“But we should tell someone about … Las Vegas, right?”
Simon pulls his chin in. “Should we?”
“I mean, vampires have laid siege to an entire American city…”
“Baz, the whole world is a mess. Have you watched the news lately?” He swings the stick again, like he’s testing its heft.
“I’d think you’d be all over this, Snow. Clearing out a vampire infestation?”
He looks at me like my head is on upside down. “I’m literally sleeping with a vampire.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking about proper vampires,” I protest. “They drink blood.”
He shrugs. “They don’t seem to kill anyone…”
“They assault people.”
“Again, have you watched the news lately? I don’t even think having a vampire city is America’s biggest problem…” He swings his stick in a circle. “How much of any of this are we responsible for?”
“I don’t know.” We’re still holding hands; I hold my other hand up in front of my face, so he doesn’t accidentally hit me. “Some of it.”
Simon looks apologetic and rests the stick over his shoulder. “Maybe if it were happening here…”
“In the UK?”
“In the World of Mages.”
“Pfft. Are you still our guardian, Snow?”
“No,” he says quickly, “but … Oh, I don’t know.” He swings the stick again like he can’t help himself. “I hope your friend Lamb levels San Diego. Let’s not turn him in until he’s done annihilating those bastards.”
When I don’t say anything, Simon looks over at my face. Whatever he sees there makes him frown. “You know that you aren’t more responsible for vampires just because you are a vampire…”
“Aren’t I? They’re my kind.”
“Baz, you’re their victim.”
“All vampires are victims.”
“Seems like those NowNext vampires were volunteering for the job.”
I roll my eyes. “All right, then—most vampires are victims.”
“Maybe they start out that way, but then they choose to victimize other people. Whether it’s murdering people or Turning them, or just tapping people in alleys and stealing a pint.” He’s gesturing with his makeshift sword again. I let go of his hand to smack the stick away from me. “That’s a choice they’re making,” he says. “To keep it going. The cycle of abuse.”
“Maybe they don’t know a different way to survive.”
“You figured it out, and you were just a kid!”
I put my hands in my pockets and walk a bit faster. “I’m not special.”
Simon takes hold of my shoulder. “You literally are!” He gets in front of me, so that we both have to stop. “You get credit for not being a murderous asshole, you know, especially when being a murderous asshole would make your life way easier.”
“Well … I’m still young.”
“Baz. I don’t think you’re going to start draining strangers on the Underground.” He takes my other shoulder. He must have dropped his stick. “You won’t even drink my blood, and I’m offering it.”
“Sto-o-o-op.” I roll my whole face up and away from him. “Simon, we agreed.”
“What did we agree?”
“That you’re not going to talk about this!”
“Fine, but we did not agree that you won’t ever drink my blood.”
I jerk my head down to look at him. “I’m telling you right now that I won’t! And I won’t have you bringing it up again.”
Snow’s jaw is square and there’s a line between his eyebrows. “All right. I won’t bring it up again … unless there’s an emergency.”
“Hell and horrors.” My voice breaks. “There won’t be an emergency that requires—”
“What if we’re trapped underground?”
“We’d die of actual thirst before I’d need blood.”
“All right,” he says, “what if we’re trapped underground with water and food, and—”
“Why would we be in this situation?”
“We’re being held captive.”
I shove him. “You’ll break us out.”
“I don’t have magic, remember?”
“Then I’ll break us out.”
He steps closer to me, wrapping his arms loosely around my neck. “You can’t, you’re too weak—you need blood.”
“Snow, I’ve been in many extreme scenarios, and this has never transpired…”
“It could!”
I cover my eyes and press my fingertips into my forehead. “Why are you doing this? Why are you making me imagine a terrible situation where I lose my humanity and have to do the very worst thing to the person I care about most?”
“Because…” he whines. “Because it’s kinda hot.”
“For fuck’s sake, Snow!” I shout it so loud, some birds go squawking out of the trees. I duck out of his arms.
“Come on. It’s sexy. Admit it.”
I’m walking away from him. “Cannibalism isn’t sexy.”
He hums, like I might be wrong.
“Simon.”
He jogs to catch up with me. “It’s not just me—everyone thinks vampires are sexy! I’m terrible at metaphors, and I still get it. Every vampire movie is about fucking virgins.”
I shake my head over and over. “I’m not … This is not … You’re not a virgin.”
“Well, that part’s fictional, right? You don’t have to drink virgins, do you?”
“I don’t have to drink anyone! I’m not drinking anyone! I’m not drinking you just because you think it’s kinky. Also, why do you think you could handle anything kinky?”
“Well, not now…”
“Simon.” I wheel on him. “I’m asking you to stop! This isn’t a metaphor for me. It’s my life. It’s my attempt to have a life. Just … stop. Please.”
He’s biting his bottom lip. His eyebrows are bunched up. “Yeah,” he says, letting go of his lip. “Okay. Of course. I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “I won’t mention it again.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He bites the other side of his lip. “Just…”
“You said you’d stop.”
