“For science,” he repeated. “Tell me. What was the purpose of these experiments?”
“Uhh… friction. Yes. It was about force and friction.”
“Your hypothesis before you began?”
“That it… would… hurt?”
“And the results.”
“It… did?”
Randall sighed. “You’re terrible at this, you know that, right?”
“Very much aware,” I said.
He closed my Grimoire and rested his hand on the blank cover. I glanced over his shoulder to see his own on a bookshelf behind him, the binding made of a dark stone. Ever since I’d been given my blank Grimoire at the age of fifteen, I’d been told that one day, I’d need to bind it, and that the binding would come from the skin of a fallen enemy defeated in battle or a material hard-won in the face of adversity. Randall’s was made of basalt—hardened lava—taken from an erupting volcano, which I was sure counted as a material hard-won. There was another book next to it, the binding done in glittering green scales, and even though I knew who it’d probably belonged to, I couldn’t find the courage to open my mouth and ask.
“Do you know why I’ve brought you here?” he asked me, looking down at his gnarled hand on top of my Grimoire.
“You’re concerned,” I said slowly. “About me. And my magic.”
He nodded. “I am. More than you probably know.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you even care?”
“Is that so hard to believe? That I could care about you?”
“A little. We don’t… have that kind of relationship.”
“Only because I don’t indulge you as Morgan does.”
“Morgan is my friend.”
“Morgan shouldn’t be your friend. He should be your mentor.”
“He can be both.”
“He’s always had a soft spot for you. Ever since the beginning. It killed him to know you were in the slums. He kept an eye on you as best he could and even went so far as to almost disobey a direct order from me to leave you until you showed signs of a propensity toward magic.”
“I didn’t know that,” I admitted. “I thought—”
“I know what you thought. You thought Morgan didn’t care enough about you to save you from the slums, to give you and your parents the life that you wished for. Well. Now you know. Blame me. Not him.”
“Why?”
His hand flexed on the Grimoire. “Why did I leave you there?”
I nodded.
“Because I hoped that Vadoma was a liar. A charlatan. A false prophet. That she would be proven wrong and there would be no need to involve you in the ways of magic. It’s wondrous, Sam, but it’s also seductive. It can take parts of you and mold them until they’re unrecognizable. To be good, to be a good wizard, there are rules and laws that must be followed. Paths diverge, and it’s so easy to meander among them. To stray. To allow yourself to be pulled further and further away. It’s hard, Sam, to be good. It’s not so very hard to skirt along the edges of the dark. And to be consumed by it? Why, that just might be the easiest thing of all.”
“You didn’t think I was capable?” That stung more than I thought it would.
He huffed out a bitter laugh. “It’s not that I thought you weren’t. It’s that I didn’t want to have to find out one way or another. I was a selfish man, Sam, in that I wanted you to live a life where the worst thing for you would be to wonder where your next meal would come from. This life… it can take from you. Pieces that you weren’t aware could be taken. I’d seen what it’d done to one who I had mentored. What it’d done to myself.”
“Did you know? About the dark man in shadows. Who he was.”
“I don’t… no,” he said, not looking up at me. “I didn’t. I trusted what Morgan and I had done would have been enough. I trusted the families that had been entrusted with the keys to the seal. I convinced myself that at the very least, we were safe. From him.”
“But shouldn’t you have at least checked? I mean, what the hell, Randall.”
“The fallacy of an old man who thought his magic was enough.”
“Why keys at all?”
He sighed. “Because I didn’t trust myself to be in control of it. I had already shown what I was and wasn’t capable of by banishing him instead of killing him.”
“It…. I understand it. Why you did what you did. Mostly.”
His head snapped up, surprise on his face. “You do?”
I shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. “He was your cornerstone. I don’t know that I could have done any different had it been Ryan.”
He stared at me.
I looked away.
Then, after another few moments of silence, he said, “Which is yet another reason I’ve brought you here alone.”
Because of course there was something else. “Randall, please. I told you. You’re not my type.”
“That mouth of yours is going to get you in more trouble than you’re worth.”
“It gets me out of trouble more often than not,” I said with a rakish grin. “And Ryan doesn’t complain about it.”
“That you know of.”
“Hey!”
“The levels of magic you’ve exhibited are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You’ve come to depend upon your cornerstone and have shown spikes in your power when it comes to him. He cannot be your crutch, Sam. Or your weakness.”
“He’s neither.”
“If the choice came between saving Verania and saving Knight Commander Foxheart, what would you choose?”
And I hesitated.
Which he latched on to immediately. “That’s all the answer I need.”
“That’s not fair,” I said, scowling at him. “You can’t put me in that position.”
“I can’t? Are you going to say the same thing to Myrin? That he can’t put you in that position? Because he’s not going to care, Sam. About what you want. What you need.”
“I’m not you,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I can’t just shut everything off. I won’t. That’s not how I work.”
“With everything that has happened to you, this prophecy, Vadoma, the dragons, the people of Verania turning against you—”
“Okay, that last bit is completely the result of Lady Tina DeSilva. In case you didn’t know, she and I are mortal enemies, and I promise you with everything that I am that one day I will rend her flesh from her bones and spill her blood upon the earth—”
“With everything, Sam, it’s no wonder that you let your emotions get the better of you.”
I stopped my rant on the evils of teenage girls. Then, “Better that than having none at all.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. My hands were curling into fists, and my jaw felt tense. When he opened his eyes again, his expression was as bland as it always was. “You are governed by your youth. It’s not a bad thing, but you are headstrong in areas that you must not be.”
“You can’t expect me to change. Not like that. I won’t.”