swung it closed but—
Marcellus caught it with an arm and stood in the doorway, unmoving, unfazed. "I love you."
"Leave me alone." He couldn't see her like this, not again.
"Not right now, not like this. I shall give you space, but I'm staying."
She pressed her hands against her chest, turning away, blinked into the darkness. She muttered the Charm to light the fire. It worked, but the fire that sputtered to life was small. Her fires were never that small.
A quill on her nightstand caught the light. She thought the Charm to Levitate it. Nothing happened. She said it. It twitched. Again. It rolled over. Again. It caught the air and rose a foot before falling to the floor.
Her Magyk was dying. For all it mattered, she might as well be too. She had never heard of someone losing their Magyk like this, not this fast. The corners of her eyes went dark. She whirled. Perhaps she had done it wrong. She found Marcellus an arm's length away, his lips moving, but she couldn't hear a thing. What was wrong with her? She was dying.
"My Magyk is dying," she choked out. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed. Pinprick tingles raced from her fingertips up her arms to her burning heart. "Marce—"
The next moment he had her hands wrapped in his larger ones, and the feel of his skin was the first real thing she had felt since—since she had fallen asleep, and he pressed her hands to his moving chest. Oh. He wanted her to breathe with him, follow his inhales and exhales. But breathing was an impossibility. She would fail him again, fail at something so simple.
He moved one of her hands and there, a flutter. His heart. She splayed her fingers there and focused on the next beat and the next beat and the next. It was so fast, fast like hers, which thundered in her chest and pulsed in her hands and feet and aching head. He grasped her upper arms and pulled her forward, guided her head down and—
She got it. She pressed her ear to his chest. His heartbeat became a part of her like the soft whoosh as he breathed and the rumbling vibrations of his voice as he spoke words she could not understand. But she liked listening to him. She wanted nothing more than the gentle timbre of his voice to smooth over the jagged edges of her fear.
"I'm right here. I've got you. You are going to be just fine. I've got you. You are safe. You are in your room at the Tower. Septimus and Alther are down the hall. I'm right here, my love. You are safe."
She dug her toes into the soft carpet and gasped in a big breath like popping her head above water after minutes of drowning.
"That's it. Can you follow my breathing now?"
He exaggerated the rise and fall of his chest, and she timed her next breath with his, and her next. His fingers stroked over her hair. The burn in her chest softened to an ache, and she found herself trembling all over.
Marcellus squeezed her arm and led her to the sofa, where he steered her to one corner and sat right beside her. She bowed her head onto his shoulder.
"I'm losing my Magyk," she croaked.
"Hmmm." He pressed his mouth to her head and took her hand into both of his. "Why do you say that?" he murmured into her hair.
"You saw," she whimpered. The sound mortified her, but she couldn't find her footing. "I could hardly Levitate. My fire is small. Warding drains me. I've never seen someone burn out like this. I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Perhaps—and you are the expert—but I imagine an elevated state of emotion might alter things."
"Simple Charms, Marcellus," she cried. "I've been able to do them for decades. And at my age, I should be growing more powerful, not burning up my core."
His momentary silence was enough to heighten her fears by two fold. Something about speaking them and not having them denied at once... She slumped forward and put her face in her hands. His hand settled on her back. "I'm sure there is an explanation," he said, his voice lowering, gentling yet further. "I do not have answers, Marcia, but I will not stop until I—we—find them. We will figure this out together. I promise you."
***
Marcia wasn't hungry, not in the slightest, but Marcellus insisted she eat, so she let him chorale her down the stairs and into a seat her at the table in the kitchen where she rested with her chin in her hand and her eyes closed. She knew he was really worried when she smelled her favourite as it cooked. Every moment he didn't have to be at the stove found him at her side, rubbing her back, playing with her hair, talking to her about mundane things, or simply holding her. Such a level of attention was unusual for them, and any other day, she might have found it a little overbearing. As it was, he knew without her asking exactly what she needed.
"You don't know what to do with me." She said it into his chest.
He halted in his story, his hand pausing in her hair. Shy, he asked as if choosing his words as he went, "Is this too much?"
She breathed him in, parchment and herbs and dark wood swirling about in her head like smoke. The safest scent in the world. "No."
"Let me know if—just let me know what you need."
"I will." I just need you. Don't leave again. Even if I push you away.
