“You are the best half-giant I have ever known,” Mama told him, and even if she’d met no other or a hundred, I knew she meant it. She loved them as much as she seemed to love me.
Tiggy smiled shyly before he leaned down and kissed her cheek.
She looked back at me, and I did my best not to squirm. “Do you know Naag?”
I shook my head.
“Naag was a snake who could take human form. It’s said that she shifted between the two, a woman and a serpent, in order to preserve the poison she carried within her. She fed upon men, paralyzing them with her bite and then taking their blood and seed from them while they still lay awake.”
“She sounds amazing,” Gary said.
“She was a monstrous murderer,” Mama told him.
“Oh. Right. I meant, she sounds terrible.” He looked at Tiggy and shook his head, mouthing amazing as if none of us could see him.
“One day, Naag became pregnant,” Mama said. “And a thousand snakes began to grow inside her, all potentially capable of becoming just like their mother. Had the children been born, they would have poisoned and then consumed the world, slowly but surely. So it was decided that she had to be stopped. And in the end, her head was severed from her body and she died, as did her unborn children. But even though her heart had stopped, her head was still capable of biting, so it was burned.”
Mama sat back, looking pleased with herself.
I stared at her. “These were the stories you were told as a child?”
“Explains a lot, doesn’t it?”
“It really does. I don’t know whether to be horrified for you or awestruck. I think it’s a little of both. I mean, like, snake babies died and everything.”
“They did.”
“Can I be honest?”
“Aren’t you always?”
“Eh, I’m sure a couple of people here would disagree with that.”
Ryan coughed like an asshole.
“Okay, but, so. I don’t understand what that has to do with what we’re talking about.”
Mama sighed.
“It’s obvious, Sam,” Gary said. “You need to find Naag’s head and then use it to poison Myrin. Or something.”
“But is Naag even real?” Justin asked. “I mean, I always thought that was an allegory. Like, it was supposed to teach children a lesson.”
“I suppose there are truths to those stories,” Ryan said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “I mean, they have to come from somewhere, right?”
“Right,” I said. “So, we find a giant snake head and then… what. Bite Myrin with it?”
“My gods,” Mama said. “You are idiots.”
“It’s the youth of today,” the King assured her. “Always looking down at their parchments.”
“This isn’t news to us,” Randall said.
“Rude,” I said. “Also, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Not real snake head,” Tiggy said. “Symbolic.”
“Of what?” I asked, confused.
“Cut the head off. Body dies. Babies die.”
“Thanks, dude. I got that part. That still doesn’t explain where I’m going to find a gigantic head or—”
“Myrin is head,” Tiggy explained slowly.
Which explained nothing. “So we cut off his head and we use it to poison—ohhh. Wait. Guys! I have an idea! You know how Myrin’s in charge of the Darks, right? What if we defeated him? Then wouldn’t all the Darks just… die? Or stop, at the very least, because they wouldn’t have someone to stand behind. Like, think about it. It’s like that story Mama told us all that one time. You cut off the head and the body dies.”
“Wow,” Gary said. “That’s actually a really good idea for once. How the hell did you come up with that?”
“You know how it is, dude. You go into the woods with five dragons and get bad-touched for a year, and then you come back a wizard. I’ve got so many good ideas. Like, remember the firework corn? Okay, just stick with me here. What if we had firework zucchini. It would be the same thing as the corn, except it’s zucchini.”
I waited for rapturous applause.
There was none.
“Um, you guys can clap now. That’s why I paused.”
“His ideas are awful,” the King said, smiling fondly at me.
“Yes, Sam,” Mama said dryly. “It’s exactly like that story I told you one time. If our resources are spread as thin as you all say, then we don’t stand a chance of beating the Darks. The Resistance will be destroyed even before it steps foot outside Camp HaveHeart. But if we take on Myrin, if we defeat him, then the Darks won’t have anyone to lead them. And they’ll scatter like cockroaches in the light. Hopefully.”
“I know, right? I’m so glad I thought of it. Okay! So the plan is to defeat Myrin—wait. Wasn’t that the plan this whole time?”
“You should have taken him with you,” Randall said, staring up at the ceiling. I wondered who he was talking to.
“That’s where you come in,” Mama said, lips twitching. “You’re the one with the—”
“No, don’t you dare say it. Not you too!”
“—Destiny of Dragons, after all.”
“Ugh.”
“And you’ll have our support,” Letnia said. “Because what else do we have to lose?”
Well, our lives, for one, but no one liked a Negative Ned, so I kept that to myself. “There’s the optimism I’m looking for. Hurray. We’re saved.”
“We should have some assistance shortly,” Randall said. “But before our guests arrive, I will again suggest to Sam what I’ve already told him. You already have in your possession the key to everything.”
Everyone looked at me again, surprise on their faces.
I rolled my eyes. “He’s not talking about me, per se. He means the stupid Grimoires.”
Justin’s eyes widened. “You have Myrin’s Grimoire?”
“And Morgan’s,” Randall said. “And soon he’ll have mine.”
That… was unexpected. “You’re going to give me your Grimoire? But—”
“It would have been yours when I crossed the veil,” Randall said. “Might as well give it to you now. I don’t think it’ll hurt. Much.”
I was stunned. Randall’s Grimoire was legendary. A record of centuries of magic. The last time I’d asked to see it, he’d magicked me out a window and into a briar patch. It wasn’t my favorite memory of him. “Dude,” I said breathlessly. “Just… dude.”
“Did you break him?” Ryan asked, jostling me a little.
“Give him a few moments,” Randall said. “He’s processing.”
“Morgan told me once that wizards’ Grimoires were their legacy,” the King said to Randall. “That it was their magical past, present, and future.”
“Yes,” Randall said.
“Then is it wise to give all this power to one person?”
“Maybe not. But then there has never been a wizard quite like Sam before. And we have no other choice. Time is running out, Anthony. Myrin won’t allow Camp HaveHeart to exist much longer. We’ve defied him for too long. And now that Sam has returned and we’re all in one place, he’ll—Sam is his antithesis. His counterpoint. He doesn’t see it in terms of good and evil. The gods will have given him the same tools they’ve given Sam. We forget, I think, that Myrin also has a destiny. It remains to be seen whose will come to fruition.”
“Why does this sound a little too close to a suicide mission?” Mama asked, and for the first time since I’d known her, she actually sounded scared.
I grinned rakishly at her. “Dude. No worries. I’m Sam of Dragons. What’s the worst that could happen?”
RYAN DIDN’T speak as he pulled me from the barn, his jaw tense, his grip firm. I stumbled a little but caught myself before I fell to the ground. “Hey, man, where’s the fire? Slow down. I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, yeah, I know what the worst thing that could possibly happen is, what with being consumed and all and Verania being completely taken over by a madman, but still—okay, yeah, shutting up. Gods, that glare was impressive. Have I ever told you congratulations on your face? Because congratulations on your face.”
We were up the porch stairs and inside of his and Justin’s house, the door slamming shut behind us, before I could open my mouth again. Ryan dropped my hand and leaned against the door, eyes closed, head rocking back and hitting the wood in a steady beat.
I waited, because shit had gotten real and Ryan was pissed.
The minutes ticked by.
Then, “You just don’t get it, do you?”