Chapter Text
AGATHA
I was sure Simon would break up with me, after catching me with Baz in the Wavering Wood. I wouldn’t have blamed him. I remember actually being sort of relieved. Being the Chosen One’s girlfriend sometimes feels like more of a job than a relationship. I go with him to dances and I hold his hand in the dining hall and I wait for him to come back from all his heroic adventures.
Is that what a relationship is supposed to be? All obligations and routine?
I could still do all that, even if we weren’t together.
And then there’s Baz. Baz, who’s all flirting and eye rolls and mixed signals. Baz, who doesn’t seem to give a damn what anyone expects from him. If being with Simon feels like a job, what would being with Baz feel like?
Simon didn’t want to break up, though. I expected him to devolve into his angry rambling, to stutter and spit out half-sentences, the way he does whenever he catches Baz looking my way.
But there was none of that when we talked. We were back in the Wavering Wood, just the two of us this time. His jaw was set and his eyes were determined, the same as when he faces off against a dragon or talks about how he’ll one day defeat the Humdrum. He said, “I want to make this work.”
I stared at him. “You do?”
“Of course.” He looked back at me, and the determined look in his eyes turned to a kind of desperation. “You’re my future.”
Of all the things he could have said. Girlfriend. True love. Soulmate. And he picked, “future.”
It wasn’t very romantic.
But it was something. It was vital. You can live without a soulmate, but everyone needs a future. He needed me. It felt good to be needed.
Besides, Baz hadn’t talked to me at all since that night. He still looks at me, whenever I’m with Simon. I was walking alone once when I passed him on the lawn. But he kept walking, even when I called his name after him. I’m starting to think he cares more about getting a rise out of Simon than he does about me.
So I said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I want to make this work too, Simon.”
I’m waiting for Simon and Penny on the lawn when Baz finally talks to me again. “Wellbelove.” He sits next to me on the lawn.
I stand up. “Basil.”
He blinks up at me. He smiles, like he hasn’t been avoiding me for weeks. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” My arms are crossed, and I’m pouting, like I’m mad at him. I am, sort of. But I’m also sort of excited.
Even though he’s been ignoring me for weeks now, I’ve still thought about him. I look back at him whenever I catch him staring at me. I still like him. I like the attention, at least. (Is there a difference?)
I see Simon and Penny walking toward us out of the corner of my eye. “You should go. My boyfriend’s coming to meet me.”
He raises a brow. “Who’s that?”
“You know it’s Simon.”
“Yeah.” Basil always has a poised look about him. (I bet he spends time practicing his faces in the mirror.) He raises a perfect brow when he’s unimpressed; he tilts his head and rolls his eyes just so when he’s disdainful; even his scowl looks practiced. But now, his face falls. He looks genuinely disappointed. “You two have worked things out, then?”
“Yeah,” I say, “we have.”
The poised mask falls back on his face. He nods.
Then he takes my hands in his. “Congratulations, Wellbelove. I guess nothing can stand in the way of true love.”
“Baz!” Here comes Simon.
PENNY
I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell Simon and Agatha something. It’s our last year at Watford, and I feel like I’m the only one thinking about the future. Simon refuses to think about life after Watford, and Agatha refuses to think of a life for herself outside of Simon. Or Baz. Or the next boy that comes along, whoever he is.
I’m thinking about an internship. Miss Possibelf told me about it a couple months ago. I’d be working with a magick research association, creating new spells and potion recipes and submitting them for publication. I could be in textbooks that Watford students read years from now. The Mage and Natasha Pitch both did the program after they graduated.
It’s in America.
I asked Simon and Agatha for us to all meet up today so I could tell them the news. I’ve been accepted into the program. I got the message this morning.
Micah was so happy when I told him. I was surprised when he picked up the phone; long-distance makes it hard for us to connect sometimes. He wants us to get an apartment together when I move to America.
It’ll be convenient. I won’t have to pay a full rent by myself. And I’ll have someone to show me around America. Not just someone, I remind myself. Micah. The love of my life. It’s perfect, really. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be perfect.
