“I love Gary,” he said. “No Gary smash. And Ryan take your flower. No Ryan smash.”
“He didn’t take my flower! And stop calling it that!”
“Don’t yell at him because you haven’t been penetrated,” Gary said.
I wrinkled my nose. “Okay, time out on the fighting thing. Can we all agree that none of us should ever use the word penetration in that context again?”
“Yeah,” Gary said with a grimace. “I don’t even know why I said that.”
“It gross,” Tiggy said.
“Okay, rule four hundred twenty-seven of the Sam/Gary/Tiggy friendship has been agreed upon. No saying penetration when referring to boning.”
“Aye,” Tiggy and Gary said.
“Okay, time in. I can yell at whoever I want!”
“You really can’t,” Gary said. “It’s unattractive on you. Some people pull off the angry look. You’re not one of them.”
“I am sexy angry. Watch.” I turned the full extent of my wrath on Gary and Tiggy.
They laughed at me.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “Not even a little sexy tingle?”
“No,” Tiggy said. “Not even.”
“You looked like a constipated otter,” Gary said.
“I don’t know how I have any self-esteem left with you two by my side,” I moaned. “It’s why I can never have nice things.”
“I suppose Ryan is a nice thing,” Gary said.
And we were back to the anger. “That fucking princess rock flipper.”
“Yes, dear, he is a princess rock flipper, which is why he was absolutely terrified when he carried you back into the castle. And why he wouldn’t leave your side.”
Terrified? That should not make me feel good. At all. But then, “Well, of course he was. His fiancé had just been kidnapped by a dragon. He was waiting for me to wake up so he could question me. Or, rather, yell at me. Because he’s a cock-sucking roasted pork.”
Gary stared at me.
“What?” For some reason, I put my hands over my chest like he was using unicorn vision to scope out my nipples.
“There is no hope for you,” he finally said. “Like none. My vision is darkening like your overwrought soul. Hey, Tiggy?”
“Gary,” Tiggy said.
“If Sam were a tree, you know what kind of tree he’d be?”
“What kind?”
“A pine. Because of all the pining.”
“Unicorns should never tell jokes,” I told them. They didn’t hear me because Tiggy was laughing too loud.
“Gary funny,” Tiggy said, wiping the tears from his eyes with his big hand. “Gary so funny.”
“Whatever. You all need to get out. I need to finish packing before I go to my meeting this afternoon. We leave tomorrow.”
“Hmm,” Gary said. “Yes. Your meeting. Your secret meeting that you never tell anyone about or where it is or why you go. That meeting.”
“I’m a wizard,” I said. “I’m supposed to have secrets.”
“Apprentice,” Gary reminded me. “And I know everything about you.”
“Lie. And rude. You do not. I am mysterious.”
“Yeah, okay. You’re mysterious just like you get sexy angry.”
“Sometimes, I wonder why I put up with the both of you.”
“Because you love us,” Gary said.
“And we love you,” Tiggy said.
So I said, “Goddammit,” and hugged it out with the both of them, because feelings.
“You sure you want to go out?” Gary said before he left my chambers. “You took a beating. Maybe you should just stay in. It’s not every day you get attacked by a dragon and then get thrown across a field.”
I shrugged. “I’m sore, but it’s not too bad. If I stay here, I’ll just be brooding. It’s best for me to get out. It’ll be my last chance to see the City of Lockes for a while. I just want to say good-bye.”
“We’ll be back, you know. It’s not good-bye so much as it’s so long. You’ll see.”
I just nodded and closed the door. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how apt I thought the good-bye had been.
CHAPTER 10
Are You a Foxy Lady or a Sam Girl?
I DIDN’T even want to go to the stupid meeting.
Stupid Ryan Fucking Foxheart.
He was such an asshole.
But I had to go.
Because it was my turn to bring muffins.
And I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t show when it was my turn to bring the muffins.
