by TJ Klune
“Now wait a godsdamn minute,” Ryan started.
Randall scowled. “What are you prattling on about now?”
“The castle! We have to get to the castle! Randall! Now!”
He looked uncertain. “I don’t….”
“Trust me,” I pleaded. “I need you to—”
And we were gone.
I STUMBLED as we reappeared in the throne room.
It was eerily empty. The Darks had been defeated, and soon we’d fill the room and corridors with the sounds of life as it once had been, but for now, it was quiet.
“Why are we here?” Randall asked, looking around. “What has happened?”
“Hello?” I called out.
There was no response.
I shook my head. It was fine. It was fine. We just needed to—
I took off for the rear entrance that led to the gardens. Randall shouted after me, telling me to wait just a godsdamn minute. I ignored him. The dragons were bright in my head, agitated in the way they buzzed, but I pushed them away. Kevin was still with the others in the alley. Zero had joined them. The remaining dragons were nearing the City of Lockes. They’d been successful, I knew, in taking back Meridian City. There were smaller enclaves of Darks left, but soon they’d disperse. Not all of the Darks had been captured, but they’d disappear back into the Dark Woods. If they didn’t, well. We’d deal with them then.
All of us.
I pushed the doors open, the wood groaning underneath my hands. The air was redolent with flora and fauna. The stars were blazing in the sky above, and I called out, “Hello!” again, but there was nothing, there was nothing, and I’d been lied to, I’d been deceived.
I pushed my way through the plants, branches scraping against my hands and cheeks as I made my way toward my mother’s secret garden. My heart thundered in my chest, Randall’s cries ringing in my ears, the dragons rumbling in my head, and I thought, please, please, please.
There, in the secret garden was—
Nothing.
Almost nothing.
Morgan’s obelisk still stood as it had before, during our rescue of the King.
But that was it.
I heard a bird call.
I took a step forward.
“Hello,” I managed to say again.
Nothing.
I sagged.
Then—
It was like I was eleven years old.
It was like I was eleven years old, standing in an alleyway in the slums, just having turned a group of teenage douchebags to stone.
Because he said, “Well, this certainly is a surprise.”
I closed my eyes and breathed and breathed and breathed. “I like your shoes.”
He said, “Thank you, little one. I made them out of the tears of a succubus and a lightning-struck tree stump I found under the Winter Moon. I like your face.”
My tears spilled over. “Thank you, big one. My parents made it when they got married. I was a honeymoon baby, whatever that means.”
There came a deep chuckle that I’d missed very much. “Sam, look at me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Why?”
“I’m scared.”
“Of?”
“This being nothing but a dream.”
A pair of warm hands cupped my face. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. “It’s real,” he said. “The Star Dragon told me of your wish. That it came from the depths of your heart. And I… I was given a choice.”
I tried to smile, but it trembled and broke. “You were?”
“Yes, little one.”
“And what did you choose?”
“You, Sam. Always you.”
I opened my eyes.
And there, with a quiet smile on his face, was Morgan of Shadows.
Epilogue: A Wish Upon the Stars
“AND NOW I will tell you about my brilliant plans to bring Verania to its knees,” the evil centaur and total douchebag Jeffrey said with a cackle.
“I blame you for all of this,” Gary said irritably.
“Me?” I snapped. “How is this my fault?”
“You’re the reason we’re here in the first place!”
“Um, excuse you? If you’ll recall, you’re the one who said that you needed me to go with you in order to suss out a potential partner for you and Kevin to have your weird three-way sex with. How was I to know that he was going to turn out to be this asshole?”
“Um,” Jeffrey said. “I’m standing right here.”
“Oh please,” Gary sneered. “Just because you believe in complete monogamy doesn’t mean that you can look down upon those who are into a more fluid lifestyle.”
“Hey! I don’t judge! You do you, you know? But did it have to be today of all days? You said it’d be quick.”
