“BITCH,” GARY said, “you done fucked up.”
I glared at him.
He stared passively back at me like he had all the time in the world.
I turned to Tiggy.
“Bitch,” Tiggy said, “fucked up. So fucked up.”
I glared at him too, for good measure.
He sneezed, then grinned at me.
I threw my hands up. “Fine! Okay! Fine! I know I did. I know I fucked up. I should have told all of you about everything. I shouldn’t have kept it a secret. I shouldn’t have lied about knowing less than I did. I should have been up-front about everything. Is that better? Do you feel better now? Good! Great! Wonderful.”
I stood in the doorway to the room Tiggy and Gary would be sharing. (“Of course I’m not going to be staying with Kevin. We are in a trial reconciliation, which means that dragon needs to work for his muffin, if you know what I mean. I ain’t gonna be handing out my goods for free, if you get what I’m saying. He’s not gonna put his finger in my pie, if you catch my drift. There’s no way he’s going to get my cream-filled pastry all over his face, if you can dig it. He’s not going to….” It went on for another six minutes.
Tiggy was braiding Gary’s mane, his thick fingers surprisingly nimble and delicate as he worked. Gary was lying on a pile of blankets in front of the fireplace like the princess he was, eating a bowl full of peeled grapes and drinking out of a large glass what I assumed to be some kind of wine.
“I am sure there are other things both of you could be doing that would benefit the quest more than what you’re doing right now,” I said, scowling at the both of them.
“Hmm,” Gary said, tongue snaking out and scooping up another grape. “No.”
“Those are my grapes,” I pointed out. “I was the one who peeled them.”
“Hmm,” Gary said, taking another drink of his wine, then smacking his lips. “No.”
“You’re so fucking aggravating!”
“Tiggy dear,” Gary said. “Sam is stressing me. This is supposed to be my quiet time.”
“Shh, Sam,” Tiggy said. “Shhhhh.”
“You shh,” I snapped.
“Oh my,” Gary said. “How positively droll. Tiggy, my love. A question, if I may.”
“You may,” Tiggy said. Then his tongue poked out between his teeth as he frowned in concentration when he reached a tricky part in the braid.
“Say you have a best friend,” he said as he slurped up another grape. He chewed obnoxiously before continuing. “And say said best friend is a wizard’s apprentice.”
“I like stories,” Tiggy said.
“Oh, don’t we all! Hypothetical stories are my favorite kind. Anyway. Say said best friend is a wizard’s apprentice that happens to have a destiny.”
Tiggy paused his movements. “This sound familiar.”
“Oh? Well. You know what they say. Nothing new under the sun. Now let us say that said best friend is a wizard’s apprentice that happens to have a destiny and who also apparently has a knack for keeping secrets.”
“Ooh,” Tiggy said. “I get it now.” He looked over at me where I stood fuming in the doorway, wondering if I could get away with murdering the both of them. The blood would probably sink into the ice, so I’d have to cut out blocks of it, melt it in the fire, then pour water to refreeze the sections that had been extricated. It was the perfect crime. “We talking ’bout Sam.”
“Oh?” Gary said maddeningly. “Are we? I hadn’t noticed. Now, if you had a best friend who was a wizard’s apprentice that happened to have a destiny and also a knack for keeping secrets, secrets that potentially had the power to alter the fate of the known world—”
“Oh my fucking
gods,” I groaned.
“—wouldn’t you, as best friend of said wizard’s apprentice, feel a mite angry that such things were kept hidden?”