So, there’s no reason for me to think about it anymore. I turn my thoughts towards other matters, like how I’m going to tell Simon and Agatha.
I’m walking with Simon toward the lawn, mulling over what I’m going to say. It’s been the three of us for so long, and I don’t want that to change.
How will Simon get on without me? I can’t count the number of times I’ve saved him with my magick. He’ll drink nothing but cold tea from now on, won’t he? He’ll make tea, leave it to steep and then forget all about it, and when he rediscovers it on the counter the next morning, I won’t be there to cast, “Some like it hot!” I’ll be cursing him to a lifetime of cold tea. And what about the next time he faces off against the Humdrum?
What about Agatha? Who’s going to pick up the pieces when they break each other’s hearts? The two of them are so stubborn, they’re going to force themselves to stay in a relationship until Agatha finds another boy to smile at her or Simon gets killed by the Humdrum.
Crowley, what if Simon gets killed by the Humdrum? What if graduation is the last time I ever see him? The Mage isn’t looking out for him. Agatha isn’t a strong enough mage to protect him. I’m leaving him to face the Humdrum all on his own.
I’m so deep in thought, I don’t even notice Simon is running away from me until I hear him scream. “Baz!”
“Simon!” I call after him. He keeps running. When it comes to Baz, or sour cherry scones, or blindly listening to the Mage, Simon’s like a dog with a bone. He’ll follow Baz through the catacombs at night or wake up at the crack of dawn for fresh scones or stay at Watford when the Mage has taken zero precautions to protect him from the Humdrum. He just can’t help himself. Once Simon’s decided that something is important to him, he doesn’t give up.
I walk after him. The lawn is hilly over here. Simon paces up a particularly high bump in long strides. Then he’s running downhill, and I lose sight of him. But I can still hear his voice, loud and stuttering and angry.
And then it’s gone. He was saying something like, “I can’t believe you—” and then he just stopped. I wait for him to start again. Simon does that a lot, when he’s talking, especially when he’s angry. His voice stops and starts like an old car engine sputtering to life. Sometimes what ends up coming out of his mouth isn’t even coherent.
But he doesn’t start again. He’s completely stopped, mid-rant.
That’s when I start running.
I think, he and Baz must be fighting. Or maybe Agatha has cut him off with a kiss.
It’s much worse than that. I bump into Simon at the bottom of the hill; he’s standing stock still.
Standing right in front of him is the Humdrum. He’s got that red ball with him, as always, and he’s smiling in that wrong, miserable-looking way of his, and he looks just like a younger Simon.
I hesitate.
Then the real Simon gets sucked away into a portal the Humdrum’s opened. I regain my composure and lift my hand to cast a spell on the Humdrum.
But it’s too late. I can’t say a word before I’m being swept away, too.
BAZ
Snow’s been back at Watford for a little more than five minutes before the Humdrum strikes again. (By “a little more than five minutes,” of course, I mean three months one week and four days.) (Still, it’s an incredibly short span of time for the idiot to get kidnapped by the Humdrum, twice).
It happens exactly like the last time, with me holding Wellbelove’s hands and Snow about to go off.
I was so sure they would break up. He walked in on Wellbelove holding my hands and gazing into my eyes, for Crowley’s sake.
But it turns out Snow’s rather forgiving, as long as you’re not a vampire that he thinks is plotting to kill him. He and Wellbelove reconciled within days after the incident.
He hasn’t spoken a word to me since. I can feel his magic buzzing around the room anytime we’re there at the same time. And I can feel his angry eyes on me in the dining hall. I still look at Wellbelove, just to make him angrier.
We’re all right back where we started.
But we won’t always be. It’s our last year at Watford. The next time I’ll be seeing Snow after graduation, we’ll be on opposite sides of a war.
I just want to get a reaction out of him. Something that tells me he still cares about what I do, even if only because he’s worried about how it’ll affect his relationship with his girlfriend.
It works. My name sounds so good in his mouth. Even when he’s screaming it. (Especially when he’s screaming it.) Then he’s standing right in front of me, coming undone. I can feel the magick pouring off of him, threatening to spill loose.
That’s right around the time when the Humdrum shows up.
