To reject the dragons.
To reject the gods.
To reject my cornerstone.
To forsake all of them, to submerge myself in the Dark. Randall had done it once, and he’d come back from it. I could do that too.
It didn’t help when I turned on myself, when I placed the blame squarely on my own shoulders, accepting my part in everything. If I hadn’t turned those boys to stone in the alley that day so long ago, if I hadn’t moved to the castle with Morgan when he’d asked, if I’d asked the questions so glaringly obvious in retrospect about the secrets kept from me, if I’d listened to Randall and Morgan when they tried to bestow their wisdom upon me, if I’d trusted them more, if I’d asked questions of a page as he led us toward a dark house in the City of Lockes, if I’d fought harder when Myrin took Morgan in hand and consumed him.
If. If. If.
“Sam,” a voice said near my ear.
There was a pulse in my head. Followed by another. And another. And another.
One was red, two were blue, another white.
The last was black and shiny and warm, not void of light but taking all the light in.
“Sam,” Kevin said again. “We’re here. We’re all here.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Okay.”
I took a breath and let it out slow, remembering what I’d been taught. Remembering what it meant to be a wizard.
I am not ruled by my emotions. I am a wizard. I have strength and power, and I will not use them against those that don’t deserve it.
The green and gold, sharper than they’d ever been in my life, began to fade.
I looked back up.
The people around us were staring again. Most of them looked fearful.
My parents did not.
They only looked worried. Not about what I could do. But about me.
I smiled weakly at them. “Still a work in progress. My bad.” I raised my voice to the people of Camp HaveHeart. “My bad, everyone! I promise I won’t accidentally light all of you on fire for putting up posters that are completely untrue and hurt my feelings. I can’t promise I won’t light some of you on fire for that—oh my gods, it was a joke. Why are you all running away?”
“You’ve forgotten how to be human,” Kevin said, sounding amused as people screamed and scattered. “Got a little bit of dragon in you.”
“Wow. What a nice thing to say. Thank you.”
“Maybe you’d like a little bit more dragon in you.”
“You are the most terrible thing I’ve ever known.”
“I know, isn’t it wonderful?”
“Okay?” Mom asked.
“Okay,?
? I said, though I wondered how much of that was true.
Dad had moved to the bulletin board to rip down the poster and shred it to pieces. “See?” he said. “It’s that simple.”
I told myself I believed him.