Chapter Text
Simon
The light flicking on startles me to wakefulness. My head is pounding and my mouth is dry and my back aches the way it always does when I fall asleep on the sofa.
Penny is bending over me. “Simon, have you been here all day?”
I can’t have been asleep more than an hour. I open my mouth to protest, then see the clock over Penny’s shoulder. 4pm. I’ve slept the day away.
Again.
Penny reads the answer in my face. Her eyebrows draw together. “Simon, you had three lectures today!”
I’ll take her word for it. She knows my timetable better than I do.
“What were you thinking? You’re already on academic probation. If you miss much more, they’ll kick you out.”
The university might. And I wouldn’t really care. It might be a relief, if anything.
But I hate seeing that worried look on Penny’s face, so I muster a smile. “I’m sorry, Pen. I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ll go to every lecture next week, I promise.”
“Make sure you do.” She tries to snap, but there’s no bite behind it. “I need to get changed.”
She heads off to her bedroom.
“She doesn’t believe you.”
I almost jump out of my skin when Shepard speaks. I hadn’t noticed him in the shadows by the doorway. He walks forward and perches on the arm of the sofa.
I sit up, wincing as my back protests. “I’m not sure I believe me either.”
Shepard frowns. He looks at me for a long moment and then nods, as if some internal discussion has come to a resolution. “We’re going out together tomorrow.”
“What? Where?”
“Essex.”
“What’s in Essex?”
“Somewhere I think you need to go.”
I don’t like the sound of that. I fumble for excuses, but they don’t work. Shepard knows I have nowhere else to go and nothing better to do.
“You’re coming,” he says, gentle but implacable, and I don’t have the energy to argue with him any more.
—
It’s not like I don’t know that I’m a mess. That my life has been reduced to a blur of sleep and daytime TV and cans of cider. That I’m stuck in a rut I need to get out of.
Or do I? Does it matter what I do with my life, now I’m not the Chosen One any more? No-one cares except Penny and Shepard, and I don’t know why they do.
I don’t care. I wish I did.
It’s that wish that gets me out of the flat the next day, towed along by Shepard on the tube to Liverpool Street, and then on a train out of London. We get out at a place called Manningtree by a wide river, under huge skies. I take in a deep breath of air. It’s good to be away from the noise and petrol fumes of London.
I follow Shepard through the town and along a muddy footpath skirting the edge of fields beginning to sprout with crops. The path leads over a stile and into a circle of trees surrounding an old stone well. The tree branches bow low to the ground, weighed down by scraps of cloth tied to the branches in a medley of colours.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“A wishing well. You’ll need this.” Shepard offers me a shiny pound coin, and I take it automatically before my brain catches up with what I’m hearing.
“Are you kidding me?” I burst out. “A wishing well ? You think a wish will fix everything?”
Shepard raises his hands soothingly. “That’s not what this well does. I heard about it from a pixie in Golders Green, and he assured me-”
“Yeah, cause pixies are so reliable.”
“-that if you drop a coin in this well, it will show your heart’s desire.”
The words feel like an arrow in my chest.
“My what -?”
“I think what you need, Simon,” Shepard says very softly, “is something to work towards. Something you want badly enough to start living again instead of existing.”
I can’t remember the last time I wanted anything.
“I think…I hope …if you throw in that coin and see your heart’s desire, it might help.” Shepard’s voice cracks a little. “And I won't lie to you, Simon, Penny and I are ready to try anything at this point.”
The guilt flares up again, just as it did when Penny found me on the sofa last night. I feel so bad for letting them both down. And so, although I know it’s a total waste of time, I give in to the pleading in Shepard’s eyes.
I throw the pound coin into the well.
I’m walking up the stairs to our flat. It looks the same as always, grubby linoleum, scuffed walls. Same smell of curry rising from the takeaway below.
But I can hear music, and it isn’t the repetitive thump of our neighbour’s dance music. This is classical, light and soaring, oddly familiar. I find myself smiling.
