I stand under Penny’s window and think about how I could just call her if the Mage hadn’t banned mobile phones at Watford two years ago.
I still feel hot.
I try to shake some of the magic off, and a few sparks catch on the dry leaves beneath me. I stamp them out.
I wonder if Agatha is still up on the ramparts—I can’t believe she’d say what she said. For a moment, I wonder if she’s been possessed. But her eyes weren’t all black. (Were her eyes all black? It was too dark to see.)
She can’t leave me like this. She can’t leave me.
We were settled. We were sorted.
We were endgame. (If I get an endgame.) (You have to pretend that you get an endgame. You have to carry on like you will; otherwise, you can’t carry on at all.)
Agatha’s parents like me. They might even love me. Her dad calls me “son.” Not like “I think of you as my son,” but like, “How are you, son?” Like I’m a son. The sort of guy who could be someone’s son.
And her mother says I’m handsome. That’s really all her mum ever says to me. “Don’t you look handsome, Simon.”
What would she say to Baz? “Don’t you look handsome, Basil. Please don’t slaughter my family with your hideous fangs.”
Agatha’s father, Dr. Wellbelove, hates the Pitches. He says they’re cruel and elitist. That they tried to keep his grandfather out of Watford because of a lisp.
Fucking hell, I can’t—I just. I can’t.
I lean back against a tree and put my hands on my thighs, letting my head fall forward and my magic course through me. When I look down at my legs, it’s like I’ve got no boundary. Like I’m blurred at the edges.
I have to fix this. With Agatha.
I’ll say whatever she wants me to say.
I’ll kill Baz, so that he isn’t an option.
I’ll tell her, I’ll change her mind—how can she say that there’s no such thing as happy endings? That’s all I’ve ever been working towards. The happy ending is when things are going to begin for me.
I have to fix this.
“All right there, Simon?” It’s Rhys. He’s coming up along the path from the library in his wheelchair.
I look up. “All right. Hiya.” I’m not all right. My face is flushed, and I think I’m crying. Do my edges look blurred to him? He hurries past me.
I let Rhys get a head start, then follow him back to Mummers House.
I should sleep this off.…
I’ll make sure that I power down—that I’m not going to set my bed on fire—then I’ll sleep it off.
And tomorrow, I’ll fix it.
27
SIMON
I’m not sleeping this time when I hear the noises.
I’m just lying in my bed, thinking about Baz.
What did he say to Agatha? What did he promise?
Maybe he didn’t have to say anything. Maybe he just had to be himself. Smarter than I am. Better looking. Wealthier. Fucking horsier—he could go to all her events and wear the right suit and the right shoes. He’d know which necktie went with which month of the year.
If he weren’t a vampire, Baz’d be bloody perfect.
Bloody perfect. I roll over and press my face into my pillow.
There’s a creaking then, and a cold wind. I try to ignore it. I’ve been taken in by this feeling before. There’s no one here. No one at the window, no one at the door. The cold creeps up under my bedclothes, and I pull up the blankets, rolling onto my back—
And see a woman standing at the end of my bed.
I recognize her. It’s the same person who was standing at the window that night. And I recognize her as a Visitor now; I’ve seen enough of them. She’s come from behind the Veil.
“You’re not him,” she says to me. Her voice is cold—actually cold, like it starts in my bones and icily flushes up through my skin—and woeful.
I want to summon my sword, but I don’t. “Who are you?” I say.
“I keep coming. This is his place. This is where I’m called. But there’s only you here.…”
She’s tall and wearing formal robes, like a solicitor’s or a professor’s, and her dark hair is pulled up into a thick bun. Even though she’s translucent, I can see that her robes are red, that her skin is dark olive, and her eyes are grey. I recognize her from her portrait outside the Mage’s office—
Natasha Pitch, Watford’s last headmistress.
“Where is he?” she asks. “Where is my son?”
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“Did you hurt him?”
“No.”
“You can’t lie to the dead.”
“I don’t want to.”
She looks over at his empty bed, and her sadness is so potent that in that moment, I’d do anything to get him back for her. (I’d do anything to bring him back.)
“The Veil is closing. It will be twenty years before I can see my son again.” She turns back to me and pushes forward. She’s starting to fade. They all fade; Penelope says they can’t stay long, two minutes tops.
“You’ll have to do.”
“Do what?” She’s so cold, I can’t stand having her this close to me.
She reaches out and takes my shoulders—her hands like ice, her breath a painful chill on my face.
“Tell my son,” she says fiercely. “Tell him that my killer walks—Nicodemus knows. Tell Basilton to find Nico and bring me peace. Do you understand?”