IT WAS quick. In the end, it was quick. She smiled. She closed her eyes. She breathed in and out, and in and out, and….
That was it.
The end.
I felt it the moment she crossed the veil.
When her heart stopped, when she sighed out that last breath.
I felt it.
Brutal. Savage.
Randall had warned me. How it could be.
It felt like I broke cleanly in two.
I cried, of course. How could I not? I loved her.
But.
I didn’t feel… dark.
I never felt shadows.
Nothing whispered in my head.
My magic is as it always was.
I’m grieving, yes. My body aches. I can still smell her scent upon the pillow, though it’s already started to fade.
But I haven’t turned toward darkness.
I think it’s because I did split in two.
And if that’s the case, then Randall broke into jagged pieces.
I knew the end was coming.
I had time. She held on for weeks.
Randall did too.
But he never got to say goodbye.
Gods help me, but we should have killed my brother.
We should have ended his life.
For his sake.
And for Randall’s.
MAGIC IS a curious thing, even after all this time. Why, just today, I made a flower bloom with nothing but a thought in my head.
It’s beautiful. It reminds me of her.
RANDALL TOLD me he’s leaving Castle Lockes.
“It’s time,” he said. “You will be the King’s Wizard.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me, Morgan. You’re ready.”
“But what about you?”
He smiled. “Retirement will look good on me until you find an apprentice of your own. Then we’ll give him hell and make him a great wizard.”
THEY ARE already calling him Good King Anthony of Verania.
He’s young, but his heart is pure.
He will do well.
SHE CAME to me.
From the desert.
Vadoma, and she spoke of a prophecy.
HIS NAME is Sam.
It’s a good name.
I don’t know if I’m ready to be a mentor. What if I mess up? What if he doesn’t listen to me? What if I turn him Dark?
I can’t do that to him.
Gods, I don’t know if I can do this.
IT HURTS. Leaving him in the slums. Randall says it’s necessary, that he needs to be allowed to be a child before we step in and change his life.
I don’t agree.
He needs to know what he’s capable of. What he’ll be. Who he’ll become.
Maybe if I just… I could just talk to him. To his parents. I could— No. Randall’s right. I need to wait.
I’VE BEEN summoned.
He’s presented.
There are boys made of stone in an alleyway.
How… wonderful.
HE TALKS. And talks. And talks.
Randall laughed at me when I told him as much. “You reap what you sow.”
“I’m worried.”
“About?”
“What if I don’t do right by him? Randall, we’re already withholding so much from him—”
“You’ll do fine. He couldn’t be in more capable hands. Trust yourself, Morgan. Your instincts have rarely led you astray.”
I SENT him into the Dark Woods to find something unexpected.
He’s only been gone for two hours, and yet I am fretting as if it’s been days.
I have to remind myself that it’s necessary.
He’ll be fine. I was when I had to do the same.
I wonder what he’ll bring back.
GARY AND Tiggy.
Into the wilds, and that’s who he brought back.
Truly unexpected.
Gods. How delightful he is.
Sam of Wilds, though.
It’s a good name.
THE HEART wants what it wants. But sometimes the heart cannot have what it wants. Maybe the Prince and the knight aren’t in love, but they are together. Sam respects that, even though I know it hurts him.
But still….
He thinks the knight doesn’t even know he exists, much less know his name.
If that’s true, then why does Ryan Foxheart never look away when Sam’s in the room?
I wonder….
HIS CORNERSTONE.
Ryan is Sam’s cornerstone.
Because of course he is.
Godsdammit.
HE IS loved.
Above all else, he is loved.
Granted, he spent three hours regaling me with a story that started with him losing his virginity “quite spectacularly, Morgan, like, I’m a man now,” and ended up being a diatribe on the way society views sex and sexuality. By the time he finished, I doubt even he knew what he was talking about.
But he’s smiling more than I’ve ever seen him before.
And that is thanks to Knight Delicious Face.
I can’t believe I wrote that.
Sam is happy.
I hope I never have to take that away from him.
Maybe Vadoma got it wrong.
VADOMA IS here.
Gods forgive me.
HE’S ANGRY.
So, so angry.
And I can’t blame him. For any of it.
We shouldn’t have kept this from him.
If only we’d—
HE’S LEAVING. For the desert.
And I know Vadoma’s shown him things he hasn’t shared with me.
I could see it plain as day on his face the moment he awoke in the field after she blew her powder into his face.
It scared him.
Sam, I’m so sorry.
I wish things were… different.
But you must remember: your heart is your greatest weapon.
MYRIN.
I swear on all that I have, if you touch one hair on Sam’s head, I will end you.
You won’t hurt him.
I won’t let you.
I will stop you. Somehow.
It never should have come to this, brother.
But now that it has, I will do what I must.
SAM—
If you’re reading this, I have passed beyond the veil….
FROM THE Grimoire of Randall of Dragons: Magic is everything.
I will take my time with it.
It cannot be rushed.
MY MENTOR will be the Great White.
This is… unexpected.
For one, we cannot understand each other.
I cannot speak Dragon.
He cannot speak in a human tongue.
Are we just supposed to growl at each other?
If so, we’ve got that down perfectly.
I HATE him so much.
THE GREAT White seems to believe I’m wasting my time. Every wizard knows that eventually, a cornerstone will come into being. The Great White doesn’t like the fact that I’m making room for such a person in my constructs.
I can’t deny he has a point. To depend upon one person to hinge my magic on seems to be a logical fallacy. So much could go wrong.
But even I can’t say I’m not seduced by the idea of such a person. Made for me, just as I’ve been made for them.
In the meantime, I met the most curious of triplets the other day, the Berlotti sisters, and all of them seemed to find me irresistible, if the next seventeen hours meant anything….
WHERE DOES magic come from? Is it in the air? Is it in my blood? Is it from my mind or the earth beneath my feet? It seems… confounding that such a thing could exist. And why me? Why are there so few of us who can do the things I can? Am I in tune with the world in the way others are not? No one in my family seems to be capable of the things I am, though they are all long gone now.
My life will be long. I’ve barely begun to scrape the surface.
If magic does come from the mind, is it as limitless as imagination?
What a terrifying thought.
THE GREAT White says I have no need of a cornerstone.
I believe him.
THE TRIALS.
They were nothing.
I am Randall of Dragons.
I MET another wizard.
He’s….
Arrogant.
Irritating.
He thinks he knows so much when he obviously knows very little.
I cannot stand the sight of him.
He smirks at me like he knows me.
It’s infuriating.
I don’t have time for people like him.
I have work to do.
HE SEEMS enchanted by me.
I wish for his death daily.
When will he leave?
BREAKTHROUGH TODAY.
I understand more than I ever have before.
I was staring down at an equation that I’ve been studying for years, the solution out of my grasp, when all of a sudden, it made sense. I don’t know how I never saw it before. It seems so simple now. If Myrin hadn’t bumped my elbow when he had, spilling the ink, I might have— Wait.
He’s not—
It can’t—
Oh no.
TWO WIZARDS? Together? Absolutely not!
Is what the Great White would say.
Cornerstones. They are useless.