But there was no way in Hell she'd ever say that.
Footsteps moved about upstairs, and Marcellus moved away, chuckling about how the pot was about to bubble over. Marcia went back to staring into the eddies of Magyk illuminated by Fyre Globe against one wall. Her chest hurt, a constant pain that was fear and stress and grief all in one. It had hurt for days, but not quite this bad. Perhaps she was sick but in a way that could not be fixed with Marcellus's Tinctures and Toniks. Not a cold, not the flu. Perhaps she was cursed. What else would drain her Magyk like this? What else would have her down for the count like this, so exhausted that she thought of sleep and there was nothing she would rather do but even the thought of sleep exhausted her.
"Do you think I'm sick?" she asked Marcellus, hating herself for the way she sounded like a scared child.
He made a quarter turn so he could look at her as he stirred and seasoned the contents of the pot. "I do," he said without deliberation. "But not in the traditional way. I think you have been under too much stress without enough quality sleep or food or meaningful time off to recover."
"I've been eating," she defended.
He cocked an eyebrow. "When is the last time you ate?"
"Um—I had porridge at seven. And I'm taking time off right now."
He shook his head. "This does not exactly count."
She looked down at her knees. "So you think it's mental. Just stress."
Stress could be overcome if she tried hard enough. She just had to be stronger.
"It is not just stress," he said. "It is a hard time of year for you. I saw that last item on your to-do list. I imagine that would have to bring back a lot of difficult memories."
Hearing it out loud only made having to check on the security of Dungeon Number One feel that much more insignificant. "It must be more than just stress," she said. "I can handle stress. Stress has never impacted my Magyk."
He met her gaze, patient.
"I must be sick—or something."
"Mental health can have a significant impact on the body—and I assume Magyk. It is all related."
"But you don't know for sure."
"No. Not yet." But he said it like he did know for sure. "My love, what is happening is nothing to be ashamed of. I do not think any less of you. Nor Alther, nor Septimus."
"I'm not ashamed." She glared at the wall behind him.
Septimus stumbled into view. He grinned at her, his hair a bit mussed. "Good news, I think I'm ready for the test tomorrow. I've even been reading up on module 17 with Alther."
She mustered a smile. "That's great! I'm sure it'll be a breeze for you. You've been doing very well."
"He is doing well," Alther said from behind Septimus. He floated in and perched on the chair to her right. He gave her a meaningful look. "So well that if you needed to put it off for a few days, I daresay he won't fall behind at all."
Marcia's chest tightened. "There's no need to put it off. I can handle conducting a test."
His eyebrows drew together. "I never said you couldn't."
"You outright implied it," she snapped. "It's just a test. I thought you'd know better than to interfere with how I conduct his studies."
"I only thought you might like to know his progress in case you wanted to take a break."
"I know how he's doing, and I don't need a break." She knew she was being irrational about the matter, but she couldn't stop, didn't feel like stopping.
"Uh, guys?" Septimus's face was pink. "I'm right here. Do I get any choice in the matter?"
Marcia turned to him. "Yes, I'm sorry. What do you think?"
"I'm ready to take it tomorrow," he said. "I mean, I'm not worried about it. But I don't mind waiting if you need."
Marcia clenched her teeth, heat trickling up the back of her neck. "Then we'll stick to the schedule, yes?"
He nodded. Alther shared a look with Marcellus.
"Don't look at each other like that," Marcia snapped. "If you both think I can't handle conducting a simple test, I hate to think what else you think of me."
Weak, probably. Weaker than Alther, who had always been so composed throughout her Apprenticeship, who had always taken difficult situations on the teeth and never let stress destroy him.
Marcellus took the pot off the stove. "We would not think any less of you for taking a break."
Alther nodded. "My dear—"
"Don't call me that."
He fell silent.
She couldn't look at him. Or Septimus, who had gone to help Marcellus dish up the stew into bowls. He brought her a bowl with a slab of bread dipped into one side.
"Thank you." She accepted it, the fight leaving her body like sand through cupped hands.
Marcia ate slowly, Marcellus's hand wrapped loosely about her wrist atop the table as he spoke with Septimus and Alther. Marcia didn't listen so much as she let their voices wash over her, from one bite to the next. She managed half before she offered it up to Septimus, who devoured the rest as if he hadn't had anything else. Her eyes drooped, and Marcellus got up with a squeeze to her arm and bustled about by the stove again. Without him, she felt like a good strong breeze could knock her down.
