And I hesitated.
Which he latched on to immediately. “That’s all the answer I need.”
“That’s not fair,” I said, scowling at him. “You can’t put me in that position.”
“I can’t? Are you going to say the same thing to Myrin? That he can’t put you in that position? Because he’s not going to care, Sam. About what you want. What you need.”
“I’m not you,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I can’t just shut everything off. I won’t. That’s not how I work.”
“With everything that has happened to you, this prophecy, Vadoma, the dragons, the people of Verania turning against you—”
“Okay, that last bit is completely the result of Lady Tina DeSilva. In case you didn’t know, she and I are mortal enemies, and I promise you with everything that I am that one day I will rend her flesh from her bones and spill her blood upon the earth—”
“With everything, Sam, it’s no wonder that you let your emotions get the better of you.”
I stopped my rant on the evils of teenage girls. Then, “Better that than having none at all.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. My hands were curling into fists, and my jaw felt tense. When he opened his eyes again, his expression was as bland as it always was. “You are governed by your youth. It’s not a bad thing, but you are headstrong in areas that you must not be.”
“You can’t expect me to change. Not like that. I won’t.”
He beckoned to something over his shoulder.
Almost immediately, the two Grimoires on the shelf rose and floated toward us, his passing over his left shoulder and the other passing over his right. There were others on the shelves, covers bound with many different things, but I ignored them in favor of the books before me as they lowered themselves to the top of the table. They lay next to mine, and a chill ran through my spine at the sight. These two things might be the most powerful books in the world. The only thing that would make the set more complete would be to have Morgan’s Grimoire there.
And even though I completely understood the gravity of the situation, I was trying really fucking hard not to fanboy all over Randall right now. We might have been mostly antagonistic toward each other, but even I could understand that Randall was a hard-core motherfucker.
“Want to touch,” I whispered, reaching out toward the books—
Only to have Randall smack the back of my hand.
I glared at him.
“You done?” he asked.
“You can’t just whip those things out and not have me want to touch them.” I frowned. “Gods, what is going on with my phrasing?”
“Stop hitting on me and pay attention. I’m trying to be serious here.”
I sputtered at him quite dramatically.
“I told you about the consumption of magic.”
That sobered me. “Eating it.”
“Yes. I believe the marks upon your skin are evidence of such. Whether or not he meant it at the time, I don’t know, he surely would mean it from that point on. You defended yourself from him?”
I nodded slowly. “He held me above the lake. His… hand. Around my throat. And I felt the lightning in me, like it was with the sand mermaids. But this was… different. In the desert, it was, like, a reaction. Tiggy and Ryan were gone under the sand, and I just couldn’t let them go. But in Mashallaha, it was more like I was going to do anything to end it. I wasn’t thinking about saving anyone. I wasn’t even thinking about saving myself. All I wanted was to end it.”
“I don’t think he was expecting it,” Randall said quietly. “That level of magic from you. He underestimated you, which is something I think most everyone has done. Including me. He tried, then, to take it from you, but it was too much for him.” His fingers played along the covers of his and Myrin’s Grimoires. It looked to be an almost unconscious habit. “You were very lucky.”
“He…. Why haven’t you asked me about him?”
Randall blanched at that. “What?”
“Why haven’t you asked me about him? About what he looked like? About how he… was,” I finished lamely.
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Randall said, his tone brooking no argument. “Anything that he was is gone. He’s not the man I used to know. He hasn’t been for a very long time.”
And I thought maybe he was lying. “But—”
“Enough, Sam.”
I bowed my head. “As you wish. How does it work? Consuming magic.”
“Magic is part of you. It’s mixed into your blood. It moves in your brain. And for you, it is in your heart, that which has been lightning-struck. Magic isn’t sentient, though it can sometimes feel as if it is. There is magic in many things. The creatures around us. The earth. The trees. Dragons and elves and fairies. The Darks. It’s not universal. It is not all-encompassing.”
“There are colors,” I said. “Green. And gold.”
He nodded. “Sometimes. That’s how it manifests for you. It came to you in a time of great need, when you were scared. When those boys chased after you and cornered you in the alley.”
I gave him a wry smile. “Ended up with one of those boys.”
“Curious,” he said, “how intertwined your fates are.”
For a brief moment, the image of Ryan upon a slab, white and cold in death, his sword clasped against his chest, was all I could see. But I pushed through it.
Randall, of course, didn’t miss a thing. “That. There. What was that?”
“Just… a memory.”
“Today,” he said. “I’ll allow this today. Because of what is left to discuss. Tomorrow, Sam. Everything else begins tomorrow.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“Funny how you take it that way.”
I had to give him that.
“Eating your magic would combine his power with yours,” Randall said bluntly. “It would be ripping it from your body and, in essence, tearing your soul in two. Magic wielders are not defined by their magic, but it helps to make up who they are. Take that away from them, they become hollowed out. A shell. A body cannot continue as a shell. It ends in death. And there is nothing that can be done to stop it.”