“No, I am. Just…”
“Snow.”
He fists his hand in my shirt and yanks me close to him, pressing his cheek into the side of my jaw. His voice is low. “Just know,” he says, “that I’d do anything for you. That I’d let you do anything to me. There’s nothing about you I don’t want.”
And then he lets go of my shirt and runs away from me.
I watch him disappear into the Wood.
53
AGATHA
Niamh and I are quiet on the way to the car. But it’s a better sort of quiet than before—I think we’re both just relieved that no more of the goats have left Watford and that we’ve managed to round them up, at least.
I suppose I have to make peace with Simon continuing to show up to save my day. Whether or not I’ve asked him to. Whether or not he has any claim on me.
“Those spells you were using…” Niamh says.
“Simon said Ebb taught him. I could teach you—”
“I don’t know that you could. You have a way with those goats.” Her bun has come loose again. She takes it down and puts the hairgrips in her mouth while she tries to comb her hair back up with her fingers. It’s like watching someone give themselves a makeunder.
“Oh, Niamh, don’t,” I say, pulling on her arm.
“Don’t what?” She spits out the pins.
I lean over to find them in the grass. “Don’t put your hair in that awful bun. It makes you look a thousand years old.”
“But I can’t work with my hair in my face.”
I hold the hairpins out to her. “You’re not working now.”
She takes the pins from me. She looks like she doesn’t know what to do with them. Or herself.
“You have perfectly good hair,” I say, reaching up to smooth it down. (Penelope say
s I have too many opinions about other people’s hair.) “There’s no reason to hide it.”
“I don’t like myself with long hair.”
“Then get it cut. It looked good at school.”
“I didn’t think you remembered it,” she says. “Or me.”
“I remember you now.”
Niamh is frowning very deeply at me. If I didn’t know her face always looked like that, I’d back off. Instead I smooth out the other side of her head. It is nice hair. Thick and glossy, with just enough wave to take a style. My hair is too straight to wear any way other than how I wear it.
“I don’t want to colour it again,” she says. The way someone else might say, “I don’t want to go to prison.”
“Then don’t,” I reply, arranging her hair around her face. “It’s a good colour. Chestnut. With some auburn highlights in the sun. Lots of people dye their hair this colour. You could wear it short and dark…” I pull her hair back into a ponytail and hold it so the front poofs out. “You’d look good with a quiff.”
Niamh doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are hard, and her eyebrows are tense.
She’d look very, very good like this. Her face looks severe with her hair scraped back into the bun. But this makes her look … fierce instead. Oh, I suppose Niamh looks fierce no matter what. With that nose. That crushed plum of a mouth. That mean chin. But this takes her from fierce to something else … Something very nearly intolerable. She looks like Marlon Brando.
I let her hair fall back down around her face. “You should wear it however you like,” I say. I start walking again.
When we get to the car, I stand by the passenger side, waiting for Niamh to unlock the doors.
“Agatha,” she says, “you drove.”
“Oh … right. Right.” I push the unlock button and go around to my side of the car. “I hope you aren’t going to be late.”
“Late for what?”
I get in and wait for her to sit down. “For your thing.” I start the car. “That you had to get back for. In London.”
“Oh…”
I look over at her. She looks embarrassed, I think.
“There isn’t a thing,” she says. “I just didn’t want to get stuck hanging out with you and your friends … No offence.”
“You can’t just say ‘no offence’ after you say something offensive.”
“It’s nothing against you,” she says. “I just didn’t want to be the third wheel.”
“The third wheel? I’m the third wheel. I was possibly the third wheel the entire time Simon and I were dating. If anything, you’d be the fourth wheel, Niamh. You’d balance everything out.”
“I didn’t want to crash your reunion…”
“There was no reunion,” I say. “We were just … herding goats in a friendly manner.”
“I was worried we’d, like, end up at a pub.”
“Heaven forfend.”
Niamh sighs and rubs her forehead. She looks like she’s experiencing a migraine. She hasn’t put her hair back up.
“You don’t like pubs?” I ask.
“Pubs are fine.”
“You don’t like my friends?” (Are Simon and Baz my friends? Now isn’t the time to do the math.)
“I’m sure your friends are fine!” A debilitating migraine. “Look, I’m not trying to offend you, Agatha. I’m just not a … people person.”
I wasn’t ready to laugh so hard at that. It comes up the back of my nose.
Niamh sighs again and rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”
“Is that why you became a veterinarian? Because you like animals better than people?” That’s why I want to become a veterinarian.
“No,” she says.
I wait for her to expand. Of course she doesn’t.
“Why, then?” I ask.
She glares at me, but eventually answers. “I like the way bodies work.” She takes a second to huff. “And when they’re not working, I like to think about why. I like taking things apart and putting them back together.”
“Why animals, then, instead of people?”
She shrugs. “Variety.”
I laugh up my nose again.
“Stop laughing at me, Agatha.”
I don’t stop laughing. “Variety?” Still laughing. “Oh my words … You’re so strange, Niamh.”