“You did say that,” Tiggy said, looking extraordinarily grumpy at having been restrained with some type of vermilion root that I’d never seen before. In fact, we all were, and it even somehow inhibited Gary’s magic. His horn was useless.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Jeffrey said, “I did plan on having sex with you. It wasn’t until I realized who you were that I came up with this plan.”
“No, Jeffrey,” Gary snarled, “that doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it makes me feel worse.”
“Oh. Well, if I could continue telling you about—”
“How did you even meet this dickbag?” I asked Gary.
“He’s a patron of Honest Helga’s,” Gary said, side-eyeing the fuck out of Jeffrey. “He likes to tie things up and whip them, and you know how I feel about that.”
“Unfortunately I do,” I muttered. “We really need to renegotiate the boundaries of our friendship.”
“If you’ll recall,” Gary said, “we did that four months ago, and those rules are good for at least another year. It’s not my fault that you suck at negotiating.”
“You do suck,” Tiggy said. “S’okay. You’re pretty.”
“Thank you, Tiggy, that’s very nice of you—hey!”
“Ahem,” Jeffrey said, beginning to pace at the mouth of the cave he’d trapped us in, somewhere in the Dark Woods. I was really starting to get sick of his attitude.
“Everyone,” I said. “Everyone. Jeffrey obviously has something important to say, which is why he rudely keeps interrupting us.”
Gary and Tiggy turned slowly to stare at him.
Jeffrey flushed, his right front hoof scuffing in the dirt. If he wasn’t an evil douchebag, I would have thought this half man/half horse was handsome. And he was hung—nope. Nope, nope, nope. “Yes, well. I appreciate your attention on what is a very serious matter. You see, it all started with my father—”
“Did I mention how handsome you looked today?” Gary asked me.
“Thank you,” I said, rather pleased. “I was worried that it was going to look like I was trying too hard, but Lady Tina said that—”
“Ah yes, Lady Tina, who seems to be your new best friend. I’m glad you brought that up, because I certainly wasn’t going to.”
I glared at him. “She is not my new best friend. If anything, we’re frenemies and I barely acknowledge her existence. It’s not my fault she said I dressed as if I still lived in the slums.”
Gary looked amused. “Well, to be fair, she does have a point.”
“A little one,” Tiggy agreed.
“I hate you both so much.”
“Can we… uh, bring back the focus this way?” Jeffrey asked, pointing at himself. “Like, all eyes on me? That’d be great.”
“Rude,” I said. “In case you didn’t hear, I was in the middle of being complimented, and you just happened to—”
“Why are you dressed up like that?” Jeffrey asked, looking me up and down. “It seems a little odd to be all gussied up and going out into the woods to help your friend find his hookup.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down at my outfit. I wore tight white silk dress trousers with knee-high black bo
ots, a rather frilly white tunic opened at the throat, and a forest-green jerkin that had gold buttons running up the front and molded perfectly to my frame. “It’s sort of my wedding day.”
Jeffrey paled. “Say what now.”
“I’m getting hitched, dude. Like, fastening the ol’ ball and chain to my ankle so I’ll never be free. Getting dude-married to my one true love. Tying the knot. Taking a husband. Heh. And then later, I’m going to take my husband three or four times, if you know what I mean—”
“Yes, yes,” Gary said. “We all know what you mean. You should really keep your sexual deviancy to yourself.”
“Um, are we, or are we not, captured by the centaur who you were going to have a threesome with.”
Gary grinned. “My life is so exciting.”
“And now that you mention it,” Jeffrey said faintly, “the rest of you are all fancied up too.”
And they were! Gary’s mane and tail were streaked with pinks and purples, flowers from my mother’s garden woven into his braided hair. His horn had been polished and his hooves painted. I thought he was wearing mascara too, but I didn’t ask, because one never asked if a unicorn was wearing mascara. I most certainly didn’t want to purchase a one-way ticket to Gore City, seeing as it was now a viable destination.
