"What are you doing?" Delph demanded of the man now attempting to sit beside him on the bed.

The Warlock threw off the pile of clothes that Delph had chosen not to wear, and languidly taking their place, stretched his arms above his naked torso. "Where else would I sleep?" he replied, "If not in my own bed?"

"Then where will I sleep? If I am to stay here for the night?"

"Forever," the Warlock corrected, "You will stay here forever."

"And sleep next you, I suppose? We are strangers. And men, no less!"

Despite the secret proclivities Delph had almost explored at the Catary, his greatest defense would be to echo Fiepet's sentiments. Perhaps if the Warlock understood his interest lay only in women, he could be brought to his senses. Though his sense seemed to be lacking.

"Are you sure you're a man..?" the Warlock teased, "You're far more beautiful than any other I've encountered. It could be you're a woman in disguise."

"How is this the body of a woman?!" cried Delph, "I may not have Fiepet's strength, but I have near as much muscle to look at! Is my voice not deep enough to convince you? Do I need my brother's testimony that you might believe it?"

There was a time when there was no brother to speak of, when the means of proof lay inside the witch's clothes. The offer to touch him was not made again so easily.

"You take great stock in Fiepet Strahl," said the Warlock bitterly.

"Because I know that he will save me," Delph declared.

The Warlock was beginning to resent the witch's attachment to the man he called brother. In the confines of the carriage, the prisoner had no one but his warden to rely on. But now, there was another man he waited for. It irked him.

'I have seen the man naked!' Fiepet had said.

"Last night I slept beside your brother in the forest," the Warlock confessed, "I urged him that we continue our search to find you, and yet he demanded we stop. I did not know then, who you were. Fiepet Strahl was content to sleep not knowing if you were alive or dead, while I have barely rested this last century in my efforts to find you."

"Your efforts to find the witch," said Delph, his voice exhausted from the constant protestations, "I am simply a man from Grunterbad that wishes to be home. I am lazy, and I read, and do very little else. I have no magic... nor any memory of a past filled with bloodshed. If I am the witch... then you make me out to be a murderer."

The Warlock frightened him by reaching suddenly for his hands.

"Who has told you such lies? You were innocent of every crime they stupidly accused you of! Your magic does no harm. You told me as much yourself."

Delph inched away from him. "Please do not make me your witch," he begged, "The weight of it would crush me."

Who else but Ursa would have spoken so wickedly of the Divine? Min was right to wish him banished. Attempting to smooth away the matted hairs on the witch's face, Delph raised his hands to block him. The sleeves of his over-sized dressing gown fell down to his elbows, and the Warlock saw the scars upon his wrists.

"Do they still pain you?" he asked, turning one over in his hand like a fallen fledgling.

"An accident," Delph told him, "With the printing press when I was young..."

Lies.

The Warlock circled both wrists with his hands, forcefully pinning them down onto the bed. 

"There were shackles! The chains that bound you in the darkness rubbed against your tender skin. Cold, unfeeling metal that cut at your flesh!"

"It hurts..."

"There was little I could do to ease your discomfort, powerless as I was. But all is changed, don't you see? No one can trap you, no one can hurt you!"

The pressure was too great.

"I said it hurts!" cried Delph.

The Warlock loosened his grip at once, but did not release him. His frantic desperation dispersed into heavy silence. The witch had yet to understand it; how beautifully their love had blossomed from the hardships of their past. The Warlock tenderly brought the scarred wrists to his lips, cupped in gentle fingers. With slow determination, he traced each blemish with a kiss.

Fiepet would sometimes warm wheat by the fire, packing it inside a hemp sack when Delph ached from the cold. But no one had ever kissed his scars. No one had ever kissed him at all, that he could remember. 

"Where will I sleep tonight?" asked Delph, "You did not answer me before."

"You will sleep where I can see you. Right here, in the bed that will be our own."

"But," said Delph, sensing a chance to put some distance between them, "You said you mean to marry me tomorrow."

"Yes."

"Then how could I agree to share your bed on the night before our wedding?"

The Warlock laughed, the air from his nose brushing against Delph's skin as his lips continued to trail along his arm.

"It is not the done thing in Grunterbad!" he cried, "The bride and groom should not see one another the night before the wedding! Have you no sense of tradition on this Madning Isle of yours? Do you not realize what is right?!"

"There are no such rules here," said the Warlock, "Some do not marry at all, and yet their lives are rich with love and children. Others see marriage as a curse, racing to bed any but their intended before the vows have been made. I give you no leave to seek another; a hundred years of freedom was a long enough respite."

Delph had to carefully choose his battles, and no longer get stuck in the infinite loop of denial. He had not lived a hundred years, and yet the Warlock would insist he had. Back and forth it would go until at last sleep would claim him. No. He needed to keep his focus, and find a way to preserve his honor.

"In Grunterbad, it is not to lie with another that we part from our intended the night before. It is because... of luck! Don't you have luck here?"

"My fortune was in finding you again."

"And yet, to see me the night before the wedding would cause us nothing but bad luck. Our marriage would be doomed from the start."

The Warlock's eyes considered him closely, unsure how adept at lying the other world had made him.

"I promised you once, I'd stay by your side the whole night if I could. Now that I can do just that, do you really think I'll leave? Is it not enough that I've held myself back from touching you?"

