Any Way the Wind Blows

by Rainbow Rowell

  “Why not?” I ask. “You can cure other things. Like … high blood pressure and gnomeatic fever.”

  “Weak magic isn’t a disease.” He combs his hand through my hair, from front to back, then tugs at the crown.

  I tilt my head back, eyes still closed. “What is it, then?”

  “It’s not one thing.” He pulls his fingers out of my hair, then combs them through again. “It’s aptitude, right? Some people aren’t good with words, some people aren’t persuasive speakers. Some people can’t think on their feet.”

  He could be talking about me. Maybe he is.

  “But it’s also ability,” he goes on. “Can you speak clearly, does your voice carry … And then there’s basic capacity. Strength, power. How much magic you can control, how much you can channel. Plus, training, education, practice, drive…”

  “Lucky for you,” I say, opening my eyes just enough to see him. “You’ve got it all.”

  Baz curls his lip. “Yeah, that’s me. Nobody can shut up about my good luck.”

  I ease closer. “You are lucky though. You and Penny. You’re like…” I reach my hand up his back, under his shirt. His skin is cool. “Aristocrats. Like, kings and queens compared to everyone else.”

  “What’d that make you, Snow, a god?”

  “I was a fluke.”

  Baz sighs, frustrated, and gives my hair a sharp pull. “All right,” he says, “I’m lucky. What does that prove? Do you think Smith-Richards is changing people’s luck?”

  “I think he’s doing something,” I say. “Shall we go check it out?”

  Baz hums. “Let’s wait for Penelope to call. We could use her help.”

  “You think she’ll get back to us?”

  “When has Bunce ever ignored a dangerous proposition?”

  42

  PENELOPE

  “Maybe we should just summon the demon and see what happens.”

  “We are not summoning the demon, Penelope.”

  “Don’t want me to meet your girlfriend?”

  Shepard is sitting low on my sofa, his shoulders against the back of it and his legs kicked out. He’s different now that I know his secret. Less happy-go-lucky. Maybe he can’t pretend to be lucky while we’re really plumbing the depths of his bad luck. He’s got his jacket off, and he’s wearing a white Keith Haring T-shirt. And every time I say something that he finds humiliating, like now, he covers his eyes with his forearms and shows me his triceps.

  I drop down next to Shepard on the sofa. I’m only half kidding about summoning the demon; maybe she’d be open to negotiation. I elbow him. “Worried she’ll get clingy?”

  “Penelope…” He lets his arms fall. “You can keep making fun of me…”

  “I shall.”

  “And insulting me.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  He turns his head towards me. If I had to describe his face and general mood right now, I’d go with unhappy-go-unlucky. “But please,” he says, “don’t make jokes like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t call her my girlfriend.”

  “Is ‘fiancée’ better?”

  “Don’t, Penelope. It’s not funny.”

  “It’s funny to me, I have a lot of jokes lined up.”

  Shepard frowns at me. It’s somehow even more effective than his smiles—more potent for its rarity. “If I were a woman being forced to marry a demon,” he says, “would it be funny?”

  I don’t know, would it? I fold my arms. Shepard’s not a woman. He’s a big, goofy man—who got himself into this situation and then hid it from me. “Clearly I understand that this is serious, Shepard—I am trying to help you fix it.”

  “And I appreciate it! Thank you! Just … don’t tease me. About that part. Don’t call her my fiancée.”

  “Fine,” I say and wish I didn’t sound so sulky about it.

  “It’s not a real engagement,” he says, rubbing the stripes in his trousers. He’s said it before.

  “I get that.”

  He glances at me, not quite meeting my eyes. “Do you?”

  “Yes. I do.” (I mean … I mostly do.) “Mages used to have arranged marriages,” I say, looking back up at my lists. “It made sense from a practical standpoint: We like to marry each other, and powerful mages like to marry other powerful mages—it keeps the bloodlines robust.”

  Shepard has turned more fully towards me, listening. Of course he’s listening, these are state secrets. I keep going anyway: “There are lots of stories about people trapped in marriage contracts. Beautiful maidens, usually, promised to powerful old men.”

