Any Way the Wind Blows

by Rainbow Rowell

  “All right.”

  “Until you tell me you don’t want me to.”

  “Or until you don’t want to,” I say.

  “That might be never, Snow.”

  “All right.”

  Baz looks down, smiling with one side of his mouth, his eyelashes stark against his cheeks.

  I get under the sheets he magicked up for me—they’re already going threadbare, I suppose I’ll need to buy real ones soon—and lie on my side.

  Baz climbs in, too, and lies down facing me. After a second, he’s got my tail in hand, and he’s twisting it through his fingers. “So we’re going to wait for the next revival meeting?”

  “Seems like it,” I say. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I think that’s what Smith-Richards wants—for you to come to another of his meetings.”

  “You can’t still think he’s up to something nefarious…”

  Baz lifts his head. “What’s the alternative? That’s he’s actually the Greatest Mage?”

  “If he’s giving people magic, that’s pretty great.”

  “He isn’t giving it to them. They were already magicians.”

  “Baz, we watched him cast the spell.”

  He drops his head back on the pillow and tugs on my tail. “We should dig up what we can on his family … I’ll bet he isn’t even an orphan.”

  I hook an arm around Baz’s waist. He’s solid. I like it. “Why would anyone lie about being an orphan?”

  “For sympathy,” Baz says, scooting closer to me, “and because orphans are always marked by destiny, aren’t they? They’re never just some poor kid. They’re always Luke Skywalker. Or Moses.”

  “Hey…” I squeeze him. “I’m an orphan.”

  “You’re only proving my point, Snow. I’ll bet you were born during an eclipse, too, but nobody bothered to write it down.”

  “Orphans aren’t magickal,” I say. “We’re unfortunate.”

  “I’ve spent my half my life saying so,” he sighs, “but the world didn’t listen.” He lowers an eyebrow at me. “I don’t know why you of all people would trust this guy, Simon.”

  “I don’t know why you wouldn’t.”

  He hums, his eyebrow still low. “Let’s give Lady Salisbury an update.”

  “You think she’ll agree with you,” I say.

  “I think we could use another opinion, and Penelope is still narked at you.”

  I shrug and sneak my free hand under Baz’s neck. It isn’t really sneaking—he lifts his head up for me, smiles like he might be blushing, and settles his head back down on my arm.

  “I don’t mind,” I say. “I like Lady Ruth. I think she’ll be happy if we find out that Smith-Richards actually helped her son.”

  “I think she’ll be happy to find out Smith-Richards didn’t bury her son in a shallow grave.”

  “Oh come on—you can’t think that’s a possibility?”

  “Can’t I? He gives me a bad vibe. His teeth are too white. And he’s too earnest.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve said all of that about me.”

  “That’s just it.” Baz pokes my chest with the end of my tail. “He’s stealing your whole thing.”

  “He’s older than I am, so it was his thing first. Maybe I’m the one who stole it. Maybe it was meant to be him all along.”

  Baz thumps his head against my biceps. “Are we going to argue about Smith Smith-Richards every night in bed?”

  I grin. Suddenly I’m smiling so big I can hardly see.

  “What are you laughing at, Snow?”

  I’m not laughing. I shrug. I squeeze him. He’s solid. I like it.

  47

  AGATHA

  Niamh is with a patient when I walk in.

  “Your dad’s next door.” She’s got a three-headed dog squirming on her exam table, and she’s holding her wand over its heads. “Stay!”

  All three heads whimper, but the dog stays put.

  “I was looking for you,” I say, “but I’ll come back.” Or maybe I won’t. This is probably a bad idea …

  Niamh turns her head. “You were looking for me?”

  “Yeah, but I can come back.”

  She frowns at me. “Say what you need to say. Nigel doesn’t care.”

  “That hellhound’s name is Nigel?”

  She pets one of the heads. “You’re a good dog, aren’t you, Nigel?” Nigel jumps when he hears his name, and starts scrabbling off the exam table. Niamh tries to stop him.

  I rush over to help. “Where’s his owner?”

