Page 105

“Hmmm.” He tips back the last of the beer and waggles his fingers at the servant standing at the ready. “Another, please.”

The man scurries off to the kitchen.

“Why are you so blasé about it?”

“Well, I should preface this by saying I’m not suicidal. But the thought of just ceasing to exist?” He closes his eyes and exhales, long and low, then spreads out his hands. “Sublime.”

“Did you tell Kansas that?”

His eyes snap open and I’m aware that my question comes out sounding defensive.

“Kansas. Not Dorothy.” He tilts his head. “You like her.”

It’s not a question.

“I admire her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s powerful.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “Power is like air. It’s everywhere. Even the trees have power. Boring.”

“Yes, but the trees have no mettle, no drive.” I sit forward. “The trees do not bristle with potential.”

The servant returns with another bottle and twists off the cap. The beer fizzes and Blue takes it eagerly, chugging half.

“Might as well bring me several bottles at once,” he says after he comes up for air.

The servant checks me and I give my nod of approval. He’s gone again.

“You know,” Blue says, “this whole time I thought you wanted to be the best, the biggest, the most powerful. Certainly that’s the impression you give off. It’s what everyone believes about you. But I don’t think that’s true.”

“Oh no? Tell me what you think about me then.”

“I think you want an equal that understands you. I think you want to feel less alone.”

My molars clamp together. I was not prepared for this part, sitting with a god, being analyzed within an inch of my life.

I sit forward, hands clasped on the table. “When I was a boy, if I was not being fawned over, then I was being shunned. I was either a prodigy or an abomination. I was brought here to the palace. Trained by the best witches. By then there had already been three attempts on my life.”

“A special boy, indeed.”

“Yes, so special everyone wanted me dead, even those I thought I could trust.”

“But I’m guessing you are not done with this story? You intend to torture me more with your childhood trauma?”

My heart thumps harder, spurred by anger. “I had to be the most powerful if I wanted to live. I had no other choice.”

“Didn’t you?”

“The gods and the royal family couldn’t stand an anomaly like me, and so you all conspired to kill me.”

“Is that what they told you?”

“It’s not what I was told. It’s what I saw.” I snap my fingers and the crystal mushroom from my private library appears in my hand. I set it on the table between us and summon a thread of magic that undulates on the air like a shadow shot through with gold.

When the threads wrap around the stem of the mushroom, a held memory plays in a circle around us, like we are living inside of it.