by T. J. Klune
Ryan actually took a step back at that one, which was good because somehow, he’d gotten really close. “Sam,” he hissed.
“Hmmm. Maybe you’re the prude. Dicks and fornication.”
“Sam!” He was turning red again, and my heart.
“What!”
“Don’t marry Todd,” he said. “When you marry, it should be for love. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
And that hit me right in the gut, because it couldn’t possibly be any clearer than that. “Ah,” I said through the blood roaring in my ears as I took a step back. “Congratulations.”
“For what?” He looked confused.
“For marrying Justin. You must love him very much. Right? That’s what you just said.” And I knew he was my cornerstone then because I wanted nothing more than to blow something up with a few choice words, but was able to stop myself. Hurray for personal growth and damning realizations.
He said, “Sam.” It was strained.
“What?”
“I don’t….” He looked away.
The mood had changed very quickly. “It’s okay,” I said brightly. Probably too bright. “When I get back, I’ll figure something out.” And, well. I hadn’t meant to say that.
So of course he pounced on it. “Get back?” he asked, snapping his gaze to mine.
“Uh. Yes? I mean. I’ll be going out again. For a while.”
His face went carefully and explicitly blank. “Oh. For how long?”
For as long as it takes to no longer hurt to have you this close.
I shrugged. “Don’t know this time. Will probably be awhile. Morgan’s sending me… away.”
“Where?”
“Sorry, Ryan. Doesn’t work like that. Wizarding business.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m the Knight Commander of the Castle Guard. You live in the castle. Therefore, you’re my business.”
That irritated the fuck out of me. “Even the King doesn’t always get to know what Morgan and I do,” I said. “Maybe you should remember that, Knight Commander.” Which was a lie. I pretty much told the King everything. Morgan would just smack me upside the head while the King laughed at me.
“And how long will it take for you to get captured again?” he said. “What then? Wait until I ride in to rescue you?”
I laughed at him. “Oh fuck off. You’ve never had to rescue me. Not once. As a matter of fact, if anything, I rescued you last night. You just stood next to me, all dashing and immaculate. Remember? While I had all the magic?” I wiggled my fingers at him.
And his eyes glazed over as he watched my fingers and said, “Ungh.”
I frowned. “What’s wrong with you?” I didn’t think I’d accidentally cursed him.
“Nothing,” he said in a rough voice. “Just. Lightheaded. It’s fine.”
“If you’re sure.”
And then we just stood there.
I didn’t know if we were fighting or not. I thought I was mad, but I also thought I was really turned-on. I wondered if those were sort of the same thing. And while I knew why I was turned-on (I mean, hello, proximity: he was like right there and I could smell him), I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I was supposed to be mad about.
“These are very confusing times,” I said.
“No shit,” he muttered.
“No cursing,” I scolded him. “You’re a knight. You don’t get to do that. You gave up that right when you swore your oath to the King. You have to lead by example now. So say stuff like ‘fudge toast’ and ‘mothercrackers’ instead of ‘shit whore’ and ‘fuck storm.’”
“I can assure you I have never felt the need to say shit whore or fuck storm in my life,” he said.
I gaped at him. “But you just did. There are little girls in your fan clubs! They are young and impressionable.” And they could be very mean, I knew from the eight times I’d gone to the meetings. Well, one of them was mean, anyway. She told me that I obviously knew nothing about Ryan Foxheart because his favorite color was burgundy and he one day dreamed of owning a sheep farm. Her name was Tina and she was a bitch, and I hated her stupid face. His favorite color was scarlet, and he wanted to open a bakery.
(Really, none of that was true. It was just the sort of things we discussed in the meetings.)
He grinned at me again, and the butterflies in my stomach turned into dragons and laid waste to my innards.
“Not that I would know,” I said quickly. “I just assumed that only little girls would go to those things. Right? Because anyone else would just be weird.” Very weird. Also, I’d been to sixteen meetings and I was thinking of running for fan club treasurer next time. There was already a girl in place named Deidre, but I would destroy her in the next round of elections. She was twelve. I was a wizard. I couldn’t lose. “Look. This has been… fun.” Lie. This had been nerve-racking and I needed to go masturbate. “But I have to go. I’ve got stuff to do before I head out again.” Masturbate. “Wizard stuff. Like… secret wizard stuff.” Masturbate.
Ryan’s smile faded. “You’re really leaving?”
I sighed. “It’s… complicated. It’s better this way.”
“For who?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said quietly. “Ryan. Look. It’s…. For what it’s worth, I’m glad we’re friends now. Right? We’re friends?”
He looked down at the ground. “Yeah, Sam. We’re friends.”
This made me happy, even if it felt bittersweet along its edges. “Good.”
He looked back up at me, and there was something akin to desperation in his eyes. “You just… you have to come back. Okay? You have to.”
I was shocked. “I will? Er. I will. I’m going to be the King’s Wizard, after all. To your husband.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. When will you leave?”
“Soon,” I said. “A week. Maybe a little more.”
He nodded tightly and turned to walk away. He made it a few steps before he stopped again. He looked up toward the stars above and I followed his gaze.
