CHAPTER 2

Please Don’t Make My Nipples Explode

 

 

ONCE UPON a time in the Kingdom of Verania, there was a kickass boy born in the slums of the City of Lockes. His parents were hardworking, and at times, life could be difficult, but they were alive and had all their teeth. Which was very important.

The mother had been a gypsy, olive-skinned and beautiful. She could smile sweetly to hide the steel in her eyes. Once, a man had tried to rob her in an alley. The man no longer has testicles.

“What happened to his testicles?” the boy asked when he was four.

The mother grinned. “I threw them in the sewer.”

The father groaned. “I’m glad our child knows that story now.”

The father hailed from the north, deep in the mountains where snow fell year-round and people wore unfashionable things made from yak skin. He had auburn hair and a deep laugh that sounded like thunder in the fall.

“I’m not wearing that,” the boy said when he was seven.

The father sighed. “It’s what my people wear. It’ll keep you warm.” He tried to push the weird furry coat thing at the boy again.

The boy said, “It’s August. And I don’t want to look like I’m the poster child for what happens when a human has relations with a yak. Come one, come all! See the incredible yak-child!”

“Sam,” the father growled. It was a low sound that always made the boy smile.

“Sam,” the mother laughed. It was a husky sound that always made the boy happy.

The mother was Rosemary. The father was Joshua.

They lived in the slums, yes. They didn’t have much, yes. But they were happy.

We were. I swear it on all I have.

My mother worked at a little flower shop at the end of a broken brick road, singing as she tended to the wildflowers in a language that sounded almost like birds trilling. She told me once that the songs were old, older than Verania. Her mamia, the grandmother of her clan, had taught her the songs under the stars in a field far from the City of Lockes.

My father worked at the lumber mill. He was a big man, able to carry a three-hundred pound Veranian oak log over his shoulder without breaking a sweat. He told me once that in the north, there were beautiful trees made of ice and that could be shaped into the most wondrous things. Like dragons and horses and swords with the sharpest blades. At night when he couldn’t sleep, he would carve little trinkets. A heart for my mother. A raccoon for me. Little toys for the children in the slums who never had such things.

Like most other people around us, my parents couldn’t afford to send me to the schools, so they taught me themselves at night, bringing home old and outdated books on math and art and history. After I started learning at the age of four, it only took three months to point out mistakes in what was supposed to be factual.

I didn’t miss the smile my parents exchanged over my head.

We were happy.

I had friends. Well, sort of. I had acquaintances. Boys and girls that ran with me through the streets. The castle guards knew my name, and sometimes they’d give me bread and meat and I’d share it with the others. Sometimes I’d accidentally do something illegal like setting a cart on fire that belonged to a rich man who’d hit a boy named Eric because he hadn’t gotten out of his way quick enough. The guards would look the other way because surely little Sam would never do anything like that, no matter how loudly the man protested. As a matter of fact, the guards said, Sam was spotted on the other side of town when the cart was supposedly set aflame, so it couldn’t have been him.

Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that it’d been one of the guards that’d given me the accelerant I’d used to start the fire. They didn’t like assholes, either.

Everything was good.

Sure, I had dreams of something bigger. I’d lie in my bed at night, listening to the slow, deep breaths of sleep my parents took in their bed across the room. I’d stare out my window, and if I’d crick my head just right, I’d be able to see stars above the stone buildings across the way.

And didn’t I wish upon them?

Of course I did.

That’s how these stories go.

I wished for many things, like children do.

I wished for money.

I wished for the biggest turkey leg.

I wished for a bow and arrow.

I wished for my parents to be happy, always.

I wished to find that one person who would understand me forever.

I wished to become something great.

I wished to become someone special.

I wished that people would remember my name because I would be good and kind.

I wished for Derek Michen to kiss my face off (that one was when I was nine years old and was absolutely positive he was the love of my life. He did kiss me two weeks later, but then he also kissed Jessica, David, Megan, Rhonda, and Robert. Derek turned out to be a bit of a whore).

At no point did I wish to be magic.

Sure, I had gypsy blood in me.

Sure, I had northern blood in me.

But fuck all if I knew anything about magic.

So imagine my surprise when I was running from a group of older kids after having recovered a bag of cloth they’d stolen from Mrs. Kirkpatrick (a kindly old woman who lived next door and had even less than we did), when I turned down a blind alley that dead-ended into a brick wall and promptly whirled around and caused said group of teenage miscreants to turn to stone.

Awkward. To say the least.

“Oh crap,” I said as I saw there was nowhere else to run. I was eleven years old, still scrawny as all fuck. I had great big expressive dark eyes that I’d inherited from my mother that I’d used to get myself out of more than a few situations, but I didn’t think the bigger kids would appreciate my full-on patented Look-How-Precious-Sam-Is look. Adults were charmed by it. Girls swooned over it. Some boys did too.

