“I’m trying. But I need you to drive me.”
I open my eyes. “Drive you where?”
“I can’t tell you. Yet. But I will.”
“Somewhere in London?”
“No.”
“Penny, it’s Christmas Eve. I have to go home.”
“I know!” She’s already dressed. She’s got her hair pulled back in a giant frizzy ponytail that would probably be nice and wavy if she’d put any product in it at all. Anything. Hand lotion. Shaving cream. “And you can go home, Agatha. But first I need you to drive me to the country.”
“Why?”
“It’s a surprise,” she says.
“No.”
“An adventure?”
“I’m going home.”
Penny sighs. “We have to go help Simon.”
I close my eyes and roll away from her.
“Agatha? Come on … Is that a yes or a no? If it’s a no, can I take your Volvo?”
64
BAZ
I wake up at least an hour before Snow.
It’s hard not to watch him sleep.
I’ve done it before—excessively—but that’s when I thought I was never going to get any more than that. That’s when creeping on Snow felt like my life’s consolation prize.
I’m still not sure what’s happening between us. We kissed last night. And this morning. A lot. Does that mean we get to do it today? He’s not even sure that he’s gay. (Which is moronic. But Snow is a moron. So.)
He’s lying on my couch, and I’m sitting at the end, next to his legs. He rolls into the cushions, burying his face. “You don’t get to watch me sleep now,” he says, “just because we’re snogging.”
“Just because we snogged,” I correct him. “And I’m not watching you; I’m trying to figure out how to wake you up without you pulling a sword on me.”
“I’m up,” he says, dragging one of the cushions down over his head.
“Come on. Bunce is on her way.”
He lifts the pillow up. “What? Why?”
“I told her we have new information—she has some, too. We’re having a briefing.”
He sits up. “So she’s just coming here?”
“Yes.”
“To your Gothic mansion?”
“It’s not Gothic; it’s Victorian.”
Snow rubs his hair. “Is this a trap? Are you luring us all here to kill us?” He seems genuinely suspicious.
“How did I lure you? You hitchhiked to my door.”
“After you invited me,” he snaps.
“Yes. You caught me. I’m a villain.” I stand. “I’ll see you in the library when you’ve cleaned up.” I try not to look like I’m stomping away from him—I wait till I leave the room, then stomp down the stairs.
I don’t know what I expected. For Snow to open his eyes and see me there, then pull me into one of his expert kisses and say, “Good morning, darling”?
Simon Snow is never going to call me “darling.”
Though he did just say we were snogging.…
We don’t have a chalkboard in the house, but my stepmother has a giant whiteboard in the kitchen that she uses to keep track of all my siblings’ lessons and sport. I take a photo of it with my mobile, then erase the board and lift it off the wall.
My 7-year-old sister watches me do it. “I’m telling Mum,” she says.
“If you do, I’ll stop up all the chimneys, so Father Christmas can’t get in.”
“There are too many chimneys,” she counters.
“Not for me,” I say. “I’m willing to put the time in.”
“He’ll just come to the door.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Mordelia, Father Christmas never comes to the door. And if he did, I’d tell him he had the wrong house.” I’m carefully manoeuvring the whiteboard through the kitchen door.
“I’m telling Mum!” she shouts after me.
I prop the board up in the library, and I’m making columns—Everything we know and Everything we still don’t—when Snow walks into the room. I ignore him.
“It’s not that I think you’ll betray us,” he says.
I make a noise that I’m afraid sounds a lot like “harrumph.”
Simon hassles his curls with one hand. “It’s just … Well, it’s still weird between us, isn’t it?”
I continue ignoring him.
“I mean … you haven’t said … that things are different now for you. I’ve said that I’m not going to kill you.”
“No, you haven’t,” I say.
“It must have been implied.”
“No.”
“Um, all right.” He clears his throat. “Baz. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to fight you at all, am I?”
“Good,” I say, stepping back from the whiteboard and admiring my columns. “That will make things much easier.”
“What things?”
“Crowley, I don’t know. Whatever the Families cook up for me. Probably I’ll be the one they ask to poison your Ribena, now that you trust me. What I can promise, Snow, is to weep over your corpse.”
“Or not,” he says.
“Fine, I’ll weep in privacy when the day arrives.”
“No,” he insists, “I’m serious. Or not.”