That is why I was angry with him. Not just for me, but for my parents.
He loved me. I didn’t doubt that. Maybe, at the beginning, his actions had been motivated by what he’d been told, by what he’d seen I could do when I turned those boys to stone and back, but it’d grown organically, just like it should have.
He loved me.
“You may have made me angry, and I may not trust you as I once did, but I love you, Morgan. I pretty much always will. You’re my Brother Uncle Dad, remember?”
“You capitalized that, didn’t you.”
“Sure did. You couldn’t even take it back now if you wanted to.”
“Gods only know that I wouldn’t want that,” he said, dry as dust, and I felt this little pang in my chest, this little crack that I thought maybe came from the fact that my mentor was standing right in front of me for the first time in weeks and I wasn’t taking advantage.
Then he said, “Oh no, you have your hugging face on,” and I said, “You’re damn fucking right I do, you best be ready,” and he sighed, like he was put out by it, but there was a small smile on his face, as if he’d filled suddenly with relief and a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I stomped over to him, and even though the lightning wounds pulled sharply, I gave it all I had.
I thought of the bird that day so long ago in the Dark Woods, how I had wished it wasn’t so and then suddenly it wasn’t, wings flapping as it flew away, the earth black and dead beneath my feet.
Life is like this: it aches. It’s biting, and you ache from it. You are strong, because they tell you that you are. You are stronger than anything they’ve ever seen. You have to be. It is what is expected of you.
But it can ache, and it pulls on you like nothing ever has. You breathe through it because that’s the only thing you can do. You push against it, and maybe you stumble. Maybe you trip and fall. Maybe you skin your hands and knees, your hair hanging around your face as you struggle for breath, blood oozing from your wounds.
Or maybe it’s worse. Maybe you break your bones and bite clear through your lip. Maybe you can’t find the strength to pick yourself up again. It’s easier, you think, to just stay where you are. Because if you get up, if you push yourself on, there’s a chance the same thing will happen and you’ll be right here where you are, curled up and in agony. And maybe you’ll eventually get to the point where you won’t get up at all.
But then there is a hand extended to you, and it’s kind and warm, and the arm attached to the hand is strong. And maybe, if you trust it enough, it can pull you up. And if you’re lucky, the arm will go around your waist, and even though you ache, even though it’s biting and you ache from it, you’ll be held up and you can breathe again for the first time. It expands inside your chest, and the crystal clarity of it all aches too, but it’s a good ache. Because sometimes hurt can be good too.
Life is like this: It’s biting, and you ache from it. But you are strong.
That’s what Morgan taught me.
I felt my magic curl with his, and I thought home. Maybe we wouldn’t be exactly like we were. A lot had happened, and I was still so angry with him. But one day, maybe things could be good again.
EVENTUALLY MORGAN shoved me away (“Come on! We’ve only been hugging for six minutes. We should just go for the record since we’re already here!”), telling me that we’d tarried long enough and that people were waiting for us. Since I was floating on a high of being next to my mentor again, I had no problem with agreeing to everything he said.
Any smile I might have had faded slightly when I opened the door and found Ryan standing outside, apparently trapped in a stare-off with Moishe.
“So awkward,” I breathed.
Ryan’s glare softened when he saw me, and it took all I had not to jump him right then and there, given that his hair was still a little wet and he wore a leather vest with no shirt on underneath, displaying miles and miles of chest hair and muscles. The trousers he wore hung obscenely low, and he was barefoot, toes digging into the plush carpet.
And since I loved him so, I said, “You’re dressed like you work here, and I would pay so much gold for you, you don’t even know.”
“I kind of got that idea when your tongue started hanging out of your mouth,” he said dryly, all while trying to act like he wasn’t flexing. “Apparently Mama picked out clothing for me herself.”
“I don’t know whether to thank her or set her wigs on fire.”
“How disappointing to learn that even Mama’s tastes aren’t infallible,” Moishe said.
Ryan resumed glaring at him.
“Have you guys been standing here like this the whole time?” I asked as Morgan closed the door behind me.
“I was just waiting for you when I came out of the room,” Ryan said. “I told him he could leave.”
“And as I explain
ed to the Knight Commander,” Moishe said, “I am to escort you to Mama’s office per her request. I do whatever she asks me to.”
“I know where her office is,” I reminded him, but knew things were done differently here.