I never do, though. Pull him aside. Or talk him down. Instead I just poke him until he goes off.
That’s what Snow does best. He doesn’t plan or strike—he just goes off, and when he does, he takes down everything in his path.
He’s half a fucking numpty himself. The Mage gives him mittens and blankets, and Snow goes off in whatever direction the Mage points him in. I’ve seen it. I’ve probably seen it more than anyone but Bunce.…
The way Snow starts to blur and shimmer. Like a jet engine. The way sparks pop and flare in his aura. The light reflects in his hair, and his pupils contract until his eyes are thick blue. He’s usually holding his sword, so that’s where the flame starts—whipping around his hands and wrists, licking up the blade. It makes him mental. His brain blinks out, I think, about the time he starts swinging. Eventually the power pours off him in waves. Flattening, blackening waves. It’s more power than the rest of us ever have access to. More power than we can imagine. Spilling out of him like he’s a cup left under a waterfall.
I’ve seen it happen close up, standing right at his side. If Snow knows you’re there, he shields you. I don’t know how he does it, I don’t even know why. It’s just like him, really, to use what little control he has to protect other people.
The Minotaur is droning now. Conjugating verbs I’ve known since I was 11.
I can feel Snow’s eyes on the back of my head. I can smell his magic. Smoky. Sticky. Like green wood in a campfire. The people sitting around us are getting stupid and drunk from it. I watch Bunce try to shake it off—she’s glaring at him. He’s glaring at me.
I turn my head just enough to let him see my lip curl.
31
SIMON
I go back to our room as soon as lessons are over for the day, but Baz isn’t there. His clothes are in his wardrobe. His bed is made. His bottles and tubes are back on the bathroom counter.
I open the windows even though it’s freezing out; I’ve been overheating all day. Penelope practically had to hold me down at breakfast. I wanted to rush over to Baz and demand to know where he’d been. I wanted—I think I just wanted to make sure it was really him. I mean … It’s obviously him.
Baz is back.
Baz is alive. Or as alive as he gets.
He looked awful today, even paler than usual. He’s thinner than usual, too, and there’s something off about the way he’s moving—a drag. Like he’s got stones of different weights tied to each limb.
I just want to run him down and knock him over and figure it all out. What’s wrong with him. Where he’s been …
I wait in our room until dinner, but Baz doesn’t come back. Then he ignores me in the dining hall.
He ignores Agatha, too. (She’s staring at him as much as I am—but I don’t think she’s as worried that he might have come back to kill her.) She’s sitting alone at a table, and I can’t decide whether that makes me sad or angry. Whether Agatha herself makes me sad or angry. Or even what I’m supposed to be feeling about her. I can’t think right now.
“I was thinking we could study in the library tonight,” Penny says at dinner, as if I’m not literally fuming.
“I’m gonna have to talk to him sometime,” I say.
“No, you aren’t,” she says. “When do the two of you ever talk, anyway?”
“I’m gonna have to face him.”
She leans over her cottage pie. “That’s what I’m worried about, Simon. You need to cool down first.”
“I’m cool.”
“Simon. You’re never cool.”
“That hurts, Penny.”
“It shouldn’t. It’s one of the reasons I love you.”
“I just—I need to know where he’s been.…”
“Well, he’s not going to tell you.”
“Maybe he’ll tell me something without meaning to, in the process of not telling me. What is he even up to? He looks like he’s been in some American terror prison.”
“Maybe he’s been sick.”
Curses, I never thought of that either. Every scenario I thought up had Baz hidden away, plotting somewhere. Maybe he was sick and plotting.…
“No matter what the truth is,” Penny says, “it won’t help to pick a fight with him.”
“I won’t.”
“Simon, you do. Every year. As soon as you see him. And I just think that maybe you shouldn’t this time. Something’s happening. Something bigger than Baz. The Mage has practically disappeared, and Premal has been on some secret assignment for weeks—my mum says he’s stopped returning her texts.”
“Is she worried about him?”
“She’s always worried about Premal.”
“Are you worried about him?”
Penny looks down. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry—should we try to find him?”
She looks back up at me sternly. “Mum says no. She says we need to wait and pay attention. I think she and Dad are asking around, covertly, and she doesn’t want us drawing a lot of attention to them. Which is why you need to cool down. Just—keep your eyes open. Observe. Don’t knock over any furniture or kill anything.”
“You always say that,” I sigh. “But then when it’s us or them, you want me to kill something.”
“I never want you to kill, Simon.”
“I never feel like I have a choice.”