Tiggy, as he was wont to do, didn’t accept any help from anyone in choosing his outfit. He wore green breeches and a yellow shirt with puffy sleeves. He topped it all off with a purple top hat that Mama had made especially for him. He looked like the world’s largest pimp. Randall approved.
“Thank you for noticing,” Gary said, batting his eyelashes at our captor. “Enchanté.”
“You are so gross,” I muttered.
Jeffrey looked rather fearful. “So what you’re saying is that I’ve kidnapped you on your wedding day.”
“Wow. You’re so quick. Good job, dude.”
“And that probably means there are people looking for you.”
“Literally thousands, most like. I don’t know if you know this, but my latest polls came out, and apparently I’m quite popular now. People find me appealing.”
“Which was barely ahead of off-putting,” Gary said gleefully.
“I smash you soon,” Tiggy promised Jeffrey.
“Oh no,” Jeffrey said.
“So!” I said. “Since we’ve established that I’m going to be marrying the dreamiest dream who has ever been dreamed, and that a billion people are probably descending upon our very location as we speak, maybe just let us go, huh? I swear I won’t let Tiggy smash you.”
“I smash you gooood,” Tiggy said.
“Okay, so he’ll smash you,” I admitted. “But that’s just par for the course. Unless this is going to be another Lartin thing. Because dude, that sucked. Are you super famous in the centaur world?”
“No. Well, I mean, not super famous, but I get by—”
“Eh, close enough. Tiggy, maybe not kill him smash him, but the sort of smashing where his bones are broken and he’ll regret being alive for the next six months, and whenever he hears our names, he will quake in fear.”
“I do that,” Tiggy said.
“Good,” I said. “Now that that’s settled, what say you let us out of here so we can get this show on the—”
“No!” Jeffrey snapped. “You know what? I’m in charge here. Meaning we’re going to do what I say. I have captured you, and therefore, this moment is mine. You will listen as I lay out my plan to take over Verania, and you will like it.”
“Oh, bitch,” Gary breathed. “Shouldn’t have said that, bitch.”
“That’s how you want to do it?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Fine.”
Jeffrey looked surprised. “Really?”
“I mean, yeah. Sure. I guess.”
“Oh. Okay. I just—I thought there’d be more resistance.”
“Nah, you were pretty forceful, dude. I was impressed.”
“Ha!” Jeffrey crowed. “If only my father could be here to hear you say that. You hear that, Dad? I’m forceful. Suck on that, you absentee asshole!”
“You were going to have sex with him,” I whispered to Gary.
“Yeah,” Gary said, staring at Jeffrey. “My bad.”
“I was seven when my father left to go get a pack of cigarettes and never returned,” Jeffrey began. “I’ll be right back, he said. Don’t you worry, he said. But I did. I did worry. And for good reason too! Because he never came back!”
“Why do so many villains have daddy issues?” I whispered to Gary and Tiggy.
“Tiggy smash now?”
“Not yet, my friend. Not quite yet.”
“I have daddy issues, and you don’t see me turning into a villain,” Gary said.
“We-ell,” I said. “You’re firmly planted in a morally gray area, so I wouldn’t try and hang your hat on that.”
“And so what if I wrote a play in forty-seven acts when I was in the sixth grade entitled Daddy, Why Won’t You Love Me? I was only trying to find a creative outlet in order to deal with my childhood trauma!”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I do believe I’m sick of this. I would like to be rescued right about now.”
“You know,” Gary said, “for someone who only recently defeated an evil wizard and saved the world, you still need to be rescued a lot.”
I shrugged. “I only do it so other people feel like they contribute. I don’t like taking all the credit.”
“Sam, the King threw a parade in your honor, and you insisted on being the grand marshal and having a float with your face on it.”
“I asked you if that was too much. You said no!”
“Yeah, not for a unicorn. You’re a human, Sam. Your ego needs to be kept in check. A unicorn, however, such as myself, needs to have their ego fed, because it helps to increase our magic, and therefore keeps us alive.”
“Tiggy, is that true?”
“No,” Tiggy said. “Gary a liar and a fat mouth.”
