Carry On (26 page)

“I learned it in school,” I say. “Same as you.” They both look surprised.

“What happened to the vampires?” Snow asks. “Not the ones your mother killed—the others.”

“The Mage drove most of them out of England,” I say. “I think it's the only time my family has co-operated with his raids.”

“Mum says the war started with the vampire raids,” Bunce says.

“Which war?” Snow asks.

“All of them,” she says. She leans over Snow's lap to reach the brownies.

I take a sandwich and the apple, and stand up. “I need some air.”

I wait until I'm down in the Catacombs to tuck in. I don't really like eating in front of people.

 

47

SIMON

Penny is back at the chalkboard, making notes.

 

Talk to Dad at Xms break. OK to wait that long? Ask him to send notes?

 

“Why
all
of them?” I ask.

“Hmm?”

“Why all the wars? Why did they
all
start with the vampire raids?”

“The war with the dark things started there,” she says. “That should be obvious. I mean, mages and vampires have never got on—we need Normals alive, and they need them dead. But invading Watford, that was an act of war. And it was the first real attack by the Humdrum, too.”

“What about the war with the Old Families?”

“Well, the Mage's reforms started then,” she says.

“I wish there were just one war,” I say. “And one enemy that I could get my head around.”

“Wow,” Penny says, finally turning away from the board, “what are you going to do with yourself now that you don't have Baz?”

“I still have Baz.”

“Not as an enemy.”

“We're just having a truce,” I say.

“A magic-sharing truce.”

“Penny.” I frown and lie back on my bed. I'm knackered.

I feel her climbing up next to me. “Try again,” she says, taking my hand.

“No.”

“Why did you try with Baz?”

“I didn't,” I say. “I just wanted to help him, and I didn't know how. So I put my hand on him and
thought
about helping him.”

“It was pretty extraordinary.”

“Do you think everyone could tell?”

“No … Maybe. I don't know.
I
couldn't tell, not for certain—and I was the closest. But I saw him stand straighter when you touched him. And then the spell started working. There's no way that Baz is powerful enough to chant back a dragon.…” She squeezes my hand. “Try again.”

I squeeze hers back. “No. I'll hurt you.”

“You didn't hurt Baz.”

“Maybe I
did
—he'd never admit it.”

“Maybe it didn't hurt him,” she says, “because he's already dead.”

“Baz isn't dead.”

“Well he's not alive.”

“I … I think he is,” I say. “He has magic. That's life.”

“Morgan's tooth—imagine if you
could
do it again. If you could actually control your power, Simon.”

“Baz was the one controlling my power.”

“It was like you were focused for the first time—directed. You were using him like a wand.”

I close my eyes. “I wasn't using him.”

 

48

BAZ

When I come back, Bunce is gone. I can tell she's been sitting on my bed again—it smells like her. Like blood and chocolate and kitchen herbs. I'll snap at her about it tomorrow.

Snow has showered, the room is humid from it, but our papers and dinner things are still scattered on the table and the floor. It's like having two slovenly roommates.

The chalkboard is in order, though, completely filled with Bunce's tight-fisted handwriting and pushed against the wall.

I take my jacket off and spell it clean, hanging it in my wardrobe. My tie's tucked in the pocket. I pull it out and loop it around the hanger.

I ate my sandwich down in the basement, washing it down with a few rats. I need to go hunting in the Wood again; the rats are getting few and far between in the Catacombs, even though I try not to take the females.

It's a pain to hunt in the Wood. I have to do it during the day because the Mage brings the drawbridge up at dusk, and I can't
Float like a butterfly
over the moat every night like I did today; I don't have the magic.

I look over my shoulder at Snow—a long, blanketed lump on his bed.

He
has the magic.

He could do anything.

I'm still humming with his magic, and it's been hours since he pulled his hand away. He's thrown spells at me before, but this was different. This was like being struck by benevolent lightning. I felt scorched clean. Bottomless …

No, that's not right, not bottomless.
Centreless.
Like I was bigger on the inside. Like I could cast any spell—back up any promise.

At first it was as if Snow was giving magic to me. Sending it to me. But then the magic was just
there.
It was mine, in that moment, everything that was his.

All right. I have to stop thinking about it like this. Like it was a gift. Snow would never have opened himself up to me if there hadn't been a dragon overhead.…

I wonder if I could
take
the magic from him if I tried, but the thought turns my stomach.

I change in the bathroom and brush my teeth, and when I come out, I see that Snow is sitting up in his bed.

“Baz?”

“What.” I sit on my own bed, on top of the covers.

“I … can you come here?”

“No.”

“I can come over there, then.”

I cross my legs and arms. “You may not.”

Snow huffs, exasperated.
Good,
I think.

“Just. Come here,” he says. “Okay? I have to try something.”

“Can you even hear how ridiculous you sound?”

He gets up. It's dark in our room, but the moon is out, and I can always see him better than he sees me. He's wearing grey flannel pyjama bottoms, school-issued, and his gold cross. His skin is as grey as mine in this light, and shining like a pearl.

“You can't sit on my bed,” I say as he sits on my bed. “And neither can Bunce. My bed reeks of intensity and brownies.”

“Here,” he says, holding out his hand.

“What do you
want
from me, Snow?”

“Nothing,” he says. And he means it, the actual bastard. “We have to try again.”

“Why?”

“So that we know that it wasn't a fluke,” he says.

“It
was
a fluke. You were fighting a dragon, and I was helping you—it was a fluke squared.”

“Merlin, Baz, don't you want to know?”

“Whether I can tap into you like a generator?”

“It wasn't like that,” he says. “I let you do it.”