  He looks down at his lap, embarrassed again.

  “Hey…” I say, thinking. “That vampire couldn’t kill you. Back in the desert. In Nevada.”

  “I suspect he could have killed me,” Shepard says, “but he couldn’t Turn me—that’s where the curse interfered.”

  “Because if you were immortal,” I say, “your soul wouldn’t show up for the wedding.”

  He sighs. “That’s my assumption.”

  I bring my legs up onto the couch to cross them, then push my skirt down in the middle. (Baz is always on me to be more ladylike in skirts.) “Has that come into play before?”

  “Once,” Shepard says. “I tried to go home with a fairy, but I couldn’t get through the mist.”

  “Why were you going home with a fairy?”

  He looks back at his knees, clearing his throat.

  “With a fairy?” I say. If I sound scandalized, it’s because I am.

  He peeks up at me, smiling. “Why not with a fairy?”

  “I can’t even believe you found a proper fairy—but, Shepard, they’re evil!”

  He smiles at his lap. “She didn’t seem evil.”

  “Morgana below, is this part of your whole … thing?”

  He lifts his chin up and looks at me like I’m the one being strange. “Is what part of my whole thing? Going home with girls?”

  “Going home with creatures. Are you some sort of collector?”

  “No!” He’s laughing at me. “No. Not, like, intentionally.”

  I fall back against the arm of the sofa, covering my eyes. “I can’t.”

  I can still hear him laughing.

  “You’re lucky the curse saved you from disappearing into the fairy realm,” I say.

  “Didn’t feel lucky at the time.”

  I shake my head hard, really not wanting to imagine what else Shepard has followed home over the years. Then I haul myself back up, smoothing my skirt, and trying to sort out the relevant implications … “So you’re not allowed to be with anyone else? Romantically? We should write that down.”

  “Oh no,” he says. “That’s not the problem. The curse doesn’t keep me from hooking up. I don’t think the demon cares what I do before I die.”

  I can feel my cheeks burning. “Then why couldn’t you pass through the fairy fog?”

  “I think it’s because time passes differently with the fairies…”

  “Oh, sure,” I say, getting it, “it’s another sort of immortality!”

  “Or altered mortality,” he agrees.

  “Huh.” I stand up and find my chalk. I make a note of it on the wall: C.V. can’t be made immortal. And—“Engagement” doesn’t interfere with sexual congress.

  “Not how I’d put it,” Shepard says.

  I tap the chalk against my chin.

  “What happens in the stories?” he asks.

  I turn back to him. “Hmm?”

  He looks sheepish again. “To the beautiful maidens?”

  “Oh, they get out of it, of course. They find a loophole. Or they trick the old creepy guy. My dad used to love to tell this story about a beautiful magician who secretly married her true love and … Oh! Oh my words!! Shepard!!! I have an idea.”

  43

  BAZ

  I thought we were going to have to do some detective work to find Smith-Richards’s residential centre, but apparently someone gave Simo
n a leaflet at the meeting. (No one offered me a leaflet.) (No one ever wants me to join their religion, either.)

  Penelope still hasn’t called. Or texted. Simon’s in a funk about it, but hopefully he’ll rally. I sprung for a taxi, so he wouldn’t pout about having to take the train or a bus.

  “Pull over here,” I say to the cabbie.

  Simon squints out the window. “Here?”

  “Apparently,” I say, paying the fare.

  We climb out and look across the street. There’s a brick building with a tower and a belfry; it might have been a church once. A small, grey-haired man is hurrying away from the door.

  “Is that Professor Bunce?” Simon says.

  “Penny’s mum?”

  “The other Professor Bunce, her dad.”

  “Don’t know.” I pull Simon’s arm. “Come on. And don’t forget to invite me in if no one else does.”

  We jog across the street. Simon looks like he’s going to call out to Professor Bunce, but the man is already half a block away.

  The building ahead of us has a large, stone doorframe with the words HOME FOR WAIFS engraved in the lintel. “A little on the nose,” I mutter.