I stopped by the kitchen and picked up the basket Cook had prepared as I’d requested in secret. He never asked what it was for because at least he thought I was mysterious. I’m sure he thought I took the muffins to the Dark Woods and crumbled them over goat’s blood as I cast a spell that invited demons to suckle on my soul.
Or, he just didn’t care and made me food because he was Cook and that was his job.
Whatever.
So I mysteriously took the basket of poppy seed muffins and absconded from the castle. Once I was outside the gates, I pushed my way through the crowds into a narrow alleyway, looking back to make sure I wasn’t followed. The coast was clear.
I set down the basket and opened my rucksack. I pulled out a floppy brown wig and pulled it over my hair. The wig covered my forehead and ears, the hair curling out at the tips. There was a matching beard that covered most of my face and came down to the middle of my chest. And finally, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.
Mervin had returned.
Yes, I could have probably easily altered my looks with magic. But I’d made a promise to Morgan early on not to use it for such frivolous things. And shaping magic could be dangerous. Addictive. Alterations here and there until you completely forgot what your original shape looked like. I never wanted to forget.
I went out of the alley at the opposite end and crossed three more blocks until I reached a café on the corner.
Look. I’d faced some pretty terrible things in my life. The Dark wizards. Fire geckos. An elf who had somehow thought we were meant to be and wanted to go through the elven rite of passage where during the act of consummation, he’d need to eat one of my fingers (No, Svenel, I don’t want to make love to you while you eat my thumb, you fucking asshole!). I’d been cursed, burned, stabbed, hexed, kicked, punched, and on one memorable occasion, had somehow ended up tied to a table while an ogre whipped my bare ass and grunted how pretty my reddened skin was (I knew I wasn’t a prude. Suck it, Gary!). Hell, just yesterday, I’d faced down a dragon.
But no matter where I’d been, no matter everything I’d seen, there was one opponent that rose above all others. An adversary so devious and cunning and bloodthirsty that she put all the others to shame.
Her eyes fell upon me from her seat at the head of the table outside the shop. The rest of the club was spread out around her like she was a queen and they were her subjects. Except she was more of a tyrant than anything else. One who had no scruples nor a kind bone in her body.
Her gaze grew calculating.
My hackles raised and I prepared for battle.
Lady Tina DeSilva.
The president of the Ryan Foxheart Fan Club Castle Lockes Chapter.
And my most mortal of enemies.
“Oh look, everyone. Mervin has arrived and he brought the muffins. If past experiences have any prescience as to what we can expect, then they’re sure to be as dry as his conversational skills.”
She was also sixteen years old.
And evil.
“Hello, Lady Tina,” I said. Mervin’s voice was lower than my own. I sounded ridiculous. “My, you’re looking… alive today. The color of your dress really brings out the extraordinary paleness of your skin tone. Are you unwell? Dying, perhaps?”
She tittered. “No, dear heart. I am actually quite well. I would ask the same of you, because you seem to have some bruises on your face and are holding yourself rather stiffly. Did someone take offense to one of your ever-p
resent asinine meanderings? I should send them some flowers for doing what I’ve thought of for months.”
I laughed as I sat down at the opposite end of the table. “Ah, my sweet. Merely an accident of an inconsequential nature. Unlike, apparently, your makeup. Was it dark this morning when you applied it? Surely, that’s the only explanation, unless you’ve somehow obtained employment as a jester. But then, you’d actually need to have a sense of humor for that. Perhaps you’re applying to a brothel, then? I do hope your interview goes well. I’m sure you’ll do wonders on your back.”
The others (of which there were fourteen, ranging in ages from ten to fifty-two) looked back and forth between us with each verbal blow. They were used to it by now. This was, after all, the twenty-sixth meeting I had attended. It was almost mandatory that we cut each other to ribbons. If I was straight and Tina not the bitch from hell, one would assume we were almost flirting. But I was gay and Tina was the bitch from hell. We were not flirting.
She fluttered a silk folding fan across her face. “Oh, Mervin. The feelings I experience upon seeing your countenance is akin to what I understand dysentery to be like. Explosively so.”
