“What did it say?” I asked hoarsely.
“Where he wanted to be laid to rest,” Ryan said, raising a hand like he was going to comfort me, but thinking better of it. “Where he felt he’d be closest to you. He knew, I think. That you’d leave.”
“Where?” I managed to say. “Where did he—” Then, “In the garden. That’s why you didn’t tell me.” I was angry now. “That’s why you didn’t say anything. Because you didn’t think I could deal with—”
“We didn’t say anything because we needed you to be focused,” Justin said. “We needed you to be here, with us. Have you had time to grieve, Sam? We have. Even with everything we went through, with the fall of Verania, we grieved. You still haven’t said what happened to you in the forest with the dragons.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped, hands in fists at my sides.
“Of course it matters,” Ryan said, tone pleading as he took a step toward me. “Sam, he was your family. And we all know how you internalize—”
“Don’t,” I growled. “Don’t you dare try and analyze me. That’s not fair. We’re here to save the King. Nothing else matters.”
“His marker is in the secret garden,” Justin said. “Near the entrance. You can pay your respects if you want, if Myrin hasn’t destroyed it, which I don’t think even he’s capable of. We can handle the dungeons and my father. You can wait for us there.”
I shook my head. “Let’s just go, okay?”
They exchanged another look, which irritated the holy hell out of me, but I chose to ignore it. Justin turned and entered my mother’s garden, leaving Ryan and me behind.
I tried to walk past Ryan, but he caught me by the arm. I didn’t try to shake him off. I was furious, but I didn’t want to take it out on him. He was only thinking of me.
“He loved you,” Ryan said. “More than anything else in this world.”
“I know.”
“And he believed in you.”
I blinked away the burn, only nodding in response.
I felt Ryan’s searching gaze but couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
He let me go.
I followed Justin.
IN THE end, we become bones and dust, and if we’re lucky, someone will be left who cares enough to leave a reminder of wood or stone to show that we were here, that we lived and laughed and loved. That we existed.
No matter what was raised in Morgan’s honor, it wouldn’t be enough.
So I wasn’t surprised when we entered my mother’s garden to find a small plaque set upon an onyx obelisk, the stone gleaming dully in the starlight. It sat in the middle of a small clearing, rising from the ground, almost as tall as I was. It was smooth, the lines cleanly cut, obviously lovingly crafted.
The base was surrounded by the brightest of flowers, blues and greens and reds and golds and pinks, the last of which reminded me of pointy shoes sticking out from underneath brightly colored robes.
The plaque read:
Here Lies Morgan of Shadows
The King’s Wizard
Brother, Friend, Mentor
He Loved, and Was Loved in Return
I reached out and traced my fingers over the grooves of each word.
“How is it still here?” I whispered. “Myrin should have….”
“Regardless of what he did,” Justin said, voice low, “regardless of who he was and who he’s become, he was still Morgan’s brother first. I think that matters. Even to him.”
I wiped my face, and my hand came away wet. “That didn’t stop him from taking Morgan away.”
“No,” Ryan said. “It didn’t. And he’ll pay for that. In this life or the next.”
“In this one,” I said. “He’ll pay for it in this one.”
They had no response to that.
They left me alone for a moment, moving toward the far corner of the garden.
I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry I failed you? I wish I’d been stronger? I wish you’d never come for me that day in the slums? Nothing seemed even remotely adequate to the tangled knot in my chest. He loved me as I loved him.
And maybe that was enough.
“You jerk,” I said with a sniffle. “You asshole. You brave, foolish idiot.”
Wherever he was, I figured he’d be laughing at me in that way he did, eyes crinkled, mouth quirked in a small, knowing smile.
There was a loud mechanical groan, and I snapped my head up in time to see Justin pulling his hand away from the wall as it slid away to the right. I winced at the scrape of metal and stone, hoping the trees around us muffled the worst of it. When it creaked to a stop, what remained was a small doorway, hidden behind thick vines.
A secret entrance.
Even with the gravity of the situation, even standing upon the grave of my mentor, I couldn’t help but feel a small thrill of excitement race through me at such a sight. I wondered if there were any others in the castle. It seemed possible.
I trailed my hand along the words on the plaque one more time before I went to Ryan and Justin, both of whom were peering down a set of stairs that had appeared behind the wall, of which only the first few steps were visible.
They looked at me as I came to stand beside them. I shook my head before they could ask whatever questions were on their tongues. “So, this is fun.”
“Fun,” Justin repeated.
“Secret passageways in secret gardens. Yeah. That’s pretty fun.”
Ryan smiled. “I thought the same thing when I found out.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “And when was that?”
“After I was promoted to Knight Commander.”
“Really. You kept it from me for that long? And after you gave me so much shit in Castle Freesias for keeping things from you. You’re kind of a bitch, Foxheart. Sexy as all hell, but still a bitch.”
His grin widened.
“Oh my gods,” Justin muttered. “I can’t take either of you anywhere.”
“How far down do these stairs go?” I asked, looking into the doorway again. “We’re not above the dungeons here.”