“Tiggy!” Gary gasped. “How dare you say such a truthful thing?”
Tiggy shrugged. “Just want to smash, but no one let Tiggy smash. What about what Tiggy want?”
“Aw,” Gary and I both said.
“Dude, I am going to hug you so hard when we get out of here.”
“Jeffrey, yoo-hoo, Jeffrey,” Gary said shrilly.
Jeffrey blinked, his words about something something daddy dying in his throat. “What?”
“Do you see that tall, strapping, handsome giant?”
“Um. Yes?”
“He is very dear to me.”
“O… kay?”
“Be a good fellow and release him so he can smash you. He’s earned it.”
Jeffrey frowned. “But… I don’t want to be smashed.”
Gary’s eyes narrowed. “Look, Jeffrey, it’s going to happen one way or another. I think it would be better for you if you just accepted that. You won’t like him when he’s angry.”
“Too late,” Tiggy growled.
“Uh-oh,” Gary said ominously.
“Uh-oh,” I agreed.
“Of course this is where I’d find you, Sam,” a voice said from the mouth of the cave.
And just like that, I knew we’d be okay.
Jeffrey whirled around just in time to see Morgan of Shadows step toward him. He looked fondly bemused as he took the scene before him in. Tiggy waved at him, and Gary blew kisses in his direction.
And me?
I just… stared in awe, as I’d done ever since the day I’d found him in the gardens. It’d been four months since the showdown with Myrin, and I still couldn’t get over the fact that Morgan was here, that he was alive, that he had chosen life, Verania, us, me, over crossing the veil.
When Myrin had taken his magic, Morgan had died. He sacrificed himself for me, for my Destiny of Dragons. But he hadn’t crossed the veil, not at that moment. He’d been in a sort of limbo that apparently wasn’t all that different than midtown City of Lockes. He’d conversed with gods on sidew
alks lined with clouds, eaten with old friends in a diner run by elves almost as old as the Great White. I knew he’d seen Anya—his cornerstone—again, but he didn’t say much about that. I didn’t push. It wasn’t meant for me.
But even with all of that, even with the promise of a life ever after beckoning him, David’s Dragon had given Morgan a choice: either return to the living world or cross the veil to his reward for a life well lived.
He chose the King and the Prince. He chose his labs and his Grimoire. He chose Randall and Gary and Kevin and Tiggy. He chose Ryan. He chose Verania.
“But above all else,” he’d whispered in my ear as I sobbed into his shoulder in the garden, “I chose you, little one, because a world in which I could not see your face isn’t a world I’m ready to live in.”
So, yeah. Awe. Every godsdamn time.
“Oh girl,” Gary said to Jeffrey. “You’re in for it now.”
“Oh girl,” Tiggy agreed. “So in.”
“Morgan of Shadows,” Jeffrey squeaked.
“So it would appear,” Morgan said mildly. “I grew concerned when I realized no one had seen any of you for at least an hour. Which, as we all know, is surely a sign of shenanigans.”
“So many shenanigans,” Gary said. “And I apologize, Morgan, but you know how Sam is.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You know how I—wait a minute.”
“I mean, I tried to tell him that today of all days was not the time to try and go on an adventure,” Gary said. “But do you think he listened to me? Of course not. He just did what he always does. Why, I came along to make sure he didn’t end up hurting himself.”
I was outraged. “That’s not what happened at all! Jeffrey was supposed to be Gary and Kevin’s postwedding booty call! Gary asked me and Tiggy to go with him in case Jeffrey turned out to be, and I quote, a crazy-ass psycho who wants to lick my nuts and then chop them off and use them as earrings.” I frowned. “Which, now that I think about it, is an oddly specific thing that should have made me aware how stupid this was. I should have realized Gary was a fucking motherfucker with terrible ideas.”
“I have the best ideas,” Gary snarled at me. “Tiggy, tell him!”
“No, Tiggy! Tell Gary his ideas are dumb and stupid and that you love me!”