Siegfried and Roy, I’m losing my mind.
I eat the scones—sour cherry, you’ll never find anything like them anywhere else—then pick up all the crumbs from the floor. I wonder what they’ve done with Smith. Am I under arrest, too? Can Normals be convicted of magickal crimes?
I take down a book about dragons and flip through it, looking for one with wings like mine. I’d call Baz—or Penny—but my phone is dead. (I need a new battery.)
When the door finally opens again, it’s Headmistress Bunce and Jamie Salisbury.
“Wait out here a for a minute, would you, Jamie?” She pulls a chair outside for him, then closes the door. “Sorry that took so long, Simon.”
She walks over to her desk and leans back against it, studying me through her thick glasses.
“The Coven may call for you to testify at Smith’s and his godfather’s trials, but I think I got the gist of what happened from Penelope and Baz.”
I nod. “Can I go, then?”
“Not yet. I want to spend a little more time with the question of your magic…”
“There’s no question left, Headmistress. I don’t have any.”
She moves behind her desk, taking a wand from a drawer and holding it out to me. It’s bone with a wooden handle.
I take it. “This is my wand.”
“You left it in your room in Mummers House.”
“I didn’t need it anymore.”
She pulls her own wand from her waistband and comes back around to me. “Simon, it’s one thing not to be able to cast spells. That’s Normal. But it’s quite another to be resistant to magic. I want to make sure there’s nothing getting between you and the magickal atmosphere.”
“Like what?” I ask.
She shrugs. “A curse, a dead spot…”
“You think I’m a walking dead spot?”
“I’d like to test a few things.”
I do what she asks. I point and repeat. I let her cast spells on me that I’ve never heard before. Nothing happens—I’m inert.
But I’m not sucking up her magic; that’s a good sign.
Eventually, she folds her arms. She’s standing in front of me, frowning up into my face. Her hair is especially huge at the moment. “Martin has a theory,” she says, “that Smith-Richards was allowing people to tap their magickal potential. The way you’d tap a birch tree. What did he tap in you, Simon…”
“I don’t know, Professor Bunce—I mean, Headmistress.”
She sighs. “You’re cursed with usefulness, aren’t you?”
“I don’t feel very useful.”
“Penelope says you have a new flat.”
“Yes.”
“I’d like you to go home to your new flat and get some rest.” She turns away from me before I can reply, and opens the door. “Come on in, Jamie.”
I get up to leave.
“Simon,” Penny’s mum says, “don’t run off yet. I’d like you to see Mr. Salisbury back to London.”
“Yeah, sure—I’ll wait outside.”
“You can stay,” Jamie says. “Mitali’s just going to test my magic. I don’t think it’ll be much of a show.”
Headmistress Bunce and Jamie Salisbury seem to know each other. She’s gentle with him, patient, running him through most of the same tests she did me. I wonder how they met. It couldn’t have been at Watford—he never went here.
I don’t know what Jamie looks like on a normal day, but he looks done in right now. His face is shiny, his eyes are puffy. He needs a shave. He’s having trouble following Headmistress Bunce’s instructions. “Sorry, Mitali. I’m so shagged out, I’m not sure I could cast a spell even if I had magic.”
The headmistress lowers her wand. She looks apologetic. (I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Penny’s mum look apologetic before.) “You should go home,” she says. “I’ll follow up in a few days—with both of you. Dr. Wellbelove will want to see you, as well. This could still all be temporary.”
“I’ll be at my mum’s,” Jamie says. Well, that’s good news.
“I’ll take you,” I say. “We should get you something to eat first.”
He nods. Headmistress Bunce walks us to the lift.
As we wait for it, Jamie says, “You don’t hear from her, do you, Mitali?”
“No,” she says quietly. “Do you?”
“Not once. My mum hoped that when he died…”
She nods. “Me, too.” The lift arrives. Headmistress Bunce looks at me. “Simon, please tell my daughter not to leave Watford without me.”
* * *
Baz is waiting in the courtyard. With Penelope and her dad and Shepard. Penny runs at me as soon as I walk out of the Tower, and wraps me in a tight hug. I’m just getting my arms around her when she shoves me away.
“What on earth were you thinking, Simon?!”
“Penny…” I say. Baz is just behind her. I reach for him. “Baz…”
His arms are folded, and his top lip is curled.
My wings flap out without my permission—it makes my cuts sting. “You guys can’t be mad at me about this.”
“Like hell,” Baz says. “You lied to us!”
“I wasn’t going to risk Smith casting that spell on you!”
“So you endangered yourself?” Penelope demands.
“He couldn’t hurt me!” I say. “I knew his spells would bounce off.”
“You couldn’t have known that, Simon.”
“Well, they did bounce off…”
Baz is still standing behind her, looking pale and furious.
“Baz…” I say.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“Only superficially; Penny’s mum cast a thousand spells on me to make sure. I’m fine.”
He shakes his head. “You lied to us, Snow.”
“I…” I did lie. But it was the right thing to do in the moment. I couldn’t risk either of them getting hurt. “I did what I had to do.”