He said, “I wish—”
And I said, “Don’t.”
He turned back to look at me.
Everything hurt. “You can’t,” I managed to say. “You can’t say your wish out loud. Not when you look up at the stars. If you do, it won’t come true. And I can’t… I can’t allow that to happen to you.”
He watched me.
I watched him back.
Finally, he looked back up to the stars and closed his eyes, and I knew he was making his wish. I hoped that whatever it was, that it would one day come true.
When he was done, he opened his eyes and I couldn’t look away.
But that’s okay because neither could he.
And right then, I hated that we were friends.
It was easier to watch him leave when he didn’t know I existed.
CHAPTER 8
Turning Noses into Dicks and Other Stories
EIGHT DAYS later, Morgan said, “I’m sending you north.”
I paused from where I’d been scribbling in my Grimoire. “Oh?” was all I could think to say. Because this wasn’t just north. I knew he meant north. Which, to be perfectly honest, was intimidating as all fuck.
He must have seen that flicker of fear across my face because he shook his head. “No. Not for that. Not yet. You’re not ready, Sam.”
Thank the gods because he meant north.
The cold lands from where my father had come.
Where Morgan’s mentor resided in a castle made of ice.
Randall. The scariest motherfucker ever.
Morgan rolled his eyes. “He’s not that bad.” Like he could read my mind.
“Not that bad?” I wheezed. “He’s the one who decides who moves on from apprenticeship by conducting the Trials! He’s the one who can make or break my future. Oh, and there’s the little fact that he hates every fiber of my being.”
“He doesn’t hate you, Sam. I’ve told you that a thousand times.”
“Uh, pretty sure he does. I don’t blame him, either. You were there the first time I met him. You stood right there when I accidentally turned his nose into a penis. He couldn’t figure out how to reverse it for three days. And he was officiating a wedding the next day. He had to marry a bride and groom with a dick nose! He told me that one day he’d have his revenge. Oh gods. What have I done to you? Do you really hate me that bad? Did I disappoint you so badly that you want to subject me to the absolute worst thing you could possibly think of?”
Morgan was trying hard not to laugh, the bastard. “It could have happened to anyone,” he said. “Granted, it happened to you, which is not all that surprising.”
“I was fifteen,” I said with a scowl. “Of course I was thinking about dicks. You know what? No. I blame you. Puberty was an awful, awful time, and you made me do magic. This is all your fault.”
“Trust me,” he said. “I tell myself that every day.”
“Har, har. No. I’m not going. I’ll go live in the woods and become the scary story that parents tell their children about. Be careful, little Tommy. Old Man Sam lives in those woods. If you don’t eat your vegetables, he’ll come when you’re sleeping and steal your feet.”
“To be fair, it wasn’t the first thing you’d turned into a penis.”
“Ugh.”
“Like that turkey.”
“Shut up.”
“Or the King’s wine glass.”
“Do you remember the look on his face? I thought he’d literally shit himself.”
“Or the—”
“I get it,” I snapped. “I had dick on the brain.”
“I love our little talks.”
“You’re really going to make me go, aren’t you?”
“It’ll be good for you,” Morgan said kindly. “Give you some time to clear your head.”
“With the wizard of all wizards. Like, the head wizard.”
“Yes, Sam.”
I had to make sure. “I’m not ready. For the Trials.”
“I know. And that’s not what you’re going for. At least not yet. Hopefully, that’s still years away.”
Randall was the oldest wizard in existence, and I swear he was hanging on just so that he could one day have his revenge against me. Morgan said he was at least six hundred years old, that the amount of magic in him kept him from passing through the veil, but I knew otherwise. I was going to get there, he was going to turn me into a giant dick, and then he was going to die, cackling as he did so.
Granted, that would mean he wouldn’t be in charge of my Trials, the process from moving on from an apprentice to being a full wizard. The youngest wizard to pass the Trials had been forty-two. Morgan had done so when he was sixty-seven. I wanted to take the Trials by the time I hit thirty.
But between not having finished my Grimoire and a lack of a solidified cornerstone, that dream was slipping further and further away.
I sighed. “You told him, huh? Through your secret wizarding network that you still haven’t told me about.”
“It’s called a letter in the mail,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “It takes a month to get to Castle Freeze Your Ass Off.”
“I’m aware. And don’t call it that when you get there. It’s Castle Freesias. You know how Randall gets when you’re mouthy. You need to try and curb some of your more natural urges.”
“I’m aware. His jaw twitches whenever I speak.”
Morgan grinned. “That’s because you let the words fall out without rhyme or reason. He’s a bit more economical that way.”
“That’s code for he hates me.”
“He’s worried about you.”
I looked up in surprise. “He is?”
“Regardless of what you think, he cares about you, Sam. And we’re… concerned.”
“Concerned,” I repeated.
“This cornerstone business can be trying on an apprentice,” Morgan said. “Especially one of your… unique caliber. He will teach you in ways that I cannot. I’m too close to you. I’m biased and might not be able to see the full picture. And in the long run, that will cause more harm than good. For the both of us.”
