“You’re welcome,” Mom said, kissing his cheek.
“I missed you guys,” I said hoarsely. “Just so you know. I thought of you every day. You were always with me.”
They both opened their arms for me.
And if I ran toward them, it was nobody’s business but our own.
I WALKED out the front door of the house, meaning to go check on Kevin and all his perversities, when I found Vadoma on the porch, sitting in a chair. Her teeth were clenched around an ornate wooden pipe, thick blue smoke curling up around her head like a heavy fog. I thought about ignoring her and continuing on my way, but of course, she wouldn’t let the moment pass her by.
“I was wrong.”
I sighed as I stopped. “So you said. Is that an apology?”
“I have nothing to apologize for.”
“Well, I don’t know if that’s true.”
“You need a haircut. You look like a sickly, mangy dog.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Some things change. It appears that others do not. You are different, yes, but you are still Sam.”
“Very astute of you. Now, if there’s nothing else, I need to—”
“My home is gone. My people have been taken from me.”
Godsdammit. “Mom and Dad told me.”
She frowned, sucking on her pipe before blowing out even more smoke. “I did not know about Ruv. He… bewitched me. Made me believe things I did not.”
“So I’m told.”
“I did not know.”
“Great. Glad we’ve had this talk. I really have to go check on—”
“You said you would end him. And me, if called for.”
“And I meant it.”
“Yet you’ve also said you’re not a killer. Which is it?”
“I don’t—”
“You won’t have a choice, I think. It will either be them or you. Him. The Darks. Ruv. Myrin. You have had others do your work for you. Your giant. Your dragon. Your… horse.”
“Hey! You watch your tongue. He’s a motherfucking unicorn made of sunshine and rainbows and good feelings—”
“Bah,” she said, waving her hand at me. “Filthy creatures. All of them. I have no need for horses. But the point remains. This is your destiny, Sam. You have shown mercy. It is a weakness and will one day be your undoing. He will not show you the same.”
She was right, but like hell would I ever admit it. “I’ll do what I need to.”
“I was wrong. About you.”
“Wow. A third time. Stop. Please. I don’t know if my ego can—”
“Stop.”
I did.
“I underestimated you. Your whole life. You were my grandson, but your father… diluted your blood.”
“Not the best thing to say right now, if I’m being honest.”
She ignored me. “I didn’t think you’d be as you were. Even when I came to Castle Lockes, I thought you weak and immature. You came to my home, and you somehow got the desert dragon on your side, and I still didn’t think you could do what the gods asked of you. You faced Myrin, and his marks were on your skin, and I told myself you were a child, incapable of doing anything seriously. Maybe it was the enchantment placed upon me, but I think not. I think that’s how I truly felt.”
“Wow, Grandma. Thanks for this. It’s so pleasant.”
“But then you left. And the others are angry at you for it. I do not envy you facing their wrath.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be a shit show, that’s for damn sure.”
“But I thought it brave.”
I blinked at her. “That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”
She rolled her eyes. “You made a choice few could have made. And while I believe part of it was running from those you’d left behind, I choose to believe you did what you did because you knew it was necessary. For you. For the people of Verania. And while they may not understand, you left to become more than you were.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “You love me.”
“I didn’t say that—”
“I mean, the feeling isn’t mutual or anything, because hey, I don’t even really know you aside from all the bad-touching, but damn. You think I’m stupendous.”
“I think you’re stupid,” she retorted.
“Word play. Nice. I approve.”
“You are still foolish, chava. No amount of time will cure you of that.”
“I’d like to think I’m a work in progress.”
“You have them?”
“What?”
“The dragons.”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
Vadoma nodded. “Good. You will need them. And you must not let him take you. If he should consume your magic, he will control them too. I think that’s what he wanted, in the end. Your magic, it radiates from you. But it will attract attention, as all power does. He will see you. And he will come for you.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Why now?”
“What?”
“Why have you returned now?”
“Because it was time.” Mostly. Partially. Okay, sure, GW wanted to wait a while longer, and yeah, that argument had been very loud, but I was tired of being in the forest, tired of seeing trees and grass and leaves and stupid dragon faces. I wanted to go home. I wanted a real bed, real food, real people that I was worried about. It was… hazy, almost dreamlike, my time in the Dark Woods with the Great White and the others. There were days that would go by in a flash, weeks passing without me acknowledging them, only for me to later realize in a slow, dawning horror that a month had gone by.
And then there would be days that would just crawl, my teeth grinding together as magic coursed through me, as GW loomed above us all, snarling and snapping his teeth as I made mistake after mistake after mistake. Days of me hunched over my Grimoire, hand aching as I wrote feverishly, scrawling page after page, mind expanding at the thought of all the types of magic there could be. It must have been the same for Randall, except that Myrin had pulled him away and distracted him. The Great White must have hated that, in the end.
“Foolish business, cornerstones,” he’d rumble from somewhere above me. “A wizard must learn to control his own magic and not put faith in the strength of others.”
Part of me wanted to believe him.
That was the part that saw Ryan, blood leaking from his chest, head slumped forward, skin pale, breath shallow.
That was the part made up of my nightmares.
“And how did you know it was time?” Vadoma asked.
“How did you know it was time to come to Castle Lockes when you did?”
“I just knew.”
“There you go.”
“I worry.”
Great. Just great. “About what?”
“The prophecy. About what I saw. What I showed you.”
“We don’t know how much of that was real. How much was you, or the gods, or Ruv playing all of us.”
She nodded slowly. “This is true. But Sam, I don’t know that it matters. You saw him as clear as day. Ryan, your cornerstone, the life taken from him, his body cold. He escaped death once, but I fear that won’t happen again. I know you think my magic false, that I am nothing but a street magician, but I promise you, that isn’t the case. I worry it may come to pass. That Ryan Foxheart will meet his end in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled.”
“But you were wrong,” I told her stiffly. “It wasn’t Ryan. It was Morgan. Morgan is who lay upon the stone. It was never supposed to be Ryan. It was a trick. A sleight of hand. Either by you. Or Ruv. Or the gods. But it doesn’t matter now. I don’t trust any of you.”
She blew out another plume of smoke. It hung heavy about her head. “Or maybe Morgan’s fate was hidden from me and what we saw has not yet come to pass. You cannot dismiss it, Sam. Or you run the risk of losing everything you love. The Knight will fall. Nothing you can do will stop it, if that’s what the gods demand.”
“Are you done?”
She chuckled bitterly. “I was wrong. About you.”
“You were.”
I left her there on the porch, smoking her pipe. And as I walked away, I could feel her gaze following every step I took.
KEVIN WAS groaning as he rolled around in Gary’s scarves.
I almost turned around and headed back to the Dark Woods.
Somehow, I was able to stop myself.
“Really?”
“I don’t judge anything weird you do,” he said, bringing up a scarf to his nostrils and inhaling deeply.
“Uh, yeah you do. You do it all the time.”
“Oh. Well. There you go.”