Any Way the Wind Blows

by Rainbow Rowell

  The Mage found me in care.

  And he lied to me.

  He used me—to what end, I still don’t know. I was part of a plot, a plan. I was a vessel, he said.

  He found me. He made me his heir.

  He lied to me again and again.

  (The Mage had a name. The Mage fell in love. The Mage ran off with a yellow-haired girl, and then she disappeared.)

  It can’t be true, I’m not what they say, because that would mean—

  It would mean too much.

  It would be too much.

  The Mage lied to me. He lied to the whole World of Mages. He killed Ebb. He tried to take my magic. He hurt me. He hurt me again and again.

  Then I begged him to stop.

  And he did.

  I can’t be Lady Salisbury’s child. Because I can’t be Lucy’s. Because I can’t be the Mage’s.

  I killed him.

  I killed him.

  I killed the Mage.

  I can’t be—

  88

  BAZ

  Lady Salisbury won’t let go of Simon. He’s collapsed in her arms. Sobbing without tears.

  “My child, my child,” she keeps saying. And I think she’s right—I think it’s undeniable. I’d cast “Flesh and blood” on them, but it would probably bounce right off of Snow like every other spell has so far.

  I’m standing beside him. His wings are keeping me from getting close. “It’s all right, love,” I say, touching his back.

  He keeps apologizing into Lady Ruth’s shoulder. She’s crying, too. Only Jamie Salisbury is smiling, standing at Snow’s other side.

  “Simon,” Jamie says, “don’t you know how happy we are to find you? This is, like, the best news we’ve had in twenty years. We’re your family!”

  Simon lifts his head. Confused. Like Salisbury is speaking Greek.

  “We’re your family,” Jamie says again, clapping Simon on the shoulder. “We’ve been looking for you for so long, and now you’re here. We’re well chuffed!”

  Simon is looking into Salisbury’s eyes. They’re about the same height. The more I look at them—at Lady Ruth, at these photos of Lucy—the more I see. The more he seems to belong here among them.

  “He’s right,” Lady Ruth says wetly. “We’re so happy to have found you.”

  “But what if…” Simon shakes his head. “What if it isn’t true?”

  Something cold whips around us—I’d call it a draught, but the window is closed, and it’s June—and Lucy’s candle flames up one last time, then fizzles.

  None of us say anything.

  That was better than a spell.

  Or even a DNA test.

  After a moment, Lady Ruth pulls away from Simon and takes his hand, the one not holding the sword.

  “Come downstairs, child. There’s cake.”

  89

  SIMON

  There’s chocolate cake with chocolate-orange buttercream.

  And cherry Bakewell tart. And purple-iced éclairs with sugared violets.

  There’s tea. And milk. And lemonade.

  And big pink meringue kisses that look like clouds.

  Plus Lady Salisbury made a thousand sandwiches …

  How many have I have eaten, I don’t know—I’ve lost count. Cheese and pickle. Ham and mustard. Cucumber and cream cheese with sprigs of mint.

  “The curry chicken are the best,” I say.

  “Wrong again, Snow,” Baz says. “It’s the lemon and prawn.”

  “I make those with magic.” Lady Ruth smiles.

  “You’d have to,” he says.

  “Nothing beats Mum’s egg and cress,” Jamie says.

  “I can teach you that recipe,” she tells me. “There’s no magic at all.”

  We don’t talk about Lucy. Or the Mage.

  But we stay at the table till we’re hungry again, and every time I try to hand the sword to Jamie, he shoves it off. “What do I need with a sword?” he says.

  What do I need with a sword, I wonder.

  I’ve never seen Baz eat at a table like this. With people. Every time he laughs—Lady Ruth makes him laugh, and I do, too, sometimes—I look for his fangs. I don’t see them.

  Could this be real?

  Is it something else that will blow up in my face?

  Does everything I believe in fall apart?