I knew this was going to happen. It’s the same thing every time. The Chosen One and his sidekick return from another harrowing misadventure. The Mage says, Golly gee! Well it sure is good you narrowly avoided perishing at the hands of the Humdrum, Simon! I would love to go after the Humdrum now, but unfortunately I’m devoting all of Watford’s resources to the much more important task of raiding innocent Magicians’ houses.
And now it’s happening again. The Humdrum smiles at us. He still has that infernal red ball with him. He doesn’t stop bouncing it off the ground as he holds out his other hand toward us, palm up.
Light pours out of that hand. It turns and takes shape into something else, something round and elongated. A gateway.
A portal, I realize. I haven’t seen many; they take a lot of magic to generate. This one looks especially potent. It shimmers with the promise of a faraway place.
Or, more likely, the forewarning of a faraway place. If it’s a place the Humdrum wants to go, it can’t be a good one.
Then the portal snaps forward, like it’s coming alive. It starts sucking in air like a vacuum. A really powerful vacuum. Along with the strands of grass and fallen leaves succumbing to its pull, I realize with a start that we, too, are being pulled in.
Snow’s angry scowl falls off his face, giving way to dumb shock. I can feel his magic leave as he’s swept away into the portal. I can feel my heart stop. Bunce raises her hand, the one with her big purple ring on it. But before she can utter a word, she goes too, her cape and her wild purple curls spilling out behind her.
It’s happening again. The Humdrum has Simon and Bunce back in his grasp, just like that.
The only difference between this time and last time is that Wellbelove and I are standing close enough that we get dragged in after them.
SIMON
I hate it when Baz is right. Ever since the Humdrum kidnapped me and Penny, he’s been saying that it would happen again, eventually. He says that the Mage doesn’t do enough to protect me, that I can’t possibly defend myself from the Humdrum if I can’t even control my own magic, that Penny might not be around to save me next time. Actually, he says, “Your sidekick might not be around to save you next time.” That’s the part of the story everyone gets wrong. Penny’s not my sidekick; if anything, it’s the other way around. Baz knows better; he’s seen how many times Penny’s had to save me when I couldn’t handle casting a spell myself. He just calls her that to infuriate me.
I haven’t talked to him at all. Not since I saw him with Agatha in the Wavering Woods. I’ve thought so much about what I want to say to him, how he’s selfish and plotting and evil. How he needs to stay away from Agatha. But anytime I’m around him, I get too angry to speak. I’ve tried talking to Penny about it. She just looked at me like I was daft. “What did you expect from him, Simon? He’s your enemy, and he’s been flirting with Agatha for years now. Are you really all that surprised?” She’s right, of course. I’m not surprised. I’m angry and hurt and jealous.
Which is stupid. Baz has been plotting to kill me for years. He’s pushed me down a flight of stairs and tried to feed me to a chimera. Yet, this one little thing hurts so much worse than all the others. If he really wants to kill me, this is the way to do it. All he did was make a move on my girlfriend, and I’m wounded.
He’s just been waiting for this to happen. Hoping that the Humdrum would come back for me and finally do me in. I catch him staring at me sometimes, face drawn and deep in thought. I bet he’s plotting all the ways he could get rid of me before graduation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had opened up the school’s gates for the Humdrum, himself.
Although, when I look at him now, I notice that he doesn’t look particularly happy about being right. He probably didn’t intend on being around when the Humdrum found me. In the war that’s brewing, the Humdrum is on nobody’s side. It doesn’t care what your name is or how powerful you are. It just takes and takes and takes. Like death. We all feel the strain on our magic. Agatha’s knees buckle, and she falls to the ground. Even Penny and Baz are struggling. Even me.
The only one not struggling is the eleven-year-old standing in front of us. He’s still bouncing my old red ball. He’s looking at me, but he doesn’t make a move toward me.
Finally, I ask. “Are we, um. Are we going to fight?”
Baz snorts. He’s hunched over where he’s stood, struggling to keep upright, but somehow he still manages to summon the energy required to mock me. Bastard.
The Humdrum shakes his head.
