“I don’t know,” I say. “This is your experiment.”
“Don’t, then,” he says. “Not right away. But tell me if it hurts.”
“It didn’t hurt before,” I mutter.
“It didn’t?”
“No.”
“What did it feel like?”
“Stop talking about feelings,” I say, shaking his hand. “Hit me. Or charge me. Whatever it is you want to do.”
Snow licks his bottom lip and closes his eyes halfway. Is this how he looked this afternoon? Crowley.
I feel his magic.
At first it’s a buzz in my fingertips, then a rush of static up my arm. I try not to squirm.
“Okay?” he asks. His voice is soft.
“Fine. What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “Opening? I guess?”
The static in my arm settles into a heavy thrum, like electrical sparks catching into flames. The discomfort goes away, even though the licking, flaming feeling gets stronger. This I know what to do with: This is fire.
“Still okay?” he asks.
“Grand,” I say.
“What does that mean—does that mean you could use it?”
I laugh, and it comes out more good-natured than I mean it to. “Snow. I think I could cast a sonnet right now.”
“Show me,” he says.
I’m so full of power, I feel like I can see without opening my eyes. Like I could go nova if I wanted to and have my own galaxy. Is this what it’s like to be Simon Snow? To have infinity in your chest pocket?
I speak clearly: “Twinkle, twinkle little star!”
By the time I get to the end of the next phrase, the room around us is gone, and the stars feel close enough to touch.
“Up above the world so high!”
Simon grabs my other hand, and my chest opens wider. “Merlin and Morgana,” he says. “Are we in space?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Is that a spell?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
We both look around us. I don’t think we’re in space; I can breathe just fine. And I don’t feel like floating away—though I am teetering on the edge of hysterical. So much power. So many stars. My mouth tastes like smoke. “Are you holding back at all?” I ask him.
“Not consciously,” Snow says. “Is it too much?”
“No. It’s like you completed the circuit,” I say, gripping his other hand. “I feel kind of drunk, though.”
“Drunk on power?” he asks.
I giggle. “Shit, Snow. Stop talking. This is embarrassing.”
“Do you want me to pull back?”
“No. I want to look at the stars.”
“I’m pulling back,” he says.
And then he does. It feels like the tide going out—if the tide were made of heroin and fire.
I shake my head. I don’t let go of Snow’s hands.
“All right?” he asks.
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine.”
Now we’re just sitting on my bed, holding hands, Simon Snow and I. I can’t look at his eyes, so I stare at his cross.
“Your mother…,” he says. “When she came back, she said that thing about stars. ‘He said we’d be stars.’”
“I think that’s a coincidence,” I say.
“Yeah.” Simon nods. “Do you have any of it left? Like, did it stay with you? My magic?”
“Residually?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I shake my head. “No. A feeling. A hum. Not power.”
“Can you do it on your end?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re still touching,” he says. “Try to tap into it.”
I close my eyes and try to be open, try to be a vacuum or a black hole. Nothing happens. I try to pull at Snow, then. To suck at him with my own magic … Still nothing.
I open my eyes. “No. I can’t take it from you. I’ve never heard of a magician taking someone else’s magic. Can you imagine? If there were a spell for that? We’d tear each other apart.”
“We’re already tearing each other apart.”
“I can’t take it,” I say again.
“Do you think it hurt you, my magic?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So we could do it again.”
“We just did, Snow.”
He looks uncharacteristically thoughtful. I wonder if he’s forgotten that he’s holding my hands. Or if he’s forgotten what it means to hold hands. Or if he’s forgotten who I am entirely.
I think again about pulling my hands away—but Snow could light fires in my palms at this point, and I wouldn’t pull away. It feels like he has.
“Baz,” he says, and it’s not unprecedented for him to say my name, but I know he avoids it. “This is stupid. If we’re going to be working together, you can’t keep pretending that I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what,” I say, yanking my hands back.
“Don’t know about you. What you are.”
“Get off my bed, Snow.”
“It won’t change anything—”
“Won’t it?”
“Well, it would make things easier,” he says. “How can we discuss what we know about vampires when you won’t even admit that you are one?”
“Get off my bed.”
Snow stands up, but doesn’t stand down. “I know. I’ve known since our fifth year. How’re we supposed to help you if you’re still keeping all these secrets? Like, why did you start school late this term? And what happened to you? And why are you limping?”
“That’s none of your business,” I hiss. “None of it.”
“You’re right, but you said you wanted my help. So you made it my business.”
“I’ll tell you whatever I think is relevant.”
“We’re supposed to find out who sent blood-sucking vampires to kill your mother, and you are a blood-sucking vampire. You don’t think that’s relevant?”
As if I can just admit that. Out loud. On the record. As if every other magician wouldn’t gladly light me up if they knew it to be true.
As if Snow himself hasn’t been trying to expose me every day for seven years.
I clamp my jaw shut.
I should leave. Go back to the Catacombs. But Snow’s magic has wiped me out—I’m not sure I could stand now. So I just close my eyes.
