He watched me, momentarily ignoring the Grimoire in his lap. Then, “I am sorry.”
And that… well. That had never happened before. I didn’t think I’d ever heard Randall apologize for anything before. “Okay?” I said, seriously freaked the fuck out. I thought it possible the world was about to end.
He rolled his eyes, clearly picking up on what was going through my head. “About tricking you with the mirage.”
“Oh,” I said. “Um. Okay. Dude, I’ll be honest. That was a fucking shitty thing to do.”
“I wanted—”
“I know what you wanted,” I said. “But still, not cool.”
“Not cool,” he agreed. “Definitely not cool.”
I winced. “Maybe don’t talk like that. You’re old. You shouldn’t speak the language of youth, especially since it’s been literally centuries since you were my age.”
“I am old,” he said irritably. “But I do believe that gives me the right to do whatever the hell I want.”
“Great,” I said with a sigh. “I’m having so much fun already. I regret nothing about this morning so far.”
“Where should I begin?” he asked, caressing the cover of my Grimoire.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous again. “Um. Here. Let me, uh—” And I leaned forward, flipping the Grimoire open on his lap, riffling through the pages, reading them upside down until I found the one I wanted. My hands were shaking, and I had to force myself to calm down when I sat back in my seat.
“There,” I said quietly. “There’s where you start.”
“All right. I will ask for absolute silence. I find that words upon a page tend to speak more than anything from a mouth. No need to clarify unless I ask. Understood?”
I nodded.
He waited a beat before lowering his eyes, beginning to read.
I knew the first words he’d see.
I sank down in the chair and began to wait.
I—
—CUPPED MY hands together, hiding the little bird away.
I didn’t think of anything else.
No wishes upon the stars.
No ancient words in the tongue of those that came before me.
And there was this pulse, and I thought maybe I cracked, just a little, the pieces jagged and sharp. There was green and gold, the colors of the forest around me. It was almost effortless, really, more so than magic had ever been before. It started in my heart; I knew that for a fact. It felt lightning-struck, the beat erratic and heavy.
The colors whirled around me, a spinning corona of light that pooled between my cupped hands, so bright I almost had to look away. It began to cascade downward, like a waterfall, the drops of light spreading along the ground, pulsating slowly. The forest disappeared around me. The sky above darkened. Everything else faded away.
I thought, It isn’t fair.
And then something hooked itself into my head and heart and pulled.
The air sizzled around me.
The lights grew brighter and I had to—
There was a flutter of wings against my palm, the barest of touches.
I took in a great, gasping breath.
The magic around me began to weaken, the light and sounds of the Dark Woods returning as if they’d never been silenced at all.
And from my closed hands came the smallest of chirps.
I looked down as I lifted my fingers away.
The bird blinked slowly up at me.
Its feet opened and closed.
The crooked wing moved back into place even as I watched, the feathers scraping against my fingers.
It took a moment, maybe two, before it righted itself, the talons digging lightly into my skin. There was a little smear of blood across my palm. The bird hopped around, looked up and down, to the left and the right. As it turned its head, I saw the ruffled feathers on its neck, but the skin looked intact. It chirped again.
And then it flew away into the trees, lost amongst the branches and leaves.
I sat there for a long time, in those Dark Woods.
Eventually I decided to head for home. My heart was still heavy, but it no longer felt shattered in my chest. I could do this. I could be who everyone wanted me to be. I didn’t need the knight. He had the Prince, and I… well. One day I’d find someone made for me. And I would show them why I was made for them. It was going to be okay.
I put my hands in the grass to push myself up and—
I stopped, because the grass crunched under my fingers.
I looked down.
It was blackened. Burned.
All around me. In a large circle. And everything in that circle was charred. The ground. The shrubbery. The trees. Everything. It was as if I’d burned the life out of it. To… to give—
I stood, my legs shaking, breathing hitching. I took a step back. And another. And another. And then I turned and ran toward home.
I was seventeen years old when I brought a bird back to life.
I had taken life from the earth to do it.
And I never breathed a word of it to anyone.
UNTIL NOW.
Chapter 10: Randall’s Great Love
IT DIDN’T take him as long as I thought it would. I tried not to focus on how many times he turned the page so I wouldn’t be able to figure out specifically what he was reading in any given moment. I almost grabbed the damn thing out of his hands once or twice, intent on throwing it in the fire so he couldn’t read any more.
Because it was all there.
Everything I’d learned since this started. All my secrets.
And the bird.
My biggest secret of all.
It felt almost… wrong that it was him and not Morgan. Or Ryan. Or Gary and Tiggy. There were so many people who deserved to know everything more than Randall did.
Was that fair?
I didn’t know.
But somehow I stayed where I was.
Randall, for his part, kept a mostly blank look on his face the four hours it took for him to get through what I’d spent the past few days writing. Once, an eyebrow rose, and his mouth thinned a little somewhere around hour two, but I didn’t try to sneak a peek at what he was reading, absolutely sure that I didn’t want to know.
The fire kept up as it always had. I didn’t know if it was Randall’s magic or Castle Freesias that kept it going. Maybe I’d find out the answer one day.
Finally he closed my Grimoire, keeping it in his lap. He shut his eyes for a little while, and I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. Which, of course, I tried desperately not to feel disappointed by, seeing as how I’d just essentially bared everything and Randall’s response was to take a fucking nap? How dare he, that old asshole— “The bird,” he said.
I started choking.
He opened his eyes, glaring at me.
“Sorry,” I gasped. “Swallowed spit.”
“Must you always be awkward at everything you do?”
I nodded furiously. “Probably. It’s my gift. It’s also my curse. Sorry.”
He waited until I’d gained at least some semblance of control again before continuing. “Have you done anything similar since?”
“Bringing something back to life?”
“Yes,” he said.
I shook my head.
“And any time before.”
“No. That… that was it. The one time.”
“And the earth. The grass, the trees. The Dark Woods. That spot. Have you been back there since?”
I hesitated, considering lying about that. But I’d come this far already. Might as well go all-in. “Yes.”