Penny speaks up beside me. “Take it back now, y’all!” It’s a spell we learned back in fourth year, when the Cha Cha Slide was growing in popularity. It’s meant to send whatever object you’re casting on flying away from your space. She’s got a shaky hand raised up against the Humdrum, pointing her ring at him.
Her magic sputters out weakly. The Humdrum doesn’t move an inch.
But the impact is still strong enough that it sends his hair flying back from his face. And maybe it hurt him a little, or at the very least annoyed him, because he looks rather angry at being hit.
I start talking in a desperate bid to distract him from Penny. “Why did you bring us here? You -- you came for me, right? Just let everyone else g--” My voice breaks. I try again. “Let everyone else go, and we can settle this. Once and for all.”
Again, he shakes his head. Then he says, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.”
The last thing I see before I fall asleep is that red ball, bouncing on the cold hard ground.
BAZ
It’s a spell designed to put someone into a deep sleep. While they sleep, they dream of the thing they want most. If the spell isn’t broken, they’ll stay asleep forever, trapped in a dream.
I’m the first to wake up, and I can’t even be smug about breaking the spell before Bunce because I’m feeling so miserable from that dream.
Gold curls. Blue eyes. My name back in that mouth, only this time it was so much softer. “Baz.” And then that mouth was pressed to mine, and I thought, Impossible.
And then I was awake.
That’s how you break the spell. “A dream is a wish your heart makes.” You have to let the wish go in order to wake up. Of course I was the first to wake. Snow is a wish I let go of a long time ago.
The three of them are completely out. (Snow doesn’t even stir when I kick his foot.) I think to myself, if I were ever going to kill Snow, this would be the perfect time.
But I’m not. Even if I was, I wouldn’t want to do it like this. I’d want a fair fight.
Then I think, I could just leave them here. I could leave them, and Snow wouldn’t be my problem anymore. I wouldn’t have to worry about sharing a living space with the goddamned sun, I wouldn’t have to think about crashing into him, I wouldn’t have to keep avoiding the inevitable. There would be no fallout, no crash, no killing or burning or falling apart at each other’s hands. There would be no more making Snow go off, no more pushing him as hard as I could get away with, no more of him yelling my name. No more pretending to hate him, no more watching him sleep, no more feeling his eyes on me in a crowded room. I’d finally be free of the terrible burden that is loving Simon Snow.
I decide to wake up Wellbelove first, since I can’t stand the idea of seeing what Snow’s deepest desire is, and Bunce is sure to wake herself up any minute. (Then she can go rescue Snow from his dream of marrying Wellbelove) (or defeating the Humdrum) (or ridding the world of me.)
“In your dreams!” I cast, and suddenly I’m covered in a suffocating heat and blinded by the sun, and there she is, lying on a reclining chair, tanning away.
AGATHA
I swear I’m about to fall asleep in my chair when a sharp voice starts me awake. “Typical Wellbelove. Could have anything in the world, and you choose sunbathing.”
My eyes snap open, and there he is, looking totally foreign and vampirish under the California sun. A picture perfect Dracula. “Baz. What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t say, I’m here looking for you because I’m madly in love with you. He says, “Do you even like him?” and I think, unbelievable. Go all the way to fucking California, and somehow you’re still caught in the Simon Snow Show.
I sit up and turn so I’m facing him, sat sideways on my seat. “I love Simon, Baz. I may not love him the way I’m supposed to, but I love him as best I can. Someone has to.”
He flinches. It’s an unbecoming look on him. “How’d you know I was talking about Snow?”
“He’s all you ever talk about. It’s the same with him, you know.” I stare ahead at the horizon, and I know I look pensive and dramatic with it lit up against my face, turning my hair to fire. “I know I’m never going to love him enough. But I have to try. Simon Snow needs someone to be in love with him.”
“Because he’s the Chosen One?”
I drag my eyes back to him just so I can look at him like he’s daft, for once. “Because that’s the closest thing he’s ever going to get to a family.”
It’s a long time before Baz speaks. He looks like he might be sick. “We’re getting off track. Look, Wellbelove, you’re not in California. The Humdrum cast a spell. This is a dream. It isn’t real.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. This is a dream. The Humdrum cast a spell. Of course. “Of course this isn’t real,” I say. “Nothing else is.”
