“Just—” My eyes widened. “Holy shit.” I shoved Randall off me. “Suck me through your hole,” I demanded.
“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 boots, 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—”