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1
BAZ
It begins, as most things do when it comes to Simon Snow, with a whisper.
"Did you hear it tonight?" Elspeth whispers, and when I turn around, I can see that her hackles are up. "The thing in the rafters?
She is talking to some girl whose name I can't bother to remember, a small hushed person who keeps asking the Minotaur how to spell rhythm.
I decide to ignore them, take a plate and motion towards Niall and Dev so that they will bring the tea pot and the cups. Only when the girl bursts into tears, I raise an eyebrow, but continue to pile sandwiches on the plate. Snow is standing at the far end of the buffet, but comes over when he sees them. (The whispering girls. Not the sandwiches.)
(But then again, maybe he's just worried that there won't be enough food left for him and his sidekicks.)
(I did that once, in second year. Spelled away all the sandwiches. And the butter. Just to see whether he would start crying.) (He did, but only after he tried to shove my face into a bowl of vanilla custard.)
SIMON
"What happened?"
Amy, Elspeth's roommate, sniffles and shakes her head.
"It's Baz, isn't it?" Just thinking about what he could have said to them makes me so angry that I'm almost not hungry anymore. (But only almost.)
"Was he bullying you again about the last spelling lesson?" I ask Amy.
I look at Elspeth. "Or was he teasing you about your father?"
Elspeth shakes her head as well and growls an answer. "It's girl's stuff."
They turn around and walk away, without anything from the buffet.
Which leaves more for me. I shrug and grab the biggest plate I can find, making my way towards the scones.
BAZ
"Did you know about the additional storey in the Cloisters?" Dev asks, munching on a BLT, bacon grease dripping from his fingers.
"There's no additional storey in the Cloisters," I say.
"There is one." Dev insists. "My uncle Eric told me all about it."
Small bits of lettuce fall onto the table, and I try to ignore it, because he's one of my minions. (The Pitches have impeccable table manners, but this is no formal occasion. Just tea, at school, with my friends.)
"No offense, mate, but your uncle Eric is a complete nutter," Niall shakes his head, chuckling.
"No, it's true. It's between the second and third floor of the Cloisters, and it shows an echo of what happened the day before. And guess which floor it echoes?" Dev pauses for dramatic effect, and also to take another bite. "The third floor."
Niall's eyes are wide open. "That's the floor with the bedrooms."
"Uh-huh,” Dev nods. “And guess what they used to do back then, in the good old eighties?"
"No way!"
"Yes! Instead of trying to look through the real windows of the third floor, they just paid a visit to the additional storey, et voilà – "
I cringe at Dev’s terrible French pronunciation.
" – they could watch all the girls getting ready for bed."
"Which would include taking off their clothes… " Niall looks about ready to fall off his chair in excitement.
"Crowley, yeah!" They high-five.
"First, you're perverts." I take a sip of my perfectly brewed tea. "Second, the only way to look into an almost-third storey window, would be to climb up the walls. Which would only be possible without getting caught from the northern part of the Cloisters. Unfortunately, dear gentlemen, the northern façade faces the moat. So, your crazy uncle Eric would have not only been the eighties equivalent of spider-man, but also up for a swim with the merwolves.”
I raise an eyebrow at their disappointed faces.
"The eighties equivalent of spider-man was spider-man, mate" Niall points out, because he’s petty.
I ignore him because, third, Snow is staring at us. Again.
SIMON
"He's plotting."
Penny sighs and opens a book that is almost as thick as the sandwich that I'm currently trying to fit into my mouth.
"He made Amy cry."
"Amy is always crying." Penny sighs, shutting the book again and rubbing her eyes without taking off her glasses. "Yesterday, she got an 'almost okay' on her Elocution presentation and she wept as if she'd gotten the best present ever. It's annoying."
I don't like it when Penny talks like that about people who are not as smart as she is. It makes me wonder whether if we weren't friends, she'd talk like that about me too. I'd be more than happy to get an 'almost okay' in Elocution. (Still, I'm glad that we're friends. Not just because she doesn't say bad things about me, but because of what she says next.)