His arms were still in the clutches of the Warlock. If this was not considered touching, then he dreaded to think how much further he might have gone if not for his restraint. He could feel the saliva still wet on his wrists.

"But... what of the luck?" pressed Delph, "Or do my customs mean nothing to you?"

The Warlock was taken aback. "Your land of Grunterbad?" he asked him, "The nation of your exile?! A place that has warped your mind and divested you of your memories? You would cherish its customs? When I have fashioned the Madning Isle solely for you?"

"It is my home," said Delph.

The Warlock's eyes were narrowing, and danger was drawing near.

"It was my home," he conceded, "As much as Fiepet is my brother. And neither shall be forgotten."

"And yet," spat the Warlock, "I remained forgotten for a hundred years! How should I make you remember?"

The Warlock's eyes rested on the witch's lips. Delph pressed them together, as though hiding them from view would lessen the Warlock's ardor. A loud knock resounding on the door, proved a much better distraction. Delph took his chance, slipping free of the Warlock's grasp and retreating on the bed.

"Open up!" cried a voice from the other side.

The Warlock looked to the witch and pressed a finger to his lips. Quiet.

"I say! Open the door at once!" There was clearly some commotion in the hallway. The hurried servants were begging for the visitor to leave, warning what the Warlock might do to him.

Striding into the room adjoining his bedchamber, the Warlock walked to the door and opened it an inch. 

"What do you want?" he asked Fiepet Strahl.

"Do you have my brother in there?" Fiepet demanded, "While you sent us after Ursa, were you luring him back to your palace?!"

"I am alone," said the Warlock, "Reading."

Unattended on the bed, Delph gingerly shimmied down to its foot, and tried to listen to what was being said between the Warlock and the nuisance caller. It took a moment before it occurred to him, how welcome a disruption would be. Creeping from the bedroom, he recognized his brother's voice at once.

"You expect me to believe you gave up looking?" asked Fie, "And what? Came home to curl up with a good book?! You are half-dressed sir! What salacious tome were you reading from if that remains your excuse?"

"Your father's journal," said the Warlock, "The writings of Hekse Strahl."

The brothers were stopped in their tracks.

"I was changing my clothes when you started banging on my door, or else I would have received you sooner. And as for my reluctance to let you inside, well you see it is for the sake of propriety, what with my being shirtless."

"You have my father's journal..?"

"Two of them, in fact. An interesting read all told."

Delph remembered his father often writing in an eel-skin bound book. With so many other things to deal with after his death, he hadn't thought to search for it.

"Did you know he came from this world?" asked the Warlock. "It confused me at first, and as such, I mistook him for my betrothed."

Fiepet could scarce believe him, while Delph was struck dumb by the revelation.

"Nonsense."

"Wait here." The Warlock raised a finger to beg his patience, and leaving Fiepet under the watchful eye of his servants, he gently closed the door.

"I will not harm him," he told Delph in a whisper, "As long as he does not try to take you. Your place is here, and his fate lies in your hands."

Delph understood it well enough. The Warlock was blocking his chance to escape, and threatening Fiepet in the process. The witch's silence signaled his compliance. With an annoyingly satisfied smile, the Warlock walked over to his desk, and took out the first of Hekse Strahl's journals from its box. A finger once more to his lips, he opened the door.

"You didn't think to dress yourself?" asked Fiepet.

"Your father's words," said the Warlock, offering the journal, "It might do you well to better understand where he came from. Or help you accept that your brother may not be the man you thought him either."

"And you mean for me to believe that you do not have him? Ursa saw him by the river!"

"Then you know he saw the witch. So either your brother is the witch, and therefore my bride, or the man he saw had nothing to do with you. Prepare a room in the Counsel's wing," the Warlock ordered the closest servant, "And fetch a lamp for Fiepet Strahl. He has some reading to do."

"Tell me at once," said Fiepet, reluctant to leave his door, "Do you have Delphin here with you?"

"Call for him, and see if he answers," tested the Warlock, "Against my better judgement, I've allowed you to disturb me long enough. Read. Sleep. Look for your brother tomorrow."

Delph's name was poised on Fiepet's tongue, but he did not call the Warlock's bluff. With his father's journal in hand, he issued a heartfelt vow.

"If you harm him, if you force him; I will kill you myself."

"Were I to harm my bride, I would let you."

The air hung heavy between them. If not for the servants' insistence that the master's order be obeyed, the eldest Strahl might well have stayed until morning. With the door shut, the Warlock returned his attentions to the witch.

"How long do you intend to keep me from him?" asked Delph.

The Warlock's eyes softened as he walked towards him. "Minutes wasted, when I could have spent them with you in my sights. You do not know, how long I have hungered to see your face. Even sleep is unwelcome to me."

"How long," repeated Delph, "Do you intend to keep me from him?"

The Warlock made his calculations. "A week," he said.

Delph's eyes widened in alarm. "You tell me how much you have longed for me, that you mean to marry me tomorrow and keep me here forever! Yet you would have me locked in this room for a week, and separate me from the only family I have left? You are cruel. If you think me the witch, then it is clear you did not love him."

"You-!" the Warlock cooled his temper. "Your senses have not yet returned. I will grant you a week until our wedding that you might find them."

"And if I don't?" asked Delph.

"A week will be sufficient either way," reasoned the Warlock, "We fell in love in as many days. We can simply do it again."