As I reach the last flight of stairs, the music stops in mid-note. I climb two steps, and it starts again, repeating the last phrase.
It’s not a recording. Someone is practising.
They’re practising the violin.
The music is coming from above me. From our flat.
I run up the last few steps and push open the door…
…and I step into our room at Watford. Our room at the top of the tower. Except it’s larger than I remember, and the windows are wider and the light streaming through them is impossibly golden…
…and Baz is standing by the window, poised and graceful, pale face set in concentration, his long fingers moving swiftly across the strings of his violin.
The door bangs against the wall with the force of my entrance. He stops playing and looks up. His eyes are the colour of rain clouds.
“Close the door, Snow, you’ll let in the draughts. Were you born in a barn?”
I’ve heard him say things like that a thousand times, but never in a tone that’s almost…fond? I stare at him, my mouth falling open.
“Close your mouth too, before you catch flies.” And he smiles at me.
Baz Pitch smiles at me. Not smirks, not scoffs, he smiles at me. Every line in his face is soft, and his eyes shine like silver.
I’ve only seen him smile like this once before. The night I shared my magic with him, and he called down the stars. His eyes shone like that then, glittering in reflected light. I felt so close to him, hands and magic linked…
I never let myself think about that night.
My heart starts to pound. I close the door.
“You’re earlier than I expected,” says Baz, tucking his violin carefully away in its case. “Did the smell draw you home?”
“Smell?” I say, but I’m stuck on the other word he used.
Home.
Because this has always been my home, hasn’t it? Watford and Baz. Baz and Watford.
“I swear your nose is trained to sniff out scones a mile away. The police dog of afternoon tea.”
Then I do smell it, and he’s right, I would know that smell anywhere. Cook Pritchard’s warm sour cherry scones, sitting on the table next to Baz, ready to be buttered.
“Did you get them for me?” I stutter, and Baz smiles again, walking towards me.
“Yes, Snow. My entire purpose in life is to keep you well provided with scones.”
He’s very close now. The achingly familiar smell of cedar and bergamot brings tears to my eyes. I want to bury my face against his neck, suck that scent into my lungs until it fills every hollow space in my chest. I want-
“Simon,” he says, and it undoes me entirely. I look up - still taller than me, damn him - into his pale, beautiful face and-
He kisses me.
Baz Pitch kisses me, and…
…I’m shivering on damp grass, staring down into the wishing well. A strong hand clamps on my shoulder, but it’s not his. A shudder runs through me and I close my eyes.
“Simon?” Shepard says. “Did it work? What did you see?”
“I saw…I saw Baz.”
“Who’s Baz?”
—
“Baz was my room-mate at Watford,” I say, staring out of the window as the train pulls out of Manningtree station.
I suppose it’s not surprising that Shepard doesn’t recognise Baz’s name. I don’t talk about him. Or even think about him if I can help it. (Most of the time I can’t help it).
“So you were friends, then?”
I laugh bitterly. “Hardly. He hated me at first sight. Didn't want to shake my hand.” The memory still aches, even after all these years. “And I hated him.”
With good cause. Baz was an uptight, snobby bully, an arsehole who made my life miserable for years.
Shep is frowning. “But if you hated each other, then why would you see…?”
“I don’t know!” I yell, because this is all so ridiculous. “Maybe that pixie was having you on about the well. It can’t be true. How can my heart’s desire be-”
Kissing Baz Pitch.
A shiver runs through me as I remember him leaning towards me, his familiar scent wrapping round me, the unexpected softness of his lips-
No, not remembering. It wasn’t real, what I saw. I realise my fingers are brushing my lips, and angrily yank my hand down to the seat beside me.
Shepard’s eyes follow the movement. “So you were never friendly at all?"