“A ways,” Justin said vaguely.
“You don’t really know, do you.”
“There were spiders when Dad showed me the first time,” he mumbled. “I don’t like spiders.”
“Ah,” I said wisely. “It’s a good thing you’ve got us, then, eh? And by us, I mean Ryan, because I also don’t like spiders, so he can go first and scare them all away and make sure we don’t get bitten and die.”
We both looked at him expectantly.
“You guys both suck,” he said with a sigh.
“You would know,” Justin said.
I gasped. “Did you just make a sex joke? About blowing Ryan?”
Justin groaned. “No. That wasn’t what I—”
“This is the greatest day of my life,” I said in awe. “I mean, aside from the whole breaking into the castle and seeing my mentor’s grave and being sad and stuff. That part was awful, but you just made a sex joke. Best. Day. Ever. I can’t wait to tell your dad. In fact, that’s going to be the first thing I say to him. Then I will hug him and probably compliment him on his mustache, because no matter what, he’s still a KILF, and that needs to be recognized.”
“Maybe we should just leave him in the dungeons,” Ryan said, giving me the evil eye.
Justin didn’t seem to like that idea, especially when he grabbed a torch off the wall and shoved it into Ryan’s hands before pushing him toward the stairs. “Less talk. More rescue.”
Ryan glared back at the both of us before he turned and started to descend.
Justin followed him.
I looked back only once, at the marker of Morgan of Shadows.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered to him. “I promise.”
Because he did love with his whole heart and was loved just as much in return.
THERE WERE spiders.
A shit-ton of them.
Ryan was the absolute worst at scaring spiders
away.
“One just landed on me!” I shrieked after we’d walked what felt like a thousand steps. “It’s crawling in my ear and is going to lay eggs—wait. Never mind. That was just the collar of my robe. My bad.”
Since I could barely see in front of me, I had to imagine their matching looks of disdain. Given that I was well versed in such expressions, it didn’t require much effort.
“Maybe keep your voice down?” Justin said through what sounded like gritted teeth.
“I was just practicing in case one did land on me,” I retorted. “Because my boyfriend isn’t doing a very good job. I’ve walked into, like, four spiderwebs. The gods only know how many dead bugs are in my hair right now. You know how I feel about dead bugs being in my hair.”
“Unfortunately I do,” Ryan said, the torch moving left and right ahead of me.
Justin wasn’t kidding when he said a ways. It felt like we descended for hours, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. The stairs were long and winding, appearing to move throughout the castle hidden behind the walls. I swore we came upon other doorways, but Justin didn’t let us stop to study them, saying that we had to keep moving before we ran out of time. I called him a buzzkill, and Ryan told him he couldn’t stab me, and we continued downward.
“What’s the plan for the Darks guarding the King?” I asked after another ten minutes of stairs. My thighs were screaming. I probably should have done more squats, but exercising was the worst. “You said there should only be a couple of them, right? Should I try to seduce these ones too? I’m really good at that, huh?”
“You’re not going to try and seduce them,” Ryan said, sounding grumpy as ever. “In fact, that’s not something you should do to anyone ever again.”
“Even to you?”
“Well, let’s not go that far—”
Justin sounded irritated when he said, “If there are only two of them, that means they’re outnumbered. They…”
I waited.
Nothing.
I decided to help. “They… don’t know how to finish their sentences?”
But Justin didn’t respond. Instead he was staring at yet another doorway covered in cobwebs and shadows, the flame from the torch flickering along the stone.
“Is this it?” Ryan asked quietly.
“I think so,” Justin said, reaching up to rub away the webs and dust on the door to reveal a single word:
Temniță
I blinked. “That’s… my mother’s tongue. Why the hell is there an old gypsy word on a door in a secret tunnel in Castle Lockes?”
“The gypsies helped build the castle,” Justin muttered, running a hand down the door. “They made these secret passages under the instruction of the king at the time, Barry the Paranoid.”
“The guy that thought that everyone was against him and that there were conspiracies to steal the crown that ran through the highest-ranking members of his Court, only to tragically starve himself to death when he refused to eat meals he thought were poisoned?”
“Yes. That guy.”
“Huh. Verania has a strange and storied history. Also, you descend from him, so I hope the crazy doesn’t run through the family. I won’t let anyone poison you.”
“That wasn’t as comforting as you think it was.”
“I’ll try harder next time. What does temniță mean?”
“It literally translates to dungeon,” Justin said, frowning at the door. “I think. But there doesn’t seem to be a handle.”
“Great!” I said cheerfully, shoving him to the side. “Allow me, then.”
“Why you?”
“Your relatives had this castle built on the backs of my relatives,” I said. “This is a gypsy door, and I have gypsy blood.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Justin said. “They weren’t slaves.”
I waved a hand at him dismissively. “I expect reparations at some point, but we can talk about that later, so long as we can agree that white people are the worst.”
“Hey!” Ryan said. “Not all white—you know what? That’s a terrible argument to make.”
