“Brava!” Kevin cried. “Brava! A star is born! We are witnessing the beginning of a legend.”
Mom and Dad clapped. After a moment, Justin joined in, and I’d never seen such begrudging applause. It was quite the sight to behold.
I went to Tiggy and tapped him on the arm. He looked down at me and smiled, a fragile thing.
I reached up and squished his face. “I love you, dude. Like, so much. You don’t even know.”
He reached down and gave me a one-armed hug. “Tiggy knows.” He put his face in my hair and took a deep breath. “You don’t leave us again. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He held me tighter.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned, expecting it to be Ryan wanting to do sexy things to my entire body, but it turned out to be Justin.
“I know what you’re going to say,” I told him before he could speak. “We were a little rusty, but it was still amazing. Thank you for that. It’s truly wonderful of you to say.”
“I wasn’t going to say that, Sam.”
“Rude.”
He reached out and tugged on my beard. “This is real? How?”
I shoved his hand off me, because it actually hurt. “Shaping magic. I can modify the way I look.”
“Like a disguise?”
“Yeah.”
“Is this new? Because you’re a wizard?”
“Nah. I could do it before.”
He scowled at me. “Then why the hell haven’t you done it? You always wore fake beards!”
I shrugged and averted my gaze. “Uh. Morgan, he—well. He called it frivolous magic. He didn’t like it when I did stuff like that. Said it was a waste of time.”
Justin sighed. “I don’t—okay. Look. Maybe that was the case then. And maybe he might have been right. The gods only know what kind of trouble you would have gotten into had he allowed you to do whatever you wanted when you were younger.”
“So many noses would have been turned into dicks,” I agreed.
“Right. Because you were a perpetually horny teenager lusting after my boyfriend.”
“In secret. And look how it all turned out! It pays to be creepy sometimes, I guess. Who would have thunk?”
He rolled his eyes. “How far can this go?”
“What? The modifications?”
He nodded, eyeing me curiously.
“Pretty far,” I said slowly, not sure where he was going with this. “Eye color. Facial hair. Beer guts. But reconfiguring someone can hurt. It’s not just the magic. You’re shifting the way they look.”
“But it’ll be enough,” he muttered, reaching up to pull on the beard again. “We can—”
“Sam,” Gary said, pushing a squawking Justin out of the way. “I have notes on your performance.”
“Oh boy.”
“Yes. Oh boy. Your delivery was wooden. Your voice was pitchy in the musical numbers. You interrupted my soliloquy. I mean, do you even understand the fine art of acting? I know you’re a forest person now, but my word. What is wrong with you?”
“I did the best I could!”
“An elderly man missing his arms and legs and voice box would have been more believable than you!”
“Well maybe if you’d given me advance notice, I would have been able to prepare better!”
“We literally just got back to Camp HaveHeart,” he snapped at me.
I frowned. “Really? It’s still the same day? Huh. Wow. So many things have happened, it feels like it’s been a week.” I gasped. “That means my eyebrows still haven’t been plucked! How dare you let me perform like—oh. Wait. Right. Shaping magic.” I waved my hand in front of my face and plucked a few. “Ow. Ow! Fuck, women who do this regularly are the true heroes, what the hell. Okay. Better?”
“Hmmm,” Gary said, leaning close and inspecting each eyebrow individually. “If you like looking perpetually surprised, then yes. That’s better. You look like you just walked into a party you didn’t know was being thrown for you.”
I shoved his face away.
Justin was still staring at me.
“What?” I snapped at him.
“Plotting,” he said mysteriously.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“For you? Probably not.”
“Great,” I sighed.
“I need to talk to Sam,” Ryan said gruffly, coming to stand next to me. He gripped my elbow like he was getting ready to pull me away. I knew that look on his face, and I grinned because I was about to get licked.
“Absolutely not,” Justin said, pulling me back toward the table. “I know what you’re going to do. You put your godsdamn dick away. I need him.”
“Ooh,” I said, waggling my surprise-brows back at Ryan. “Sounds like the Prince wants to fight you for me.”
Ryan began to pull out his sword.
Justin looked back at him and rolled his eyes. “Knock it off, Knight Commander. You can trust me when I say I can do far, far better than Sam.”
“That was mean,” I told him. “But I can’t wait for you to find love so I can see who is better than me. That guy must be so damn cool.” I frowned when I thought of something. “But just because you find him doesn’t mean you can’t be my best friend 5eva anymore. That’s for life. You promised.”
“I promised you nothing. You forced that upon me.”
“Same thing.”
The others followed us and stood around the table again. Justin pulled out the map of Castle Lockes, and then another, which showed the City of Lockes. Tina stood at his side, peering down at them, eyes darting from one to the other.
“First things first,” Justin said. “Gary, I’m sorry.”
We all looked up, surprised. Well. Everyone else looked surprised. If Gary was to be believed, I was still there.
“Um,” Gary said, flustered. “Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.”
“And what are we apologizing for?”
Justin sighed. “I can’t—for as long as I’ve known you, you haven’t had your horn. And to be honest, before this whole… thing with Myrin, I never gave it much thought. You were always just Sam’s sidekick who—”
“That was the wrong thing to say,” I mumbled.
“Sidekick,” Gary said, eyes narrowing. The air around him began to sparkle. “Who you callin’ sidekick, you little piece of—”
“The fact remains,” Justin said smoothly, “that I didn’t take what you’d gone through into consideration. I can’t imagine the pain you must have felt. And that was wrong of me. I’m sorry for that and ask that you one day consider forgiving me.”
The glitter disappeared as Gary blushed, looking down at the table and giggling. “Oh, you. As if I could ever stay mad at you.”
I glanced between the two of them. “What is even happening right now?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” Gary said like an asshole. “Just because the Prince of Verania wants to get up all in my bidness doesn’t mean you need to be jealous. You already have Justin’s castoff. What more could you possibly need?”
“Castoff?” Ryan exclaimed.
“Whoa,” Justin said, looking alarmed. “That’s not—”
“You trying to get yourself some ’corn?” Kevin asked, tongue flicking out dangerously. “You must got some big ol’ hairy balls trying to do that in front of his husband.”
“Ex-husband on a trial reconciliation,” Gary reminded him. “As far as I’m concerned, if a better deal came along, I wouldn’t say no.” He batted his eyes at Justin. “And it looks like one just did. Tell me, Justin. Just how rich are you? Not that it matters, of course. Except for how much it matters to me.”
“I have nothing,” Justin reminded him. “Because it’s all at the castle. Remember the escaping and the running and the hiding?”
“Riiiight,” Gary said. “Well, then. Justin, I’m sorry to say that we won’t work out. I ask that you respect my decision. Kevin! Good news, I’m considering you again!”
“Oh, happy day! Suck it, Justin!”
“You know what?” Justin said. “Doesn’t even matter. The point I was trying to make is that no one should ever have to suffer like you did.”
“That’s very kind of you, Prince,” Terry said. Such a kissass. “If only others felt the same way. There are people out there who don’t care. They try and take what isn’t theirs because they get all crazed with power.”
“I didn’t trust humans,” Kevin said quietly. “Not after what they’d done to me. Trying to take my hearts or my blood because of my magic.”
“People like Ruv,” I said bitterly.