  “Is it an orphanage?” Simon asks.

  “Was, maybe.” I push the buzzer.

  Simon smooths down his hair.

  “Don’t forget to invite me in,” I whisper.

  “When do I ever forget?”

  “When we tried to have breakfast at Dishoom.”

  “That was one time.”

  “I miss America,” I say. “All those ‘welcome’ mats and ‘come in, we’re open’ signs…”

  Simon snorts. “You do not miss America—”

  The door opens. The girl I recognized at Smith-Richards’s meeting is standing there. Chomsky, how do I know her? She’s got to be around our age … Fair skin. Short, brown hair. I know she wasn’t at Watford. Are we related somehow, is that how I know her? Her eyes get big when she sees Simon.

  “Hi,” he says.

  The girl’s already rushing away from us, down the hall. Talk about starstruck. She’s left the front door open. Simon steps in and looks around.

  I fold my arms, waiting.

  He turns back to me and grins.

  “This is a good game,” I say flatly. “Can we play this for the rest of our lives?”

  Snow reaches out and grabs my elbow, pulling me across the threshold and against him. He’s laughing silently and kissing my cheek. (For someone who is afraid of looking gay in public, he sure gets off on public displays of affection.) (That’s probably connected.)

  “Simon!” We both turn towards the voice. It’s Smith-Richards himself. Dressed like a very wealthy folksinger. “I was hoping I’d see you again,” he says, clapping a hand on Simon’s back.

  Simon doesn’t know how to respond to that. He looks a bit dazed. (Snow is very easily impressed by Smith-Richards.) (Or maybe he’s just worried that Smith-Richards can feel his wings.)

  I hold out my hand. “Hello,” I say. “Basilton Pitch.”

  Smith-Richards looks at me for the first time, his hand still on Simon’s shoulder. “Pitch…” His eyes light up. “Daphne’s son!” He reaches out with his free hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. Did you come to visit her?”

  I shake his hand. “Actually—”

  “We came to see you,” Simon says.

  Smith-Richards drops my hand, turning back to Simon and smiling softly. “Did you? I hoped you would.” He wraps his arm around Simon’s shoulders—surely he can feel the wings now—and starts walking away with him. “Come on in, both of you. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  * * *

  Smith-Richards’s office isn’t an office. It’s a tiny sitting room filled with a flat’s worth of expensive modern furniture, all of it deceptively simple. He’s got a bookshelf that looks like a shipping crate—I’ll bet it cost a thousand pounds. He invites Simon and me to sit on a leather sofa, and he sits just across from us in a wooden folding chair that probably cost another thousand pounds. His chair is so close to us, our knees are practically knocking.

  “Sorry it’s so cramped in here,” he says. “We needed all the bigger spaces for bedrooms. We just moved into this building a few weeks ago, and we’ve already outgrown it. I’m not sure what we’ll do if more magicians show up.” His face falls. “Did you guys come to stay? Because we can make room for you—we’ll find a way.”

  “No,” I say, worried that Snow will blunder us into joining this commune. “We just came to talk.”

  Smith-Richards looks relieved. “Ah, good. Wonderful. Let’s talk. What can I tell you?”

  We’ve already planned this part of the conversation. How to bring up Jamie. Simon is supposed to start talking about Smith’s miracle spell, and how he’d like to meet someone who’s been cured …

  Instead, Snow swallows and says in an overawed voice, “Have you always known you were the Chosen One?”

  Smith-Richards’s whole posture softens. He smiles directly into Simon’s eyes. “No,” he says. “Did you?”

  Simon wrinkles his nose and presses his lips together, shaking his head. “The Mage told me. When I was eleven. I never felt like anything special before that—or after, really.”

  “But your magic was special,” Smith-Richards says. “Your magic was legendary.”

  “Nah, I was a shit magician. Talk to anyone who went to school with me.”

  “Did you go to Watford?” I ask Smith-Richards. “You must have left just as we were showing up.” If he’s in his 30s, he would have known my mother and possibly my aunt.

