After Ryan left, they finished their lunch. Theo barely tasted the paella, and not just because it was cold. Still, he felt a little better with food in his stomach, more prepared to face this upcoming discussion.
Meg started off with a stone-faced, "We are not going to help him."
"Right, I don't know about getting involved in conflicts between wizards...," Darian said.
Theo drew in a shaking breath. Sam turned toward him, her eyes sharp.
"You want to help him, don't you?"
"Um." Theo squirmed. The atmosphere in the room felt hard as concrete. It wasn't just Meg, Darian, and Lodo staring at him disapprovingly, but Zenith too.
Still, he wanted to say his piece. Straightening his back, he clasped his hands together and said, "Yeah, you're right. I...I think we should help him."
"Well." Meg sighed. "Somehow this is at once a big surprise and not a surprise at all. So care to explain why you're willing to go out of the way to do something so risky for your biggest rival?"
"I mean, I still don't like him," Theo said, gathering his racing thoughts. "I just...feel like it's the right thing to do. He was desperate enough to go to me for help...."
Meg snorted. "The only reason he's so 'desperate' is because he's too proud to tell his parents. Which I guess is typical teenage behavior, but still. He doesn't have to drag us into it."
"I don't know if that's the only reason," Theo said slowly. "I think it means something that he went behind his parents' back to try to give Avia a glamour. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I think he might be changing the way he thinks about her."
And he couldn't forget what Ryan had blurted unprompted. 'And Avia, what's she gonna think?' The Ryan who Theo had first met, who'd smugly sat back and watched as his familiar took damage, would never have said something like that.
"You definitely are being too optimistic." Sam grinned, linking her hands behind her head. "But it's one of your charm points."
"Thanks, Sam." Theo sighed, then turned toward her. "So, uh, what do you think about all this?"
He couldn't tell from her behavior alone, which did surprise him a little. Usually she was so easy to read.
So when she said, "I want to do it!" he wasn't sure whether it shocked him or if he'd been expecting to hear it all along. He supposed this was just how Meg had felt when he'd given his answer.
Meg breathed out. "Okay, Theo I get, but you? What reason do you have? I thought you hated that brat even more than Theo did."
Well, clearly no one hated him as much as Meg.
"You're right, I don't give a shit about Ryan," Sam declared, clenching her hand into a fist. "I don't want to do this for him. I wanna do it for Avia. No, not just her, but all the familiars the Ensons have got prisoner."
Necks cracked as all heads swerved toward her. Theo was sure his jaw had fallen open wide enough for a tarantula to make its home inside, but he couldn't help it.
"Uh." Meg broke the silence. "Are you saying...you want to free them all? Not just Avia?"
"Duh!" Sam nodded. The others' astonishment only seemed to have emboldened her. "It's wrong of them to keep familiars trapped like that. Wrong of them to capture familiars against their will. I want to put a stop to it!"
She slammed her fist into the table, her eyes sparkling like stars, and a warm rush of affection flooded Theo. Leave it to Sam to think on a far grander scale than he had. This was just like her. She got crazy ideas, but only because her heart was so big.
"Now that you put it that way...." Darian leaned back in her chair, rubbing her chin.
"Oh, no," Meg groaned.
"Oh, yes." Darian's eyes twinkled. "I swore to be a prince of Miria who fights for justice. Justice for all Tielans. The ones that the Ensons are holding prisoner – they're Tielans too. My people. So it's only right that I fight for them."
"My liege." Zenith's voice was soft with astonishment. He nodded sharply, then pressed his fist to his chest and bowed as much as he could while seated at the dining table. "Both you and Theo have spoken. If that is your will, then I shall follow."
Theo's heart leaped higher and higher. 'Everyone,' he thought in awe, 'is so amazing.'
An opinion Meg did not seem to share, for she buried her hands in her hair and shook her head. "You guys...do you even realize what you're saying? It's a crazy enough idea just busting out one familiar, but – but releasing all the prisoners? Destroying the Ensons' entire livelihood in one fell swoop? They'll take it as an act of war. You'll be branded an enemy not just of them, but all their allies as well."
