He looked down at the ground. “Yeah, Sam. We’re friends.”
This made me happy, even if it felt bittersweet along its edges. “Good.”
He looked back up at me, and there was something akin to desperation in his eyes. “You just… you have to come back. Okay? You have to.”
I was shocked. “I will? Er. I will. I’m going to be the King’s Wizard, after all. To your husband.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. When will you leave?”
“Soon,” I said. “A week. Maybe a little more.”
He nodded tightly and turned to walk away. He made it a few steps before he stopped again. He looked up toward the stars above and I followed his gaze.
He said, “I wish—”
And I said, “Don’t.”
He turned back to look at me.
Everything hurt. “You can’t,” I managed to say. “You can’t say your wish out loud. Not when you look up at the stars. If you do, it won’t come true. And I can’t… I can’t allow that to happen to you.”
He watched me.
I watched him back.
Finally, he looked back up to the stars and closed his eyes, and I knew he was making his wish. I hoped that whatever it was, that it would one day come true.
When he was done, he opened his eyes and I couldn’t look away.
But that’s okay because neither could he.
And right then, I hated that we were friends.
It was easier to watch him leave when he didn’t know I existed.
CHAPTER 8
Turning Noses into Dicks and Other Stories
EIGHT DAYS later, Morgan said, “I’m sending you north.”
I paused from where I’d been scribbling in my Grimoire. “Oh?” was all I could think to say. Because this wasn’t just north. I knew he meant north. Which, to be perfectly honest, was intimidating as all fuck.
He must have seen that flicker of fear across my face because he shook his head. “No. Not for that. Not yet. You’re not ready, Sam.”
Thank the gods because he meant north.
The cold lands from where my father had come.
Where Morgan’s mentor resided in a castle made of ice.
Randall. The scariest motherfucker ever.
Morgan rolled his eyes. “He’s not that bad.” Like he could read my mind.
“Not that bad?” I wheezed. “He’s the one who decides who moves on from apprenticeship by conducting the Trials! He’s the one who can make or break my future. Oh, and there’s the little fact that he hates every fiber of my being.”
“He doesn’t hate you, Sam. I’ve told you that a thousand times.”