  Jamie boils more water. Baz refills the milk jug. Lady Salisbury shows us this trick, where she makes roses bloom from the end of her wand. She tries to teach Baz, but he can’t match it.

  I turn my chair around and sit on it backwards to make room for my wings.

  “Have more cake,” Lady Salisbury says, cutting another piece of the chocolate.

  “All right,” I say, and I do.

  90

  PENELOPE

  Shepard has a new T-shirt—GOG & MAGOG: WORLD TOUR 1993. It’s something to do with giants; my dad gave it to him.

  We went back to my house for dinner last night. I was worried about Shepard learning too many magickal secrets—our house is full of magic, my mum keeps her scrying glass in the kitchen—but it was the other way around. My dad spent the whole night asking Shepard questions. About magickal creatures and America. Even a few about the weather. Dad thinks Shepard is marvellous.

  (Shepard is a bit marvellous.)

  Mum was more cautious. She at least didn’t cast any more spells on him.

  “A Normal, Penelope,” she said, when it was just the two of us setting the table. (We ordered takeaway kebabs, with tabouleh and labneh and lentil soup.)

  “I don’t want to hear it, Mum.”

  “You’ll only be able to marry him in three dimensions.”

  “That you know of,” I said.

  She sighed. “Micah was at least a skilled magician…”

  I dropped the last plate onto the table. “Honestly, Mum. Can you hear yourself? Can you hear yourself in the context of this day?”

  She frowned at me. “Fair point. I just…” She shook her head. She looked tired. Mum looks like she hasn’t had a full night’s sleep since the Mage died. “I want you to have a rich and challenging magickal life, Penelope.”

  “I want that, too,” I said, and then I smiled like—well, like someone I’d mock, like a twitterpated pixie. “Give him a chance, Mum.”

  After dinner, Shepard came back to my flat with me and slept in Simon’s old room, and then we woke up and went to the British Museum and Westminster Abbey, and now we’re taking an Overground train to check on Simon. (“come hungry,” he texted. “i’ve got 1000 finger sandwiches.”)

  “I’m going to miss the Overground,” Shepard says. “And the Underground.” We’re sharing a pole. He towers over me.

  “No subways in Nebraska?” I tease.

  “We barely have buses.”

  “Sounds terrible.”

  “It’s not so bad,” he says, smiling.

  “No public transportation, no pie…”

  “We have excellent steaks.”

  “I don’t eat steak.”

  “Hmmm…” He looks thoughtful. “We have pretty good tacos.”

  “We have tacos here,” I say.

  He laughs. “Is this like your pizza? Because I’ve tried your pizza.”

  “You should stay!” I blurt out. Too loudly. A man standing next to us scowls at me.

  Shepard tilts his head and looks down at me. He bites his bottom lip.

  “You should stay,” I say again. More sanely.

  “Penelope…” he says quietly, “I’m not even here legally.”

  “You know that’s not an issue, Shepard.”

  “It never seems to be for you…”

  I’m holding on to the pole with both hands. “There’s still so much you haven’t seen. Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London. There are magickal swans in Oxford, we could take a day trip. And then Scotland—great snakes, you could probably bond with the Loch Ness Monster!”

  The whole time I’m talking, Shepard looks like he’s getting re
ady to tell me no. And then he does. “I can’t stay,” he says, his forehead all wrinkled and his eyebrows pulled up in the middle. “I didn’t bring any money. I only have two pairs of pants.”

  “So you could get a job,” I say.

  “Not legally.”

  “Or you could go to uni.”

  “How would that work?”

  “You’re getting hung up on technicalities, Shepard. If you don’t want to stay, just say so!”

  He frowns. He’s holding on to the pole with both hands, too. He slides one hand down, and catches my thumb with his pinkie. “I do want to stay.”

  I hook my thumb around his finger. “I like you so much,” I say. It comes out resentful.

  Shepard smiles. But his brow is still furrowed. “I like you, too, Penelope.”

  “I don’t want you to leave.”

  He bends closer. “Come back with me.”