A few minutes later, he settled a mug of something dark brown before her. The smell that wafted up was rich and chocolatey. Her favourite. He knew all her favourite things. He knew her , as much as she had tried to hold him back. She wrapped her hands around it and looked up at him, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. He leaned down, cupped her face in his hands, ready to listen, to hear her. Her chest ached in an entirely different way, a way that made it hard to speak.
"You are so kind to me."
"You deserve it," he whispered.
Alther laughed at something, hearty and warm. Marcia lost herself in his dark eyes. "I know I'm not making your life easy."
"Then it is a good thing that I'm not here for easy. I'm not here for the good times. I'm here for everything."
"You mean that."
"Of course I do."
"You really mean that."
"Yes. I'm not going anywhere."
Marcia struggled to keep her tears at bay and managed it. Marcellus kissed her forehead and let her go, returning to the stove probably for Septimus's hot chocolate.
Marcia brought the cup to her lips and drank, the warm velvetiness sliding over her taste buds and down her throat, warming her through. But sweeter was the way it was made just right, and the thought that Marcellus knew that recipe to a T. He knew hot chocolate made her feel better on a difficult day, that when she could get nothing else down, she could manage a simple stew and bread. He knew when she needed extra affection and attention, at least when she let him try. He knew just how to take the load off her chest, knew that scheduling her eye appointment with him made it infinitely easier to manage. And the others too — they just let her be, in whatever state she was. They didn't rise to her bait, didn't flinch at her prickly defenses. They were used to it. They shouldn't be, but they were. And they put up with her anyway.
Marcellus handed Septimus his cup and sat back at her side with his own, hooking his foot around hers.
They had all helped her so much today without her even asking, and she had repaid them with harsh words and anger.
Her throat tightened, and she forced her next swallow before putting her cup down. Marcellus looked at her at once.
She reached for his hand beneath the table, twined their fingers atop her knee.
She waited for an opening and cleared her throat to catch the others' attention.
"Thank you," she forced out. Her heart thrummed, but Marcia Overstrand was no coward. She met Septimus's eyes, then Alther's, and finally Marcellus's where they stayed. It was the easy way out, really, looking at Marcellus with his unconditional patience and forgiveness written all over his face as she said her next words. "Thank you all for your help today. I know I'm not always the easiest to help. I'm sorry."
There. She picked her cup back up for something to do. Marcellus squeezed her hand, and she breathed a little easier. She had been the harshest to him.
Septimus didn't even hesitate. "'S all right."
"I didn't take it personally," Alther smiled.
"We're happy to help," Marcellus added.
"Yeah." Septimus pursed his lips. "Definitely. It's what we do."
"You did more than you should have had to."
"That's not how it works though. If we all only did what we had to do, we wouldn't be here right now. We wouldn't have breakfast together or do game nights or—" He grinned at her. "Hot chocolate the nights I can't sleep. We wouldn't do any of it. We just want to be here."
She stared. A slow smile spread across her face. She glanced at the others, both smiling right at her. "When did he get so old?"
"Sometime after his last haircut." Alther ruffled a Ghostly hand through Septimus's hair.
"I'm just—" He shrugged, "—I just appreciate my family. That includes you too. I just want to help where I can."
Family. They smiled at each other until the mushiness of the moment got to be too much. Still, the smile on her face refused to leave, and the wholeness that filled her chest was warm and heavy and wonderful to behold. She hadn't felt so calm in weeks.
"I mean, I feel fine about it," Septimus was saying a minute later. "I feel like I studied enough today. Besides it's still early."
She tuned back in, glancing at her watch. Eight o'clock. "For what?"
"Cards."
"Right now?"
"Yeah." He gave her an earnest look. "Thought it might be fun."
She was under no illusions that this wasn't for her.
Well, it was early. She knew she needed to sleep, she knew very well, but the thought of trying, of the nightmares and the racing thoughts, of waking up even more tired than she'd gone to bed, made dread curl in her stomach.
But Marcellus would be there.
She glanced around at the others — at her family, who had loved her so well today that it had dragged her kicking and screaming from her darkness, and remained afterwards to cheer her up with hot chocolate and the suggestion of a card game.
"Sure. I'd love to."