"Their livelihood sucks! It deserves to be destroyed!" Sam shouted, pounding the table.
"I agree," Darian said, setting her jaw. "So what if they come after me. I'm prepared to fight a war on multiple fronts."
"And I will be there to protect you. Always," Zenith said, and Darian nodded.
Despite himself, a stab of jealousy twisted through Theo's chest. He hated himself for it, for still resenting the pure trust with which the two spoke to each other. Now he understood just how far their bond went – and also that it wasn't romantic. Still, sometimes it was hard to remind his lizard brain of that.
Meg's exasperated voice provided a welcome distraction. "You all – you're all new to this world. So you don't understand how this works, how it's always worked."
"I thought you hated it. You wanted to leave it behind. That's why you cut off ties with your family, right?" Theo said, looking her in the eye.
When Meg glared back, he wondered if he'd gone too far. Friendly as she might be, Meg was still much older than him and his teacher, besides. He'd never challenged her like this before.
But her expression softened and she slumped back in her chair as if all the energy had drained out of her body. "I...I do hate it. I always have. But...it's so big, so much bigger than me. What can I do to change it?"
"'The world is like this. It's always been this way.'" Pushing back her chair, Darian stood up. "You don't know how many times I've heard those words. But I refuse to believe it. If this current world is wrong, then we'll just have to create a better one."
The breath caught in Theo's throat. Seeing her like this, proudly upright with her head held high, he found himself understanding what had compelled Zenith to follow her.
"Lady Meg." Lodo's soft sigh startled Theo; it was the first time he'd spoken. "I do believe that even if we refuse to join them, the young ones will simply go off and storm the Enson prison on their own."
Sam nodded fiercely. But to his shame, Theo felt a little spark of doubt. He didn't like thinking this way, but he knew that he and Sam were still inexperienced wizards – Sam didn't even have a familiar. Meg was easily the strongest of them all. If they didn't have her help....
But he didn't want to say it when Sam, Darian, and Zenith were facing Meg with such fierce resolve. He clenched his hands into fists, digging nails into sweaty palms.
"Oh, dear." To his alarm, Meg let out a shuddering laugh before shaking her head so hard her hair blew all over her face. When she stopped, she drew in a breath and pushed the hair back behind her ears. Her eyes were hard. "You all are just...fine. This old lady will come with you, just to make sure you kids don't all get yourselves killed."
Sam grinned, but guilt wrenched in Theo's stomach. "Sorry, Meg. I don't want to force you...."
"Don't think of it like that. You and Sam are my students. I have some kind of responsibility to you," she said, setting her jaw.
It startled Theo how familiar her resolve seemed. He'd seen her like this before, hadn't he? Yes, that time when Victor had ambushed them and she'd come in for the rescue. She'd gazed at Victor just like this, just as implacable.
The tension unknotted in Theo's chest. He hadn't realized it, but knowing that Meg had his back made him feel more secure than anything else.
"Still, we can work out the lodging situation ourselves, okay?" he insisted.
Meg shook her head, then tossed her hair over her shoulder. "No, I'll see about renting that Wetherill beach house for us."
"What?" Sam burst out, while Theo was too shocked to speak.
A self-deprecating smile twitched Meg's lips and she lifted her shoulders. "I'd be a hypocrite talking big about Ryan swallowing his pride if I couldn't do the same myself, could I?"
Lodo nodded, looking satisfied – if not proud. Theo had never seen such an expression on his face before, filled with a fondness that was almost paternal. It made a tender ache well in his chest.
"So I take it we've decided?" Darian smiled, tilting her head.
"Seems like it. But make no mistakes." Meg fixed her gaze Theo, dark eyes blazing with resolve. "I am not doing this for Ryan Crowley. I'm doing it for you, my students and friends. For Avia. For all the familiars the Ensons have captive."
"That's right." Darian raised her fist. "One for all, and all for one."
"Except Ryan," Sam muttered under her breath, and before he could stop himself a hysterical giggle burst out of Theo's throat. At least he wasn't the only one. Just like that, the tension cracked, and everyone (Zenith excluded, of course) had a merry chuckle at Ryan's expense.