A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania 4)

I gasped. “Did you just make a sex joke? About blowing Ryan?”

Justin groaned. “No. That wasn’t what I—”

“This is the greatest day of my life,” I said in awe. “I mean, aside from the whole breaking into the castle and seeing my mentor’s grave and being sad and stuff. That part was awful, but you just made a sex joke. Best. Day. Ever. I can’t wait to tell your dad. In fact, that’s going to be the first thing I say to him. Then I will hug him and probably compliment him on his mustache, because no matter what, he’s still a KILF, and that needs to be recognized.”

“Maybe we should just leave him in the dungeons,” Ryan said, giving me the evil eye.

Justin didn’t seem to like that idea, especially when he grabbed a torch off the wall and shoved it into Ryan’s hands before pushing him toward the stairs. “Less talk. More rescue.”

Ryan glared back at the both of us before he turned and started to descend.

Justin followed him.

I looked back only once, at the marker of Morgan of Shadows.

“I’ll be back,” I whispered to him. “I promise.”

Because he did love with his whole heart and was loved just as much in return.

THERE WERE spiders.

A shit-ton of them.

Ryan was the absolute worst at scaring spiders

away.

“One just landed on me!” I shrieked after we’d walked what felt like a thousand steps. “It’s crawling in my ear and is going to lay eggs—wait. Never mind. That was just the collar of my robe. My bad.”

Since I could barely see in front of me, I had to imagine their matching looks of disdain. Given that I was well versed in such expressions, it didn’t require much effort.

“Maybe keep your voice down?” Justin said through what sounded like gritted teeth.

“I was just practicing in case one did land on me,” I retorted. “Because my boyfriend isn’t doing a very good job. I’ve walked into, like, four spiderwebs. The gods only know how many dead bugs are in my hair right now. You know how I feel about dead bugs being in my hair.”

“Unfortunately I do,” Ryan said, the torch moving left and right ahead of me.

Justin wasn’t kidding when he said a ways. It felt like we descended for hours, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. The stairs were long and winding, appearing to move throughout the castle hidden behind the walls. I swore we came upon other doorways, but Justin didn’t let us stop to study them, saying that we had to keep moving before we ran out of time. I called him a buzzkill, and Ryan told him he couldn’t stab me, and we continued downward.

“What’s the plan for the Darks guarding the King?” I asked after another ten minutes of stairs. My thighs were screaming. I probably should have done more squats, but exercising was the worst. “You said there should only be a couple of them, right? Should I try to seduce these ones too? I’m really good at that, huh?”

“You’re not going to try and seduce them,” Ryan said, sounding grumpy as ever. “In fact, that’s not something you should do to anyone ever again.”

“Even to you?”

“Well, let’s not go that far—”

Justin sounded irritated when he said, “If there are only two of them, that means they’re outnumbered. They…”

I waited.

Nothing.

I decided to help. “They… don’t know how to finish their sentences?”

But Justin didn’t respond. Instead he was staring at yet another doorway covered in cobwebs and shadows, the flame from the torch flickering along the stone.

“Is this it?” Ryan asked quietly.