“Fine.” She’s fed up. “Why did you want to become a veterinarian, Agatha?”
“Because I like animals more than people! Like a normal person!”
“I also like animals more than people!” she says. “That just wasn’t the deciding factor!”
Still laughing. I can’t help it.
“Agatha.”
“Yes?”
She’s rubbing her forehead. “Do you want to stop and get something to eat?”
“With me, a human being? Won’t you feel like the second wheel?”
“Do you want to go to a pub?”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “All right.”
I really do.
54
SHEPARD
We’ve spent two days reading about mage marriages. Penelope’s dad sent some books over for us. At first she wasn’t going to let me read them. Then she reminded me that I’ve already crossed my heart and hoped to die if I ever tell any of their magical secrets—“which is a one-way ticket to hell for you, buddy-boy”—and handed me a book.
I’m not going to tell their secrets.
I’m not going to do anything else to mess things up with Penelope.
I know that she’s miserable right now. That she’s fighting with her friends, and all broken up over her breakup … That she’s on the outs with her mom … I know that she’s only putting up with me because I present an interesting problem.
But I am having the time of my life with Penelope Bunce.
And it’s not just because she’s an endless corridor of magical revelations—and not just because she’s excruciatingly cute. I mean … That’s part of it. I am still human. Everything is part of it. Everything is so much fun.
We wake up, I make tea. (I have a feeling that was Simon’s job.) Then we spend the whole day reading out loud to each other from books about magic, and telling each other stories. When Penelope gets excited about something, she’s much more likely to talk about herself. You wouldn’t believe her life—she’s fought werewolves, she’s invented spells. She has a real crystal ball, but she can’t find it. (I would like to help her find it.)
When we get hungry, I run down to the corner to buy dumplings and noodles, or to one of the sandwich shops. (There are so many sandwich shops.) (Penelope is partial to cheese and pickle.)
When she’s excited, I think she forgets that she’s only putting up with me. And I think she forgets what a losing proposition I am. She’ll jump off the couch to write something on the wall—“Aha!”—or lean into my shoulder to show me something ridiculous, laughing and waving around a piece of strawberry licorice—“Get a load of this, Shepard”—and I think maybe she’s having fun, too.
This can’t go on much longer, can it?
Penelope’s filled both walls with notes, and I’ve learned so much about magical weddings, I could probably officiate one. But I don’t think we’re any closer to breaking my engagement.
She’s going to see that we’re not making progress. She’s going to give up eventually. She’s going to send me home.
The sun is setting now. We had a late lunch, and we’ll probably have a late dinner. Penelope is lying on the couch with her legs up and hanging over one end, a book leaning against her thighs and keeping her skirt from falling. She always wears skirts or short dresses, never pants …
I’ve seen so much of Penelope Bunce’s knees. Her legs are short and curvy—they’re very goddamn cute, if I’m being honest, and her knees are the cutest part. And, okay, maybe I’m more affected by her cuteness than I want to admit, but what am I supposed to do? She’s right there, and she doesn’t get any less cute. Her cuteness doesn’t abate. It just gets worse the
more I’m around her. The licorice thing is killing me. And she’s covered in chalk dust 24-7. It gets on her face and in her hair … I’ve never seen someone with so much hair pay so little attention to it—she’s either got the world’s messiest ponytail, or a mop of thick, dark brown hair, curling every which way, falling halfway down her back. It’s cute. It’s real cute. I am not unaffected, okay? I am very affected. Very. Very, very aware of Penelope Bunce. And how cute she is.
“This is a dead end,” Penelope says. She lets the book she’s reading drop on her stomach.
I’m sitting on the floor and leaning against one of her chalkboard walls. I’ve been reading a book about magical genealogy—when I haven’t been distracted by her legs.
“All of these books are about magicians and mage customs,” she says. “Not marriage contracts. Maybe Debbie was right, maybe we do need a lawyer.”
“Are there magickal lawyers?”
She hums, thinking. “I know of two. But I doubt they’d take your case.”
I look down at my book. “I’m sorry I’m not as helpful as Simon and Baz would be.”
“Meh.” She sits up, and digs a bag of red licorice shoestrings out from between two couch pillows. “Don’t sell yourself short. They both get too emotionally invested and attached to their own ideas. You’re remarkably clearheaded, Shepard. It’s almost like we’re talking about someone else who’s cursed to marry a demon.”
I think that was a compliment …
She holds out the bag. “Do you want some?”
“Sure.” I go sit next to her on the couch, taking a tangle of candy, even though I never eat this stuff. It tastes like chemical glue.
“Do you think the curse would allow you to get married?” she asks.
“In life?”
“Obviously in life.”
“I think so,” I say. “I could probably enter another arrangement that’s ‘till death do us part,’ considering my arms say, ‘at death do us join.’”
“Hmm.” She bites down on a string of licorice, then pulls it until it snaps. “My parents got married when they were my age—nineteen.”
“Wow…”
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