A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania 4)

“It’s good to be back,” I sighed.

IT TOOK us three days to get to what remained of the Port.

During that time, I learned the following:

Brant and Katya were attempting to infiltrate a random Dark camp in order to gather intel. It turned out to be nothing but a mismanaged farm, but before they left, they’d been able to poison the well with a concoction given to them by Letnia of Meridian City, guaranteed to kill anything that came into contact with it. I was glad to know she was still kicking and terrifying.

Letnia was helping Mama and Moishe run the Resistance on the outskirts of Meridian City. Apparently they had taken over Old Clearing and were using it as a base for her army of whores and courtesans. The last they’d heard from Mama was two weeks before, when she’d said they didn’t have any operations planned in the near future, as they were running out of supplies.

Good King Anthony was being held in the dungeons of Castle Lockes, probably being forced to poop into a bucket. Spies inside Castle Lockes

said that he was being treated mostly well, given that he was intimidating and had a killer mustache. Apparently Myrin had no need for the King and mostly left him alone.

The Foxy Lady Brigade was apparently made up of the members of the Ryan Foxheart Fan Club Castle Lockes Chapter, and they were the deadliest assassins that the Resistance had. “Apparently you know all those people, don’t you, Mervin?” Katya asked me, and I considered going back to find Caleb and handing her over. I didn’t ask any questions about Lady Tina, because I refused to believe it.

Gary still hadn’t found his horn, which made him cranky as all hell, and he regularly threatened to “cut some bitches, because Gary is about to bring the pain.”

Tiggy had amassed an even larger broom collection for reasons no one understood.

No one knew where Randall was. Castle Freeze Your Ass Off was empty.

Pete was gone.

“What?” I whispered, stopping in the middle of the woods.

Kevin whimpered, wings drooping.

Brant sighed. “During a rescue. From one of the enslavement camps. He went back for some people we had to leave behind and… well. They got out. He didn’t. He saved them.”

“When?” I asked hoarsely.

“Four months ago,” Brant said. “It was a good death. A hero’s death.”

As if that made it any better.

ON THE night before we made it to Camp HaveHeart, I couldn’t sleep, so I volunteered for the first watch. We didn’t want to risk a fire, and the night air was cool to the point of being brisk. I had a thin blanket wrapped around my shoulders, and it hit me then that I was pretty godsdamn sick of being in the forest.

Brant and Katya were curled up next to each other, a single blanket spread over the both of them. They were apparently used to such conditions, like the soldiers that they were. Verania’s army typically didn’t allow anyone under the age of seventeen to enlist, but given the current circumstances, I wasn’t surprised that Katya was allowed in. It made me wonder how many other children were involved, and that made my stomach curdle.

The stars above were peeking through the heavy clouds, and I was sure I saw David’s Dragon twinkling mockingly at me. I glared up at it, daring the dragon to make any kind of appearance. He didn’t, of course. I hadn’t seen him since that day in Castle Freeze Your Ass Off when he told me that the Northern dragons were mated lesbians. Apparently I had done my part in the gods’ destiny and he hadn’t needed to offer further instruction like a jerk.

I sighed and pulled my pack toward me. It was heavy, but not because of many possessions. No, GW was under the impression that material things were not conducive to a wizard’s training. The fact that that decree had come from a dragon, a species known for hoarding anything and everything, was almost laughable. But unfortunately for me, he was serious and had only let me keep a few things.

We’d argued. Of course we had. I was me, and he was a bitch. He reminded me of Randall in that regard, a topic he refused to speak on. But there was one thing I wouldn’t budge on, one thing that I adamantly refused to discard. A small note, the paper worn and creased, with words that meant more to me than anything I owned written upon it.

To Mervin:

Don’t worry.

I’m a Sam Girl too.

Our secret?

Ryan Foxheart.

GW had said a cornerstone was a weakness. That it distracted from a wizard’s potential. Look at Randall and Myrin, he’d whispered in my ear. Look at what had become of them.

I told him Ryan was one of the reasons I’d come to him at all, and nothing could take that away from me.