It’s me.
Down in the crèche, I think. (Watford used to have a staff nursery and day school; it’s where the vampires struck.)
I’m just a baby in this photo. Three or four years old, wearing soft grey dungarees with bloomer bottoms, and white leather boots. My skin is the shocking thing: a stark reddish gold against my white collared shirt and white socks. I’m smiling at the camera, and someone’s holding my fingers—
I recognize my mother’s wedding ring. I recognize her thick, rough hand.
And then I can remember her hand. Resting on my leg when she wanted me to be still. Holding her wand precisely in the air. Slipping into her desk drawer to get a sweet and popping it into her mouth.
“Your hands are scratchy,” I’d say when she cupped one around my cheek.
“They’re fire-holders’ hands,” she’d say. “Flame throwers’.”
My mother’s hands scuffing my cheek. Tucking my hair behind my ears.
My mother’s hands held aloft—setting the air of the nursery on fire while a chalk-skinned monster buried his teeth in my throat.
“Baz…,” Snow says. He’s picked up the book and is holding it out to me.
I take it.
“I need to tell you something,” he says.
“What?” Since when do Snow and I have anything to tell each other?
“I need to talk to you.”
I raise my chin. “Talk, then.”
“Not here.” He sheathes his blade. “We’re not supposed to be here, and … what I have to tell you is sort of private.”
For a moment—not even a moment, a split second—I imagine him saying, “The truth is, I’m desperately attracted to you.” And then I imagine myself spitting in his face. And then I imagine licking it off his cheek and kissing him. (Because I’m disturbed. Ask anyone.)
I “Make a wish!” the flame out of my hand, tuck the photo into the book, and the book under my arm. “Lucky for us,” I say, “we have our own suite at the top of a turret. Private enough for you?”
He nods, embarrassed, and gestures for me to walk ahead of him. “Just come on,” he says.
I do.
39
SIMON
I’d just caught my enemy red-handed, breaking into the Mage’s office. I could have got him expelled for this. Finally.
And instead I gave him the thing he came to steal, then asked him if we could have some alone time—all because of a baby picture.
But the look on Baz’s face in that picture … Smiling just because he was happy, with cheeks like red apples.
And the look on his face when he saw it. Like someone blew a horn and all his walls crumbled.
We walk back to our room, and it’s awkward; we don’t have any experience walking with each other, even though we’re usually headed in the same direction. We keep our distance on the stairs, then move even farther away as we cross the courtyards. I keep wanting to get my sword back out.
Baz has worked himself up to a full-on strop by the time we get to our room. He slams the door shut behind us, sets the book on his bed, then crosses his arms. “Fine, Snow. We’re alone. Whatever you have to say—say it.”
I cross my arms, too. “All right,” I say, “just … sit down, okay?”
“Why should I sit down?”
“Because you’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Good,” he says. “You should be glad I’m not making you bleed.”
“For Christ’s sake,” I say. I only swear like a Normal when I’m at my wit’s end. “Could you just calm down? This is important.”
Baz shakes his head, exasperated, but sits at the end of his bed, frowning at me. He has these droopy dog eyes that always look like they’re peeking out from under his eyelids, even when his eyes are wide open. And his lips naturally turn down at the corners. It’s like his face was designed for pouting.
I walk over to my book bag and pull out a notebook. I wrote down as much as I could the day after Baz’s mum came to see me; I thought I was writing it all down to share with the Mage.
I sit on my bed, facing him, and he reluctantly shifts to sit across from me.
“All right,” I say, “look. I don’t want to tell you this. I don’t even know if I should. But it’s your mum, and I don’t think it’s right to keep it from you.”
“What about my mother?” His arms unfold, and he leans forward, grabbing at my notebook.
I whip the notebook away. “I’m telling you, okay? Just listen.”
His eyes narrow.
I’m stupidly flustered. “When you were gone—you were gone when the Veil lifted.”
He guesses it immediately—his nostrils flare, and his eyes go a little wild—he’s so fucking smart, I don’t know how I’m ever going to get the best of him.
“My mother…,” he says.
“She was looking for you. She kept coming back. Here. Where were you that she couldn’t find you?”
“My mother came through the Veil?”
“Yeah. She said she was called here, to our room, that this was your place. And she was pretty hacked off that you weren’t here. Wanted to know whether I’d hurt you.”
“She talked to you?”
“Yeah. I mean—yes.” I run my hands through my hair. “She came looking for you and scared the living shit out of me, asking if I’d hurt you. And then she said that the Veil was closing.…” I look down at my notebook.