  “I asked her to step out,” Niamh says. “She was enabling him.”

  I’ve got my arms around the dog’s belly. “Enabling?”

  She holds her wand up again. “Nigel, stay! Please!”

  The dog settles a little, but he’s still wriggling in my arms. I pat his—their?—flank. “Good boy, Nigel. That’s right.”

  “He wouldn’t calm down at all with her in the room,” Niamh says.

  “Can you sedate him?”

  “I’d rather not for something so simple.” She holds one of the heads with both hands. “Hellhounds don’t respond predictably to meds.”

  “Who keeps a hellhound as a pet?”

  “You should see what people keep as pets,” she says. All of Nigel’s heads are nuzzling and nipping at her. “Nigel’s sweet. He’s just excitable. Hold him steady…”

  I try.

  Niamh moves quickly, taking each head in hand, flipping all six of Nigel’s ears to look inside. He doesn’t like it, but Niamh is deft, and she keeps him in hand.

  “Ah, there it is,” she says, after a moment. She points her wand in an ear. “Just a tick!” The dog yelps, and Niamh strokes his face with both hands. “There you go. All gone now, Nigel. Nothing serious.” He whines, trying to lick her. His other heads are snuffling in her jacket.

  “I really think he deserves three names,” I say.

  “She’s absolutely right, isn’t she, Nigel?”

  Niamh lifts her wand again. “Down, boy!” He hops down. “Heel!” He follows her to the door. She opens it. “Thanks, Agatha. That was perfect timing. Oh—” She looks up. “What were you going to ask me?”

  I feel nervous again. “I was just, um … wondering if you were going to Watford again this week.”

  “Yeah, I’m going this afternoon.”

  “I could come along again.” I shrug. “If you’d like. If you could use a hand.”

  Niamh looks surprised. “I could use two.”

  “Great,” I say. “Just come and get me.”

  Nigel bolts away from her, and Niamh runs after him. The door swings shut between us.

  48

  SIMON

  “He’s an orphan?” Lady Ruth says. She was just about to take a bite of an egg and cress sandwich, but now she’s frowning. “He’s stealing your act, Simon.”

  “That’s what I said, Lady Salisbury!” Baz couldn’t be more pleased with himself.

  “It’s not an act,” I say. “I am actually an orphan.”

  Lady Ruth pats my hand. “Of course you are, dear.”

  “Yes,” Baz says, “but even if you weren’t, the Mage still would have told everyone that you were. It’s just too perfect. Oh—” He turns back to Lady Ruth. “Smith-Richards also claims he was born under an eclipse.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Was he trying to convert you or get in your trousers?”

  “I mean,” Baz agrees, eating half a finger sandwich.

  “But Jamie wasn’t there?” she asks.

  “No,” I say. “Smith seemed excited to introduce us to him, but he wasn’t there. Maybe Jamie got his own flat?”

  Lady Ruth frowns, like that isn’t likely. “I tried to track him down again this morning. All my spells are still hitting dead ends. It’s almost like there’s a locked door at the end of my wand. Do you think Jamie got magic, and the first spell he cast was to hide from me?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “If I got my magic back
, I’d be too happy to nurse any grudges.”

  Baz looks over at me. He’s got his lips twisted to the side, like he’s thinking. Then he turns to Lady Ruth. “Doesn’t it seem like we should have heard of Smith-Richards before? Or his family?”

  She’s refilling his tea. “They don’t have any sort of magickal reputation. He just appeared one day.”

  “Smith-Richards says he was raised by his godfather…”

  She shakes her head. “Jamie never mentioned him.”

  “We’re going to Watford this afternoon,” I tell her, “to see if we can dig anything up in The Magickal Record.”

  She clicks her tongue, setting down the teapot. “Oh, I wish I hadn’t thrown all our old copies away! My husband used to have them bound up in leather volumes, but I cleared them out when he died. Hmm…” She taps the table. “Do you have a pair of reading glasses?”

  “I don’t think either of us needs glasses yet,” I say.