I cocked my head at her. “I’m sorry. Were you just speaking to me? I apologize most profusely. I was distracted by the size of the sweat stains under your arms. Are you overly warm today? It seems unlikely given the cold, dead heart that surely beats in your chest.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re an asshole, Mervin.”
I snarled at her. “Bitch, I’ll cut you, bitch.”
We both smiled darkly at each other.
She fanned herself again.
I passed around the muffins. And fuck her. They weren’t dry.
She said, “And now that Mervin has finally stopped talking, the meeting of the Ryan Foxheart Fan Club Castle Lockes Chapter can commence. Deidre, if you could please read a summation of the last meeting. And be quick about it.”
A mousy girl of twelve years stood up and looked down at a piece of parchment paper in her hand. “Opening minutes,” she said. “President Tina noted that Mervin looked more flush than usual and wondered aloud if he’d just gotten fellated by a street whore in the back alley. Mervin responded that at least he would, and I quote, ‘be getting some’ unlike Tina who couldn’t even find a streetwalker to take her money. President Tina then stated she wouldn’t be surprised when Mervin came to the next meeting with mouth sores and an itching rash in the most private of places. Mervin replied that if that happened, he would just come to her for a solution since she obviously knew so much about itching rashes in private places. President Tina called him a ridiculous cockhound and Mervin said he had never hit a girl before, but that there was always a first time. Delores then handed out the blueberry muffins to which Mervin said he was allergic and President Tina tried to force-feed him three of them. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and then for the next four hours, there was a discussion on Ryan Foxheart’s biceps.”
Deidre sat back down.
“Obviously,” Tina said, “much has happened in the few weeks since we held the last meeting. First and foremost, our dearly beloved Knight Foxheart was promoted to Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart.”
We all sighed dreamily.
“And, of course, since my parents are in the King’s Court,” she continued, “I was in attendance, and ladies, let me tell you, he. Was. Glorious.”
I didn’t know she’d been there. I thought I would have been able to smell the stench of putrid death. My nose must have been getting weaker. And I was not a lady. Yes, everyone else was, but I obviously wasn’t.
“Was he as dashing and immaculate as the papers claimed?” an older lady named Wanda asked.
“More,” Tina said. “His armor shone like moonbeams and his hair was parted to the right. You know what that means.”
“He was feeling romantic,” a girl named Crissy said. “He always parts his hair on the right when he’s feeling romantic.”
“Actually,” I said, “his hair was slicked back for the ceremony.”
They all stared at me.
Well, except for Tina. She glared.
I shrugged. “What? You were wrong. I was just pointing that out. How wrong you were.”
“What does slicked-back hair mean?” a woman named Nicole asked tearfully. “We’ve never discussed what it means when it’s slicked back. What does it mean?”
Tina got a wicked gleam in her eye. “Obviously, it was his marriage hair,” she said, and I almost threw my muffin at her face. “He must have known Prince Justin had asked for his hand in marriage before the ceremony.”
“That wasn’t marriage hair,” I argued. “That was his ‘I’m in command now’ hair.”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Please, Ryan was all about Prince Justin. Rystin forever. He couldn’t take his eyes off of him when the King made the announcement.”
“I don’t know,” the oldest woman of the group said. Her name was Mary, and I thought she was awesome because she was a self-proclaimed Sam Girl. Well, she was awesome for other things too, but the Sam Girl thing made her even more awesome. “I was there too. Ryan didn’t seem as pleased as one should with a marriage announcement. And he was staring at Sam for most of the night.”
“Oh, here we go again,” Tina muttered.
“He was?” I said, somewhat startled.
Mary smiled at me. “He was. The look on his face when the King proclaimed the ball to follow was to find Sam a suitor almost broke my heart. It was like he had lost the only thing that mattered to him. He’s totally crushing on Sam. HaveHeart forever.”
I said, “What.”