  Smith-Richards looks like he’d already forgotten I was there. “Oh … no—we travelled too much for that. I went to Normal schools. In Germany, Kenya, Budapest … And my godfather tutored me in magic. I wish I’d gone to Watford. What an incredible history. And I’d have more friends in the mage community here. More connections.”

  “But you didn’t know you were the Chosen One all along?” Simon asks. “When did you figure it out?”

  Smith-Richards turns to Simon again, looking a bit dazed and overawed himself. (Fair. Simon is incredibly attractive. Especially when he’s being all dogged and earnest like this. With his cheeks pink and his eyebrows drawn low and his throat bobbing every time he fortifies himself to ask a question.)

  “I…” Smith-Richards says. “Did you want something to drink? I didn’t offer. There’s cake, too. There might even be dinner.”

  “No,” Simon says, “we’re fine. Thanks.”

  Smith-Richards leans forward. It’s like he’s giving in. He rests an elbow on one knee and ruffles the back of his golden hair. He wears it long enough to curl, to cover his ears but not his collar. “To be honest,” he says, “I didn’t think that I might be the Greatest Mage until I heard that you had been…”

  “Exposed?” Simon says.

  Smith-Richards shrugs, like he doesn’t want to hurt Simon’s feelings. “Explained.”

  “And then?” Simon pushes.

  Smith-Richards is at the back of his hair again. “And then I started thinking about a lot of things…”

  Simon swallows, waiting.

  “About signs.”

  “Signs,” Simon repeats, leaning forward.

  Smith-Richard nods. “My mother had a dream about me, before she even knew she was pregnant. Then I was born during an eclipse. And after my parents died—”

  “Your parents died?”

  “When I was very young.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. After they died, my godfather raised me, and he always told me I was special.”

  I roll my eyes. Every parent says that.

  Smith-Richards goes on: “I thought he was just saying it because he loved me, but there was some truth to it. I’ve always had a way with other magicians … even when I was a baby.”

  Everyone loves babies.

  “Their magic was stronger when I was around,” he says. “My godfather said he could cast a son
net with me in the room.”

  Simon smiles—ruefully. “That’s the opposite of me,” he says. “I was taking everyone else’s magic.”

  “Not intentionally,” Smith-Richards says. “Simon, everyone knows that the Mage used you.”

  Simon’s face is red. I don’t think the fact that everyone knows he was duped is much of a comfort to him. Especially when there’s so much he doesn’t know himself. Where did Simon’s ability come from? And how did the Mage find him? What would have happened if the Mage had been able to take Simon’s power on that final, fateful day?

  “So you put the pieces together…” Simon says. “About yourself.”

  “I started to think, perhaps…” Smith-Richards’s cheeks are red, too. His eyes are more blue than ever. “Perhaps I was meant to help people.”

  For fuck’s sake—imagine thinking that makes you special. Something that’s literally true of all of us. I hold back a derisive “pfft.”

  Simon is sitting on the very edge of the sofa. “So no one around you—”

  Smith-Richards scoots forward on his chair. Their knees are overlapping now. “When I talked to my godfather, he said he’d always suspected that I might be … you know. The one. But that it was the sort of thing I needed to decide for myself. To discover for myself and feel sure of.” Smith-Richards runs his fingers through his hair. He’s sitting in a shaft of light now. The evening sun catches on each shining curl. “I don’t think I could have felt certain of this, as a child. I’m glad I didn’t know what I was.” He holds his palms out. “I wouldn’t have understood what it meant.”

  Simon is looking down into the man’s open hands.

  “I’m so grateful for the last ten years,” Smith-Richards says. “You gave me that time, and it was a gift.”

  Simon tilts his head up, and their eyes meet. Simon swallows. Then swallows again.

  “How long have you been back in England?” I ask. Crisply.

  Smith-Richards is still gazing at Simon.

  I clear my throat.

  His head turns slowly to me. “A year,” he says. “A little more. It felt like it was time to come home.”

  “To buy an orphanage?”