Professor Bunce rolls her eyes. “Smith-Richards.”
“You’ve heard of him?” Baz asks.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Do you know him?”
“I assume I know what you know—that he says he’s the Chosen One and is promising magickal upgrades.”
I lean forward, and my chair creaks. “You don’t believe him?”
“Do I believe that there are six new Chosen Ones here to solve all our problems? In a word—no. In two words—hell, no.” She frowns at me. “No offence, Simon.”
I make a face like, None taken.
“At least this Smith-Richards isn’t asking for money,” she goes on, “though it makes me wonder what else he’s after…”
I’m not going to tell her that I think Smith-Richards might be the real deal. I understand why she and Baz and Lady Ruth are sceptical. They’ve all already been fooled once—by me. “Isn’t the Coven checking up on these people?” I ask. “Like, can anyone just say that they’re the Greatest Mage?”
“Woof, the Coven.” She leans back in her chair. “We have enough on our hands, trying to clean up the Mage’s messes. Half of us are hoping these new COs fizzle out on their own, and half of us are secretly going to their meetings.”
Baz is paying keen attention. “You’re in the former camp, I gather?”
“I’m so busy out here, I can hardly bother with the rest. My own child could end up doing magic on YouTube, and I wouldn’t have the energy to deal with it.”
I feel my mouth drop open. Baz doesn’t say a word.
Headmistress Bunce pushes up her glasses. “You’re all very lucky that no one believes their own eyes anymore.”
“Yes, Headmistress,” Baz says.
“Yes, Headmistress,” I whisper.
* * *
Penny’s mum walks us down to the library, on the other side of the White Chapel. (Here’s something that’s changed: All the stained-glass windows in the Chapel broke the night I killed the Mage. Now they’ve been replaced, but with clear glass. The Chapel looks like all the colour has drained from its face.)
The library is locked, so Penny’s mum lets us in. “Don’t take anything,” she says. “I mean it. Snap a photo if you need a copy of something.”
“Of course,” Baz says, as if he isn’t a library scofflaw.
She flips on the lights in the hallway. “And just…” She looks right at me. “Don’t make any headaches for me while you’re here. I have enough.”
“We’re just going to look at books,” I say.
She frowns at me. “Right. Well, I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
We wait for the doors to close behind her.
“Keep up, Snow,” Baz says, moving briskly down the hall. “No need to follow from a distance, hiding in shadows. As is your custom.”
“Are you going to go hunting rats in the Catacombs before we leave? As is your custom?”
“I probably should. As a public service.”
I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t want to go down into the Catacombs. It’s lousy with skulls down there.
Baz is headed towards the long room at the back of the library where The Magickal Record is kept. He steps inside and whistles.
“Holy shit,” I say, coming in behind him.
Watford’s library used to be pretty low on actual books. The Mage wanted us to focus on Normal books and modern languages. He threw out anything that seemed antiquated—or anything that he disagreed with. He’d always say that movies and television were more useful to us than books. (“Then why won’t he let us have the Internet?” Penelope would rail.)
But this room is full of books. “Was it like this when you were here?” I ask Baz.
He’s standing with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders back, taking it all in. “No. The headmistress has been busy. I’ll bet some of these are the magickal books confiscated by the Mage.”
I have Lady Ruth’s reading glasses in my pocket. I take out the case and hand it to Baz. He puts on the gold-rimmed glasses, winding the springs carefully behind each ear.
I can’t help but laugh once he has them on. His eyes look huge and blinky behind the thick lenses. I slide my arms around his waist. “Look at you, all specky.”
He frowns down at me. He’s only three inches taller, but I swear he stretches it out to six when he feels like it. He looks like a very handsome, very judgy owl.
“Kiss me,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to kiss someone with glasses.”
“Bunce was right there…”
“You look like a steampunk vampire.”
“That’s absurd—”
I kiss him. It is absurd. I can’t even see the glasses like this. I pull away just enough that I can.
Baz cocks an eyebrow above the frames. “I don’t think this is what Lady Salisbury had in mind when she lent us her heirloom reading glasses.”
“I don’t think she’d mind. She seems like she likes a good time.”
“Really. You think she’s up to party.”
“You know what I mean…” I kiss him again quickly. “I’ve never kissed you in the library. Think of all the places we could have kissed if we’d figured this out sooner.”
He looks up at my forehead, threading one hand into my hair. His grey eyes are enormous. “If you’d figured it out sooner…”
I could argue with him, tease him, return his serve. But I don’t want to. I push him back against a bookshelf and kiss him some more. My hands are on his waist. I can feel his skin, cool through his cotton shirt.
Baz is wearing another long-sleeved button-down. (I don’t think the heat ever bothers him, even when the sun does.) This one’s got brown and blue stripes, but when you get close, you see that the blue stripes are flowers. His trousers are nice, too—inky blue. He said he dressed up for Lady Ruth, but I think he just likes to dress up. I think he likes to look like he’s going somewhere important.
I push my chest against his. The shelf behind him creaks.