When I wake up, I'm curled up next to Simon Snow with a smile on my face that I know looks nothing short of perfect.
BAZ
I don’t wake up next to Wellbelove. I’m in…
...Watford?
More specifically, my mother’s old office.
I should be awake now.
Did I cast the spell wrong?
PENELOPE
I can’t believe Basil managed to wake up before me.
BAZ
I haven’t cast a spell wrong since first year.
PENELOPE
He looks a bit rattled.
Basil never looks rattled.
BAZ
I must have cast the spell on all three of them, not just Wellbelove.
PENELOPE
“Hello, Basil,” I try.
BAZ
Merlin, this means I’m going to show up in Snow’s dream next, doesn’t it?
PENELOPE
“Bunce,” he greets. “I’m kind of having a bad day, so I’m going to make this quick. You’re dreaming. None of this is real.”
“You’re a little late Basil. I already figured that out on my own.” I take another look around the office: my portrait on the wall, letters from Simon and a postcard from Agatha, and the Mage’s desk. All mine. “Trapped by my own ambition. Figures.”
“So you know this is a dream?” He still looks to be getting his bearings.
“I’m sitting at the Mage’s desk, my portrait hanging on the wall. Of course this is a dream.”
“Well if you know it’s a dream,” he says, all snarl and contempt, “why haven’t you woken up?” He’s all Basil. The most real thing in this room.
I know he’s the only real thing here. And yet…
“I know it’s a dream,” I say, “but it feels so real.”
“Bunce,” he says, “please don’t make this hard on me. I just want to wake you all up, go to Mumfords, and sleep.”
“You realize you’re sleeping now?”
He sneers. “I know I’m sleeping, but it feels so much like I’m saving you arses from the Humdrum.” I don’t bother responding to that, and we spend the next minute thinking of ways to wake me up.
“I don't suppose you've tried pinching yourself?”
I don't bother responding to that, either.
“Close your eyes for a minute, and then open them again,” he says.
“Already tried it.”
He huffs. Another minute goes by. “Okay,” he says, “there’s a difference between knowing and believing, right? So you know this is a dream, but you don’t believe it because it seems so real?”
“Exactly.”
“So, maybe if I tell you something unbelievable, something so impossible it can't be true, you'll be so shocked that you wake up.”
This is enough to pique my interest, at least. “Alright, Pitch. What have you got?”
“I’m in love with Snow.”
“Oh,” I say. Then, “That makes sense.” Then, “Why tell me that?”
Now he looks even more rattled. “One,” he starts, “I’m starting to think Dream Me doesn’t have as much impulse control as Awake Me. Two,” and now he turns his wide eyes on me, “that makes sense to you?”
I look around the room once more, taking it all in. It really does feel real. I guess even lies look real, when they’re looking right at you.
But this isn’t really a lie, is it? It’s my deepest desire.
I wonder why Micah isn’t here.
I turn back to Basil. “You know what the problem with this room is? It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Everything that I know I’ll have… one day. How can I go back, when this dream feels righter to me than the world I left behind?” I give him an inquisitive look. “How did you wake up, Basil?”
He swallowed. “I guess it’s easier to let go of something when you’ve already accepted that you can never have it. If I can’t have it for real, then I don’t want it at all.”
“'Real,'” I repeat. “What’s real, anyway? Simon and Agatha’s relationship isn’t real. You hating Simon isn’t real.” I take another look around. “This room might be a dream, but it’s not a lie. It feels more real to me than the life I’m living out there.” And that’s when it hits me. This dream feels righter to me than the life I’m living out there. “I’m not in love with Micah at all.”
Agatha’s already up when I wake.
BAZ
So Bunce managed to wake herself up, after all.
Leaving Snow.
Merlin, this is going to be hard, I think.
And then I'm lying in a bed.
SIMON
I can't believe Baz still isn't awake.
BAZ
In jeans.
SIMON
“Baaaz?”
BAZ
Who goes to bed in jeans?