  Lady Ruth chuckles, patting my hand again. “Give me two shakes…” She gets up and bustles out of the dining room.

  “Reading glasses are glasses spelled to help you scan books and documents,” Baz explains, helping himself to a slice of cake. (Every time we call on Lady Salisbury, she seems to have just finished making a cake. Today it’s lemon drizzle. Cracking.)

  “Why didn’t we use a pair when we were looking for Nico?”

  “I don’t have a pair,” he says. “Imagine the magic that would take.”

  Magickal objects are rare among mages. They have to be spelled the regular way. So first you need a specific spell. And then you need to be powerful enough to cast the spell—to actually channel magic into a thing. The Mage could do it, but it always knocked him out. He slept for a full day once, after bewitching a key. I’ve never met anyone who could charm something powerful, like a sword or a wand.

  The Mage hoped I’d be able to do it eventually. I had the magic. But I didn’t have the magickal dexterity. I destroyed every object he put in front of me, including some expensive-looking jewellery.

  I’m probably lucky it didn’t work. Imagine how many holes I would have blown in the magickal fabric if he’d turned me into a magic-wand factory.

  Lady Ruth is back with an olive-green leather case. She sits down and hands the case to me—even though it’ll have to be Baz that uses anything magickal. I flip it open. There are gold wire-framed glasses inside. The arms have springs on the ends that must curl around the back of your ears. Baz is leaning over the table to look.

  “Use them with ‘Fine-tooth comb,’ or any finding spell,” she says. “They’ll give you a boost.”

  “Were these your husband’s, too?” I ask.

  “My mother’s. I’ve never been much of a reader myself. They’re a family heirloom, I suppose.”

  “Lovely,” Baz says. “We’ll be careful with them.”

  “I know you will.” She squeezes his arm. “Let me pack up some sandwiches for you to take along.”

  * * *

  I end up eating the sandwiches on the way to Watford.

  Baz frowns at me the whole time.

  “Sorry,” I say, “am I getting crumbs in the car?” It’s his aunt’s ancient sports car—we took it from her parking space—and it was already full of crumbs and cigarette butts.

  “I don’t care about the car,” he says. “I care about my shirt.”

  I look down at the shirt he let me borrow—that he made me borrow. (Baz is forcing his clothes on me again; he says none of mine are fit for polite company.) Today’s shirt is baby blue knit, with short sleeves and a diamond pattern. I look like the most laddish member of a boy band. I think Baz is only lending me clothes that he’d never wear himself.

  He reaches over and brushes some crumbs off my chest.

  “Should I have you spell my wings away?” I ask. They’re origamied tight on my back at the moment.

  “I thought I wasn’t allowed to spell your wings.”

  “Yeah, but … people can still see them under this shirt, and I don’t really want to put on a raincoat.”

  “Who’ll even be at Watford to see them?” he asks. “The students are on break. And Headmistress Bunce has already seen your wings.”

  “Yeah…”

  We tried to get Penelope to come to Watford with us, but she still isn’t answering my texts. Baz says I need to apologize to her properly. In person. I’m sure he’s right—I just don’t know where to start. I’ve never really apologized to Penny before. I’ve never had to.

  Baz parks in the grass outside the front gates, next to the Bunces’ hatchback.

  “Wonder why the headmistress is parked out here,” I say. “The Mage always parked inside the walls.”

  “The Mage was a heathen.” Baz opens the gate and holds it open for me.

  I follow him onto the Great Lawn and take his hand. Baz came back here for school, after everything with the Mage. He finished the term, lived alone in our old room at the top of the tower …

  I couldn’t come back.

  And not just because I wasn’t a magician anymore and had no use for a school of magic.

  I couldn’t live with the memories. Every day I’d been at Watford was a lie. Every lesson I learned, every battle. All the magic I had, I stole from the World of Mages. I was draining them dry. And the worst part is …

  I was happy here.

  I was happy as a fraud and a magickal incinerator.

  “All right?” Baz asks, when we’re halfway up the Lawn.

  “Yeah, all right.”

  He holds my hand firmly. “The drawbridge is already down,” he says. “That’s convenient.”