“Are you going to let me do it again?”

“No.”

“Then it doesn't matter if it was a fluke!”

Snow's still sitting on my bed. “All right,” he says. “Maybe.”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe I'd do it again,” he says. “If it were a situation like today—if there were lives at risk, and this might be a solution, an option other than, you know,
going off.
”

“What if I turned it against you?”

“My magic?”

“Yes,” I say. “What if I took your magic, cast it against you, and settled Baz versus Simon, once and for all.”

Snow's mouth is hanging slightly open. His tongue shines black in the dark. “Why are you such a villain?” He sounds disgusted. “Why have you
already
thought of that?”

“I thought of it when I was still rhyming at the dragon,” I say. “Didn't you?”

“No.”

“This is why I'm going to beat you,” I say.

“We're on a truce,” Snow says.

“I can still
think
antagonistically. I'm thinking violent thoughts at you constantly.”

He grabs my hand. I want to pull it away, but I don't want to look scared—and also I
don't
want to pull it away. Bloody Snow. I'm thinking violent thoughts at him right now.

“I'm going to try now,” he says.

“Fine.”

“Should you be casting a spell?”

“I don't know,” I say. “This is your experiment.”

“Don't, then,” he says. “Not right away. But tell me if it hurts.”

“It didn't hurt before,” I mutter.

“It didn't?”

“No.”

“What
did
it feel like?”

“Stop talking about feelings,” I say, shaking his hand. “Hit me. Or charge me. Whatever it is you want to do.”

Snow licks his bottom lip and closes his eyes halfway. Is this how he looked this afternoon?
Crowley.

I feel his magic.

At first it's a buzz in my fingertips, then a rush of static up my arm. I try not to squirm.

“Okay?” he asks. His voice is soft.

“Fine. What are you doing?”

“I don't know,” he murmurs. “Opening? I guess?”

The static in my arm settles into a heavy thrum, like electrical sparks catching into flames. The discomfort goes away, even though the licking, flaming feeling gets stronger. This I know what to do with: This is fire.

“Still okay?” he asks.

“Grand,” I say.

“What does that mean—does that mean you could use it?”

I laugh, and it comes out more good-natured than I mean it to. “Snow. I think I could cast a sonnet right now.”

“Show me,” he says.

I'm so full of power, I feel like I can see without opening my eyes. Like I could go nova if I wanted to and have my own galaxy. Is this what it's like to be Simon Snow? To have infinity in your chest pocket?

I speak clearly:
“Twinkle, twinkle little star!”

By the time I get to the end of the next phrase, the room around us is gone, and the stars feel close enough to touch.

“Up above the world so high!”

Simon grabs my other hand, and my chest opens wider. “Merlin and Morgana,” he says. “Are we in space?”

“I don't know,” I say.

“Is that a spell?” he asks.

“I don't know.”

We both look around us. I don't
think
we're in space; I can breathe just fine. And I don't feel like floating away—though I am teetering on the edge of hysterical. So much power. So many stars. My mouth tastes like smoke. “Are you holding back at all?” I ask him.

“Not consciously,” Snow says. “Is it too much?”

“No. It's like you completed the circuit,” I say, gripping his other hand. “I feel kind of drunk, though.”

“Drunk on power?” he asks.

I giggle. “Shit, Snow. Stop talking. This is embarrassing.”

“Do you want me to pull back?”

“No. I want to look at the stars.”

“I'm pulling back,” he says.

And then he does. It feels like the tide going out—if the tide were made of heroin and fire.

I shake my head. I don't let go of Snow's hands.

“All right?” he asks.

“Yeah. You?”

“Fine.”

Now we're just sitting on my bed, holding hands, Simon Snow and I. I can't look at his eyes, so I stare at his cross.

“Your mother…,” he says. “When she came back, she said that thing about stars.
‘He said we'd be stars.'
”

“I think that's a coincidence,” I say.

“Yeah.” Simon nods. “Do you have any of it left? Like, did it stay with you? My magic?”

“Residually?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

I shake my head. “No. A feeling. A hum. Not power.”

“Can you do it on your end?”

“What do you mean?”

“We're still touching,” he says. “Try to tap into it.”

I close my eyes and try to be open, try to be a vacuum or a black hole. Nothing happens. I try to pull at Snow, then. To suck at him with my own magic … Still nothing.

I open my eyes. “No. I can't take it from you. I've never heard of a magician taking someone else's magic. Can you imagine? If there were a spell for that? We'd tear each other apart.”

“We're already tearing each other apart.”

“I can't take it,” I say again.

“Do you think it hurt you, my magic?”

“I don't think so.”

“So we could do it again.”

“We just did, Snow.”

He looks uncharacteristically thoughtful. I wonder if he's forgotten that he's holding my hands. Or if he's forgotten what it
means
to hold hands. Or if he's forgotten who I am entirely.

I think again about pulling my hands away—but Snow could light fires in my palms at this point, and I wouldn't pull away. It feels like he has.

“Baz,” he says, and it's not unprecedented for him to say my name, but I know he avoids it. “This is stupid. If we're going to be working together, you can't keep pretending that I don't know.”

“Don't know what,” I say, yanking my hands back.

“Don't know about you. What you are.”

“Get off my bed, Snow.”

“It won't change anything—”

“Won't it?”

“Well, it
would
make things easier,” he says. “How can we discuss what we know about vampires when you won't even admit that you are one?”

“Get off my bed.”

Snow stands up, but doesn't stand down. “I
know.
I've known since our fifth year. How're we supposed to help you if you're still keeping all these secrets? Like, why did you start school late this term? And what happened to you? And why are you limping?”