“You don’t understand. There is acres of it. It goes on as far as I can see. And I can see very far.”
“Sam.”
“Morgan. Listen. I am giving you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here. You can be part of all of this.” I waved the crystal around to s
how him.
He sighed. “Sam, you realize I can’t actually see anything, right?”
“You have a very vivid imagination.”
“Do I?” he said, dry as I’d ever heard him.
“Business partners!” I said, not willing to be deterred. “Sure, it’ll take some time to build up the capital, and I’ll probably need you to invest in the startup. Maybe half. Okay. I lied. All of it. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any money. Well, I do, but you keep it in the banks and won’t let me touch it.”
“Because you want to make firework corn.”
“To be fair,” Gary said, “there is a lot of corn. And when it burns down the fields, it’ll probably go quickly. I don’t think anyone will suffer when they burn. Too much.”
“I will leave you in the Dark Woods,” I hissed at him.
“Sam, there will be no firework corn,” Morgan said. “I think it might be time that you let that one go.”
I glared at the crystal in my hands. “You know, Morgan, when you took me to the castle the first time, I wish you’d told me that your main job was to crush dreams.”
“Because you would have done what, exactly?”
“Given you more hugs because your soul is obviously black and withered.”
“Crisis averted,” he said, and with that, I was filled with such an ache. It’d been weeks since I’d seen Morgan. He was my mentor, but more than that, he was my friend. Our magic was entwined, and not for the first time, I wondered if he could be my cornerstone. I’d never asked him if wizards could do that for each other. He calmed me, but it didn’t necessarily settle my magic. But maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough.
Deep down, I knew, though. Deep down, I thought it might only be Ryan. Even if Morgan had told me that there could be others, in my secret heart, in the place that wished to the stars, there was only Ryan.
“Uh-oh,” Gary said.
“What?” Morgan asked.
“Sam is having an overabundance of feelings.”
“I get hugs,” Tiggy said. “Sam has feelings, Tiggy gets hugs.”
“What brought this on?” Morgan sighed.
“I miss your face,” I told the crystal. “I love you and you are my friend and I don’t think I tell you enough that we should be friends forever. Because we should. Five hundred years from now, we should still be talking about firework corn. I will never leave you. Ever.”
“Does he do this often?” Ryan whispered to Gary.
“Only when Morgan pretends that he doesn’t love Sam even though it’s obvious he thinks Sam is the greatest thing in the world,” Gary whispered back.
My eyes were wide. “You think I’m the greatest thing in the world?” I said into the crystal.
“Notice how that was Gary saying that,” Morgan said. “Not me.”
“I wish I was a bard so I could write a song for you,” I said, ignoring him completely. “It wouldn’t be like ‘Cheesy Dicks and Candlesticks.’”
Morgan coughed loudly. “I don’t even want to know.”
“I don’t think most of us do know,” Ryan said. “Or, at least, I don’t. Is it normal to be in a constant state of what the fuck with these three? I feel like that’s normal.”