Prologue: The Man with the Pointy Pink Shoes
ONCE UPON a time in the Kingdom of Verania, there was a kickass boy born in the slums of the City of Lockes. His parents were hardworking, and at times life could be difficult, but they were alive and had all their teeth. Which was very important.
That kickass boy was me, and when I was eleven years old, I turned a group of teenage douchebags to stone.
And then he came, with his black beard and epic pile of hair that stuck out all over the place, with his black robe and pointy pink shoes that were the greatest things I’d ever seen before in the history of ever.
“I like your shoes,” I told him, because it seemed important that he know.
“Thank you, little one. I made them out of the tears of a succubus and a lightning-struck tree stump I found under the Winter Moon. I like your face.”
No one had ever said anything like that to me before, and it made me feel warm and safe and happy. “Thank you, big one. My parents made it when they got married. I was a honeymoon baby, whatever that means.”
He laughed then, a small sound that I could listen to forever. Maybe it was a bit of a crush. Maybe it was my magic recognizing his, even though I couldn’t have known it at the time. Or maybe it was because I wanted him to be my friend, since I didn’t have many of those. Well, I didn’t have any of those, and I very much wanted this strange man with the pink shoes to be my friend.
And then—
“Lord?” I gasped. “You’re a lord?”
“I suppose I am,” he said, touching the stone tongue of the handsome asshole known as Nox.
I gaped at him. “You’re Morgan of Shadows!”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Oh, sweet mercy! Please don’t make my nipples explode!”
And even though I had started that rumor, I somehow found myself believing he could do just that. He didn’t, of course.
Instead, he asked a question that would change everything. “Did you do this? Turn these boys to stone?”
I had. I didn’t know it then, but I had.
And he’d known it too, though he’d acted like he didn’t.
And he’d known about me too.
But that would come much, much later.
For now, I was just a boy from the slums trying to think of ways to get one of the most powerful wizards in the known world to stay for just a little bit longer so he could see that I could be a good friend, if he wanted me to be.
“Turn them back,” he said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
So I said Malakasham and Flora Bora Slam and Abra Wham, because everyone knew that you had to say magic words until magic happened.
It wasn’t too far from the truth.
I was just using the wrong words.
But as it turned out, I would eventually not need to use words at all.
“Colors, Sam,” he said quietly. “Do you remember seeing any colors?”
There had been green, like trees and grass.
“You found it,” he said, sounding awed. “I can feel it. It’s so… expansive. How have you never…? Can you grab it?”
It turned out I could.
And it changed everything.
It was like thunder rolling in the alley, like a lightning crack. The walls around us shook, the ground rolled beneath my feet, and then the boys were flesh and blood and bone, and Nox was angry.
“—gonna fucking kick your ass, Sam!” he finished yelling before he squeaked, eyes widening as he saw everyone who now stood with me.
And then my mother threatened him, and I loved her so.
And then my father threatened him, because he was the greatest man who had ever lived.
And then Morgan threatened him, and I thought maybe I had made my very first friend.
The teenage douchebags fled under the threat to their very lives. Nox was last to leave, and right before he disappeared around the corner—neither of us realizing that our fates were already beginning to intertwine—he glanced back at me over his shoulder. His eyes found mine, and there was something there. But it was gone before I could make heads or tails of it, and so was he.
It didn’t matter then.
Because I was eleven.
And I could do magic.
“How old are you?” I demanded of Morgan.