“No! Well…we called a truce for a while. In eighth year, just before…” Shepard nods, and I’m grateful I don’t have to fill in the gap. “Penny and I agreed to help Baz find out who killed his mother, and that…that was how I discovered the Mage-”
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we’d never made that truce. If I hadn’t left Watford that Christmas holiday and pulled Penny away from her family to track down Nicodemus.
Maybe it wouldn’t have changed much. Nothing could have changed the underlying ugly truths. I was never the Chosen One. I created the Humdrum and all the destruction he caused. The Mage was a murderer and a liar and a power-hungry maniac. It would all have come out eventually. But perhaps-
Perhaps Ebb would still be alive, if I hadn’t agreed to help Baz.
I think that was why I said no, the one time he asked to see me afterwards. He sent a message through Penny. Said he wanted to thank me for finding out the truth about his mother’s death.
But I didn’t want that. Couldn’t bear the thought of anyone thanking me for anything, after what I-
So I said no. He didn’t ask again. Or Penny didn’t tell me if he did.
“Why would he? He probably moved on into his glorious future and never gave me a second thought.”
“Who did?” asks Shepard, and I realise I said that last bit aloud.
“Baz, of course! He’s probably a premier league footballer now - he’s a fucking demon on the pitch, carried the whole Watford team - no, who am I kidding, being a professional footballer would be far too common for him. He’s probably at Oxford or Cambridge, getting top marks without even trying, because he’s such a brilliant wanker he doesn’t even have to study, and taking posh girls out in boats on the river. He can probably even make rowing look graceful, the bastard, girls will be falling all over him-”
“Simon.” I look up, startled, as Shepard’s hand lands on my shoulder. His brown eyes are full of concern. “Simon, are you-” He breaks off, an odd smile spreading across his face. “Do you know, that’s the most I’ve heard you say in weeks?”
“It is?”
Shepard nods, his smile growing. “You clearly have strong feelings about this guy.”
“Well of course, I…what do you mean?”
“You seem to have paid a lot of attention to someone you didn’t even like-”
“I had to pay attention, he was plotting against me! I had to know exactly where he was and what he was doing at all times-”
“Did you now?” Shepard is openly grinning, and my anger abruptly shatters into embarrassment, my cheeks burning. “Did you follow him everywhere?”
I did.
Oh, Merlin and Morgana.
“Not to upset you, my friend, but that doesn’t sound like you hated him,” says Shepard, voice gentle despite the amusement lurking in his eyes. “It sounds more like a-”
“Crush,” I groan.
I close my eyes.
I can see Baz, leaning down to kiss me. I open them again.
My face is still burning. I press my cheek against the window pane in a vain attempt to cool it down.
Shepard’s right, of course he is. I could barely take my eyes off Baz, back in school. Talked about him so much Penny had to ration me. I was pretty much stalking him the whole of fifth year, looking back on it. He was just so…brilliant and perfect and infuriating, and I…I wanted him to look at me.
Or just wanted him.
If the wishing well truly works as the pixie said, I still want him.
Fucking hell.
“I’m sorry,” Shepard sighs.
“For what?”
“That this hasn’t helped at all. I thought it might.”
I blink. “What do you mean, it hasn’t helped? I know what I need to do now. I need to see Baz.”
Shepard’s jaw drops. “Simon…”
“What?” I don’t understand why he’s looking at me like that.
“You realise that the well only shows your heart’s desire, right?” Shepard is speaking very slowly and carefully. “You might want to see Baz again, but that doesn’t mean he would…you said you hated each other-”
“Not always.” I let myself think of that night in our room, sharing our magic, how soft Baz’s eyes were under the starlight…he didn’t look like he hated me, that night. “So there’s a chance, isn’t there? And I’ve got to take it.”
“Simon-”
“It’ll be fine. If he tells me to piss off, I won’t have lost anything, will I? And either way, I’ll get to see him again.”
My stomach fills with excited butterflies at the thought. Even if Baz sneers at me, even if he looks down his long nose - the nose I broke - and tells me to get out of his sight…
…but maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll want to see me too.