"I doubt that Baz is plotting, but if he is, he'd better not try to do anything to you before the semester ends. I've been working so hard to keep you from failing this year's finals. I'll spell him silent if he tries to kill you before you've passed Magickal History."
Which is not only the worst kind of threat for a mage, but also the closest Penny will ever come to saying that she loves me. (Platonically.)
She yawns and pushes her plate away. There are dark circles under her eyes, and when she lays her head on the table and closes her eyes, I wonder why she's so tired these days.
Her bright blue curls spill over the table and I push them aside before they dip into our tea cups.
Maybe it's the Humdrum. We've been worrying a lot – the school year is coming to an end, and there still hasn't been a proper attack. And I've found only five of the six white hares so far.
(Baz likes to tease me about it. He says the Humdrum is probably worried about my grades, since he always attacks directly before the final exams.)
There was the incident with the worsedger inside the chemistry cupboard, and the thing with The Whole Hole in the Courtyard, but nothing seriously evil yet. Which is also why I'm worried about Baz. (Not worried about him, but about what he's planning.)
So, for weeks, Penny and I have been constantly on edge. Waiting. Preparing. Stealing good moments in-between, like now, with tea and scones, and short naps on antique dining hall tables.
I have her all to myself now, because Agatha is studying like crazy. Her parents say she won't be allowed to Camp Pegasus, a Normal riding program, this summer, if her grades won't get better.
2
SIMON
It begins, as most things do when it comes to the Insidious Humdrum, with a scream.
A scream, followed by another scream, and another one. High, agonising sounds that waver through the open bedroom window and pull me out of my sleep. I wake up with a jolt, and am halfway to the door before my brain registers that Baz isn't in our room, and for a split second I think it might be him, screaming.
But then I remember that he's evil. (Besides, Pitches don't scream.) (They make people scream.)
BAZ
"Hands up and freeze!"
I hate this spell. The rat stops running and stands up on its hind legs, trembling with fear. With a quick snap I break its neck and sink my fangs deep into its veins.
At first, I think it might still be alive when a thin wailing echoes through the catacombs. I stop feeding and strain my ears.
Blood drips on my shirt, and I curse myself. It's a good shirt, white silk, and I'll have to burn it now. (Clean as a whistle doesn't work on blood stains produced by murder. The mages are way too righteous when it comes to clean laundry.)
The sound continues, louder and louder, filling the caverns and rattling the hollow bones. I drop the rat.
SIMON
I am running, bare feet slipping on the wet grass of the great lawn, night summer breeze tugging on my hair.
Then, as the screaming gets almost unbearable, I see them.
Goats and girls. Under the moonlight, pale nightgowns, pyjamas, and speckled fur, all streaming towards the Chapel.
"Crowley – " I curse, sliding down the lawn, towards them. The girls are screaming, screaming for their lives, but their eyes are closed. The eerie noise makes my heart pound, adrenaline and panic pumping through my lungs.
Ebb is there (which explains the goats milling through the girls' legs), and it's a relief to see that she is awake, and pointing her shepherd’s staff, guiding them with her magic.
Miss Possibelf is shaking her head, casting hurried spells at the girls as they pass the door into the lit Chapel. Behind me, other students, all boys, arrive from Mummers House, clearly not believing their eyes.
The Mage is nowhere to be seen. (He's been ignoring me for all of sixth year so far, avoiding me, not answering my messages. We found evidence of Baz being a vampire, and he just shrugged.)
I stumble the next few steps, scramble through the screaming crowd, scan the faces until – finally – I catch sight of blue curls. (Penny kept telling me that one day, her colourful hair would come in handy, and I guess I owe her now.)
There she is, in a pyjama covered in tiny dancing cupcakes. She looks smaller without her glasses, or a book in reach. I've never heard her scream like that. Not even when we were looking for the Second Serpent, and accidentally unleashed a hungry hydra. Back then, I was a mess of snot and tears, ready to Go Off, but Penny was so cool and brave that I decided there and then that I'd never go on an adventure without her.
"Penny!" I reach for her, and she stops walking.
