(I don’t really know how it all works, being a vampire; my family won’t let me near a magickal doctor—and it’s not like I get colds or need vaccinations.)
The flowers I’ve laid outside my mother’s tomb have wilted. I cast “April showers!” and they bloom again. It takes more magic than I can afford right now—flowers and food take life—and I slump forward against the wall.
When I’m tired lately, I can’t keep my head up. And my left leg isn’t quite right since the numpties; it goes numb. I stomp it into the stone floor, and some feeling shoots up my heel.
If my mother came back through the Veil, that means she hasn’t completely moved on. She isn’t here—she can’t see me—but she isn’t in the next place. Her soul is stuck in the in-between.
How am I supposed to help?
Find this Nicodemus? Is he the one who sent the vampires?
I’ve always been told that the Humdrum sent the vampires. Even Fiona thinks the Humdrum sent the vampires. The Humdrum sends everything else to Watford.…
My leg’s so numb when I get to our tower, I have to lead with my right and drag my left behind me, all the way up the stairs.
Bunce is gone from our room. Snow’s in bed, and the windows are open. He’s showered. Snow uses the soap the school provides—he smells like a hospital when he’s clean.
I don’t bother rinsing my face or changing. Just strip to my undershirt and pants, and climb in my bed. I feel like death. Death not even warmed over.
As soon as I’m settled—eyes closed, willing myself not to cry again—Snow clears his throat. Awake, then. I won’t cry.
“I’ll help you,” he says—so softly, only a vampire could hear him.
“Help me what?”
“I’ll help you find whatever killed your mother.”
“Why?”
He rolls over to face my bed. I can just see him in the dark. He can’t see me.
He shrugs. “Because they attacked Watford.”
I roll away.
“Because she was your mother,” he says. “And they killed her in front of you. And that’s—that’s wrong.”
41
LUCY
The Veil is closing, pulling us all back—but it can’t get its grip on me.
I don’t think there’s enough of me left. Imagine that, not having enough life in you to be properly dead. Not enough to break through and not enough to drag back.
I’d rather stay here.
I’d rather keep speaking to you, even if you can’t hear. Even if I can’t see you. (There was a moment when I thought I could; there was a moment when I thought you heard.)
I stay. And I drift. I slip through floors that won’t hold me. I blow through walls that don’t stop me. The whole world is grey, and full of shadows.
I tell them my story.
BOOK THREE
42
SIMON
Baz is already mostly dressed when I wake up.
He’s standing at the windows—he’s closed them, even though it’s already too hot in here—and he’s tying his tie in the reflection.
He has long hair for a bloke. When he plays football, it falls in his eyes and on his cheeks. But he slicks it straight back after a shower, so he always looks like a gangster first thing in the morning—or a black-and-white movie vampire, with that widow’s peak of his.
I’ve wondered whether Baz gets away with being a vampire by looking so much like one. Like, it would be too much to call him out for it—a little too on the nose. (Baz has a long thin nose. The kind that starts too high on someone’s head and practically gets in the way of their eyebrows. Sometimes when I’m looking at him, I want to reach out and yank it down half an inch. Not that that would work.) (His nose is also a little bent towards the bottom—I did that.)
I don’t know where we stand this morning.
I mean, I promised to help him find out what happened to his mum. Are we supposed to start that right now? Or is it the sort of promise that’s going to come back to haunt me years from now, just when I’ve forgotten about it?
And, no matter what, we’re still enemies, right? He still wants to kill me?
He probably won’t try to kill me until I’ve helped him with his mum—I guess that’s a comforting thought.
Baz gives the knot in his tie one last tug, then turns to me, putting on his jacket. “You’re not getting off.”
I sit up. “What?”
“You’re not going to pretend that last night was a dream or that you didn’t mean what you said. You’re helping me avenge my mother’s death.”
“Nobody said anything about avenging.” I throw back my blankets and stand up, shaking my hair out with both hands. (It gets matted when I sleep.) “I said that I’d help you figure out who murdered her.”
“That’s helping me, Snow. Because as soon as I know, I’m killing them.”
“Well, I’m not helping with that part.”
“You already are,” Baz says, hitching his bag over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Starting now,” he says, pointing at the floor. “We’re starting this now. It’s our first priority.” He heads for the door.
I want to argue. “What—?”
Baz stops, huffs, then turns back to me.
“What about everything else?” I ask.
“What everything else?” he says. “Lessons? We can still go to our lessons.”