  “Ugh, I forgot about the merwolves.”

  “How could you forget about the merwolves?”

  “I tried not to think of them, even when we were here.”

  “I had a plan to drink them all…” Baz looks wistful. “But it took me all night to catch one—and then it tasted like motor oil. Gamy motor oil.”

  “What’d you do with the body?”

  “Threw it back in!”

  “Gross.”

  We walk over the drawbridge and through the fortress walls, into the empty courtyard. The Mage and his Men never left Watford open and unguarded like this, even on summer break. He and his Men were always here over school breaks, working on secret plans and projects. I used to ask the Mage to let me stay at Watford, too—but he said it was good for me to spend time with Normals.

  “I’d send the rest of these children to live with Normals, too, if I could. We get comfortable, complacent, among our own kind. We start behaving like the magic comes from within us—and not from the world around us. Go live in the world, Simon. Stay close to it.”

  So I spent every summer in care. In group homes. Once or twice, with foster families. At least I got to go home with Agatha most Christmases …

  The library is to the left, but Baz pulls me to the right. “Best check in with the headmistress first,” he says.

  I follow him past the fountain, towards the ivy-covered Weeping Tower. “Everything looks the same,” I say.

  “Did you think the walls would crumble without you?”

  “No…” But I thought they might crumble without the Mage. This was his place. His domain. And now he’s dead, and nothing has changed. Nothing stopped. (Except me, I suppose.) Watford—and the whole World of Mages—just went on without him.

  The Weeping Tower is unlocked, too. We take the lift to the top. As soon as the doors open, we can hear Penelope’s mum.

  “Because we’re running a school, not a nursery! Look, Peter, even Normal schools teach Shakespeare, and their kids can’t even use it!”

  Baz and I stop at the open door to her office. She’s on her mobile phone, pacing in front of the Mage’s desk—her desk, now. She’s wearing an oversized Beatles T-shirt and leggings. The Mage would be appalled.

  “Or perhaps!” she half shouts. “I’ll hire the new humanities teacher and pay her out of the football budget
… Oh, I think you’ll find that I can!”

  She spots us and stops pacing, acknowledging us with her free hand. “Peter, I have to go … No, I have to go … I am going to hire her … Yes, because I want to, but also because it’s the right thing to do…” Professor Bunce looks so much like Penelope. Older, of course. With madder hair. “Peter, I’m hanging up now … I’m hanging up.”

  She hangs up, and leans back against her desk with a long sigh. “Well, boys, should I be worried?”

  “Worried?” I ask.

  “The pair of you don’t just show up to say hello, do you? Are you being chased by werewolves? I assume they’ve already eaten my daughter. Magic forbid she return my texts.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Baz says. “Hello, Headmistress.”

  “Hello, Baz.” She smiles at him, like she’s decided to give him an inch. Are they friends now? When did that happen? “Here,” she says, “sit down. I don’t have anything to offer you. Cook Pritchard has the day off and I don’t even know where the kettle is. I’m living off a box of Jaffa Cakes I found in the cupboard. Probably been here since your mum was in charge.”

  She moves behind her desk, and Baz and I sit in the two wooden chairs across from her. These chairs weren’t here when the Mage was headmaster. He didn’t usually have people in his office. He didn’t talk to students much at all.

  The entire office looks like it’s got more use since Headmistress Bunce took over. The desk is covered in folders and papers. She’s got a big mug of pens, and photos of her family. And the shelves behind her are even more packed with books than they were before.

  “Where is Penelope?” she asks. “Is she still angry with me?”

  No. She’s still angry with me. “She’s in London,” I say. “She didn’t feel like coming.”

  “Hmm.” She scratches the back of her head. “Still angry with me, then.”

  “We’re here because we were hoping we could use the library,” Baz says.

  “Of course you can. It’s open to all magicians. What are you looking for?”

  “My stepmother has taken an interest in one of the new Chosen Ones,” he says. (We’ve already decided to be up front with Professor Bunce; she might know something useful.) “Smith Smith-Richards.”