“It is,” I said, putting my hands on the stone. It was cool underneath my fingertips. “But I forgive you because you keep my dick wet.”
“I hate you both so much,” Justin mumbled.
It was pretty much bullshit, the whole gypsy door, gypsy blood thing. I highly doubted that it would open just for me because of that. But I didn’t want Justin to be the one to stumble through the doorway into the dungeons in case there were Darks in there. I knew my duty as his wizard, and it meant keeping the once and future King safe.
I pushed on the stone, and of course nothing happened.
I pushed a little harder.
Still nothing.
“Well, then,” I said. “This is quite the conundrum.”
“What is it?” Justin asked.
“Apparently, and stick with me here because it can be hard to understand, but stone is really heavy and hard to move.”
“Sam?”
“Yes, Justin.”
“You’re a fucking moron.”
“Hey!”
“Both of you move,” Ryan said, popping his neck side to side. “This probably calls for brute strength. And we all know how much I work out.”
“Wow,” I said, staring at him. “That was such a douchebag thing to say. And I can do it.”
Ryan arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you even lift, bro?”
I smacked him upside the head. “Stop it. You stop it right now. I’m not one of your knights. I am not your bro.”
He rubbed his head and glared at me.
I sighed. “Fine. Use your large muscles and push the door out of the way.”
“You act like this isn’t turning you on,” Justin whispered as I stepped away from the door.
“I know, right?” I whispered back. “But his ego is already out of control, so he doesn’t need to know that. Have you ever had a boner while you’ve had dead bugs in your hair? It’s really quite vexing. I’m terribly vexed.”
Ryan pressed his hands against the door and grunted as he pushed.
“Holy biceps,” I breathed. “They look like they’re about to burst right through his robes. Do you think his thighs are quivering with exertion?”
“I try not to think about his thighs.”
“That was a lie. Everyone thinks about Ryan Foxheart’s thighs.”
“In case you can’t quite remember, we’re trying to rescue my father. I don’t have time to deal with the sick and twisted thing you have going on with Ryan.”
“Yeah,” I sighed happily. “Our love is one for the ages. Hey, Foxheart. You done trying to move the immoveable stone wall?”
His face was red with exertion, sweat dripping down his brow. “Almost got it,” he grunted.
“Right. Well, while you’ve almost got it, maybe consider pulling the lever to your right that I noticed right after you called me bro.”
Justin snorted.
Ryan glared at me.
I smiled sweetly at him. “Love you.”
He muttered something under his breath that I assumed was him saying he loved me too before he reached over and grabbed the wooden lever that stuck out from the wall. He pulled it down and—
Nothing happened.
“We are the worst at rescuing people,” I said. “Okay, that’s it, I’m just going to blast it from existence and hope Myrin doesn’t notice my magic—”
The door opened with a grinding moan, dust spilling from the ceiling above us.
Ryan looked back at me and grinned. “See? I told you I could do it.”
And then a hand shot through the open doorway, wrapped around his throat, and jerked him into the waiting darkness.
Chapter 11: The King and I
I DIDN’T hesitate. Not when it came to him. I never had. And I never would.
The moment he disappeared from sight, I followed him through the door.
And immediately fell down a flight of st
airs on the other side and landed on my back, blinking up at the ceiling.
“I meant to do that,” I groaned as I pushed myself up onto my elbows. “That was totally planned. Yay me.”
Empty cells stretched out on either side of me, torches lit on the walls, water dripping from the ceiling. The dungeons were cool and dank, and it felt so good to be back home. But I had little time to appreciate it, because I had a hand to lop off for daring to touch Ryan Foxheart.
The hand, as it turned out, was attached to an arm, which in turn was attached to a hooded figure that held Ryan Foxheart against one of the jail cells. Ryan’s back was shoved into the metal bars, and he was kicking his legs to no avail, the hand tightening around his throat.
I stood up slowly, trying to keep the gold and green at bay. The moment I let it out, the moment I called my magic to me, Myrin would know I was here, and we’d be screwed.
I pulled myself to my full height, sure I looked extraordinarily badass and intimidating. “You would do well unhand him,” I said grandly. “Before I unhand you.”
The hooded figure snorted.
Ryan stopped struggling. “That… didn’t make sense.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Uh, yes it did. I’m going to unhand him, meaning I’m going to relieve him of his hand.”
“That’s not what unhand means.”
“It made sense in context.”
“Are we really doing this now?” Justin asked, sounding incredulous as he came through the doorway. “Seriously.”
“He’s just jealous because I have awesome catchphrases,” I told Justin.
“That’s not a catchphrase,” Justin said.
I squinted at him. “Are you sure?”
“Do you even know what a catchphrase is?”
“Uh, yeah, dude. It’s the thing you say when your robes are billowing and you’re looking all daunting and shit. Trust me, I would know. I often find myself with billowing robes and looking daunting and shit.”
“It’s good to know that even when your appearance has changed,” the hooded figure said, “nothing else about you has. Even after all this time. I assume this is the Knight Commander I have bested?”