The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

He smiled down at me. “Two hundred and forty-seven years old.”

“Woooow,” I breathed reverently. “Dude. I knew you were so old.”

“Our apologies, my lord,” Mom said in that tone of voice that meant I was in a pile of deep shit when we got home. “Sometimes he doesn’t think before he speaks.”

“Hey!” I said, offended. “I always think before I speak. It’s just that the words usually don’t come out like my brain thinks them.”

“The doctor said he was healthy,” Dad said to Morgan. “We should have gotten a

second opinion.”

And then Morgan did the darnedest thing for someone so revered. He hunkered down until we were eye level, robes piling around him.

Mom and Dad gasped.

Pete, my favorite guard, sighed dramatically behind us, as he was wont to do whenever I was around.

“Hi,” I said, fingers itching to reach out and tug his beard. I didn’t, only because Dad was drawing a finger pointedly across his throat like he knew exactly what I was thinking. I tried to remember my manners instead. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Morgan looked amused. “And you as well. I am happy that I can finally know your face.”

“It is a nice face,” I said. “I should know. I own it.” Then I frowned. “What do you mean finally—”

“I am going to expect great things from you,” he said.

“You are?”

“I am,” he said. “But I know you’ll be up to the challenge.”

“I can do a lot of things,” I told him, wanting to make sure he didn’t leave quite yet. “I can climb trees really good. And… um. Oh! I can read all by myself. Also, I can burp all the lyrics to ‘Dance Under the Starry Sky.’ Do you want to hear it? You might want to stand back, though. I had fish soup for lunch.”

“Maybe later,” Morgan said, barely grimacing at all. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for all of that soon enough.”

And I really liked the sound of that.

THE NEXT day there was a package delivered from the castle, addressed to MR. SAM HAVERSFORD. I was enthralled by it, seeing as how I’d never received a package from anyone.

“Are you going to open it?” Mom asked me after I’d stared at it for three hours.

“Don’t rush me,” I said, not looking up from it. “I’m relishing.”

“Relish away,” she said, ruffling my hair.

And I did just that for another twenty-seven minutes before I caved and tore into the package.

Inside was a pair of pointy pink shoes that fit me perfectly and a note with a tight scrawl across it.

See you soon.

—M

SOON MEANT three days later.

Dinner was finished, and Mom and Dad sat me down for lessons. It was a math night, which I hated more than anything else in the world. Math had been conceived with the sole purpose of vexing me terribly. I didn’t see why I would ever need to find the value of x on both sides of the equation or to multiply fractions. “I’m going to work with Dad in the lumber mill,” I grumbled. “Wood doesn’t need math.”

“And yet,” Joshua Haversford said, “complaining about it isn’t going to get you out of doing it. Funny how that works.”

“That’s not funny at all,” I pointed out.