“I’m done with you today,” I say. “I’ve been struck by lightning twice in the last twelve hours, and now I’m just done.”
49
SIMON
Agatha wants to talk to me after our Magic Words lesson.
She hasn’t said a word to me since we broke up—she hardly even looks at me—so when she approaches me now, my initial response is to look at the floor and try to walk around her. She has to grab my sleeve to get my attention, which is awkward for both of us.
“Simon,” she says. “Could I talk to you?”
She looks so nervous; she’s biting her bottom lip. I have to admit, my first thought is that Agatha misses me. That she wants to get back together.
I’ll say yes, of course. I won’t even make her ask. We can go right back to how we were. Maybe I’ll even tell her what’s going on with Baz—maybe she can help.
Then I think about Agatha being in the close quarters of our room, close enough that Baz can smell her pulse—and decide that I won’t tell her about everything, not right away.
But I will take her back.
This has all been such shit. Ignoring each other. Sitting apart. Acting like enemies when all we’ve ever been is friends.
I’ll take her back. Just in time for Christmas.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmas lately. I always spend it with the Wellbeloves. I have since I first came to Watford.
I think at first it must have been a philanthropic thing for her dad, Dr. Wellbelove. That’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do—open the house up on Christmas to orphans.
It’s how Agatha and I got
to be friends. I’m not sure she ever would have talked to me if she hadn’t been trapped with me in her house every year for two weeks.
It’s not that Agatha’s stuck up—
Well … She is a bit stuck up. I think she likes being prettier than everyone else and having better clothes and being luckier.
I can’t blame her for that.
But also, she’s just not that social. Especially at school. She used to be really involved in dance, before Watford, and she’s still all caught up in horses, and I think she’s closer to her summer Normal friends than anybody here.
Agatha’s not like Penny. She doesn’t naturally care about magickal politics. And she’s not like me, she doesn’t have to care.
I don’t think Agatha cares that much about magic, full stop. The last time we talked about the future, she was thinking about becoming a veterinarian.
Dr. Wellbelove is all about Normal–magickal equality, and how it doesn’t serve mages to think of ourselves as better than Normals. (“I get what Welby’s saying,” Penelope’s mum will say, “but we can do everything the Normals can do, plus magic. How is that not better?”)
Her dad’s never pressured Agatha to choose a magickal career. I think she could probably even date a Normal, if she wanted. (Her mum might mind that; Normals aren’t allowed at the club.)
Anyway, I love being at the Wellbeloves, so long as they’re not throwing a posh dinner or dragging me through event season. Everything in their house is brand new and top of the line. They have a TV that takes up an entire wall, with giant speakers hidden behind paintings of horses, and all their couches are made of leather.
Agatha’s mum’s always out, and her dad’s usually at the clinic. (He’s a Normal doctor, too, but most of his patients are mages. He specializes in acute abNormal ailments.) They’ve got a maid-type person, Helen, who cooks for Agatha and drives her around. But nobody treats Helen like a maid. She dresses in regular clothes, not any uniform, and she’s obsessed with Doctor Who.
They’re all good to me, Helen included. Agatha’s mum gives me nice clothes for Christmas, and her dad talks to me about my future like I’m not going to die in a ball of fire.
I just really like them. And I like Christmas. And I’ve been thinking about how weird it’s going to be to sit around the dinner table, talking to Agatha’s parents, knowing that we’re broke up.
Agatha and I stay in the Magic Words classroom after everyone else leaves.
She’s still biting her lip.
“Agatha…,” I say.
“It’s about Christmas,” she says.
She pushes her hair behind her ears. She has perfectly straight hair that parts in the middle and naturally frames her face. (Penny says it’s a spell. Agatha says it is not. Penny says beauty spells are nothing to be ashamed of.)
“My dad wants you to know that of course you’re still welcome at our house for Christmas,” Agatha says.
“Oh,” I say. “Good.”
“But I think we both know how uncomfortable that would be,” she goes on. She looks very uncomfortable, just saying it. “For both of us.”
“Right,” I say. It would be uncomfortable, I guess.
“It would ruin Christmas,” she says.
I stop myself before I can say, “Would it? Would it really, Agatha? It’s a big house, and I’ll stay in the TV room the whole time.”
“Right,” I say instead.
“So I told him that you were probably going to stay with the Bunces.”
Agatha knows I can’t stay with the Bunces. Penelope’s mum can only take about two or three days of me before she starts treating me like a Great Dane who can’t help knocking things over with its tail.
The Bunces’ house isn’t small, but it’s full of people—and stacks and stacks of stuff. Books, papers, toys, dishes. There’s no way not to be underfoot. You’d have to be incorporeal not to knock anything over.
“Right,” I say to Agatha. “Okay.”
She looks at the floor. “I’m sure my parents will still send gifts.”
“I’ll send them a card.”
“That would be nice,” she says. “Thank you.” She pulls her satchel up over her shoulder and takes a step away from me—then stops and flips her hair out of her face. (It’s just a gesture; her hair is never in her face.) “Simon. It was amazing how you beat that dragon. You saved its life.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well, Baz did it, didn’t he? I would’ve slit its throat if I could have figured out how.”