I felt ill at the thought. “Have you ever seen it done?”
“No.”
And I knew I was treading on dangerous ground when I asked, “Did you ever consider doing it to him? Before you banished him?”
“There was a moment, yes. But it was fleeting. I don’t think anyone is capable of maintaining their sanity when consuming another’s magic. The sheer rush of power one would receive seems like it would obliterate a mind. And it’s dark, Sam. Taking another’s magic. You don’t get to come back from that. Ever. Once you have consumed another’s soul, your own is lost to eternity.”
“And you’re sure this is what he wants?” I asked. “It doesn’t seem like… too much? Even for him?”
He hesitated, but it was brief. His fingers twitched again, but then he pushed a Grimoire toward me. It was not his. It was not my own.
It was Myrin’s.
“Page six hundred and forty-seven,” he said.
My hands were on the book even before he’d finished speaking. A twisted thrill ran through me at the contact, and even though I wanted nothing more than to flip through it page by page, taking my time, drinking in all of it, tasting the magic within the pages, I turned to page six hundred and forty-seven as directed.
I wished I hadn’t.
It was near the back of the book. I’d been taught early on that the backs of Grimoires, the last few pages, were areas better left alone. It was meant to be a reminder of what was truly black about the world. Dark magic that shouldn’t be attempted by anyone. I’d seen some of the back pages in Morgan’s Grimoire, spells that had called for innocence, for living creatures filled with inherent goodness. Unicorns and fairies. The blood of dragons. The heart of an elf. These were never meant to be put into practice but instead were written d
own in theory that potentially, something good could come of it. A counterspell. A resistance. Something that could be an opposite.
The back of my own Grimoire was blank.
And here, on one of the last pages of Myrin’s, was the consumption of magic.
It was dark. The notations. The incantations. There were drawings that looked as if they were from a nightmare. Ingredients for physical spells that included the left thumb and forefinger of a particularly rambunctious child and the life’s blood of a virgin maiden taken from the throat.
It was disgusting. All of it.
But none more so than the note at the bottom, almost slashed into the thick paper.
It said:
NO SPELLS
NOTHING NEEDED
IT’S ALL IN THE MIND
CONSUME THE MIND
“Grimoires are the heart of the wizard,” Randall said quietly. “Sometimes it’s black. But it can help you, if you let it. It’ll organize your thoughts and allow you to see the fuller picture. You need this, Sam. After everything.”
I nodded, unable to look away from the darkness in front of me.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “We begin.”
I HAD the first nightmare that night.
I reached for Ryan, and he wasn’t there.
“TELL ME a secret,” Randall said the next day.
But I wasn’t ready. Not after everything I’d learned. I was still lost in my own head, trying to make sense of it all.
I shook my head.
He grinned.
I was knocked off my feet by a blast of wind that collided with the backs of my legs, whipping seemingly out of nowhere, especially since we were in an old dining hall, the tables pushed to the sides of the room.
I landed on my back, skidding along the ice.
“Shit toast monkey fucker,” I groaned.
“Indeed,” Randall said, sounding bored.
“Ow.” I stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know if I’ve told you this today, but you suck, man.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Gross.”
“I never had any complaints.”
I sighed as I pushed myself up. “You’re elderly,” I scolded him. “It’s time you start acting like it.”
“Still beating you, aren’t I?”
“Still beating you, aren’t I?” I mocked under my breath.
“I heard that. I hear everything.”
“Creepy bastard,” I muttered and was knocked off my feet again.
“AND YOU’RE not going to read over my shoulder?” I asked him suspiciously. It was the afternoon, and we were seated in the labs. I was hunched over my Grimoire, trying my best to hide the page that I’d randomly turned to away from him (DEAR DIARY, I THINK RYAN SMILED AT ME TODAY. OR HE WAS SMILING AT SOMEONE BEHIND ME. OR HE HAD GAS. I DON’T KNOW. IT WAS MADE OF ACTUAL SUNSHINE REGARDLESS).
“I’m not going to read over your shoulder.” He wasn’t amused.
“Pinkie swear?” I asked, holding up said digit.
He glared at it like it was the most offensive thing he’d ever seen. Then, surprising the hell out of me, he extended his own pinkie, hooked it with mine, and shook our hands up and down twice.
I gaped at him as he dropped my hand.
“You tell anyone that I did that,” he said, “and I’ll reverse your anus.”
“Meep,” I said. “Okay, but follow-up question. Would it make me look like I had a tail or—and that must be your I’m About to Reverse Your Anus Face, so I’ll just shut up now. And yes, before you ask, that was capitalized, so it’s true now.”
With that, I turned to the Grimoire, opening to the page where I’d given a rather general description of what had transpired since Vadoma had been to the castle. Each major event (Vadoma, Ruv, the prophecy, the dragons, Myrin) was given its own section, with blank pages following so I could go back and fill in the blanks later.