Suddenly I'm so afraid that she won't stop screaming that my magic rises up my throat and fills my words. "Wake up!" I can't remember whether that's an actual spell or not, but it works.
"Simon?" She immediately covers her ears.
The screams are still getting louder. (Or maybe it's a last crescendo before something even worse is going to happen.) Panic is swimming in her eyes as she grabs my arm, and pulls me out of the slowly shuffling crowd.
I shake her. "Penny, what's going on? What's happening? Is it the Humdrum?"
She is looking around, wildly, frantically. "I was – we were – Simon, there's – we were dreaming, and then we weren't, and it was awful, Simon, so so awful, and then, I think – " She pauses, and I try to block her sight, so that she will look at me and go back to being Penelope Bunce, who knows what to do when everyone else (including me) is panicking.
"Simon – can you see Agatha?"
"What?" I turn my head. There are so many girls, and all of them look kind of the same, in their pyjamas and with their faces twisted in pain and fear. Also, the thought of something being wrong with Agatha, makes me feel sick. "Why? What happened, Penny? Tell me, I need to know – "
"Holy Chomsky." Penny's face goes all pale. "What if she's – what if she's still in there?"
"In where?" I shake her, magic coming off my fingertips, sparks dancing on her shirt.
"The Cloisters. Simon, I – " Penny lets go of me, and crumples into the grass, retching.
Miss Possibelf appears by our side, gently helping her up.
"Is she going to be okay?" My voice somehow doesn't sound the way it should.
"Mr. Snow," Miss Possibelf looks at me, sizing up the situation. She is wearing earmuffs, and an old-fashioned bathrobe. "I think you should go to bed. Everything's going to be fine. There's no need to be afraid."
She's trying to reassure me. Which obviously achieves the opposite. Or maybe she just wants to get me out of the way. My magic is seeping through my edges, making the air around us sizzle with heat.
"Simon – " Penny is wiping sweat from her face, and she is so pale, and the circles under her eyes are so dark. It's tearing me apart, to see her like that. "You have to – "
"Now, now, you should lie down for a moment, you're not feeling well." Miss Possibelf interrupts her. Then she shoots me a sharp look. "You're still here, Mr. Snow."
"Yes, I – "
"Simon!" Penny's eyes are burning into mine. She lifts her hand, purple stone glinting in the moonlight. "Find her. Before something worse happens."
I nod. She's right. (She always is.) I turn around, pushing my way through the girls whose screams are getting hoarse by now.
"Safe and sound!" Penny's calling after me, and her magic leaves a faint taste of sage at the back of my throat. "Come back soon! Take care! Be careful!" Her voice dies down behind me, and I have to fight not to turn around.
BAZ
I follow the screams. (Which wouldn't be a very clever move if this were a horror movie. But then I remember that I'm the guy with the blood on his shirt, so maybe I don't need to worry about such things.)
I spell open the secret stone door that leads from the catacombs to the Chapel. (I could pull it open, but I'd ruin my fingernails.)
Noise crashes over me, screams filling my ears like a wave of agony. I peer into the Chapel from the dead poets' corner, hiding behind Mercury’s bust, trying not to knock over Dickinson and Rūmī.
For some obscure reason, three hundred girls screaming on top of their lungs are standing between the ancient pews. Their eyes are shut. It looks like the most surreal, creepiest flash mob that ever happened.
I decide to act as if this isn't freaking me out at all (which always works well if you're tall enough and your surname is Pitch) and walk out of the poets' corner.
Or at least I try to.
Something is nibbling on the leg of my trousers. A small, dirty white goat, happily munching on my uniform, completely unfazed by the chaos around her.
I sneer at the goat. It cocks its head, staring at me out of its slitted yellow eyes, and backs away.
"Mr. Pitch."
I almost flinch. "Yes, Miss Possibelf?"
"Why don't you join your roommate, and leave the rest of us to sort out this incident."
I nod and turn away, weaving through the girls, and past Ebb, who surprisingly isn't whining for once.
Snow was here. I should have guessed it – the whole Chapel and the great lawn smell of smoke and burnt apples, of Almost Going Off. (Besides, fainting girls are always a clue when it comes to our beloved Chosen One.)