How much kissing would there have been? If I’d figured it out sooner? In the library, on the Great Lawn. In our room …
Christ. Baz in our room, his hair slicked back, his tie perfectly knotted—hating me. (But not really hating me. Not only hating me.)
He puts his other hand in my hair, too, like he’s trying to hold me steady. Every time I push my face forward, the back of his head knocks books off the shelf behind him.
How many walls could I have shoved him up against? How many empty corners could we have found?
This was our place. Watford. Ours like no one else’s. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but it’s true. His, because his mother died here. Mine, because it was mine to protect.
His mouth opens for me …
(I don’t understand what this is. Why people do it. Why we stoke fires in each other. What are we burning?)
The shelf creaks again. I rub my cock into his hip.
How many walls? How many hallways?
What else would I have figured out, if I’d got to this sooner?
Baz turns his face away and unhooks Lady Ruth’s glasses from his ears.
“I’m sorry,” I pant.
He looks confused. The spring on one side is caught in his hair. “For what?”
I shrug. I don’t know. I hug him closer. My arms are crossed in the small of his back. “Breaking your nose. In fourth year.”
He laughs. “Oh. Well. You should be sorry about that.”
I lean forward and bite his nose, right at the crooked part.
“Crowley, Snow—don’t break it again!”
I let go of his nose. And look in his normal-sized eyes. “I’m sorry…” I shake my head. “That I didn’t figure it out sooner. I—I would have liked to have had you for a friend here.”
He sets the reading glasses on the shelf next to him and puts his hands in my hair again, smoothing my curls down and watching them bounce back.
I think Baz would have liked it, too—to ha
ve me, here, on his side—but he says, “It was probably meant to happen like it did.”
“Do you believe in that?” I ask. “Fate?”
He shrugs. His back is still against a shelf. My weight is still against him. “Not exactly. But it’s hard to argue with the timing. My mother’s ghost, the Mage’s plan … My father says that some things—that some people—are written.”
“Like Smith-Richards?”
Baz’s eyes go hard, and he shoves at my shoulder. “Not like Smith-Richards.” He steps forward, pushing me some more. “Make way, Snow. We need to get to the bottom of this nonsense.”
I step aside.
Baz puts the glasses back on and gets his wand out. He stands in front of the wall where The Magickal Record is shelved. “Fine-tooth comb—Smith!”
The entire wall of bound volumes starts trembling.
“Oh fuck,” Baz says. He grabs my arm and pulls me back, just as a hundred books shake themselves off the shelves.
When the dust clears—not a figure of speech—there are less than a dozen volumes still on the wall.
“It is a common name…” I say.
Baz just sighs.
49
BAZ
We could have used Bunce’s input—and her wand—but we’re making progress. I’d initially planned to get a broader picture of the Smith family. But narrowing the search to “Smith-Richards” gives us a much smaller stack of books to sort through: just two.
Snow starts re-shelving while I search through the first book. With Lady Salisbury’s reading glasses on, I can turn directly to the page I’m looking for—it’s a list of announcements.
Announcements constitute the bulk of The Magickal Record—births, deaths, and, after the Mage took power, arrests. Only huge magickal news warrants more detailed coverage in The Record, something like an attack on Watford. (I wonder whether they’ll write up this rash of potential saviours. Meet the candidates.)
I scan the page for “Smith-Richards” …
“Here it is,” I say. “His birth announcement.” Simon comes to look over my shoulder while I read aloud: “Smith-Richards-comma-Smith. Jemima Smith and Hugh Richards of Skipton are delighted to announce the birth of their son, Smith. The child was named for his paternal grandfather, Smith Alan Richards, who died in June. Young Smith will inherit his grandfather’s oaken wand. His mother reports that the child was born during June’s solar eclipse. How auspicious!”
“Huh, look at that,” Simon says, “he was born under an eclipse.”
“Hmm. According to his mother.”
Snow pokes my shoulder. “Why would she lie about that?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s a very boastful thing to mention in a birth announcement.”
“So Smith is thirty … He looks good for thirty.”
“Does he?” I reach for the second book.
“I expect this’ll be his parents’ death,” Snow says.
He’s right. He rests his forearms on my shoulders, and I hold up the book, so we can both read the report:
Jemima Smith and Hugh Richards died January 12th in a car accident near their home in Yorkshire. They are survived by their only son, Smith Smith-Richards, age 1. The child will be cared for by his godfather, Evander Feverfew, most recently of Mexico City.
“Evander Feverfew,” Simon says. “What a name. Are you related?”
“Feverfew is an old family,” I say. “But I’ve never heard of Evander.”
Simon stands up straight, scratching the back of his head. “So it’s just like Smith said. It’s all true.”
“Well, he does seem to be an orphan named Smith Smith-Richards—”
“Isn’t that what we came here to verify?”
“I suppose,” I say. “I’d like to see what else we can find on his family.”
“We know his parents’ names now. We could search for those.”
“Indeed.”
* * *
Jemima Smith and Hugh Richards were two run-of-the-mill magicians. They graduated from Watford together. They got married. They got normal Normal jobs. She was a dentist, and he was some sort of graphic designer. They didn’t win any awards. They didn’t run for office. They died before the Mage started making mischief.