I looked at Vadoma’s section first:
Vadoma is the worst, though I don’t have time right now to list every reason why. But trust me when I say there are a lot of them, and I am completely valid in my feelings about her.
“Yeesh,” I muttered. “No wonder you want to reverse my anus.”
Randall just grunted, reading through a scroll from a rather uncomfortable-looking sofa chair, feet propped up near the fire that flickered and cast shadows on the ice.
I picked up the quilled feather pen and began to write:
I didn’t know what to think of her. The fact that she came out of nowhere after all these years was an automatic strike against her. And it wasn’t just because she was coming for me. No, I didn’t even care about me. My anger that she’d come to Castle Lockes had everything to do with my mother. The fact that Vadoma could banish her daughter because of something as simple as love had never sat right with me. My mother never spoke ill of Vadoma. In fact, I might go as far to say that there was always love there, even if it was laced with bitterness. I wondered how you could have love for someone who had cast you out and turned their back on you.
I know now that love is a peculiar thing.
So she came, and it was strained. I don’t know if they ever spoke one-on-one or if Mother even wanted to. If I were her, I don’t know that I could have stood being in the same room with Vadoma alone. Knowing the history, that this woman knew enough about life to become a mother but not enough to act like one? Maybe that doesn’t make me a good person. Certainly not a forgiving one. But even I lost sight of that when she opened her mouth and spilled what had to be the most terrible collection of words in the history of ever. And it all got a little hazy after that, and I felt like—
“YOU’RE JUST going through the motions,” Randall growled as I lay on my back yet again. “You’re not focusing.”
“Oh, trust me, I’m going to focus all over your ass as soon as I can move,” I muttered, staring up at the icy ceiling.
“You’re distracted. Your mind isn’t here. You are wasting my time as much as your own.”
“Then maybe I should just leave.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Just to give up and walk away.”
I pushed myself up. “I haven’t walked away yet. From anything.”
“You might as well,” he said with a scoff. “For all the good that you’re doing.”
“Maybe if you weren’t being such an ass about—”
“Get up so we can go again.”
“I’m tired,” I grumbled. “We’ve been at this for hours.”
“Are you ready to tell me a secret?”
I rose slowly to my feet. My knees felt wobbly, but I ignored the sensation. “That’s what this is? You’ll go easier on me if I tell you something you think you want to know?”
He grinned at me. It was wild and bright and unlike anything I’d ever seen on him before.
I faltered. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because,” he said, smile widening. “You just admitted there are things you’re keeping locked away. That’s the first step.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and took a defensive stance. “Come on, old man. Let’s go again.”
The ice began to crack under my feet and I—
—WASN’T EXPECTING someone like Ruv. I mean, sure, I knew there were others out there for me. That had been instilled in me ever since Morgan told me what a cornerstone was. There wasn’t just one person in the whole wide world made for me. That would be ridiculous. The chances of ever finding them would be so small, I might as well have just handed myself over to the Darks.
Still, that didn’t mean it was going to be easy. Even if there was more than one, how was I supposed to find them?
I should have known. Not right away, not that day in the alley all those years ago when I turned Nox to stone. I didn’t even know what I was doing back then. I didn’t know anything. But later, maybe. As I grew older. I should have remembered what had happened to me, but I was too enamored at the thought of there being one pe
rson in the world just for me. It was the romantic in me. I wanted someone who could love me just like my mother and father loved each other.
That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? That’s the reason I spent so much time focused on Ryan (read: going to fan club meetings). I’d like to think that unconsciously, I knew all along what he was going to be, but in reality, I was probably just a creepy motherfucker who was perving on the Knight Commander, wondering if he tasted like my dreams.
I had no idea, not until that date with Todd (his ears!) in the restaurant when those Darks came in and tried to do whatever stupid things Darks did. It was like the last little piece of whatever puzzle made up my being slid into place, and it was both the best and the scariest thing that ever happened to me.
Ruv never made me feel like that. Not once.
Yes, he was handsome.
Yes, he had a propensity to not wear clothes, and he was REALLY flexible.
Yes, he was charming and funny and absolutely not to be trusted, even though he seemed to go out of his way to help us on our quest for the desert dragon.
And yes, my magic felt something with him.
But it was… strange. Muted. Soft. Like it was just a dream. Like it wasn’t real at all. I think that was because I already had Ryan, I already had a cornerstone in place. Ruv was a pinprick of light in the dark. Ryan is the sun.
And I will always—
“—FIND A way to get my revenge against you,” I panted, dodging a column of ice that rose in front of me. “You dick. That could have killed me.”
Randall flexed his fingers, and another sheet of ice came flying toward me. I fell to my knees and leaned back, sliding along the slick floor, the ice flying over me, missing me by inches. It crashed into the wall behind me, shattering and falling to the ground.
“I’m not trying to kill you, you little drama queen,” he said. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Really,” I said, sucking in another breath. Sweat dripped down my forehead. “So absolutely none of this has anything to do with turning your nose into a dick?”
“Why, Sam! What kind of person do you take me for?”