“Yes, I don’t like to leave.”
“How do you eat?”
“I store up the oxygen put out by my plants and trees. It helps me sleep.”
“Have you ever met wizards before?”
“Yes, and I never wanted to see them again.”
And then, “Did you know I was coming?”
Without giving himself time to think, he said, “Yeah, the star dragon told me.”
My eyes widened.
“Motherfucker,” Zero growled. “How did you do that? Mind control? Are you trying to take me over, wizard?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, no. It was just—the star dragon. Really?” I sighed. “Godsdammit. This is just getting more complicated as it goes.”
“It’s not my fault!”
“I didn’t say it was. It’s just… I didn’t know about any of this until a few weeks ago. It just makes me wonder how everyone else knows more about me and my destiny than I do. It’s annoying.”
Zero scoffed. “You try minding your own business and then, out of nowhere, get told that someday, a wizard was going to come for you. That I would have to make a choice between doing what I wanted or doing what was right. And that what was right wasn’t always going to be obvious.”
“Yeah, I can actually relate to that. Except mine was my long-lost grandma who I’d never met before.”
“Weak,” Zero breathed.
“Dude,” I agreed. “So weak. Mind if I sit down?”
Zero hesitated, but then said, “I don’t care. You can do what you want. Wizards usually do. You’re all terrible people. Really terrible people.”
But I got the feeling that if he didn’t want me there, I sure as shit wouldn’t be there. I took a seat at the base of the tree he’d grown when I’d found him, my back against the trunk, facing him.
I waited until I could gather my words, wanting to say the right thing without sounding too rehearsed. It was important, maybe as important as anything I’d ever had to say before. I needed him, I knew, and I had to make him believe I needed him. How I needed him or why, I couldn’t exactly say. But I did. My magic didn’t exactly mesh with his, but it didn’t either with Kevin right away. And it still didn’t, not completely. But it wasn’t the same. Gary had magic. Tiggy did as well to an extent, given he had giant’s blood within him. It
would never mix like mine did with Morgan’s. We weren’t the same. I was human. They were not. Magic was different to different species.
But I could feel him, like I could feel them, though nowhere near as strong. And I didn’t think I could convince him to leave this place behind to give us time to bond like I’d done with the others. I thought it would be too much too soon. I didn’t know how much time we had, so when I spoke, I wanted it to be the right thing to say.
“You said you knew Morgan of Shadows,” I said finally. “Or knew of him.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know Randall?”
I didn’t miss the way he twitched. “Yeah—yes. Um. He’s scary.”
That gave me pause. “Have you ever met him?”
He shook his head. “No, but the year after the star dragon came to me, I woke and heard whispers of a wizard unlike any that had ever existed before.”
And that— “How old were you when the star dragon came?”
“Oh. Uh, I was… seven. Seven years old. Just a kid. I’m old enough now, if that’s what you’re thinking!”
I closed my eyes. “Seven hundred years ago, the star dragon came to you. About me.”