“My dad says the Humdrum sent it.”
I shrug again.
“Merry Christmas, Simon,” Agatha says. Then she walks past me out the door.
50
SIMON
“You should really just let me stay in your room,” Penelope says. “It would make things easier.”
“No,” Baz and I say at once.
“Where would you sleep,” I ask, “the bathtub?”
The chalkboard is still taking up the open area at the end of our beds, and there are stacks of books around it now. Every useful book in the Watford library has made its way to our room, thanks to Baz and Penelope—and not a one of them properly checked out, I’m sure.
We’ve been working here every night, though we don’t have much but a mess to show for it.
“I don’t mind sleeping in the bath,” Penny says. “I could spell it squishy.”
“No,” Baz says. “It’s bad enough sharing a bathroom with Snow.”
“Penny, you have a perfectly good room,” I say, ignoring the jab.
“Simon, a perfectly good room wouldn’t have Trixie in it.”
“That’s your roommate?” Baz asks. “The pixie?”
“Yes,” Penelope says.
He curls his lips up and down at the same time. “Imagine you’re a pixie,” he says. “I know it’s distasteful, but imagine—you’re a pixie, and you have a daughter, and you name her Trixie. Trixie the pixie.”
“I think it’s kind of cute,” I say.
“You think Trixie’s kind of cute,” Penny says.
“Trixie is cute.” I shrug.
“Snow,” Baz says. “I’ve just eaten.”
I roll my eyes. He probably thinks pixies are a lesser species. Half-sentient, like gnomes and Internet trolls.
“It’s like being a fairy named Mary,” he goes on.
“Or a vampire named Gampire,” I say.
“Gampire isn’t even a proper name, Snow. You’re terrible at this game.”
“In Trixie’s defence,” Penelope says, and you can tell it pains her to say it, “the pixies probably don’t go around calling themselves ‘pixies.’ I mean, you could be a human named Newman or a boy named Roy, and no one would think twice.”
“I’ll bet your room is covered in pixie dust,” Baz says, shuddering.
“Don’t get her started,” I say. “Good-night, Penny.”
“Fine,” she says, climbing to her feet and picking up the book she was reading. It’s a bound copy of The Record; we’ve all taken to reading them straight through, looking for clues. We’re becoming experts in decade-old current events.
It’s all so weird.…
Not just to be working with Baz, but to have him around all the time when I’m hanging out with Penny.
He still won’t talk to us outside of the room.
Baz says it would confuse his minions to see him consorting with the enemy. He actually called them that—“my minions.” Maybe he was taking the piss.…
I can’t always tell when Baz is mocking me. He’s got a cruel mouth. It looks like he’s sneering even when he’s happy about something. Actually, I don’t know if he ever is happy. It’s like he’s got two emotions—pissed off and sadistically amused.
(And plotting, is that an emotion? If so, three.)
(And disgusted. Four.)
Anyway, Penelope and I still don’t tell Baz everything. We never talk about the Mage, for example—it turns immediately into a fight if we do. Plus Penny do
esn’t want Baz to know that her family might be on the outs with the Mage. (Even though Baz’d probably sympathize.)
Penny keeps reminding me that Baz is still my enemy. That when the truce ends, he could use everything he’s learned against me.
But I’m not sure I’m the one who needs reminding. Half the time we’re together, I’m just sitting on my bed reading while Penelope and Baz are comparing their Top 10 favourite spells of the 1800s or debating the magickal worth of Hamlet versus Macbeth.
The other day, he walked her over to the Cloisters on his way to the Catacombs. When he came back, he reported that there weren’t any clues about how she gets into Mummers House. The next day, she told me he didn’t acknowledge at all that he was on his way to suck blood out of rodents.
“You going my way?” she says to him now, from the doorway.
“No, I’m in for the night,” he says.
So fucking weird.
“See you guys at breakfast,” Penny says, closing the door behind her.
If Baz isn’t going hunting tonight, I may as well take a shower and go to sleep. We tend to fight more viciously when it’s just the two of us.
I’m getting my pyjamas together when he speaks up:
“So what’s your plan next week? For the holidays?”
I feel my jaw tighten. “Probably go home with Penny for a few days, then spend the rest of it here.”
“Not celebrating round the Wellbelove family hearth?”
I slam my wardrobe shut. We haven’t talked about this yet. Me and Baz. About Agatha.
I don’t know if the pair of them’re talking. Or meeting. Agatha doesn’t even come to dinner anymore. I think she eats in her room.
“Nope,” I say, walking past his bed.
“Snow,” he says.
“What.”
“You should come to Hampshire.”
I stop and look at him. “What? Why?”
Baz clears his throat and folds his arms, lifting his chin to emphasize how much he looks down on me.
“Because you’ve sworn to help me find my mother’s killer.”
“I am helping you.”
“Well, you’ll be more help to me there than you are here. The library at home is far too big for me to cover myself. And I have a car there—we could actually investigate. You don’t even have the Internet here.”
“You’re suggesting I go home with you.”