He looked stunned. “You made yourself mortal.”
I shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll have a few years tacked on at the end, but my magic doesn’t control me. I control it. I’m a puppet to no one. It wasn’t easy, and gods, did it hurt, but… it’ll be worth it. I think. In the end.”
Randall shook his head slowly. “You stupid, wonderful boy.”
I laughed. “The Great White wasn’t too happy with me when he found out. But, eh. What can you do.”
“And what of Kevin? And Tiggy? Gary?”
My smile faded a little at that. “They will have each other. And a lifetime of memories. Because a life lived is a life worth remembering, no matter how long or short it may be. Myrin has forgotten that. The Great White has too. But I haven’t. I will live my life as best I can. I’m going to kick some villain ass, I’m going to fuck some shit up, and then I’m going to live, Randall. And no one, not you, not the Great White, not the gods, can say otherwise. I’m in control of my own destiny. My path may have been set in stone, but stone crumbles, and sometimes we have to forge our own way through.”
He watched me for a long time, stock-still, gaze searching. Eventually he sighed and shook his head. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“Oh, please. Like that’s ever going to change. Dude, you’re stuck with me now. We’re wizard bros.”
“We are not wizard bros.”
“Such wizard bros. Face it, Randall. I’m a wizard, you’re a wizard, and we’re bros. Therefore, wizard bros.”
“I despise everything about you.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
He glared at me. “What you’ve done shouldn’t even be possible.”
I shrugged. “Pretty much describes everything about me, though, right?”
The skin under his eye twitched.
“Now,” I said, clapping my hands, “as fun as this chat has been, I think it’s time for the cheese and butt sex, so I’m just gonna—”
“Open your pack and take out the Grimoires.”
“Godsdammit,” I muttered. But I did as he asked. The tomes were heavy and felt jittery against my hands, like they were radiating energy. My own felt familiar and light, the pages known to me. Myrin’s was dark and heavy, a rotten mystery whispering in my ears.
Morgan’s felt like comfort and home. It was his I’d avoided the most.
“If you want to defeat Myrin,” Randall said, “the answers lie within these pages.”
I frowned at him. “That sounded suspiciously like something Vadoma would say. Be more specific, please.”
He looked like he barely stopped himself from reaching out and slapping me upside the head. “What is a wizard’s Grimoire?”
“Their history,” I said promptly. “The story of their lives. Their triumphs and failures, their magic and their innermost thoughts. Even though you give me shit for putting my innermost thoughts in mine.”
“That’s because yours are done in sparkly pink pens and usually have to do with how firm Ryan Foxheart’s buttocks are.”
“Yeah,” I sighed dreamily. “Like, you can bounce stuff off of it. Trust me, I have.”
“Most other wizards have an emotional maturity that doesn’t allow them to write Mrs. Sam Foxheart in the margins.”
“I pity them immensely.”
“Be that as it may, if you hope to find the way to defeat Myrin, then here is where you must look. You have the magic, Sam. You have the dragons. Now it’s time to formulate a plan.”
“How do you know I don’t already have a plan?”
He stared at me.
“Right, right. It’s me we’re talking about. Sucks, dude.”
“You should start with Morgan’s. He would… I told you he knew. That day.”
I nodded, swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat.
Randall averted his gaze, suddenly looking very tired. “I think, in the end, he knew what was coming. What he was doing. What was going to happen. And I know you blame yourself, Sam. For what happened. But your guilt is unfounded. Or at the very least, misplaced. Morgan of Shadows chose you because he loved you more than anyone or anything else in this world.”
My eyes were stinging and wet. There was nothing I could do to stop it.
Randall’s hands shook. “I know that if called upon, he would do it again. And again. And again, because more than anything, he believed in you. He believed that good would always conquer evil, that the light would always burn away the shadows. He made a choice that day, Sam. He chose you. And I think he always would.”
I hung my head. Tears dripped onto his Grimoire in my lap.
“Turn to page five hundred and twenty-seven in Morgan’s Grimoire, if you please. Read what is written, and then join me outside. It’s time we reunite a unicorn with his horn. Gods only know how that’s going to go.”
He lifted himself from his chair, knees popping as he grumbled about being far too old for this shit. There was a brief moment as he passed me by when he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
And then he was gone.
The house was quiet around me.
The fire was nothing but charred wood and tendrils of smoke.
I—
“—THINK IT’S time for me to return,” I said as the Great White loomed above me. The others were there but not there at the same time, lost in the haze, the colors of the forest bleeding around me like wet paint. I felt them, their little pinpricks of light, bright and strong. The bonds between us had grown from the first day I’d entered the forest, grief-stricken and blinded by tears. I carried them within me, each of them pulsing and reverberating within me.
“Do you?” GW asked. “Why?”
“Because I’m ready.”
“What is your plan for Myrin?”
I waved a hand dismissively at him. “I’ll figure it out on the way. I’m good at making shit up on the fly. You know how it is.”
“You’re not ready.”
