/>
The men in the clearing ran.
Koklanaris said, “You don’t scare me.”
“I do,” Sam said. “You’re sweating.”
“I smash,” Tiggy said in a low voice. “I smash so good.”
And the carnival man’s eyes widened in fear and he too left the clearing. He looked back only once but then he was gone.
They waited until the fleeing men could no longer be heard before they each let out the breaths they’d been holding.
“You okay?” Sam asked his friends.
And Tiggy picked him up again and held him close. He said, “Tiny Sam. Tiny Sam. Tiny Sam.”
They left when morning came.
As they reached the gates to the City of Lockes, people began to stare. They whispered about the boy from the slums who came back to the city from a wizard’s quest with a half-giant and a hornless unicorn.
Morgan waited for him at the castle gates with his mother and father. The King was there too, and he had a small smile on his face as he watched them approach. The Prince was not there, but Sam didn’t think too much on that.
Morgan said, “And what have you brought me?”
“Something unexpected,” Sam said proudly.
“You return from the wilds with a half-giant and a unicorn,” Morgan said. “That is very unexpected.”
But the boy shook his head. “That’s not the unexpected part.”
Morgan, in his infinite wisdom, said, “Oh?”
“I went into the wilds alone, and I returned with friends,” Sam said. “I’ve never had a friend on my own before. And now I have two. Unexpectedly.”
And the great wizard looked away and took a stuttering breath. When he looked back at the boy, his eyes were bright and he said, “I think the most unexpected thing of all is you, little one. Because no one could ever hope to fathom the wilds of your heart. You were sent out on a quest and returned with more than I could have ever believed. I will give you your name now. Because you’ve earned it.”
And the boy smiled so wide that it felt like his face would split. His parents cried, though his father would never admit to it. Even the King wiped away a tear, and Sam would make fun of him for years after because of it.
But he looked up at his mentor and said, “Yes, please. And thank you.”
Morgan of Shadows smiled and said that until the day of the Trials when he would become a full-fledged wizard, Sam Haversford, the strange and somewhat lonely boy from the slums, would be known as Sam of Wilds.
Gary said, “This has been the weirdest twenty-four hours ever.”
THE FIRE was almost out by the time I’d finished. My voice fell away and I looked over at my friends, still snoring and curled against each other.
“You love them,” Ryan said, the first time he’d spoken since I started the story.
“Very much,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t be who I am without them. We might fight with each other and piss each other off, but I would die for them. And they would die for me.”
“I don’t want you to die at all,” Ryan said quietly.
I looked over at him. He was staring up at the stars. “No one is dying,” I said.
“Sam.”
“What?”