“Some fie,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“Sam.”
“Yes?”
“There’s something else. That you haven’t said.”
I groaned. “Gods, I hate how you can do that. It’s creepy.”
He waited.
“Okay, so one of the Darks might have shot a blue fireball of doom at me and I might have absorbed it instead of deflecting it.”
“You did what,” he said. No inflection at all. It was really admirable. I wondered if that level of dryness came with age or merely having dealt with me for close to a decade. Probably a combination of both.
“Yeah. It was an ordeal.” I sighed the weary sigh of the put-upon.
“And your body didn’t reject it?”
I shook my head. “No. It felt strange at first, but then I felt it meld with my own magic and that was that.”
He stared at me.
I did my best not to fidget.
My best was not good enough. I started to fidget.
He said, “You could have been hurt.”
“I know.”
“You could have hurt others.”
“I know. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I’m not that kind of person.” I felt heart-stung at what he was implying.
“I know you’re not,” he snapped at me. “And I have never suggested otherwise. My gods, Sam. Do you have any idea what could have happened?”
I laughed bitterly. “Yes, Morgan. I am well aware. You don’t think I know? You’ve drilled it into me enough. How easy it is to be consumed by magic. How easy it would be to let it take over. Especially me. And don’t think I don’t know it. Don’t think I didn’t feel it when they stood in front of me, threatening Ryan, saying they were going to kill him. Don’t think I didn’t want to kill them right then and there, that I didn’t just want to wipe them from the face of the world so they could never make threats like that again. I could have turned that fire back on them. I could have pulled the rock over their faces and let them suffocate. I could have broken their beating hearts from their chests. So don’t think I don’t know. Because I do. I know. But I made a choice and I stopped them from hurting anyone.”
“And yourself and Todd,” Morgan said.
“What?”
“You said they threatened Ryan. Surely they threatened you and Todd too.”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “Yes. Todd and I were threatened as well. Poor Todd. With his ears.
”
“But it was just Ryan that made you act.”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “They threatened you and Ryan.”
“And Todd,” I said.