These nights at Watford, before Baz gets here, are the only nights in my life when I actually sleep.
* * *
I don’t know what time it is when I wake up. The room is dark, and there’s a shaft of moonlight slicing across my bed.
I think I see a woman standing by the window, and at first I think it’s Penny. Then the figure shifts, and I think it’s Baz.
Then I decide I’m dreaming and fall back into sleep.
6
LUCY
I have so much I want to tell you.
But time is short.
And my voice doesn’t carry.
7
SIMON
The sun is just rising when I hear my door creak open. I pull the blankets up over my head. “Go away,” I say, expecting Penny to start talking at me anyway. She’s good at immediately making me forget how much I missed her over the summer.
Someone clears his throat.
I open my eyes and see the Mage standing just inside the door, looking amused—at least on the surface. There’s something darker underneath.
“Sir.” I sit up. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Simon. You must not have heard me knock.”
“No … Let me just, I’ll just, um … get dressed.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” he says, walking to the window, giving Baz’s bed a wide berth—even the Mage is afraid of vampires. Though he wouldn’t use the word “afraid.” He’d say something like “cautious” or “prudent.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you back yesterday,” he says. “How was your journey?”
I push the covers off and sit at the edge of my bed. I’m still in my pyjamas, but at least I’m sitting up. “Fine,” I say. “I mean, I suppose … not exactly fine. My taxi driver was a goblin.”
“Another goblin?” He turns from the window to me, hands clasped behind his back. “Persistent, aren’t they. Was it alone?”
“Yes, sir. Tried to scarper off with me.”
He shakes his head. “They never think to come in pairs. What spell did you use?”
“Used my blade, sir.” I bite at my lip.
“Fine,” he says.
“And Into thin air to clean it up.”
The Mage raises his eyebrow. “Excellent, Simon.” He looks down at my pyjamas and bare feet, then seems to study my face. “What about this summer? Anything to report? Anything unusual?”
“I would have contacted you, sir.” (I can contact him, if I need to. I have his mobile number. Also, I could send a bird.)
The Mage nods. “Good.” He looks at me for a few more seconds, then turns back to the window, like he’s observed everything about me that he needs to. The sunlight catches in his thick brown hair, and for a minute, he looks even more like a swashbuckler than usual.
He’s in uniform: dark green canvas leggings, tall leather boots, a green tunic with straps and small pockets—with a sword hanging in a woven scabbard from his tooled belt. Unlike mine, his blade is fully visible.
Penny’s mum, Professor Bunce, says that previous mages wore a ceremonial cowl and cape. And that other headmasters wore robes and mortarboards. The Mage, she says, has created his own uniform. She calls it a costume.
I think Professor Bunce must hate the Mage more than anyone who isn’t actually his enemy. The only time I ever hear Penny’s dad talk out loud is when her mum gets going on the Mage; he’ll put his hand on her arm and say, “Now, Mitali…” And then she’ll say, “I apologize, Simon, I know the Mage is your foster father.…”
But he isn’t, not really. The Mage has never presented himself to me that way. As family. He’s always treated me as an ally—even when I was a little kid. The very first time he brought me to Watford, he sat me down in his office and told me everything. About the Insidious Humdrum. About the missing magic. About the holes in the atmosphere like dead spots.
I was still trying to get it through my head that magic was real, and there he was telling me that something was killing it—eating it, ending it—and that only I could help:
“You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep any of this from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long past the edge of exhaustion.
“But fight him we must. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.
“He is our greatest threat. And you are our greatest hope.”
I was too stunned to respond or to ask any questions. Too young. I just wanted to see the Mage do that trick again, the one where he made a map roll out all by itself.
I spent that first year at Watford telling myself that I was dreaming. And the next year telling myself that I wasn’t …
I’d already been attacked by ogres, shattered a circle of standing stones, and grown five inches before I thought to ask the real question:
Why me?
Why did I have to fight the Humdrum?
The Mage has answered that question a dozen different ways over the years:
Because I was chosen. Because I was prophesied. Because the Humdrum won’t leave me alone.
But none of those are real answers. Penelope has given me the only answer that I know what to do with.…