***
As they climbed into bed an hour later, Marcia wrestled with the guilt of going to bed before she felt like she deserved to. She ought to be doing something. She wanted her to-do list. She wanted to check it and check it again, make sure there wasn't something else she could do, something else to check off to ease this panic rising in her chest, something to put off sleep a little longer.
Marcellus disengaged the main light source but left the Fyre globe alight, and it cast the bed in a gentle, cosy glow. He rolled over and held her from behind. "How are you?"
Marcia watched the light play on the curtains.
Where do I even begin?
"Good. I had a good night. Thank you for dinner, and the hot chocolate, and for playing cards with us and for staying." A painful lump blocked her throat. Her head started up the steady throbbing that had left her since after dinner.
"Thank you for letting me."
Tears slipped out the corners of her eyes. Her breath hitched.
"Come here," he whispered, and she rolled over and burrowed into his arms.
"I'm sorry, I'm crying so much today but I can't seem to stop."
"Don't ever be sorry for feeling anything, Marcia. You are allowed to feel. You lock up so much, it needs to come out eventually."
"I don't even know why I am. It's stupid. I just feel so—so—"
"Hmm?" he asked, patient, rubbing his hand up and down her back.
She struggled with it, the block behind her teeth, keeping her words from leaking out. "Undeserving. I should be better."
"You are deserving," he breathed. "You deserve to be cared for. You deserve to feel loved. You deserve kindness. You deserve a break. You deserve rest."
"I don't." Restless, she squirmed away, and he let her go. She sat up, tugging at her hair. "It's nine thirty, and I'm going to bed because you, Septimus, and Alther did all my work."
He reached for her hand and held it against his chest, gazing up at her. "We did not do all of it. We did a few tasks on your to-do list, but that is not to say you don't have many other things to do. Your days are packed. We see how hard you work. We wanted to ease some of your load because we love you. And that is not to say you can't do it, because I more than anyone know that everything on that list would have gotten done, but at what cost to yourself? You are exhausted. I know you are not sleeping well either, which does not help. I know what time of year it is."
Marcia's breaths quickened. She dropped her head.
He squeezed her hand. "Breathe, my love, I'm here."
"I sleep better with you here," she admitted, fear swelling cold and sickening with the honesty of it. She dashed at her tears with her free hand, but they kept flowing. "But that doesn't mean I don't still have nightmares."
"Then I will hold you through every storm. If you sleep better with me, I will stay by your side every night."
Her fear dissolved like bubbles atop the surface of a glass of FizzFroot. She had leaped, and he had caught her, held her vulnerability in his hands like it was precious and meant to be protected. She looked into his face and never wanted to look away again.
"I don't want you to do it out of pity."
"If I could spend the rest of my life at your side, I would be the happiest person alive, the luckiest. I do not offer this out of obligation or pity or some sense of—of duty or anything else like it. I want to stay because I love you. I want to love you through the good and bad and everything in between."
She squeezed her eyes shut, his words more beautiful than any music, more blinding than the sun. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yes. Please stay."
"Very well." His fingers shifted, and she opened her eyes. "As long as... As long as you are not agreeing purely out of—only because you need me. I mean, it is okay if you do, I will stay. I just—I want to be—"
"I didn't want to push you away," she whispered, understanding what he was trying to say. "But I didn't want to disappoint you more. I didn't want you to pity me when you saw me a mess. I want you, darling. I don't just need you."
He beamed at her, sunny and relieved and adoring, and she smiled right back. "Thank you."
"You'll stay because we want that," she said. And she did. She wanted him so much. She had never stopped, even when she'd sent him away. Admitting it was so, so freeing.
"We do." He reached up, caressed her face. "How is your head?"
She pressed her lips together. "How can you always tell when I have a headache?"
He was already standing, tugging on a shirt he'd grabbed from the back of the sofa. "You squint your eyes. I shall be right back."
"Okay."
Before he left their room, he pressed a kiss to her hair.
She settled back into the pillows and stared at the ceiling. She felt like she'd been up for over a day, but the love in her chest was so kind. It soothed her jagged edges, the torn and painful things in her chest until she felt like maybe she could look at them and not feel shame, like she could take on tomorrow and be okay, eventually.