“Because you love me,” I said, sounding smug.
“More like you grew on me,” he said. “Like fungus.”
“How long?” Because Randall was on the other side of Verania and I highly doubted he would be coming to me.
“A month to Castle Freesias,” he said. “Four months there. One month back.”
“Six months? Morgan, I don’t have time for—”
“You do,” he said, bringing himself to his full height. “And you will. Because this isn’t a suggestion. I am the King’s Wizard. You are my apprentice. This is an order.”
“You know, that ooh-scary-look-at-me voice might work on other people, but I’ve seen you vomit pink goo after that selkie scratched you and you told me you wanted to hug me for days. It doesn’t work on me anymore when you have demanded I snuggle with you.”
“I had a fever,” he said. “There were hallucinations!”
“Riiiight. That’s what we’re going with. And if I go, Gary and Tiggy go too.”
“Because you’re codependent and can never do anything on your own.”
“Rude. You’re just jealous because you’re not invited on the Super Awesome Road-Trip Fun-Time Extravaganza.”
He sighed. “You capitalized that, didn’t you?”
I smiled because he knew me so well. “When do we leave?”
“Five days,” he said. “It’ll give you enough time to prepare. And I’m serious, Sam. You stay on the roads. You stay out of the Dark Woods. You stay away from Dark wizards. You avoid any and all shenanigans. You get to Castle Freesias. You learn what you need to. You get back. I want no deviations to that, you understand?”
I laughed at him. “Come on. It’s me you’re talking to. What could possibly go wrong?”
MOM SAID, “You’re going where? And for how long?”
Dad said, “I’ll make sure you have plenty of yak fur to wear because you are a wuss and can’t handle the cold.”
Gary said, “You want me to walk to Castle Freeze Your Ass Off? Are you out your damn mind? I just got my hooves painted!”
Tiggy said, “You gonna get captured again. I go to keep you safe, tiny human.”
Morgan said, “Just stay out of trouble. For me. For my sanity. I beg of you.”
AND I did. I tried to stay out of trouble.
Too bad trouble found me even before we’d left for the north.
Dragons are funny like that.
“WORD ON the street is that you’re leaving,” Justin said as I left the labs.
And I’d done so well in avoiding him. Goddammit. I plastered the largest fake smile on my face and turned to look at the Prince.
Of course he looked as perfect as usual, leaning nonchalantly against the stone wall, arms across a built chest, a bored look on his handsome face.
“Your Grace,” I said with a nod of my head. “I wasn’t aware you went out to the streets. Much less listened to what’s being said on them.” And I was slightly annoyed that someone had been talking when they shouldn’t have, which meant that Gary probably ran his big fat unicorn mouth down at the nail salon where he went to get his hooves touched back up after he’d scuffed the ground in anger. He and the owner, Ming Win, were thick as thieves, and I just knew they were plotting together in that language Ms. Win spoke that sounded like the fluttering of bird wings.
“When it pertains to my wizard, I tend to listen,” he said.
Man, did those words grate. I was not a fucking possession. “Apprentice,” I said.
He glared at me. “What’s that now?”
“Not a wizard. I’m an apprentice. But thank you for your concern.”
“Are you leaving?”
“You’ve never asked me that before.”
“I’ve never had a reason.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “And you do no
w?”
“Ryan,” he said.
“Ryan,” I said blandly, even though my heart was thundering in my chest.
“He’s a bit… distraught.”
“Is he?”
“Has been ever since that night.”
“And which night would that be?”
“When you two went on a date.” He smiled. It was an icy thing. “Sorry. When you went on a date with Todd. How is Todd?”
“Uh. Fine? He’s fine. He’s good.” Actually, I really had no idea how Todd was because after Morgan had said he was sending me north, I’d sent a missive to Todd explaining how his ears were awesome and I liked his freckles, but that I had to leave for months and that it wasn’t fair to him to wait for someone like me. I told him to find a nice man who could eat blueberries and ducks and maybe when I got back, I could take him out for a drink and we could be friends.
He’d responded two days later with a letter of his own.
Sam—
I figured this was coming the moment the Knight Commander got into the carriage with us. Father will be disappointed, but I understand. Your world is magic and mystery. Mine is hotels and theme nights. Those should probably not mix in any romantic capacity. The results could be disastrous.
Safe travels,
Todd
PS: So when are you going to tell the Knight Commander you’re in love with him? Because, honestly? That was PAINFUL.
I had immediately burned the letter because it was all lies and attempted to construct a voodoo doll of Todd. I got stuck on the ears and abandoned the whole project in favor of glaring at the ash remains of the Letter of Evil. I thought about writing again and taking back every nice thing I’d ever said about his ears, realized that was petty and untrue, because his ears were adorable.
And truthfully, I felt kind of bad.
So, no. I hadn’t heard from Todd. Nor had I expected to.
But fuck Justin in the face.
“He’s busy,” I said. “Hotel stuff.”
“That so?” Justin asked. “Good for him. Well, since you’re obviously not doing anything—”