“Oh, shit,” Penelope says. She’s looking past me. Her mum is walking out of the Weeping Tower. Penny tries to head her off. “Dad,” she calls over her shoulder, “don’t let Mum cast on Shepard!”
Baz steps closer to me. There’s a line between his eyebrows. He’s unfolded his arms, only to put his hands on his hips. He doesn’t say anything.
“Did you get your wand back?” I ask.
His shoulders drop a bit. He looks down. “Yeah.” He runs one hand through his hair and sighs. I can’t tell what the sigh means or what he wants from me. “Daphne’s waiting for me,” he says. “I said I’d drive her home.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, it’s a relief.” He looks up at me, without lifting his head. “Do you…”
“I’ve got to get Jamie home. He’s dead tired.”
“To Lady Salisbury’s?”
“Yeah.”
“She’ll be happy.”
“She will. Baz…” I start, not sure how I’ll finish.
He shakes his head again. “You can’t lie to me, Simon.”
“I—”
“Daphne is waiting for me,” he says. He turns to go.
79
AGATHA
Niamh wipes my hands clean, finger by finger.
The doe has nursed her kid. Niamh says they’re both doing well, though the mother is clearly exhausted.
“I wish we could take them back to the barn,” I say.
Niamh lowers an eyebrow, thoughtful. “Let’s try. I can carry the doe, with magic, if you can manage the kids.”
I turn to the first kid, still lying where I laid it in the grass. The dryad is hovering above it. She looks meeker than she did before, her head down, her mossy hair hanging in her eyes. “I’ll take care of this one,” she lilts softly. “I’ll find a place for it to sleep.”
“All right,” I say.
“Ready?” Niamh asks me. She’s been ignoring the dryad; Niamh only has time for things that are useful.
I nod and pick up her bag. And then the l
ittle goat, the live one. Niamh lifts its mother in her arms and walks steadily back into the forest.
I feel like I should say something more to the dryad—
No. I feel like I should say something to Ebb.
I look up at her stone marker. There are flowers growing all around it, vines winding up and around the marble. I didn’t notice that before.
The dryad is watching me from a few feet away.
I whisper to the stone: “I did what you told me to do. I ran.”
The dryad drifts closer.
I drop my voice even more. “Thank you.”
I leave then, before Niamh gets too far ahead of me.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I call out to her.
“No!” she shouts back. “Hurry up, so I can follow you.”
* * *
It’s daylight again at the edge of the Wood. When we walk through the trees, the rest of the herd is waiting for us. They jump and bleat when they see the doe in Niamh’s arms. A few of them spread their wings—they’re feathered, just like a pegasus’s.
I kneel and hold the baby out—a little doe—so they can see her.
“Careful,” Niamh says.
“It’s all right,” I say. And it is. The goats nose at the kid and crowd around Niamh’s legs to check on the mother. “You’re very special goats,” I coo, “aren’t you?”
One of the billy goats flaps his wings and lifts off the ground, flying in a circle around us. A few of the others join him. I laugh and look up at Niamh. She’s already smiling at me.
“Niamh,” I say. “I wonder…”
I stand again, and start walking towards Watford. Niamh walks with me. The goats leap and bound and flit around us. Across the Great Lawn, over the drawbridge, through the courtyard. There are a few people milling around outside the White Chapel. They stop and stare. I keep walking, back to the barn Ebb shared with the goats. The doors swing open for us, and the goats follow us in, making themselves at home. Niamh casts a spell in one corner, to freshen up the straw, and we set the mother and child down together.
Niamh is beaming. At the goats. At me. When her hands are free, she gets them around me. I hook my arms behind her neck. More of her hair has fallen into her eyes, and it makes my knees weak. Thank magic she’s holding on to me, holding me up. Niamh kisses me again, and I want to draw a line through everything I considered a kiss before. I never knew a kiss could ask this much from me.
80
SIMON
Jamie and I end up in the stolen van. He doesn’t know how to drive, but I think I can manage. (Though my only practice has been on American highways.) He hasn’t eaten all day, so we stop at a KFC and eat our chicken in the car park. Neither of us says a word till we’re finished.
“What’ll we do if we get caught with this van?” Jamie asks, shoving his rubbish into a paper bag. “Neither of us have magic.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait for Baz and your mum to come fix it.”
“Well,” he says glumly, “I’m used to that.”
“Getting arrested?”
“No. Just my mum fixing things…” He glances over at me. “You must think I’m a right plonker. Letting Smith fool me like that. Hiding in his basement, just because he told me to.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think that—I believed him, too.”
“Part of me still believes in him.” Jamie sighs. “I really am a plonker.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “about your magic.”
“Ah, it’s all right.” He throws a napkin into the bag. “I didn’t have much to lose. Not like you. You must miss it like crazy.”
“I do. But … if I’m being honest, I was never any good at it either. It’s not just about power, you know—you have to have some skill.”
Jamie buckles his safety belt. “My sister was a brilliant magician. She was so good, they sent her to Watford a year early.”
“My friend Penelope started school early, too.” Penny had to wait almost a year to go the pub with the rest of us.