Marcellus ⠏⠁⠙⠙⠫ back into the room and handed her a vial of Pain Reliever, already uncorked, and a glass of cool water. She tossed back the Tincture and chased it with water. When she'd drank her fill, he took both and set them on the bedside table.
"Thank you," she sighed, the potion (or perhaps the coolness of the water) already taking effect.
"Always." He climbed back into bed. She rolled over, and he folded her into his arms, carting a big hand over her hair. "I love you."
"I love you," she whispered, aching with the strength of it, the warmth of it. She felt safer than she had since—since he was here last, really. She shivered, and he held her tighter.
Now he had agreed to stay... well, she would never let him go again, couldn't; yet, she wasn't scared of that. Not anymore.
***
Every part of Marcia was made of iron, dragging her body down and down into the bones and remains of Dungeon Number One. She could not move, could not get up. DomDaniel leered at her and leaned down to whisper in her ear, his breath sticky and hot and acrid—
His chunky hands wrapped around her throat and—
She sank further, black sludge filling her ears, covering her eyes, seeping into her nose and her mouth, no matter which way she turned her head. If she breathed, she'd drown, she'd be consumed—
She sank right through to the Anti-Chamber and found herself righted again. She scrambled to step out of the Ghost she had fallen through, a Ghost whose tears were blood and whose presence was a freezing, Darke pocket of air.
She blinked. Ghosts swarmed her, writhing, taking up every inch of space. she recognised all of them. Septimus and Alther and Jenna and Silas and Simon and Hildegarde—
But why—
It hit her. She had Banished every single one of them, her and her incompetence. It was all her fault. She would have to stay down here with them forever until she could get them out. She sure couldn't to leave without them. She would never forgive herself. Shades sucked at her Magyk until every movement hurt, every thought hurt—
Marcellus — the Ghost of him — sank to his knees before her, an axe through his forehead, one eye socket bloody. She screamed. Awoke with her eyes open and her mouth firmly shut. She blinked at the ceiling, her heart pounding so hard it shook her whole torso.
Just a nightmare.
The sheets stirred beside her, and she flinched, flying upright.
"Darling," Marcellus said. He didn't touch her. "I'm right here."
She looked. His face was unblemished. No axe. She reached out a hand, found him tangible and solid. Half asleep, she couldn't help a sob.
He sat up and held her face. "It must have been quite the nightmare, love. You are safe, completely safe."
"E-everyone was dead and—and—DomDaniel—and I Banished everyone."
"Alther remains at the Castle. Septimus is safe and just down the hall. I'm here. DomDaniel is dead. He cannot hurt you anymore. You are safe. I'm right here."
Reality crept back in fragments, leaving her shaky and so exhausted. When she moved, her nightdress stuck to her skin with drying sweat. She lay back down with a glance at the clock. He joined her, ran his fingers over her cheek, through her hair. She stared straight ahead at the skin of his neck. She blinked and saw Septimus, bullet wound through his forehead.
"What can I do?" he whispered.
Her heart refused to calm. "What?"
"What can I do, Marcia? To soothe you, to help you?"
"Nothing. Just be here."
"You have me." But instead of sounding appeased, his voice was strained as if he had something else to say but didn't quite know what that was.
She closed her eyes. Hildegarde with her angry eyes and her insides spilling out through a wound in her side—
Hildegarde became Alther. Alther who fell in slow motion. She looked down, and she saw his shocked eyes before she saw the blood, spurting out through the bullet wound in his chest. Her body thrummed with each beat of her heart. He was shot. He was shot he was shot he was—
The bullet had gone into the right side of his chest — almost right, sort of middle. Maybe—maybe it had missed his heart. She fell to her knees, scrambling for her belt, but there was nothing, nothing to save someone from a bullet wound. But there had to be, if only she could think of it, if only she could come up with something. She was the most brilliant Apprentice he had ever had. He needed her. He trusted her to save him.
A baby screamed and screamed. Alther pressed something skin-warmed into her hand.
"No."
She pressed her hands to his chest — maybe she could stop the bleeding, hold back Death long enough to—to—
But his eyes were glassy, staring right up at the sky. When had that happened? What had she missed? How was it too late?
This time, she cried herself awake. Marcellus was there, his hand rubbing her arm, his eyes wide and pained. "I'm right here," he whispered. "You are safe. You are not alone."
The words could not reach her through the pain in her chest. She reached for him and cried into his neck.
