“Uh, pretty sure he does. I don’t blame him, either. You were there the first time I met him. You stood right there when I accidentally turned his nose into a penis. He couldn’t figure out how to reverse it for three days. And he was officiating a wedding the next day. He had to marry a bride and groom with a dick nose! He told me that one day he’d have his revenge. Oh gods. What have I done to you? Do you really hate me that bad? Did I disappoint you so badly that you want to subject me to the absolute worst thing you could possibly think of?”
Morgan was trying hard not to laugh, the bastard. “It could have happened to anyone,” he said. “Granted, it happened to you, which is not all that surprising.”
“I was fifteen,” I said with a scowl. “Of course I was thinking about dicks. You know what? No. I blame you. Puberty was an awful, awful time, and you made me do magic. This is all your fault.”
“Trust me,” he said. “I tell myself that every day.”
“Har, har. No. I’m not going. I’ll go live in the woods and become the scary story that parents tell their children about. Be careful, little Tommy. Old Man Sam lives in those woods. If you don’t eat your vegetables, he’ll come when you’re sleeping and steal your feet.”
“To be fair, it wasn’t the first thing you’d turned into a penis.”
“Ugh.”
“Like that turkey.”
“Shut up.”
“Or the King’s wine glass.”
“Do you remember the look on his face? I thought he’d literally shit himself.”
“Or the—”
“I get it,” I snapped. “I had dick on the brain.”
“I love our little talks.”
“You’re really going to make me go, aren’t you?”
“It’ll be good for you,” Morgan said kindly. “Give you some time to clear your head.”
“With the wizard of all wizards. Like, the head wizard.”
“Yes, Sam.”
I had to make sure. “I’m not ready. For the Trials.”
“I know. And that’s not what you’re going for. At least not yet. Hopefully, that’s still years away.”
Randall was the oldest wizard in existence, and I swear he was hanging on just so that he could one day have his revenge against me. Morgan said he was at least six hundred years old, that the amount of magic in him kept him from passing through the veil, but I knew otherwise. I was going to get there, he was going to turn me into a giant dick, and then he was going to die, cackling as he did so.
Granted, that would mean he wouldn’t be in charge of my Trials, the process from moving on from an apprentice to being a full wizard. The youngest wizard to pass the Trials had been forty-two. Morgan had done so when he was sixty-seven. I wanted to take the Trials by the time I hit thirty.
But between not having finished my Grimoire and a lack of a solidified cornerstone, that dream was slipping further and further away.
I sighed. “You told him, huh? Through your secret wizarding network that you still haven’t told me about.”
“It’s called a letter in the mail,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “It takes a month to get to Castle Freeze Your Ass Off.”
“I’m aware. And don’t call it that when you get there. It’s Castle Freesias. You know how Randall gets when you’re mouthy. You need to try and curb some of your more natural urges.”
“I’m aware. His jaw twitches whenever I speak.”
Morgan grinned. “That’s because you let the words fall out without rhyme or reason. He’s a bit more economical that way.”
“That’s code for he hates me.”