SIMON
The last time I tried to walk into the Cloisters, I got such a severe nosebleed that I feared my brain would start coming out of my nose. (Which probably wouldn't have made a difference back in my first year. Everything I did back then was stupid anyways.) (Or maybe my brain did come out, which would explain why I am wondering where Baz is, instead of focusing on saving my girlfriend.)
The barriers are down. Not even a hint of magic in the air as I pass the threshold.
"In justice. In courage. In defence of the weak. In the face of the mighty. Through magic and wisdom and good." The Sword of Mages makes me feel better immediately, its silver hilt a reassuring weight in my hand.
It feels weird to walk into a place your friends spend half their time in, a place you've only ever seen from outside.
(Once, also in first year, I tried to make Penny take pictures of the inside of the Cloisters on her phone so that I could see what it looked like. I was so excited to explore every part of the school, every part of the magic, I could have written a Tourist's Guide to Watford. But Baz heard me ask her and said if I was as powerful as prophesied, and if I was really the Mage's Heir, I would be able to walk through the barrier. He cackled like mad every time he saw my bandaged nose.)
I did not expect the Cloisters to look so unspectacular. The inside seems pretty much the same as in Mummers House. Old stone walls, pictures of mages with hipster beards, linoleum floor in the corridors, initials and insults scratched into windowsills.
It's dark, and I need a moment to figure out where I should go. I spent six years throwing pebbles at Penny's window in the middle of the night, so I know that the bedrooms are on the third floor, but everything looks different from inside the Cloisters.
So I follow the silence. At first it's just normal silence, difficult to adjust to after all the screaming, the Chapel is quite far from the Cloisters.
Silence filled with rustling curtains, and creaking floors, and the occasional merwolf howling in the moat. The closer I come to the stairs, the quieter it gets.
Silence, as thick as fog, ringing in my ears. The kind of silence that should not be real, silence that is actual absence of sound. Magickal silence. Dark silence.
I know that Agatha's window faces the moat, so when I've reached the third floor, I walk down the corridor, searching for her room.
"Agatha?" I whisper, peering into dark bedrooms.
When I find her, in the very last room, the silence is so thick that I'm worried that she might be dead, that I'm too late.
But she's awake and smiles at me and there are spots of light dancing across the ceiling, moonlight being reflected off the water in the moat. The windows are open, pale swirls of fog creeping in through the long white curtains. Agatha is opaque, a girl made of frosted glass.
"Simon. I've been waiting for you." She's sitting on her bed, endless legs crossed, in her pyjamas. "I'm scared."
I rush forward, magic sloshing through my skin. "Are you okay? We have to go, something's wrong. Maybe it's the Humdrum." She's still not getting up. "Agatha. Let's get out of here!"
She just sits there. Maybe she's in shock. I'll drag her out, if I have to. I just want her to be safe and out of harm's way before the evil magic hiding in here decides to come out to get me. To get us.
I reach for her.
"I would not recommend that."
I spin around, the Mage's Sword hissing through the air.
BAZ
Snow isn't wearing a shirt. Can't even be trusted to dress himself properly before he goes out to save his personal damsel in distress.
He thinks I'm looking at his fucking vampire repellent cross, but actually I can't take my eyes off his golden skin. (It's not like I've never seen him shirtless before. It's just that usually, I make myself look away.)
SIMON
It's Baz. (Of course it's Baz.)
(Fucking Baz. Looming in the doorway, all flawless widow's peak, and crossed arms, staring at me, making me try to figure out whether he's behind all this.)
I'm no good at adventures without Penny. I need someone who I can trust to figure things out for me while I'm busy preparing to kill something. I don't want to kill Baz. (At least I think I don't want to kill him.)
"What do you want from me, Baz?" I growl, my words ready to spill magic.
BAZ
"I don't want anything from you, Snow." The lies drip from my lips, easy as honey. "I'm here to see Wellbelove."
The room fills up, with magic and something else. At first I think it's Snow, setting everything on fire, smoke curling from his clenched fists, but then I realise that it's fog, thick and wet and grey.