The press of his skin against hers eased a carnal need deep inside of her until the rest of the world faded away, the sounds of night, the battering rain; until the memories of the past lost their edge and the thoughts that polluted ceased to matter. With them, her tears waned.
Marcellus shifted, grabbed for something off the bedside table. He looped an arm around her and rolled onto his back, taking her with him until she lay boneless on his chest.
In the depths of her consciousness, Marcia felt like a baby, safe and cocooned.
Marcellus fumbled with the item in his hand until she heard the dry skf of pages turning.
"Prologue. Candles lined the curving path to the castle, and Isabel thought the sight reminiscent of a siren guiding her to certain danger. . ."
She sighed, adjusted so she could press her cheek to the place where his chest rumbled with his voice. And she listened — not to the words but to the timbre of his voice, soft and gentle and home. . . The sickness that the nightmares had brought eased, slow but sure.
***
Marcia awoke with the sun already risen.
She lay still, observed her body from within. Her neck ached, surely because she still lay upon Marcellus's chest which was not their usual position to sleep in, but other than that... Well, after her last nightmare, she had slept... peacefully. Dreamlessly.
Marcellus drew in a particularly deep breath, and she eased up to look into his face. He opened his eyes and smiled at her, smiled more sweetly than the sunrise. "Good morning, my love."
"Morning." She glanced at the clock. "It's eight?"
She sat up. Septimus's lesson was in an hour, and she wasn't prepared. Her chest seized.
"What is it?" Marcellus was more alert now.
"Septimus's lesson." She jumped out of bed, threw the closet door wide, already shrugging out of her nightdress. "I have to at least look over Alther's notes—or your notes—and plan out what to say and—"
She forgot what she had been going to say next as she grabbed the first uniform at hand.
"But Septimus's test is today. I thought you didn't teach theoretical lessons on test days."
She stared at the thick fabric of the tunic in her hands.
Oh. He was right.
She stepped out of her nightdress which pooled at her feet, one foot getting caught and almost sending her to the ground. She caught herself with a hand on the wall and stepped into her uniform, reaching behind herself to do up the corset back, but she couldn't do it one handed. Marcellus got up and batted her hand away with a chuckle, deftly doing up the strings. The quick brushes of his nimble fingers to her bare back sent chills racing over her skin. When he had finished, he took her shoulders and turned her to him, frowning. "Why—"
She stepped back, went into her bathroom to brush her teeth and freshen up.
He followed her. Of course he did. She tried to tamp down her annoyance with thoughts of the previous night, how much he loved her—
"Perhaps you could talk to Alther," he said.
"About what?" Ε leaned down into the sink and doused her face in water, reaching for her soap. He said something. "Sorry, I can't hear you, hold on."
Silence. Nerves rustled to life in her stomach. She finished washing her face and patted it dry, reached for her moisturiser.
As soon as the water was off, he said, "Magykal exhaustion is nothing to be ashamed of. I shall look into it today. I'm sorry I did not yesterday—either way, perhaps Alther would have some insight."
She leveled him with a stare. "There is nothing wrong with my Magyk."
"No, surely not," he said, brusque, as if not even bothered. "But my theory is that the stress you are under coupled with your exhaustion has taken a toll on your Magyk."
"I'll be fine. Don't bother looking into it, and don't you dare tell Alther anything."
"I was not planning on it. That is up to you."
They stared each other down — or, at least, she did. He looked back, unreadable, unwavering. Her five hundred year old partner was the most patient man she had ever known.
She turned back to the sink, squeezed toothpaste onto her brush. "Why won't you argue with me anymore?"
"I don't want to argue with you."
"You used to. We used to argue. You used to hate my stubbornness."
He came up beside her and reached for the toothbrush they kept in her bathroom for him. "So you admit you are being stubborn," he said, a smile in his voice.
"Yes," she gritted out, heat rising in her neck and in her face.
"I argued with you," he said, "yes, but that was before I knew you and before I loved you. I don't want to anymore."
***
Half an hour later, Marcia sat behind her desk, eating the eggs and toast Marcellus had brought up for her.
"You must eat," he had said, poking her chest with a finger. "Please let me see to that. That is something I am willing to argue about, Marcia Overstrand."
With that he'd left for the Pyramid Library, promising to come back after Septimus's test to take on correspondence with her.