SIMON
Finally, he comes sauntering down the stairs. Me and Penny have already made breakfast. Sour cherry scones, plus coffee for her and Baz and an extra stick of butter for me. I’m about to tease Baz about sleeping in this morning when I see his face.
He looks like a wreck. Worse than when he came back to Watford in the middle of eighth year. I freeze, sour cherry scone held up halfway to my mouth. “Baz? You okay?”
Baz stammers, which is all wrong. Stammering’s my job. “Um,” he says. And that’s all he says.
“Basil,” Penny says, “come drink some of this coffee before I have it all.”
He says it again. “Um.”
BAZ
Um.
PENNY
Basil looks frazzled. Strange. Basil never looks frazzled.
Then again, he hasn’t had his morning coffee yet. I offer him some, but he’s still standing in the middle of our hallway, looking like a lost puppy. A lost vampire puppy. But still, a puppy nonetheless.
Maybe he just needs a minute to get his head together. He’s been rather stressed since he’s taken on the new Headmaster position at Watford. I tell Simon, “We got another letter from Agatha.”
Simon pulls his eyes away from Baz to answer me. “How is she?”
“She’s great. She says she’s loving California, and she’s made a lot of Normal friends.”
“That’s great; I’m glad she’s happy.”
“Simon,” Basil says. Then, “Snow.” He looks embarrassed.
“Snow?” Simon says. “Are we back to fifth year, then?”
“I need to talk to you.” He shoots a pointed glance in my direction.
Normally, I’d probably pretend not to see what he was getting at and sit at the table another minute, just to fuck with him. But I can tell he and Simon are about to have a serious talk. I clear my throat. “Right. I need to be going, anyway. All those holes the Humdrum left aren’t going to fill themselves!” I pour the remainder of my coffee into my to-go cup.
Baz perks up. “Are you saying we beat the Humdrum?”
I snort. “Obviously. Don’t you remember? I know you have morning brain, Basil, but come on. It was the end of eighth year? You, me and Simon killed him?”
BAZ
My blood runs cold. I know it’s just a dream, but even the idea of me killing the Humdrum is sending shivers through me. I know he’s evil, and of course I want him gone one day, but. He looks like Simon.
“We killed him?” I say. “But… he was just a little kid. I mean, not really, obviously. But--”
“Baz, what are you talking about?” Snow is looking at me with those worried eyes he only ever reserves for Wellbelove and Bunce. It sends a flutter through me that I try to tamp down.
“The Humdrum wasn’t a little kid, Basil.” Bunce is also looking worried. “He was just a guy.”
That’s when it hits me. Simon’s dreaming that the Humdrum doesn’t look like him. He’s dreaming that the Humdrum just looks like some guy, and the only connection he has with the Humdrum is that he killed him.
“Anyway,” Bunce is saying, “I really do have to go. Bye, Simon. Bye, Baz.”
“Tell the Mage I say hi!” Simon calls after her.
And he’s dreaming that Bunce works with the Mage, fixing the world that the Humdrum broke. And that I’m Headmaster at Watford. And I live with him and Bunce.
Crowley. This can’t be… Simon doesn’t -- Snow doesn’t want me. Not as a friend, not as a roommate, and definitely not as a boyfriend.
“Baz.” Snow gets up, and before I know it he’s walking up to me and holding my head in his hands. “What’s wrong?”
“I -- um.” Fuck a nine toed troll. He’s got me stuttering again.
“I know something’s wrong, so just tell me what it is.” He’s looking deep into my eyes, and I can’t look anywhere but him. He’s the sun, and I’m crashing into him. “We’re a family, remember?” he says. He brings one hand away from my face (I mourn the loss of contact) and reaches down to take my hand.
That’s when I notice I’m wearing a ring. He reaches for it with his thumb, stroking back and forth.
My breath catches in my throat. He’s wearing one, too.
“Simon. Are we -- are we married?”
SIMON
Baz is really starting to scare me. He’s started pacing up and down the hall, raking his hands through his hair. It makes his hair stick up in a way I’d appreciate a lot more if I wasn’t so worried about him.