Tina said, “He’s not crushing on Sam. I don’t know why you continue to insist on such a ridiculous pairing when there is obviously no chemistry between them. Ryan is now engaged to his beloved and will marry him and they’ll have babies and dinner and gaze into each other’s eyes. Epic poetry will be written about their love and hundreds of years from now, people will still speak of the wonder that is Rystin.”
“I don’t know,” a girl named Courtney said. “I think Sam and Ryan stare at each other when the other’s not looking. There’s always this indefinable something there. It’s almost like lightning crackling between them.”
I said, “What.”
“And did you hear?” Mary said, sounding gleeful. “They danced for three straight songs. No one dances for that many songs. He didn’t even dance with Justin that many times. Not in a row. It was like they were in their own little world and nothing could bother them.” She sighed, eyes fluttering.
“He’s a wizard,” Tina said, scandalized. “Justin is a prince. Why in the name of the gods would he want to take so many steps backward?”
“Sam is so mysterious, though,” Nicole said, and I knew it! I knew I was mysterious. I took a bite of a muffin in victory. It was a bit dry. Dammit. “He’s always got this look on his face like he’s working out the secrets of the universe. And when he looks at Ryan? It’s like he is the universe. And he wants nothing more than to solve Ryan’s riddle.”
“I bet he wants to solve Ryan’s riddle,” Mary said. “And then he probably wants to riddle his Ryan.”
I choked on the muffin.
“You okay?” Mary asked me.
I coughed. “Yes. Sorry. The muffin was just far too moist. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“That look isn’t about secrets,” Tina said. “He probably just has gas. Intestinal gas.”
“It’s not gas,” I snapped at her. “Er. Not that I would know. But it’s probably not. And it’s probably not anything to do with Ryan. I’m pretty sure Sam doesn’t even really care about Ryan at all.”
Mary laughed. “Oh, that’s not true. Sam wants to eat him for breakfast. There is something there that doesn’t exist between Ryan and Justin. And what about the date Sam went on? Ryan was obviously jealous the whole time.”
“I was there!” a woman named Griselda exclaimed.
Everyone turned to
look at her and said, “Oooh.”
“Tell us everything,” Nicole demanded.
“It was just… I just…. Oh my gods, you guys. So there I was, eating my meal with my husband, minding my own business when in walks Sam and Ryan. And that guy Sam was on a date with.”
“Todd,” I supplied. “He has epic ears.”
“Yes, Todd,” she said dismissively. “I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Ryan was standing so close to Sam, like he didn’t want to let him out of his sight.”
“He was chaperoning,” Tina said. “It was his job to watch Sam.”
Gross. I just agreed internally with something Tina said. I reminded myself to run tests when I got home to make sure I hadn’t just been possessed by a demon.
“You weren’t there,” Griselda said. “It was more. When those Dark wizards came in? He pulled out his big, long sword and tried to protect Sam. And even when the wizards were standing right there, Sam and Ryan were in their own little world, bantering back and forth and the tension. You guys, the tension was ridiculous.”
“He tried to protect Sam?” I said. “Please. He just stood there and Sam was all badass and trapped all the Darks by himself. Ryan was posing like he normally did. Dashing and immaculate my ass. More like—”
They stared at me again.
“Or so I read,” I said. “In the paper. Nothing else. I wasn’t there. I was on the other side of the city doing… stuff.”
“But it was obviously Sam’s fault that Justin has been taken by the dragon,” Tina said nastily. “He was the one that kidnapped Justin and forced him out to the sparring fields. He probably had a deal with the dragon to take Justin away so he could steal Ryan. Sam of Wilds hates Rystin and it’s just so unfair!”
“No one can control dragons,” I said. “Hello. They’re dragons. That’s not how magic works.”
“Yeah,” Tina said. “Because you would know how magic works. If you did, you could magic yourself some less ridiculous facial hair.”
“I could say the same about you,” I said and she was livid.
“You guys,” Courtney said.
“You know what, Mervin? I’m getting sick of your—”