“Sam.” Only he could say my name with so much exasperation and fondness all at the same time. It was really quite remarkable.
“I might have written an ode to his penis in iambic pentameter that goes on for forty-seven stanzas,” I admitted. “I feel better now that I’ve said that out loud.”
“Of course you did.” Morgan sighed.
“Did you know that penis doesn’t rhyme with as many things as one might think? That was a lesson I learned far too late.”
“Oddly enough, I don’t spend time trying to rhyme words with penis.”
“Wow,” I said. “You put a lot of disdain in such a short sentence. I wish I could do that.”
“It comes with recent experience,” he said dryly.
“I’ll get there, I’m sure.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
“Did you hear that one part, though? About the secrets? It might have been easy to miss. I can read it again if you’d like.”
He leveled me with a flat look. “How could I miss it? You are many, many things, Sam, but subtle is not one of them. I don’t know if you even have a passing familiarity with the concept.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” I decided. “Because I have a fragile sense of self and must do such things to protect my ego.”
He snorted before scrubbing his hands over his face. “I tell you things when you need to know them. Anything more will distract you from what’s truly important. Sam, I need to know that you’re taking this seriously. That everything we’re working toward is something you can face head-on without disruption.”
That might have stung more than I thought it would. “I do my best,” I said, trying to not sound as small as I felt.
He sighed and sat up in his chair. His long black beard trailed in his lap and hung over his knees. He wore magenta robes today, with periwinkle clogs sticking out underneath. I had asked him once if he was color blind. He told me he was old enough that he could wear whatever he wanted. And when someone had been alive for nearly three centuries, it’s hard to try and find any argument against that.
But what I noticed even more than his eccentric clothing was how tired he looked. He had shadows like bruises under his eyes, and his shoulders were slightly slumped. His beard was shaggier than normal, and his hair was sticking up every which way, like he’d been running his fingers through it.
I glanced around the lab, trying to see any evidence of what he might be up to in my absence, but everything seemed to be in its place. The only thing unkempt was Morgan himself, and that was only noticeable if you knew him as well as I did. I wondered if he—
“I know you do,” he said. “Your tenacity in all things has never been found to be lacking. And I’m not trying to scold you. I know that all of… this can be overwhelming.”
“All of this,” I said slowly, tasting the words, trying to find meaning in the enigmatic.
“You’re a wizard, Sam. Possibly the most powerful one in an age. The fact that we haven’t yet even begun to scratch the surface of what you’re capable of would be overwhelming even for someone with far more experience. It’s not a detriment, but merely an observation.”
But I wasn’t overwhelmed. Disconcerted maybe. Slightly fearful, sure. But I wouldn’t let it become my sole focus. I’d been taught there was a ceiling to all magic, a point where it could go no further. Just because we hadn’t yet found that ceiling for me didn’t mean it didn’t exist. I just chose not to dwell on it. “I’m okay,” I told him, hoping that if this was what was bothering him, I could attempt to put his mind at ease. “Really. I’ve got you and Ryan and everyone else. I’m handling things all right.” Then a thought struck me. “Wait a minute. Did Randall say something? He did, didn’t he? Of course he did, that old bastard, I knew he had it in for me!”
After the debacle of the wedding and the deflowering of my body, Randall hadn’t stuck around very long. “Castle Lockes is too loud, and people here smell bad,” he’d said, glaring at anyone that tried to come within ten feet of him. “And absolutely nothing is made of ice! How can you people exist like this?”
He was gone a day later, either by foot or horseback or some ancient magic that I would probably never understand. Morgan had said he’d gone back to Castle Freeze Your Ass Off (“It’s Castle Freesias, Sam. I’ve told you that a thousand times.”) in the snowy lands of the North, but I had spent weeks following his supposed departure jumping at shadows, sure that this was just another test and that Randall was watching me from everywhere, waiting for any sign of weakness to turn some part of me into a gigantic dick as revenge.
I still didn’t necessarily believe that wasn’t the case. For all I knew, Morgan was scheming along with Randall to enact some revenge for something I deserved. The sting of possible betrayal was bitter indeed.
Morgan sighed. “Randall doesn’t have it out for you.”
“That’s what you think. You don’t see the way he stares at me sometimes.”
“I’ll bite,” he said. “How does he stare at you?”
“Like I’m an idiot.”
“Sam. You are an idiot.”
“Oh. Things suddenly make much more sense right now.”
“Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
“Eye-opening to say the least. I might have to course correct a few things in my life. Or just keep them as they are to see how much shit I can get into.”
Morgan folded his hands in his lap. “Randall’s just… concerned.”
That didn’t sound good. “About?”
“You,” Morgan said. He hesitated for a moment, like he was trying to pick and choose his words. That didn’t sit right with me. “The last year has been a whirlwind for you.”
“But everything turned out all right,” I said. “Right? We rescued Justin, Kevin followed us home and can only talk when I’m near, and has somehow formed a weird psychosexual bond with Gary, and now, for reasons we don’t quite understand, they think they’re my pseudoparents. I found my cornerstone, and he loves me just as much as I love him. Justin is on his way to tolerating my existence, even though we’re already total BFFs. We may have a viable lead to track down Gary’s horn for the first time in years. What’s there to be concerned about?”
“Whirlwind,” he said again. “Things have changed greatly for you.”
Which, okay. Fair point. “But it’s all been for the better…?”
“Is that a question?”
“Yes. Wait. No. Things are better.” And they were. I couldn’t remember a time that I’d been happier. I’d found what I was looking for, what I’d been waiting for. This wasn’t an end. This was only the beginning. “Where is this coming from?”