Stupid motherfucking teenagers who stole from old ladies weren’t affected by it at all.

“He’s down here!” one of them shouted.

I heard the beat of many feet pounding the ground behind me, and I thought to myself, Well, I really wish this wasn’t happening. So I turned around, ready to accept my fate (most likely either a severe ass-kicking or murder; either way it would hurt like a bitch). As I turned, something flickered across my vision, a bright green something that reminded me of spring grass and trees swaying in a summer breeze. There was this sharp pull deep in my brain and I took a stuttering step backward, and that’s when the group of eleven teenage assholes turned to stone with a loud crack that shook the alley and caused pigeons to screech and take flight.

I said, “Hey.”

Like, full-on stone. Their leader, a delightfully repugnant fifteen-year-old named Nox, stood in the front, his face frozen into an angry snarl, paused midstep, left arm stretched out front, right arm swung back.

I said, “Huh.”

Of course, people had heard the commotion and poured into the alley.

I said quite loudly, “I didn’t do it!”

One of the castle guards that I knew quite well said, “Of course you’re here, Sam,” followed by what sounded like a long-suffering sigh that dragged out for at least thirty seconds because he was a big fat drama queen.

“I don’t even know what happened!”

“Uh-huh. You don’t know what caused these dickholes to be turned to stone after they were chasing you.”

“Honest!” And then I gave him the Look-How-Precious-Sam-Is at one-hundred-percent wattage and he melted right in front of me.

“That’s not going to work this time,” he said.

Well, almost melted.

“Shit,” I muttered, dropping the look. “Pete, I swear, I don’t even know what happened here. They stole stuff from Mrs. Kirkpatrick and she’s old and it’s not fair because she’s so nice and I just wanted to help her.” I sniffled as I tried to stop the tears from falling. I was very scared because I thought I was going to get arrested and thrown into the dungeon where I’d have to eat rats and poop in a bucket.

“Ah hell, Sam. Don’t cry.”

When someone tells you not to cry, it’s pretty much impossible not to cry.

So I cried and Pete wrapped an arm around me as we waited for my parents to get there.

They looked scared as they came down the alley, but they hugged me close as I cried all over them, telling them I was sorry and to please not let me poop in buckets because I somehow turned teenage dickbags to stone.

“I’m not even going to pretend to know what you’re talking about,” my dad said as he kissed my forehead, because he was so awesome.

“I won’t make you poop in a bucket,” my mother said as she ran her fingers through my hair, because she was so cool.

That’s when Morgan came.

I didn’t know who he was at first. Sure I’d heard of him. He was the King’s Wizard and he could do stuff like create fire tornadoes and make your face melt off. Rather, that’s what the kids in the slums told each other because we were epic like that. I think I’d even started the rumor that he could make your nipples explode with a single thought. Judging by the looks of sheer horror on the others’ faces, it was one of those things that sounded better in my head rather than out loud. Most things often did.

So I didn’t know who he was, not by looks alone.

All I saw was a man with a black beard that came down to his chest and an epic pile of hair that stuck out all over the place. He was tall, almost as tall as my dad, but whip thin, with long, elegant fingers that traced over the boys of stone in the alley. He was wearing a long black robe and pointy pink shoes that were just killer. I couldn’t even begin to guess how old he was. Maybe thirty. Or three hundred. When you’re eleven, anyone older is just old.

When he spoke, his voice was light and melodious, almost like he was singing his words rather than speaking them. It was glorious. “This certainly is a surprise.”

“Is that—” my mom whispered to my dad.

“I think—” my dad breathed back.

“I like your shoes,” I said. Because I did. They were pink and pointed, and I wanted a pair like that so bad.

My mom and dad groaned.

Morgan looked at me and cocked his head. “Thank you, little one. I made them out of the tears of a succubus and a lightning-struck tree stump I found under the Winter Moon. I like your face.”

I grinned. “Thank you, big one. My parents made it when they got married. I was a honeymoon baby, whatever that means.”

My parents choked on either side of me.

Morgan chuckled and said, “Very well put. Are these your parents?”

“Yes,” I said proudly. “This is my mother, Rosemary. You can call her Rose. And this is my dad Josh.”

“Surname?”

“Haversford, sir,” my father said.

Morgan looked at my mother. “And you, dearie? Surely you haven’t always been Rosemary Haversford.”

My mother shook her head. “It is a name I adopted when I chose to leave the clan and marry my love. I was born Dika Tshilaba.”

“Ah,” Morgan said. “I see. Your mamia was Vadoma, then.”

