A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania #4)

“Was that your plan all along? To show me the details? The little bits and pieces?”

He smiled sadly. “We are wizards, Sam. We are capable of such great and terrible things. But we’re also human. We make mistakes. We hurt others. And sometimes, the worst in us comes out and we find ourselves mired in shadow.”

“Death is freeing. A cleansing.”

“Yes.”

“The shackles released.”

“Yes.”

“It’s going to be either him or me.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong,” Randall said. “Because it was never just you, Sam. You’ve never been alone. Not in this. Not ever. You’ve always had Ryan. And Gary. And Tiggy and Kevin. The King and the Prince. Your parents. Pete. Morgan. And me. So, no. It’s not either going to him or you. It’s going to be him or all of us.”

I took in a shaky breath. “I have a plan.”

His smile faded. “Whenever you’ve said those words, I always dreaded them because they usually meant something terrible was going to happen.”

“Rude. But fair.”

“Will it work?”

I grinned rakishly at him. “I’m Sam of Dragons.”

“That doesn’t inspire the confidence you seem to think it does. What is your plan?”

I looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’m going to betray you all.”





Chapter 17: The Betrayal


“THIS STUPIDEST thing we’ve ever done.”

I rolled my eyes. “So you’ve said, Tiggy. Repeatedly. For the last three hours. In those exact words. Over and over again.”

“Making sure you heard.”

“I heard you.”

“Still doing it?”

“Yes, Tiggy.”

“You’re stupid.”

“Hey!”

“He’s not wrong,” Gary said as we marched down the road, the flags atop Castle Lockes visibly flapping in the distance. “I mean, I’ve followed you through some pretty stupid stuff before.”

“You act like all we do is stupid stuff.”

“Do you remember that time you made wings out of parchment and sticks you found on the ground and were ready to jump off the back parapet before your mom found us and told you that if you moved another inch, you would be grounded for the rest of your natural life?”

“You were the one who told me to do it! And also, do you know how many times I’ve been grounded for the rest of my natural life? Seven times. No, wait. Eight times, because she did it again when I came back from my Dark Woods Dragon Adventure.”

“Or what about the time you chained yourself up in the middle of a field because you wanted me to come caress you with my mouth?” Kevin said. “We didn’t even know each other. That was pretty stupid. And also sexy.”

I scowled at him. “That was the truth-corn cult. I had nothing to do with that.”

“Or what about the time you took a visiting dignitary to one of the hole-in-the-wall bars in the slums so he could get the real City of Lockes experience?” Ryan asked.

“He had fun! Well, for the first few hours. The next seventeen days were hostage negotiations, but they were damn good negotiations. Those bandits ended up walking away with confused expressions and three hundred pounds of sea salt they never knew they wanted. And then they were arrested. Everything turned out fine!”

“This is stupidest thing we’ve done.”

“Tiggy!” I gasped. “Have you so little faith in me?”

Tiggy patted me on the head. “I believe in you.”

“Aww.”

“But you’re stupid.”

“Everything is going to be fine. As long as you all follow the extremely detailed points I laid out to the letter without any deviations, we shouldn’t die a horrible death after being tortured for weeks where our fingernails are pulled out one by one.”

“I don’t have fingernails,” Gary said. “So I should be just fine. I can handle a little torture.”

“You once screamed bloody murder when you got a splinter in your leg.”

“It hurt.”

“It turned out not to be a splinter at all but a piece of lint stuck in your hair.”

“I had to make sure you knew I needed help.”

“Whatever. Dimitri, you have faith in me, don’t you?”

The six-inch naked man with wings fluttered near my shoulders. “You broke up with me by running away.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. “Good help is so fucking hard to find these days.”

We were a motley crew, the six of us. A half-giant, a unicorn, a knight, a dragon, a fairy king, and a kickass wizard, all marching with our heads held high toward the City of Lockes with a firm belief in the plans set forth by said wizard, no matter how much bitching tried to provide evidence to the contrary.

I wore the best robes I could find on such short notice, a deep and flowing green inlaid with a gold design along the hem. Gary said it looked like a dress that I couldn’t even dream of pulling off, but he had done his mane up in a stylized bouffant for reasons even he couldn’t explain, so I didn’t think he had any room to talk.

Ryan was knighted out in full armor, something that he was probably regretting given how far we’d walked and how warm it was. But he refused to acknowledge his discomfort, because he was a man who did manly things. Like a douchebag.

Tiggy wore pants, even though he didn’t want to. We were all thankful.

Dimitri wore nothing. Because no one had tiny clothes.

“We’re going to be fine,” I said, more for everyone else than myself, given that I was absolutely forty-seven percent convinced that this was going to sort of work. “You’ll see. I mean, if you think about it, even if a few of my ideas have been less than stellar, we’re still alive for the moment, aren’t we?”

“Wow,” Ryan said. “Way to be inspiring.”

I scowled at him. “You’re sweating profusely because you’re wearing full armor like an asshole. Shut up.”

“We gonna die?” Tiggy asked Gary.

“Eh, probably. But you know what I always say. Die young, leave a good-looking corpse that people will probably want to have stuffed and positioned in a rather morbid art display inside one of those sterile-looking museums that people go to and pretend to understand exactly what the artist was trying to say because it makes them feel deep.”

“He does always say that,” Kevin said fondly. “I’m so happy we’re married again after having broken up, separated, soul-searched, had a trial reconciliation filled with a carnality that made even me blush, and then realized that Gary can do no better than the Beast from the East.”

Gary squinted up at him. “Dear, I think you got a couple of those words mixed up. Gary didn’t realize anything. You realized that your life was shallow and empty without me, and therefore begged me to give you the time of day again, and when I finally acquiesced, you cried and told me I am never allowed to leave you again because you were lonely without me and couldn’t imagine existing without me.”

“Ha ha,” Kevin chuckled awkwardly. “He’s so funny, right? Making stuff up like that.” He then lowered his voice as if he thought we couldn’t hear him, even though he was literally standing right next to us. “Would you stop saying that? We’re with our son and the boys. Don’t embarrass me in front of them. They won’t think I’m cool anymore, and then Sam won’t want to go out and toss the old pigskin around with me anymore and/or finally give in to the palpable chemistry that simmers between us.”

“It was a literal pigskin,” I told Ryan. “I don’t know where he got it from, but it was fresh. He tossed it at me, and I ran screaming because some of it got on me.”

“Did we ever figure out why he and Gary sometimes think they’re your parents?” Ryan asked. “Or is it one of those things we just accept as fact and don’t try to look too much into because it doesn’t quite make sense.”

“Like our lives,” Tiggy said.

“The half-giant is quite profound,” Dimitri said. “Maybe he could appreciate a man of my caliber. You there. Half-giant. How would you feel about being my queen?”

“I smash you,” Tiggy growled.

“Eep,” Dimitri said.

“This is totally going to work,” I decided.