  “What?”

  “Come back to Omaha with me. I’ll get a passport, a real one—it only takes a few weeks. You can meet my mom, I can get my truck back…”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t try to get your truck back.”

  “Come home with me. Or just wait for me. Let me come back to you on my own two feet.”

  “Shepard, the last time I was in America, things didn’t go so well.”

  “Are you kidding me? The last time you were in America, you kicked ass.”

  Could I do that? Go back to Nebraska with Shepard? As what, his girlfriend? His dread companion? “I suppose you could introduce me to Ken…”

  Shepard is smiling at me.

  “Come,” he says.

  “Are you going to tell me that Nebraska is beautiful in June?”

  “Nebraska is miserable in June; you’ve already been there. But it is tornado season…”

  91

  BAZ

  Simon has finally found someone to talk to about sandwiches.

  “It’s like your apartment is a Pret a Manger,” Shepard marvels.

  Lady Salisbury sent us home with all the leftovers from lunch. It took two giant hampers. (The woman has top-level picnicking gear.) And now Snow has everything spread out all over the kitchen and living room. “It’s way better than that,” Simon says. “Have you tried the cake?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You have to try the cake—all of it.”

  “What about you?” Bunce says. She’s sitting next to me on the sofa.

  “Me?” I say. “I’ve tried the cake. I’ve eaten more cake than Mary Berry today.”

  She laughs. Bunce is in an uncharacteristically laid-back mood. I suppose she’s had a pretty successful week: She bested a demon, won the heart of a handsome Normal, and helped keep Simon Snow alive and kicking through another harrowing adventure.

  She doesn’t know his latest news. He asked me not to tell her.

  “I thought you and Bunce didn’t keep secrets,” I said.

  “This isn’t a secret,” Snow said. “I just need to sit with it for a while.”

  Penelope cast a spell on him the minute she walked in the door. “A horse of a different colour!”

  “Still nothing,” Simon said.

  “We’ll keep trying,” she replied.

  “I’d rather we didn’t.”

  Penny scoots closer to me now to make room for Shepard. It’s a three-person sofa. Snow plops down at my feet. “I got enough to share,” he says, holding up his plate.

  I groan. “I’m still so full … I’m too full to hunt.”

  “That’s how you’re going to kill your vampire boyfriend, Simon,” Penelope says. “Sandwiches.”

  Snow barks a laugh. “He’ll be fine. He’s always got room for four to six rats.”

  She pushes his knee with her socked foot. “How’d Baz spell that shirt around your wings, if you’re immune to magic?”

  I cock an eyebrow at her. “The spell is on the shirt, Bunce.”

  “Oh,” Penny says. She really is in a mood. “Well, it looks nice.”

  “Until I have to tear it off,” Snow says.

  “Just let Baz reverse the spell.”

  “I don’t like being dependent on him.”

  I kick him. “Magic forbid you rely on me.”

  “That’s not what I meant—and everyone needs to stop kicking me. I’m injured.”

  “You could have some shirts made,” Shepard offers.

  All three of us turn to him.

  “Magickal shirts?” Snow asks.

  “No—regular shirts,” Shepard says. “But with openings that button closed around your wings.”

  I try to picture it. “Buttons?”

  “Or zippers,” he says. “I’ve seen people use buckles, but those seem fiddly.”

  “People?” Bunce asks.

  “Well, fairies…” Shepard sweeps his arm, expansively. “Harpies. Gargoyles … Lots of things have wings.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I say. “Why didn’t we think of that?”

  “Because you think with your wand,” Snow says.

  I kick him in the side again. (It’s hardly a kick.) (I can’t stay off him.)

  “I didn’t mean it in the dirty way!” he objects. “Penelope does, too.”

  “Where are we going to find a magickal tailor…” Bunce wonders aloud.

  Shepard grins at her.

  * * *

  When I get out of the shower that night, Snow is wearing my pyjama trousers and practising sword manoeuvres. I hang back in the bathroom door to stay out of his way.