My mother looked surprised. “Yes, my lord. You’ve heard of her?”

He gave a mysterious smile. “Perhaps.”

And because the conversation was boring and I had questions, I said, “So. Anyway. How many tears did it take from the succubus to make the shoes? Like six? Or fifty? How did you make the succubus cry? What’s a succubus? When is the Winter Moon? Is that tomorrow? Can I make those shoes tomorrow? I do like the pink. I would look so awesome if I had those. Everyone would be like, hey, Sam! Where’d you get those shoes? And I’d be all like, don’t you wish you knew?”

My dad said, “Sam,” in that tone of voice that said I was in so much trouble when we got home.

I glared at him and rolled my eyes.

Morgan laughed, and my parents were shocked. “Feisty one, isn’t he?”

“My apologies, Lord Morgan,” my father said in a rush.

“Lord?” I said loudly. “You’re a lord?”

He put a finger in Nox’s stone mouth to touch his tongue. “I suppose I am.”

I gaped at him. “You’re Morgan of Shadows!”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Oh, sweet mercy!” I cried at him. “Please don’t make my nipples explode!”

His bushy eyebrows went almost up to his hairline. “I wish I could say I’ve never heard that one before, but strangely enough, that’s likely the sixth time someone has said that to me in the last week.”

“Wow,” I said excitedly. “I started that rumor like three weeks ago! And you’ve heard it six times already? I am awesome.”

“Sam,” both my parents said in that tone of voice that said I was in the most trouble I’d ever been in in the history of my life.

“My lord,” my father said. “Please excuse my idiot child. He was dropped on his head repeatedly when he was a baby.”

“Hey!” I growled at him. “You said you only did that twice. What do you mean repeatedly?”

“It would certainly explain a lot,” Morgan said. “Does he ever stop talking?”

“No,” my mother said. “Never.”

“Hey!”

They all looked at me.

I was suddenly nervous because I remembered that this was Morgan of Shadows, and while most of the stuff said about him was probably crap, there had to be truth in there somewhere, and I didn’t want to be murdered by having my spleen removed with a magical knife or whatever he supposedly did to bad guys.

“I’m not a bad guy,” I said to him, trying to reassure him. Or me. Or the both of us.

Pete, my sweet guardian guard said, “Well, not all the time.”

I glared at him. He stuck his tongue out at me.

“Did you do this?” Morgan asked. “Turned these boys to stone?”

I wrung my hands together. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how it happened. I was running from them and they chased me and then bam. They were all rock people.”

“Why were you running from them?” he asked.

“They stole Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s bag of cloth,” I said. “She’s old and doesn’t have a lot but she likes to make things like ugly mittens and pants for obese people and it wasn’t right. They shouldn’t steal from nice old ladies who make big pants so I went and took them back so people could eat all the food they want and still have clothes to wear.”

They all stared at me.

“Well! It’s true! And they chased me down this alley and were going to punch me in the throat so I turned to take it like a man because that’s what my dad taught me. That you should never run away from your problems if you don’t have to. Or don’t want to. Or if you’re trapped by a dead end.”

My father looked down at me with such fierce pride on his face that my heart stuttered in my chest.

Morgan frowned. “And then they just turned to stone?”

I shrugged. “Yes?”

“Okay, then,” he said, clapping his hands in front of him just once. “Turn them back.”

“Excuse me?” I might have squeaked.

“Turn them back.”

“How?”

Morgan shrugged. “That’s up to you to figure out.”

I frowned at him. “That’s not helpful at all.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” But he wouldn’t say anything else.

I looked up at my mom and dad. They both had narrowed eyes that told me in no uncertain terms that I better change the assholes back from stone or I was going to be grounded for at least the next month, if not longer.

I grumbled at them but pulled away to stand in front of Nox. By now, a large crowd had gathered at the mouth of the alleyway, which made things all that much worse, because I could hear my name getting whispered over and over again. I was pretty sure I was going to make a fool of myself and be pooping in a bucket by sundown.

Since I didn’t know what I was doing at all and figured I might as well try and fake it as much as possible, I raised my hands, palms out toward the stone teenagers, and shouted, “Malakasham!”

Morgan said, “What.”

“Flora Bora Slam!”

Morgan said, “Flora Bora Slam?” It sounded like he was choking.

“Abra Wham!”

Morgan said, “What are you doing?”

I squinted up at him. “Saying magic words until magic happens?”

“Magic words?”

“Isn’t that how magic happens? You say magic words and magic stuff happens. Like people turning to stone and exploding nipples.”

“I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be because of Flora Bora Slam,” he said dryly.