I step in front of him so he can’t move past me. I reach for his hand again. He steps back before I can touch him.
“No,” he says. I can’t tell if he’s saying it to me or himself. “This isn’t real.”
“Wha--”
“This isn’t real, Snow. It’s just a dream you’re trapped in. The Humdrum cast a spell on all of us, and you’re the only one who’s still asleep…”
He’s starting to babble. Again, I can’t help but think it’d be cute, if he weren’t scaring the hell out of me. “Baz.” I start to reach for him again. I pull back when I remember he doesn’t want that right now. It hurts, having this distance between us. It hurts like eighth year, when we were still enemies, but I didn’t want to be anymore. It hurts like every time I wanted to hold his hand or comfort him or tell him I loved him, but I couldn’t because I didn’t think he’d want to hear that from me. “This is real,” I say. “It’s you and me.”
He screws his face up into a scowl so deep, it looks like it must pain him to keep it up. It’s the same look he used on me back at Watford, only worse because now I know he only ever scowls like that when he’s feeling scared or vulnerable. When he’s trying to push me away. “You want real, Snow? What’s real is that Wellbelove is your happily ever after, not me.”
Agatha? I haven’t even seen her since she moved to California.
Baz is still talking. “I make terrible family, you can ask, and the real Simon Snow would never have me, anyway.”
I’m crying. He’s serious. “I don’t believe you,” I say.
“Believe this. One day, you’re going to kill me, or I’m going to kill you. But for now, you’re dreaming, and I need you to wake up so we can all go home already! Bunce needs her best friend to comfort her while her relationship dissolves. Wellbelove needs her chosen one to give her a sense of purpose. And I need my roommate and sworn enemy to come back with us, conscious, so that maybe, just maybe one of these days, he can put me out of my misery and rid the world of me!” He’s stepped closer to me while he’s yelling. I think I can feel his hand on my face, swiping away a tear.
But I can’t say that for sure, because the whole world is falling apart around us, and I can’t see him anymore, and I can’t feel him and
I’m awake.
AGATHA
“Why didn’t he kill us?” Penny says it to me, but probably because I’m the only other person who’s awake. She’d be discussing theories with Simon or even Baz if one of them was up. Really, I think she just likes thinking out loud. She’d probably be talking to herself, if I were still out. “He had to know there was a chance we’d wake up. So, why risk it? Why not just kill us, and be done with it?” She’s looking at Simon.
“You think he needs Simon,” I say. “You think he needs Simon alive.”
She frowns. “There has to be a reason he looks like Simon.” She doesn’t want to say it. She probably feels like she’s betraying Simon, even thinking it. (I know they love each other. It’s hard not to get jealous.) Simon is the most powerful mage the world has ever known. The Humdrum is the most powerful villain the world has ever known. And he looks just like a younger Simon, down to the red ball that he used to keep. Penny’s right; there has to be a reason.
But I know she doesn’t want to think about what that reason is. It’s easier to think of the Humdrum as the enemy and Simon as the hero. The moment you think that maybe they’re connected, one in the same, that Simon unwittingly created the Humdrum or functions as some kind of life source for the Humdrum… Well, the moment you think that, our story goes to hell, doesn’t it? You can’t have a hero who’s also the villain.
So I don’t make her say it. I just ask her what she dreamed about.
She smiles. “Watford. You and Simon going on adventures and being happy. What about you?”
I tell her, “I was on the beach. It was sunny. And I wasn’t thinking of Watford or magick or anything like that. You probably think that’s stupid…”
“I don’t,” she says. “Crowley, Agatha, you can’t control what makes you happy. If living on the beach would make you happy, then there’s nothing stupid about it.” That makes me smile, and she smiles back. We don’t usually talk like this. Like we understand each other. It’s nice. Then she says, “Micah wasn’t in my dream.”
“Simon wasn’t in my dream, either.”
She says, “That doesn’t surprise me.”
I laugh, despite myself.
Then she says, “I’ve been chosen for an internship after the year ends. It’s in America.”
And then, before I can say a word back to her, Simon and Baz are waking up.
PENNY
The walk back to Watford is brutal. We walk in silence, and the air is heavy with all the things we are not saying.