  “You’re not supposed to do that on my side of the room,” I say.

  “You haven’t got a side of the room,” he says, letting the sword drop.

  “We’ll have to negotiate that.” I walk past him to the bed. My violin is still sitting there. I pick it up and rest it on my shoulder. Simon swings his sword again, watching me. “Are you going to tell me I can’t play violin on your side of the room?” I ask.

  “I would never tell you that,” he says, pointing the sword. “You can play violin wherever and whenever you like.”

  “Your landlady might disagree.”

  “I’ll cut off her ears.”

  “That sword is already a bad influence.”

  He climbs onto the bed next to me, still holding the sword. (Is he going to sleep with it?) “I should give it back,” he says. “To Jamie.”

  “Snow, he insisted that you keep it.”

  “Yeah, but what do I need with a sword?”

  “What does Jamie Salisbury need with a sword? I’m surprised he still has all his fingers. You, however, have spent your whole life wielding one.”

  “Yeah, but…” He shrugs with the sword. (I really think he might sleep with it.)

  “Just keep it for now,” I say. “It’s like the smallest thing in your life that you need to figure out.”

  He laughs. “You sound like my therapist.”

  “A lot of your insults are compliments, I think.”

  Snow leans back on the headboard. “You’re both always telling me that I have bigger things to worry about.”

  “Or—” I rest my chin on my violin and pull the bow over the strings. “—maybe we’re both telling you to worry less, in general.”

  “I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

  “You should call her and ask.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “You’re not clever.”

  I play another note. “I am.”

  Simon holds the sword out in front of him, twisting his wrist, then tossing the hilt gently, switching his grip.

  “Does it feel like handling an incredibly rare and precious antique?”

  “It feels fucking solid,” he says. “Maybe even better than the Sword of Mages.”

  “I wonder if it has a name…”

  “They said it’s Excalibur.”

  “They said it’s an Excalibur. Like, that’s the brand name. It might have a family name.”

  “Yeah…” He’s looking at the sword, frowning.

&
nbsp; I play the beginning of a song.

  After a minute, Snow brings his free hand up and wipes his cheek with the back of his wrist.

  I keep playing. He wipes his eyes again. I pull the bow away.

  “Don’t stop,” he says.

  “Is it making you cry?”

  “Partly. Isn’t that what it’s for?”

  I laugh. “No.”

  He elbows me, so I start playing again. I suppose I have picked a melancholy song … (I like melancholy songs.) Snow messes about with the sword, occasionally wiping his cheek on his bare shoulder.

  When I’m done, I lay the violin in my lap. Simon passes the sword to his left hand and slumps into my side.

  “Do you think it’s real?” he asks.

  “The sword?”

  “Do you think I was a magician? All along?” His voice is rough, and his cheeks are flushed. There’s one damp curl hanging over his forehead.

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s clear now.”

  He hides his face in my T-shirt. “It’s too much for me.”

  I set the violin on the floor by the bed, then rest my hand over his on the hilt of the sword. He lets go. For a moment, I wonder if I’ll be able to lift it, but I can. I set it by the bed, too.

  Simon crawls half into my lap, burrowing his face into my chest.

  I lay my cheek on top of his head and hold him behind his ears.

  “It would be too much for anyone,” I say.

  EPILOGUE

  ONE YEAR LATER

  AGATHA

  I could leave the goats to themselves all day. They’d be fine, and there’s plenty for me to do back at Watford. The goats know their own way home.

  I still end up out in the fields with them most days … I have my favourite stones and stumps to sit on. I’ve traded my wand for a walking stick.

  I like to be the one who brings the goats in when the sun sets. Over the hills, across the Great Lawn, over the drawbridge—the merwolves are gone, thank magic (thank Niamh)—and into their clean barn.

  I sleep above them in the loft. It’s not half bad. There’s a huge wheel window and a claw-foot tub.

  I’ll probably stay awhile.