“You said that to me before. And yet here I am, all magically juiced up with five different dragons floating around in my head. I’m pretty sure I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
He rumbled his displeasure. “You know the risks.”
“Yeah. You’ve drilled them into my head a billion times. Death, destruction, the end of the world. It kind of loses its urgency when you’re always doom and gloom. Are you what Zero is going to grow up to be like? Are you a grown-up emo dragon? Do you write sad poems in your diary—”
“You think you have me fooled, child. But you don’t.”
I forced a neutral expression onto my face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He lowered his head until we were eye level. Or rather, as eye level as a puny human standing (floating?) in front of a gigantic dragon could be. “You do not take my warning seriously.”
“Uh, yeah. I do. All six thousand of them. But just for the sake of expediting this conversation, which warning specifically?”
“That you are still capable of corruption.”
I winced. “Oh. Right. That one. Look, dude. I know you’re worried that I’m so young and that Myrin will be able to play me like a fiddle and fuck with my head—”
“Sam.”
I looked away, not wanting him to see what I’d struggled to keep hidden from him. It sounded like he was on the fringes of it as it was.
“If you’re not careful, Myrin will use your magic against you and all the people of Verania. Either he will take it from you, or you will join him.”
“Doom and gloom, man.”
He scoffed. “Foolish human. You take nothing seriously.”
“Again, I can point out that I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You still believe in them. In him.”
And I was done with this. With him. “I’ve done a lot. I’ve accepted this thing, this destiny, with minimal complaint.”
He snorted.
“Okay, fine. With a normal amount of complaint, but I told you from the
beginning. You won’t take my cornerstone away from me. You’re so worried about Myrin twisting me into something Dark, well, that’s what Ryan is for. I know you don’t believe in the strength of cornerstones. There’s nothing I can do to change that. But I do believe in them, in him. No one, not you, and certainly not the gods, will convince me otherwise. They are my family. My home. I would do anything to protect them.”
“They will lead to your ruin. You will be blinded because of him.”
“I’m not Randall,” I said, because wasn’t that the crux of the matter? Wasn’t that what GW was trying to prove? “And Ryan isn’t Myrin. He’s going to be furious with me, and I’ll take it, but I know we’ll be okay. He loves me, and I love him. And if you or the gods don’t like that, you can go fuck yourselves right in your stupid faces.”
He reared back, teeth bared.
I rolled my eyes. “Not scary, dude. I’ve seen you poop. You can’t be intimidating when you poop small mountains.”
“I’ve decided to send you back.”
“Sweet molasses,” I said, eyes wide. “I didn’t think that’d actually work. Yes! I can convince anyone of anything. I am a master of manipula—I mean, great. Wonderful. Glad you came to that decision all on your own which I wholeheartedly approve of.”
“But you would do well to heed my warning. You are not safe, Sam of Dragons. You’re strong, and your heart is wild, but Myrin will know where to strike to hurt you the most. You must not lose your way, or I fear that all will be lost. And that must come from within. You cannot depend on anyone else to bring you back from the Dark. That is something you must do on your own.”
I grinned up at him. “I so got this. So, I can go? Like, legit?”
“Did you hear my—”
“Yes, I heard your warning, for fuck’s sake. Come on. Say it. Say it. Say—”
“You may go.”
I raised my hands above my head and crowed. “Hell yeah, dude! I’m going to fucking rock this shit. Just watch. I so got this. I so—”
“—GOT THIS,” I whispered to the empty house in Camp HaveHeart. I traced my fingers over Morgan’s Grimoire, my own and Myrin’s set to the side.
I wasn’t going to turn Dark.
I wasn’t.
I wasn’t.
I wondered if Myrin had thought the same.
And if Randall had too.
I opened the Grimoire, flipping the thick pages, seeing the familiar scrawl flashing before my eyes. There was a bittersweet ache in my heart at the sight of it, and I wanted to slow down, to peruse each and every page. But there wasn’t time. Randall was waiting for me, and I needed to finally see my best friend get his horn back. He’d earned it.
So I turned to page five hundred and twenty-seven.
It was toward the back of the book, right before the section of really dark shit that most wizards had listed. The back of the Grimoire was always dedicated to the things no wizard should ever do. Even the good ones—the best—sometimes had dark thoughts, the difference being that they were written down and never acted upon. I didn’t think I was ready to see what Morgan had written in the back of his Grimoire and was thankful that Randall hadn’t directed me to it.
Instead, on page five hundred and twenty-seven was a page addressed to me, looking as if it’d been written in haste, the words slanting so much so that it seemed they’d fall over with the smallest of breaths. I traced my written name with a finger, hearing Morgan in my head, telling me that I had magic in me and that he wanted to take me away to the castle.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, Morgan.”
Sam—
If you’re reading this, I have passed beyond the veil.
“Drama queen,” I muttered, voice broken.