SIMON
I can't believe he just said that. My head is swimming.
"Simon." Agatha says. "Simon."
I turn around again, acutely aware of the fact that Baz could be getting ready to sink his fangs into my neck.
I take another step towards the bed, reach out for Agatha's arm again –
"This isn't Wellbelove."
"What?"
"This is not your girlfriend, Snow."
BAZ
He's so confused right now. Looking at her, staring at me, wide-eyed.
Actually, the fact that I see Agatha, but somehow know that it's not Agatha, is freaking me out, slightly.
SIMON
I go for the obvious.
"What the bloody hell do you mean?" The tip of my sword hovers over Baz's throat. There's blood on his shirt. But I haven't hurt him. (Yet.) (I hope.) (I don't want to accidentally kill my nemesis.) He doesn't even defend himself, just leans there against the doorway, eyebrows raised.
"She didn't move her mouth." Baz looks serious. Which probably means that he's plotting, internally.
As soon as the words have left his lips, all light vanishes from the room. Darkness envelops us, and I whirl around again, my sword stabbing into the damp black air.
BAZ
I can't see anything. Which hasn't happened in a long time, not since I fully Turned when I was thirteen.
"Oh, I forgot about the mouth. Foolish me." A voice echoes through the darkness, and it's not Agatha, and it's definitely not Simon. Deep and old, and as hollow as the night.
I rip out my wand from a pocket in my trousers. "A great beacon light of hope!" Luther King is the best if you have to fight against evil, plus he's got some powerful metaphors. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that!"
The tip of my wand begins to glow, threads of light breaking off, weaving through the blackness and hitting the bed. She's looking at us, head cocked like a bird's, smiling wide. "So sorry about the mouth."
SIMON
There's a word for people who can talk like that, with their stomachs or something. I can't remember the word.
Baz is casting spells.
The most I can do right now is stare, and not drop my sword.
If this isn't Agatha –
BAZ
"What have you done to her?" Snow is shouting at me, sweat running down his handsome face. "I swear – if you've hurt Agatha, if you've done anything to her –"
"Snow." I do the least intelligent thing and grab him by the shoulders, shake him. He lowers the sword, which is nice, because otherwise, I would have been impaled by now. "Listen."
I have to stop for a moment, to breathe. The air is so thick with his magic and the fog, it feels as if I'm breathing pure Simon. He fills my lungs and my head and my fingertips are burning into his bare skin.
"This is not Agatha. I have no idea where your girlfriend is –"
His eyes are so fucking blue, even in the semi-darkness.
"– but she's not here. If I had this planned, would I be here, right now?"
SIMON
Yes, he'd be here. Wouldn't miss a chance to see me get killed, the tosser.
I can see it in his eyes, all silver determination and grey death wish. Baz would never back down.
He pushes me away, runs a hand through his silky black hair. I stumble backwards, and I think he's going to feed me to my girlfriend. (Or whatever looks like my girlfriend, but might actually be one of the Humdrum's evil messengers.)
BAZ
My wand points towards her, and I take a deep breath before I begin.
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair," I cast, the spell drawing on my magic, every alliteration pulsing through my body. (Shakespeare is difficult, and most sixth years aren't capable of spelling Macbeth neatly, but I know every syllable by heart, every twist and turn of the witches' catalectic trochaic tetrameter.) "Hover through the fog and filthy air!"
The spell explodes from my wand, and it's like an avalanche of light, feeding not only on my own magic, but also on Snow's.
SIMON
Agatha is smiling when Baz's spell hits her.
And she's still smiling afterwards.
Agatha's lips are small and pretty, like a doll's.
Now, the corners of her mouth are stretched wide apart, I can see her teeth and her gums, pearly white and pink in the light from Baz's wand.
Baz is cursing behind my back, swearing living hell onto Morgane Le Fey and Crowley and Merlin.
Agatha's soft lips curl outwards, like a strange sneer, wider and wider until it must hurt, stretching her face apart.
"What have you done to her?" I whisper.
Baz doesn't answer.