“Pfft,” I muttered. “Like you know.” Oh, but wait. He was the King’s Wizard. “Okay, so, you would know.”

“Flora Bora Slam,” he said again, rolling his eyes.

“Well, I’m all out of ideas.”

He looked incredulous. “That was your idea?”

“Yes. It might have gone better in my head.”

“I have a feeling that sums up your life perfectly.”

Since I was too young to understand I was being insulted, I beamed and said, “Thank you!”

“Colors, Sam. Do you remember seeing any colors?”

I frowned. “Colors? What do you mean? I didn’t see any….”

I’d caught his attention. “Sam?” he said quietly.

“There was… green,” I said. “Like. This green that was out of the corner of my eye. It reminded me of trees and grass.”

He nodded and something akin to wonderment flickered across his face. “Earth. Stone. Can you find it again?”

“I don’t know how I found it in the first place.”

“But you know of it now,” he said. “Look for it.”

And I did. For the longest time I did. I looked all over. Up and down and left and right. The sky, the ground. The buildings. My parents. Morgan. The crowd. The stone boys. I didn’t see it anywhere and just as I was about to tell Morgan so, something danced just out of the corner of my eye and it was green, it was so green, and I thought, Hello. Hello, there.

Morgan took in a sharp breath. “You found it. I can feel it. It’s so… expansive. How have you never…?” He shook his head. “Can you grab it?”

And I could. I did. I would learn later that I didn’t find it right away because I was looking too hard for it, but the moment I stopped pushing, it started pulling. I touched the green and it was warm and kind and I said, “Yes. Yes.”

And I pushed. Hard.

The alley shook again and people gasped and shouted as they took steps back. There was another crack, and the group of stone boys turned back into flesh and blood and bone.

Nox, who’d been caught midyell, continued, “—gonna fucking kick your ass, Sam!” before he squeaked and came to a stop, seeing the alley had quite a few more people in it than he remembered.

My dad growled, “If you touch my son, I’ll cut off your arms and beat you with them.”

“Wow,” I said in complete adoration. “That was graphic and amazing.”

My mom said, “And I’ll cut off your legs and shove them so far up your anus that you’ll taste your feet at the back of your tongue.”

“Dudes,” I whispered to everyone. “That’s my mom.”

Morgan said, “And I’ll make your nipples explode.”

“I started that rumor!” I told Nox. He didn’t look very happy at that. As a matter of fact, he looked downright frightened. It was a good look on him, all blond hair and bright eyes. If he wasn’t such a dick, I’d have thought him handsome. But he was a dick.

(But he was still sort of handsome.)

“Please don’t make my nipples explode,” Nox whimpered as his gang of jerks cried behind him.

“Don’t steal from old ladies who make ugly mittens and pants for obese people,” Morgan said, “and I might consider not exploding your nipples.”

They agreed immediately and fled the alley in a cloud of teenage angst and hormones.

“You’re so rad,” I told Morgan honestly. “Almost up there with my mom and dad. Not the same level because no one ever will be. But, dude. Like, so close.”

He smiled at me. “Thank you, Sam. I’m glad you think so because I have a feeling you and I are going to be spending quite a bit of time together for the foreseeable future.”

“You want to be my friend? Okay, that’s cool with me. But you have to come over to my house at least three times a week.” I took him by the hand and started pulling him out of the alley, reminding him that he still hadn’t told me what a succubus was and that we’d really need to come up with code names for each other, like Wolf Fighter and Star Explosion. He told me he already had his code name in Morgan of Shadows. And then he said that one day I’d have my own code name and everyone would know it. I asked him how old he was. He said two hundred and forty-seven. I told him I knew he was so old.

The next day, there was a package delivered from the castle. Pink, pointy shoes in just my size. I wore them every day. I also wore the ugliest mittens that Mrs. Kirkpatrick made especially for me for getting her cloth back. They were hideous and I showed them to everyone.

Three days after the shoe delivery, we were moved into the castle and I became the apprentice to the King’s Wizard. My mom worked in the King’s garden and tended to as many flowers as her heart desired. My father was given a position in the forestry service, reporting directly to the King. When All Hallowed Day came the next winter, he was put in charge of the gift giving and every child in the slums was given a carved wooden toy.

To say it caused an uproar is a bit of an understatement. A boy from the slums who would become the next King’s Wizard. A family plucked from obscurity and made the faces of the ideal dream. Some people were happy for us. Others resented us completely and fully. Still others were jealous of the position I was in, having trained years upon years to be considered in the position of Morgan’s apprentice.

But I was blissfully unaware of all the talk because I was too busy being kickass and learning magic, and it wasn’t until I turned thirteen that I realized I hadn’t felt the need to wish upon the stars in a very long time.