“Mitali’s daughter.”
“That’s right.” I start the van—Penny charmed it to work without a key—and glance over at Jamie. “Were you jealous of her? Your sister?”
“Of Lucy?” He sounds surprised. “No. I mean, I missed her. When she left for school. We thought I’d be joining her someday. She used to tell me how she was going to show me around Watford once I got there, teach me all the tricks…” A wave of exhaustion seems to roll over him. He drops the rubbish onto the floor. “Nah, I wasn’t jealous of Lucy. She was so good to me … I couldn’t begrudge her anything.”
I know what I want to ask him next, but I’m not sure that I should. I wait until we’re driving again, my eyes on the road. “What happened to your sister? I hope that’s not a rude question. Your mum showed us her picture … and the candle.”
“Lucy ran away,” Jamie says. “When she was about your age.”
I glance over at him. “Ran away from what?”
“From who,” he says, pushing a hand roughly through his hair. “She got involved with a bad bloke. My parents reckoned she left the country to hide from him.”
“Christ,” I say. “He must have been terrible, if she had to run away from the whole World of Mages.”
Jamie’s squinting out the window. “My mum doesn’t like us to talk about it…”
“Sure,” I say, “I understand.”
“… because it was the Mage.”
I turn my whole head towards him, then whip my eyes back onto the road. “The Mage?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Your sister dated the Mage?”
“They met at school.”
“I didn’t know the Mage dated…”
“My parents hated him.” Jamie’s voice is flat. This is all old news for him. “They thought he was a nutter. My mum wanted to send Lucy to Switzerland to get away from him.”
“What’s in Switzerland?”
“I still don’t know. Anyway, Lucy didn’t listen. She and Davy ran off after Watford—maybe they got married. Whatever happened, it wasn’t good. She used to write my mum these letters…” He trails off. I give him a moment to go on, but he doesn’t.
“And then what?”
He shrugs. “Then she stopped writing. She disappeared.”
I can’t wrap my head around this. Not even a little. “What did the Mage say about that?”
“Not much. He blamed my parents for Lucy leaving him. My dad wanted to challenge him to a duel. My mum was beside herself.”
“You don’t think…” I rearrange my hands on the steering wheel. “I mean, you don’t think he…”
Jamie looks at his lap. “My mum believes Lucy’s alive. You’ve seen the candle.”
“Right,” I say. “Cor. No wonder Lady Ruth hates the Mage.”
“She practically threw a party when you killed him. I think she would have sent you roses if she knew how to get them to you.”
We’re both quiet.
“I suppose I have to tell my mum that I lost my magic,” Jamie says after a while.
“I think she’s just gonna be so relieved to see you.”
“I still can’t believe she sent Simon Snow after me…”
“It’s kind of a long story—the Coven thought you’d been murdered by vampires.”
“Vampires?” He laughs. “Imagine.”
* * *
When we get to Lady Ruth’s house, Jamie tries to get me to come up to the house with him—but it doesn’t feel right. I stay in the van. (I’m going to abandon it a few blocks from here.) I watch him walk up to the big front door. I can see the candles burning in the upper window.
Jamie knocks. And after a few minutes, Lady Ruth comes to the door. She looks shocked to see him. He hugs her. I think she might be crying.
They go inside, and the door closes.
81
BAZ
It’s an hour-long drive to Oxford. My stepmother cries intermittently for the
first half hour, then goes pale and wrings her hands for the second. I think she would have turned back if she were the one driving.
When we get to the hunting lodge, I pull the car right up to the house and turn off the engine. She shows no sign of getting out, so neither do I. I tap the steering wheel and look up at the door.
Daphne and I don’t talk about things. Not usually. Not really.
She’ll ask me how university is going, and I’ll tell her, and then she’ll say, “Good show, Basilton. You make your father so proud.” She used to ask for my help with the girls—but never in a badgering way. She used to take me shopping for summer clothes and sports gear.
I never rebelled against my father’s remarriage. I just went to Watford and got over it. I got used to Daphne. Things got better after she moved in. (Even though she’s the reason my aunt moved out.)
My father got very hard when my mother died—perhaps he was always hard, I don’t know—but Daphne softens him. She’s the reason I got a mobile phone when I turned 15. And the reason I got to go on school trips. And probably the reason my father didn’t murder Simon after our ancestral home lost its magic.
She’s a good person. A good stepmother.
“They’re going to be happy to see you,” I say softly.
She laughs, joylessly. Some of the tears come back. “How am I going to explain this…”
“You might not have to,” I say. “My father is usually relieved when I don’t explain things.”
Daphne laughs again, less joylessly, and cries a little more. “Your mother never would have been such a fool,” she says in a small voice.
My mother might have killed me, I think.
And then, My mother isn’t here.
And then, How did my mother feel about gay people, has Father ever mentioned it, maybe when George Michael came out?
I get out of the car and walk around to Daphne’s side, opening her door. She looks up at me, still hesitating. I hold out my hand. “Come on, Mum.”
Any Way the Wind Blows Page 39
