I SPENT afternoons in the labs, poring over Grimoires and spell books, wincing at my sore muscles and trying not to show just how much they affected me. I thought Randall wasn’t feeling anything (which led me, briefly, to subscribe to the theory that he was actually a zombie and that I probably needed to chop off his head so he didn’t eat my brains) until I found out he iced his knees under the table. He glared at me as I laughed at him, and a heavy book from the shelf behind me flew out and hit me in the back of the head. I stopped laughing at him after that.
It wasn’t a crash course, per se, that he was trying to push me through. He wasn’t my mentor. That would always be Morgan. He was trying to teach me things I’d never thought of before, trying to expand my knowledge of how magic worked. There would have been a time that this would have occurred naturally, me transitioning from Morgan to him, but it would’ve been closer to the Trials where I’d attempt to move from an apprentice to a full-fledged wizard. I gave brief thought about asking him if that’s what we were doing, but I couldn’t get the words out. Maybe I was too scared to even think that I could be going that direction already. I had plans, yes. Plans to become the youngest wizard to ever pass the Trials. But I was twenty-one years old with dragons to collect and a villain who wanted to eat my magic.
I didn’t have time for anything else.
IT STARTED at the beginning of the fourth week.
Or maybe it’d been there all along. I couldn’t be sure.
When I’d first arrived at Castle Freesias, as we stood outside in the snow, I’d felt… something in the back of my mind. A whisper like a caress. Something tugging lightly. It wasn’t strong. I’d ignored it, because I was in a place of incredible magic. Things like that were expected. For all I knew, it could have been Randall, or the effects of having teleported a long distance.
But then it happened again in the middle of the night. I was tossing and turning, my brain too full of stupid thoughts for me to be able to close my eyes and sleep. It happened every now and then. Usually I had Ryan there to curl up around me. Before him, Tiggy and Gary.
Now I was all alone.
And apparently starting to sound like Zero.
“Ugh,” I said. “This is lame. Everything is lame.”
The firelight flickered across the icy walls and ceiling. I watched the shadows for a little while, trying to force all thoughts from my mind. Which, when one tries to clear one’s mind, inevitably, the mind is fuller than it has ever been before.
Clear your mind, I told myself.
Hey, my brain said. Remember that one time when you were sixteen and you tripped and fell in front of the Prince and all his friends and they laughed at you?
“Oh my gods,” I muttered aloud. “Whyyyyy would you do that?”
Suck my balls, my brain said.
I tried flipping over onto my other side, away from the fire. The shadows were thicker on the other side of the room. I closed my eyes, counting each breath I took. I relaxed, relaxed, relaxed, and two hundred sixty-seven, and two hundred sixty-eight— I opened my eyes.
I was wide-awake.
“I am so going to get my ass kicked tomorrow,” I said with a sigh. “It’s going to—”
Wizard
“—fucking…? What the hell?”
I sat up in the bed.
The room was empty. The shadows flickered.
“Randall?”
Silence.
Then—
We see you, wizard A chill went down my spine.
Soon, the whisper said, and then it was gone.
“Oh no,” I said.
I didn’t sleep that night.
“SO, FULL disclosure,” I said to Randall the next afternoon after he’d spent the morning kicking my ass. “Sometimes I hear dragons in my head.”
Randall had been scribbling in his own Grimoire, and the pen froze. For a moment he was statue-still, and then he laid the pen down, looked up at me with a furrowed brow, and said as flatly as possible, “What.”
“Inflection is a thing,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Sam.”
“Yes?”
“Say that again.”
“Inflection is a thing.”
He looked like he was going to reach out and pimp-slap me. “Sam of Wilds.”
I sighed. “Look, it’s no big deal. I hear dragons in my head. Big whoop. Who cares. Let’s talk about something else. Have you seen the way Ryan’s thighs look when he wears that—”
“I have no interest in Ryan’s thighs—”
“You don’t?” I asked incredulously. “How can you not? I petitioned the King to make them a national treasure!” I frowned. “He said no because he thought that maybe I didn’t quite understand what a national treasure was, which, okay, that was sort of true. But then I told him that he’d understand what I was talking about the moment he felt them hooked up over his shoulders. Have you ever seen the King run away from a conversation before? Because I have.”
Randall pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are a disgrace to the Kingdom of Verania.”
“Eh,” I said. “Some people still think I’m awesome, so it all evens out. But if you really feel that way, I’m sure Lady Tina DeSilva will be your new best friend. Or you can stay here and be my new best friend and we’ll do cool stuff together like baking holiday cookies and getting into pillow fights.”
“Everything about that sounds terrible.”
“That’s because you’re old and grumpy.”
“Sam.”
“Randall.”
He was grinding his teeth. I thought I should point out that probably wasn’t healthy but decided to keep my mouth shut. “You said you hear dragons. In your head.”
“I did,” I said. “Though I don’t know why you look so shocked. I’m the only one they can speak around, so why shouldn’t I hear them in my head?”
“That… unfortunately makes sense.”
“I hear that a lot.”
He frowned. “Did the same thing happen with Kevin?”
I thought back to that first day in the training fields where Justin had been acting like a douchebag and had challenged me with a sword. Hadn’t I felt something then? I thought I had. A ripple along my magic, something that I hadn’t ever felt before.
“Not… not like Zero,” I admitted. “But it was there. Kevin didn’t speak to me, but then he’s far younger than any of the other dragons in Verania. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. It’s become very apparent that I don’t know anything about dragons. Like, did you know they’re born from rocks?” I scrunched up my face. “Or something. I don’t remember what Kevin said because I was super tired.”
“But you heard Zero.”
“Yeah. The closer we got, the louder he became.”
“Can you hear him now?”
“No. I don’t… think so? But it’s like I can feel him, you know? He’s like this… little pulse of light. It’s warm. I know he’s safe.”
“And can you feel Kevin that way?”
“Ye-es?”
“And why do you bring this up now?”
“What? Oh! That. Right. So, I couldn’t sleep last night, and I was tossing and turning and I was just so tired—”
“You have ten more words to use.”
I stared at him in horror. “For the rest of my life?”
“That’s six. Four left.”
A challenge! “Heard dragons last night. Ha! I did it! Suck on that, Randall! Wait. Shit.”
“You heard them… last night?”
“I assume I can have more words now? Good. Yeah. I think so? They kind of… whispered to me. No big deal.”
“It’s no big deal?” he exclaimed.
“Are you just repeating everything I’m saying right now? Because that’s really annoying.”
“Sam, I need you to listen to me.”
“Sure, dude.”
“Don’t call me dude.”