Agatha's face is turning inside out, eating her flesh and cheekbones and eyes. She doesn't make a sound.
BAZ
The spell isn't meant to be used on humans. I'm glad that whatever this is, it's not human.
Actually, I hope with all my heart that I was right and that this is a monster, and that I didn't purposefully turn my arch-enemy's girlfriend into bloody pulp. Back until the 19th century, the Coven used to cut out the tongues of mages who used forbidden spells to kill other mages. I'd prefer to keep my tongue.
She - it? - is consuming herself, from the inside out. At first very slowly, devouring the head, but the rest of her body is gone in seconds. Or not gone, but changed. Where there was a bulging mess of flesh a second ago, now appears a brown crumbling mass.
The air smells of rotting wood, dark and decaying.
SIMON
I feel like throwing up.
Agatha turned into a creature with too many limbs, like a twisting black root, dripping darkness and crouching on the bed. Its eyes are black pits. The air around it is humming slightly, an echo of a dry itch, making my skin crawl.
"Hello, Chosen One."
I charge, sword in hand, bare feet slapping on the floorboards.
Before I can aim at its head (I always go for the head, most Dark creatures don't even have a heart), a bolt of lightning crashes into it, and the monster recoils.
"Venomous crested woodfoul," Baz spits out. "I hate repeating myself, but I would not recommend getting too close."
BAZ
I'm helping Snow. Which was never part of my plan. But I'm so relieved to see that this is in fact a monster, not a girl I killed. A deadly, poisonous monster, planning to devour us. A monster that was claimed to be mostly extinct, but which is very real and hungry and evil – the Scientist Pitch part of me is hooked, ready to take notes. (Every other part of me wants to grab Simon's hand and get the fuck out of here.)
A lot of things are clearer now:
First of all, woodfouls can only move via old wood. They're like parasites, feeding on ancient trees, which is the reason why they're getting rarer. Deforestation is endangering their natural habitat. This one must have come through the Wavering Woods and sneaked in here to snack on the ancient oak rafters above us. Or maybe it was turned Dark by the Insidious Humdrum and didn't even want to come here and spread deadly terror. (Sounds kind of relatable to me.)
Secondly, woodfouls absorb and spread dreams, Merlin knows why. They pull them out of sleeping peoples' minds and replace them with nightmares, which explains the screaming sleepwalking girls. The woodfoul was wearing Agatha's dreams like a coat, to look like her and to lure Snow into a trap.
Thirdly, Simon Snow is a complete moron. (Though I’ve known that since the Crucible cast us together.) No one kills a venomous crested woodfoul with a sword. Not even the Chosen One.
SIMON
The monster – the woodfoul – is trying to shake off Baz's second spell. In the dark and the fog, it's hard to see where the creature begins and the furniture ends. I don't care. The Sword of Mages always finds its mark. (Not because I'm extraordinarily good with it. Because it's magic.)
But before I can launch my second attack, Baz is behind me, breathing down my spine as he takes hold of my shoulder.
"Simon – ," he hisses.
"Fuck off, Basilton," I haven't used his full name in a long time. It feels good, three syllables rolling off my tongue. "I know what I'm doing. I don't need your stupid advice. I’ll just – "
The woodfoul rears up, and I shake Baz off, brandishing my sword.
I was made for this. This is my purpose, my prophesied task. (Give me a sword and some evil girlfriend-eating magickal monster to fight and I'm great. Or at least, not completely useless.)
BAZ
It's called venomous for a reason.
And I guess when I came up with the title Worst Chosen One Ever Chosen, I wasn't completely wrong either.
If Snow gets close enough to ram his sword into the woodfoul, he'll be poisoned by the acid resin dripping down from the towering creature.
"One move and I'll shoot!"
The woodfoul freezes, its body creaking slightly, like rotten branches in a storm. The spell will only last for a few seconds, until it remembers that wood cannot be killed with a bullet.
"Baz! Stop it! This isn't your fight anymore. It was sent by the Humdrum!" He's shouting at me over his shoulder. "Just – just – "
Snow needs magic to kill it.