And no, I’m not being dramatic. The only time an apprentice should read his mentor’s Grimoire is if the mentor has left this world for the next. If you are reading this and I am still alive, know that your punishment will be swift. I’m aware of a curse that will cause impotency and erectile dysfunction, and given that you are in the prime of your life and “getting laid on the reg,” as you insist upon telling me daily, I believe this will be an appropriate punishment. So, beware.
But if I am gone, then… well. Know this: I have lived a good life. A long life. A life made whole because of you. If I must stand before the gods and point to the single thing I’m most proud of, the one thing I believe shows the summation of my worth, it would be you. You are my heart, Sam. And my soul.
I know part of you is still angry with me for keeping from you what I did. And you are justified in your anger. I wish I had done things differently in that regard. All I ever wanted was to keep you safe and happy, to nurture that spark of life within you until it grew into a conflagration. I knew of you, Sam, but I didn’t know who you were until the day we met. The boy you were. The man you would become. I can say with no hesitation that you have exceeded my every expectation. You are warm and kind and impetuous and ridiculous and so bursting with life that I can barely take my eyes from you.
I fear… I think time is running out. As I write these words, a curl of dread is filling my head and heart. I know not of Myrin’s plans for you. I worry about letting you out of my sight. Why, even now, you’ve gone to visit a sickly girl with the Knight Commander, and though I know you can take care of yourself, I can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t have let you go. There’s something I can’t quite—
I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking things. Maybe I’m concerned for nothing. You are strong and brave and—
No. Something’s wrong. Something’s wr—
Sam. You must listen to me. If you’re reading this, then I have gone. Whatever happens, know that I’ve made my choice. I chose you because I love you.
If I could have you remember one thing, it would be this: a wizard isn’t as strong as the magic he uses. It’s the magic he doesn’t use that’s a measure of true strength.
Hold on.
I’m coming.
Gods, protect him from the Dark.
The world needs him.
I need him.
I—
AND THERE in the empty house, I bowed my head and cried.
Chapter 13: The Horn of the Unicorn
I JOINED Randall on the porch a short while later, blinking against the sunlight, the sounds of the bustling camp washing over me. I took in a deep breath of the crisp, clean air and scrubbed a hand over my face.
Randall was sitting on a wooden chair, watching the camp move around him, pack at his feet. “All right?”
I shrugged. “Did you read it? After he….”
“It wasn’t addressed to me.”
“He….” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I’m feeling right now.”
“I expect not. But I’ve learned sometimes it’s okay not to know. You’ll figure it out when you’re ready.”
“Ugh. Do I look puffy?”
He glanced at me. “Very much so. And your nose is running, and your eyes are red. You look terrible.”
“You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”
“You’ve tested my patience today. I do believe I’m allowed.”
“You’re just jealous because I’m a twenty-two-year-old wizard and you had nothing to do with it. Well, aside from the whole helping Morgan to guide me from a very young age, challenging me at every turn, beating my ego to a bloody pulp, encouraging me to follow my heart with my cornerstone, and saving my life a time or two. So. Suck it.”
Randall looked at me warily. “If you try and hug me, I promise you the consequences will be severe.”
I took that into consideration.
I found the threat to be viable and kept my hands to myself, even though they were itching to reach for him.
“Besides,” he said, picking his pack up from the porch, “I would think you’d want to see what’s going to happen next.”
He had a point. “Have you ever seen a unicorn reunited with their horn before?”
 
; “No. Gary’s the only one who I’ve ever known to have had their horn removed at all. There are… stories about others before him, but I can’t attest to their validity. Unicorns are rare, and the fact that they’re protected—or rather, they were protected—under Veranian law makes the offense of taking a horn unconscionable.”
“So what you’re saying is that we have no idea what’s going to happen.”
“Precisely.”
“Nothing could happen.”
“I suppose.”
“It might not even reattach itself.”
“There is that.”
“And if it did, he’ll just be the same as he was.”
“That too is a possibility.”
“Or the horn will reattach itself, there will be an explosion of rainbows and glitter, and then Gary will be so powerful that he’ll sing a song with a troupe of shirtless backup dancers choreographed immaculately before he turns on us and murders us all for hiding his horn from him under your magical mesh after you stole it back from a roving band of thieving nuns.”
Randall sighed. “I don’t know how it is that I get sucked into your shenanigans.”
“There’s no escape,” I told him solemnly. “Should we try and take this out of the camp so no one gets trampled and/or gets a ticket to Gore City after—oh. You’ve already opened your pack and uncovered the horn. Well. I honestly have no idea how this is going to go.”
The horn was… ethereal. It shimmered in Morgan’s hand as he pulled it from his pack, glitter filling the air around it and sprinkling onto the floor. Little rainbows shot from the tip, fractals of light that moved almost as if sentient, swirling with a purpose, bright and beautiful. I was hit then, right in the center of my chest, with a sense of purity, of a white light that felt warm and inviting and incapable of corruption. I’d never felt magic like it before, so untainted and clean. The fact that it belonged to Gary was almost unbelievable, given that he tended to shout my name while he while getting rimmed by a dragon.