Evander Feverfew is only slightly more remarkable. He was in the Dramatic Society at Watford, and one of his cousins was on the Coven. There’s a Feverfew estate in the North, but it’s occupied by a distant relative.
This isn’t like researching my mother’s death. We don’t uncover anything shocking or surprising. After two hours in the library, all we’ve got is what Smith told us, plus some not-very-interesting backstory.
Simon has put most of the books away, and he’s itching to leave.
“All right,” I say, giving up. “It doesn’t look like there are any skeletons buried here.” I push away from the library table. “Would it be all right with you if we stopped in the Catacombs on the way out?”
“To see where the skeletons are actually buried?”
“To visit my mother’s tomb, Snow.”
“Oh, fuck, Baz, sorry—I wasn’t thinking.”
“You don’t have to come with me.” I get up to shelve the last of the books. “I can meet you outside.”
“No.” His hand is on my arm. “I’ll come.”
* * *
The roses are in bloom, so I don’t have to magic up any flowers for my bouquet. (Food and flowers are the hardest things to create with magic. They take it out of you.)
Simon follows me into the White Chapel. He reaches for my hand in the doorway. I don’t think he’s been inside the Chapel since the Mage died here. “All right, Snow?”
He nods.
We duck behind the altar, behind the sanctuary, through the hidden entrance to the crypt. “How’d you find this door in the first place?” Simon asks.
“I used to come with my father to visit.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
The door slides closed behind us. It’s dark, but I can still see. “How did you think I found it?”
“I thought it was a creepy vampire thing.”
“Well, it was … eventually.”
“Do you think other Watford kids wander around down here?”
“I only ever saw you.”
Simon giggles. “I can’t believe we’re in the Catacombs together.”
Before I can say anything, he’s pushing me against a stone wall and kissing my neck.
“For fuck’s sake, Snow, this is hallowed ground!”
“I’m not doing anything to unhallow it.” He keeps kissing me.
I rest my arms over his shoulders, letting the roses droop.
“New plan,” he says. “We retrace our old steps, and do this all of the places we used to fight.”
“That’s everywhere.”
“Everywhere, then.”
He’s got his arms around my waist, and his chest and hips against mine. This is all my fifth-year fantasies come true: Simon Snow manhandling me in the library, in the Catacombs …
“We could go up to the tower,” he says.
“That’s someone else’s room now.”
“It will always be our room more than anyone else’s.”
I close my eyes and drop my head onto his shoulder. The wall behind me is cold and damp. Simon is warm. He’s pushing his nose into my collar and biting my throat.
“I can’t believe I had you in my room every night,” he says, “and I didn’t take advantage of it.”
“You could have had me in your room every night for the last year.”
He groans into my collar. “I’m such a twat.”
I lift my head up and get my free hand around his jaw. I can see his eyes, his pupils wide as saucers. Can he see me? “Kiss me in the Catacombs, Snow. Unhallow the ground.”
“I’ll unhallow your ground,” he says, kissing me.
I don’t think he can see me—his mouth lands halfway onto my chin. I’m laughing, making it w
orse. “You’re absurd,” I say.
“Look. I already said I’m a twat.”
I hold his jaw in place and kiss him squarely.
Simon’s lips are thin. His mouth is wide. We kiss with our teeth.
It’s everything I ever wanted.
He’s better than I hoped.
Even though he’s more fucked up than I could have imagined …
I don’t want him to lose control down here. I don’t want to have to sit in the dirt to comfort him, with all of my ancestors watching. When he starts pulling too hard on my shirt, I ease him back.
“Come on,” I say softly. “It isn’t much farther.”
50
SIMON
Baz lights a fire in his hand, so I can see.
“I hate it when you do that,” I say.
“What?”
“You’re going to start yourself on fire.” I saw how quickly the vampires went up, in the desert.
Baz scoffs. “I’m completely in control.”
“Seriously,” I say. “Use a torch. There are a thousand of them down here.” All along the walls.
“Fine.” He waves a hand, and the whole row of them lights up. He shakes the flame out of his hand.
“Look.” I stop walking. We’re standing right by the portrait I remembered. Of the blond girl. “It’s Lady Ruth’s daughter, isn’t it?”
“It certainly looks like her,” Baz agrees.
Someone has painted her right on the wall—and cast a spell to make it look like she’s crying. “Do you think she died here?”
“Lady Salisbury says she’s still alive.”
“Huh.”
We both stand there for a moment, watching her cry. Then Baz takes one of his roses and sets it on the ground below the portrait.
“I’ll wait here,” I say. It didn’t occur to me until just now that he might want to be alone with his mum. “You go on.”
Baz looks at me, one eyebrow cocked low, then nods. “I won’t be long.” He kisses my cheek before he walks away. I like that. All the easy kisses he’s giving me. All the checking on me and checking in with me. You might think it would be irritating, but it really isn’t. It makes me think it would have been nice to have someone looking out for me like this all along.
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