I shout right back. "Simon, use your – "
SIMON
Baz is my nemesis, of course he knows my ultimate trigger. And only Baz would trigger me when we're about to be eaten alive.
BAZ
"– wand."
I don't think he can still hear me.
Simon has gone into full fight mode, and it's impressive, and scary. He's sending off magic in waves that ripple through the room, making the tentacles of fog pull back.
His sword is glowing with heat and power, and he looks like a medieval knight, his whole face shining with righteousness and might.
SIMON
The world bursts into a fiery, angry blur.
3
BAZ
I open my eyes and think I'm dead.
SIMON
I close my eyes and try to remember that I'm alive.
I did not kill the woodfoul. I destroyed it. All that is left of the creature is a heap of smoking ashes on the bedsheets.
The evil humming has stopped, but my magic hasn't. I did not Go Off. Not fully, at least. What remains of my magic is pulsing through my head, making me dizzy.
Then I remember something more important.
BAZ
Snow has turned around, and he is glowing. Not visually, but – if that is even possible – magickally. It feels like my whole body, my whole being and soul, long to be closer to him.
Which is just my normal state of being, ever since fifth year. But this is different. Because for once, Simon is looking at me too. And he's coming closer, shuffling forward on bare feet. He’s only wearing his ridiculous pair of joggers and his stupid gold cross.
I heave myself up from where I was slumped on the floor against a wardrobe. My legs are shaking from the impact of his magic and I feel like half of my head is singed.
I must look awful.
SIMON
Baz looks fine to me.
And for the first time in my life, I'm glad that he's here. I can't stand being alone with myself after I've killed something.
I can't stand being alone.
BAZ
"What are you doing, Snow?"
He shrugs.
SIMON
Actually, he looks beautiful. I'm a mess of throbbing power and he is all cool grey eyes and cruel mouth.
BAZ
"What are you doing, Simon?" I ask, again.
Maybe I am dead. And this is my personal hell.
Simon Snow, looking at my lips.
Simon Snow, golden and perfect and shirtless.
Simon Snow, pulling me closer with his magic and his eyes.
Simon Snow, a whole brightly burning constellation on his own.
Simon Snow gasping with a sudden realisation, spinning around, staring at the bed, wide-eyed and heroic as ever.
Whatever he was just about to do already forgotten.
SIMON
It's the sixth hare. Burned into the sheets, dark ashes forming the outlines of a rabbit curled up in a perfect circle.
"Look!"
When I turn around, Penny and Agatha are standing in the doorway.
Agatha is sobbing, and Penny gives me an exhausted, tired smile.
The bedroom is empty. Baz is gone. Not a trace of him left, as if he's never been here at all.
4
(24 hours later)
BAZ
The merwolves are gathering in the dark water below, splashing with their tailfins, howling. They are angry because yesterday, when I jumped into the moat, they weren't fast enough to catch me. By the time Snow came back to our room, the sun was almost up again, and I had showered and spelled my bloody, dripping clothes into thin air.
I'm clinging to the wall at the back of the Cloisters, fingers digging into the cracks between the old red bricks. (Dracula-style. Bram Stoker would be impressed.)
I couldn't care less about the rioting merwolves twenty feet below. Dev was right. There is an additional floor in the Cloisters. I watch it all, mesmerised.
The transformation from girl to deadly monster. The impossible fight. Myself. Snow, coming closer and closer.
Only now I let myself wonder about the possibility of a kiss.
Only now I let myself wonder about why he looked at me like that. (Because now, seeing it again, I cannot keep telling myself it was just a figment of my hormone-induced teenage brain.)
Simon Snow would never willingly kiss me. He’d rather be burned alive.
Then, I remember the spell. Fair is foul turned the beautiful girl back into the ugly monster. But it's a double spell, meant to backfire on something else. There was only one thing in the room who Snow could possibly see as foul. His archenemy and roommate, the bloodsucking vampire who pushed him down the stairs in third year.
If that's true, if foul is fair made Simon Snow want to kiss me, well, then I'm fucked.
Because, Crowley, I want to kiss Simon Snow.