She had no qualms about what he was researching, but she pushed it out of her mind as Septimus came through the door.
The theoretical exam was simple enough. She graded it as Septimus watched on, and they discussed an answer he had just missed and why, and he was on his way with a 96%, smiling this time as he went.
Marcellus arrived right at eleven with tea, and the pair sat in companionable silence as they wrote out missives to those who had written with queries or problems. Then Marcellus insisted she come down to the kitchen and have lunch at the table with him.
But no sooner had she polished off her sandwich that he leaned back in his chair, hands folded, and said, "I think you should cancel Septimus's practical."
"Why?" She lifted an eyebrow.
"I found what I was looking for," he said. "It seems you are likely experiencing Magykal exhaustion, and Magykal exhaustion can eventually lead to complete Magykal burn out, which is detrimental and potentially fatal to your Magyk. Magykal exhaustion is recoverable, but pushing yourself can and will burn you out, which may not be."
"Then I will avoid excess demonstration," she snapped. "I'm sure it's not as dire as you're making it sound. I'm just a bit tired, but I'm recovering already."
"Which is why it is so important to refrain from Magyk entirely right now—"
She snorted, standing from the table and turning her back. "I wish we lived in an idyllic world like that, Marcellus. I'm the ExtraOrdinary Wizard."
Silence.
"Marcia."
But nothing came after.
She left the room. "Thank you for lunch."
***
"We'll move onto the Ward for keeping Things and Darke Creatures out next, as you've mastered these—well done, by the way. Now, a method I find handy is the Light Wall method. Do you remember what that is?"
"Where you imagine the wall of light in place of where you intend to erect the Ward?"
"Yes. You'll need to make sure the wall is solid. No imperfections, no holes, consistent all the way through. Then cast. Like this—"
She wasn't thinking about it. She wasn't. Guilt niggled at the back of her mind. Her hands shook as she brought them up. It took longer than usual to locate that force within her, that thread of light. But she found it and tugged, envisioning the wall of golden light stretching across the door to her office. The Ward went up. And Marcia was wrung dry, as dry as she'd been at the bottom of Dungeon Number One. White static appeared at the edges of her vision. She blinked it away.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine. Just fine." She bit back a further response, remembering his hurt expression from yesterday. She waved a hand, dismantling the Ward. "Did that make sense?"
"I think so." He pursed his lips, then cast, his hands moving, faltering. He tried again and sighed. "I can't keep my wall consistent once I start trying to cast. I keep trying to visualize the words like I'm reading them from a textbook."
"Ah," she nodded, "that makes sense. That may be helped with more memorization than you need with other Wards. You cannot visualize anything but your wall."
He tried again and again.
"Perhaps it might help to see how I do it?" she asked finally, when he groaned that he couldn't keep a solid image in his head.
"Maybe," he said.
She dropped her MindScreen, and he met her eyes and peered into her surface thoughts. They'd done this dozens of times, ever since Septimus had learned a MindRead. It was an effective tool to demonstrate visualizations, especially for someone as in control of her mind as Marcia and as visual of a learner as Septimus.
With Septimus's peripheral presence in her mind, Marcia built up her wall of light and began to incant, gathering and gathering her Magyk, but it was like digging down and down through dry Earth in desperate, fruitless search of water. Her wall trembled, faltered. She gritted her teeth and kept on, forcing Magyk into her hands and words. Her wall went gauzy, perforated. She was parched. She had nothing left to give, but she couldn't keep her Magyk from flooding out, draining her life, pouring through and out. . .
There were clammy hands on her arms, shaking her. "Let go, Marcia, let it go!"
Heat built behind her sternum, hotter and hotter until she couldn't bear it. Her heart had been scorched by the surface of the sun. She would die. She was dying now. Something was happening to her heart, and she was dying. Her vision went white, heat rushing in flashes from the top of her head to the base of her spine. And still her Magyk would not stop, she could not close the floodgates—
Icy cold shocked her into a jolt. She opened her mouth to scream, the way it assaulted her inner world, but nothing came out. The force bulling through her body had slowed. She shook. How had she come to be lying here? She dug her fingers into the plush carpet. Reached for her Magyk. Found nothing.
Nothing but a gaping wound.
Voices. Septimus, scared. She lifted her head, formed her lips around a reassurance, but the world spun and she collapsed again.