I don’t even get the chance to finish my conversation with Agatha about America.
Simon’s intermittently opening and closing his mouth, like he wants to speak but he can’t find the words. He’s staring at Baz, but that’s nothing new.
Baz is staring straight ahead, leading the rest of us back. He says nothing. He seems to have developed a preoccupation with his hands.
Hmm. Interesting.
We’re nearing the school when Simon finds a word. “Baz.”
Baz stops. “Yes, Snow?” He doesn’t turn around, but if I crane my head I think I can catch sight of a light blush on his face.
Simon falters. “I -- um.”
“Simon?” Agatha’s looking at them. She’s clearly wondering why we’ve stopped in front of the school.
Simon stiffens. “Um…”
Baz casts a look between him and Agatha. “Right,” he says. And then he smirks at Agatha, just like normal. “See you around, Wellbelove. Snow,” he adds, glancing back at Simon for a second. And then he’s off, leaving the three of us stood there.
We’re quiet again. Agatha’s still looking at Simon. Simon’s still looking off in the direction where Baz went.
“I know this might not be a good time,” I say, “but I got accepted to work at an internship after graduation. It’s in America.”
Agatha closes her eyes and leaves them shut for a moment. She looks like she’s wishing away a headache. I could cast a spell for that, but I know how she feels about using magic for small things.
Simon’s quiet. His magic’s not, though. I can hear it humming in the air like electrical wire. He curls in on himself, like he’s trying to keep it all inside. But he must give up, because then he’s storming off.
Agatha and I exchange a look. Unexpectedly, she smiles at me. “Did you really tell me about the internship before Simon?”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t get too flattered. I would’ve told you both at the same time, but he was unconscious.”
BAZ
It’s not possible. The Humdrum must have cast the spell wrong.
Snow does not…
He’s with Wellbelove. And he hates me. I’ll avoid him for awhile, and then we can go on with our lives as if this stupid day never happened.
I can’t get my hopes up. The only thing that’s made living with Snow tolerable is accepting the fact that he will never love me back. If I lose that, then Snow won’t need to rid the world of me. I’ll do the job for him.
SIMON
I knew Baz was on his way to the Catacombs, because we were trapped by the Humdrum for awhile and he was looking rather pale. (Then again, that could just be because he saw me dreaming about him.) (Don’t think about it.) (You might go off if you think about it too much.)
Still, I couldn’t go back to our room. I don’t want the next time I see him to be when he walks in on me lying in bed, thinking (probably about him) (who am I kidding, definitely about him) or sleeping (God, not sleeping) (I’m never going to sleep again). It would feel too much like I was waiting for him, or like he had me cornered.
Besides, our room is too small to pace in.
So I just wandered around the school grounds in a daze, until finally (inevitably) (cursedly) I ended up back in the Wavering Wood. (Fuck the Wavering Wood.)
I thought I was going to go off, but eventually the magic coils itself back inside me, restless and aching but secure inside my chest. Thank God. I wouldn’t have hurt anyone. (I'm so deep in the woods, there's no one else around for miles.) But the dryads have made it clear that I am not to burn up or chop down anymore of their living space. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Then I hear leaves rustling just a few feet away from me.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
“Hi, Simon.”
I can’t believe I thought I was alone. Of course she followed me. “Penny! I could’ve killed you!”
She shuffles out from behind the bushes and tries to look sheepish. “I know enough magic to defend myself, Simon. Even from you.” I don’t know what to say to that. She’s right. Still. Penny should never have to defend herself from me. Ever. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
I don’t know if she means the weird tension with me and Baz, or how I couldn’t look at Agatha the whole way home, or her leaving for America. It doesn’t matter. I shake my head.
She nods, like she expected as much. “Do you want to get some tea?” she asks.
“In a minute,” I say. I can still feel my magic buzzing just beneath my skin. I sink down to the ground and rest my back against a tree, because I’m exhausted.
She sits next to me, and wraps her arm around me in that way she does. I bury my face in her shoulder because I’m tired, and I don’t want to hurt her, but I don’t want to let go either.