Страница 29 из 81
“You know about the hare on the drawbridge?” Simon sat back, startled. “That took me three weeks to find.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Baz said. “You’re not very observant. Do you even know my first name?” He started pushing them through the water again—pushing them toward the dock, Simon hoped.
“It’s … it begins with a T.”
“It’s Tyra
Simon clambered to his feet, pulling himself up by Baz’s cloak. The punt bobbed. “The nursery?”
Baz lowered an eyebrow. “Of course.”
This close, Simon could see the purple bruises under Baz’s eyes, the web of dark blood vessels in his eyelids. “Show me.”
Baz shrugged—practically shuddered—away from Simon and out of the boat. Simon jerked forward and grabbed a post on the dock to keep the boat from floating away.
“Come on,” Baz said.
Cath realized that she’d started doing Simon and Baz’s voices—at least doing the version of their voices that she heard in her head. She glanced over at Levi to see if he’d noticed. He was holding his cup with both hands against his chest and resting his chin on top, like it was keeping him warm. His eyes were open but unfocused. He looked like a little kid watching TV.
Cath turned back to her computer before he caught her watching him.
It took longer to put the boat away than it had to get it out, and by the time it was tied up, Simon’s hands were wet and freezing.
They hurried back into the fortress, side by side, both of them pushing their fists into their pockets.
Baz was taller, but their strides matched exactly.
Simon wondered whether they’d ever walked like this before. In six years—six years of always walking in the same direction—had they ever once fallen into step?
“Here,” Baz said, catching Simon’s arm and stopping at a closed door. Simon would have walked right past this door. He must have a thousand times—it was on the main floor, near the professors’ offices.
Baz tried the handle. It was locked. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and started murmuring. The door came open suddenly, almost as if the knob were reaching for Baz’s pale hand.
“How did you do that?” Simon asked.
Baz just sneered and strode forward. Simon followed. The room was dark, but he could see that it was a place for children. There were toys and pillows, and train tracks that wound around the room in every direction.
“What is this place?”
“It’s the nursery,” Baz said in a hushed voice. As if children might be sleeping in the room right now.
“Why does Watford need a nursery?”
“It doesn’t,” Baz said. “Not anymore. It’s too dangerous here now for children. But this used to be the place where the faculty brought their children while they worked. And other magical children could come, too, if they wanted to get an early start on their development.”
“Did you come here?”
“Yes, from the time I was born.”
“Your parents must have thought you needed a lot of extra help.”
“My mother was the headmaster, you idiot.”
Simon turned to look at Baz, but he couldn’t quite see the other boy’s face in the dark. “I didn’t know that.”
He could hear Baz roll his eyes. “Shocking.”
“But I’ve met your mother.”
“You’ve met my stepmother,” Baz said. He stood very still.
Simon matched his stillness. “The last headmaster,” he said, watching Baz’s profile. “Before the Mage came, the one who was killed by vampires.”
Baz’s head fell forward like it was weighted with stones. “Come on. The hare is this way.”
The next room was wide and round. Cribs lined the walls on each side, with small, low futons placed in a circle in the middle. At the far end was a huge fireplace—half as tall as the high, curved ceiling. Baz whispered into his hand and sent a ball of fire blazing through the grate. He whispered again, twisting his hand in the air, and the blue flames turned orange and hot. The room came to life a bit around them.
Baz walked toward the fireplace, holding his hands up to the heat. Simon followed.
“There it is,” Baz said.
“Where?” Simon looked into the fire.
“Above you.”
Simon looked up, then turned back to face the room. On the ceiling above him was a richly painted mural of the night sky. The sky was deep blue and dominated by the moon—a white rabbit curled tightly in on itself, eyes pressed closed, fat and full and fast asleep.
Simon walked out into the middle of the room, his chin raised high. “The fifth hare…,” he whispered. “The Moon Rabbit.”
“Now what?” Baz asked, just behind him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, now what?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said.
“Well, what did you do when you found the others?”
“Nothing. I just found them. The letter just said to find them.”
Baz brought his hands to his face and growled, dropping into a frustrated heap on the floor. “Is this how you and your dream team normally operate? It’s no wonder it’s always so easy to get in your way.”
“But not so easy to stop us, I’ve noticed.”
“Oh, shut up,” Baz said, his face hidden in his knees. “Just—no more. No more of your drippy voice until you’ve got something worth saying. It’s like a drill you’re cranking between my eyes.”
Simon sat down on the floor near Baz, near the fire, looking up at the sleeping rabbit. When his neck started to cramp, he leaned back on the rug.
“I slept in a room like this,” Simon said. “In the orphanage. Nowhere near this nice. There was no fireplace. No Moon Rabbit. But we all slept together like this, in one room.”
“Crowley, Snow, was that when you joined the cast of A
“There are still places like that. Orphanages. You wouldn’t know.”
“Quite right,” Baz said. “My mother didn’t choose to leave me.”
“If your family is so grand, why are you celebrating Christmas with me?”
“I wouldn’t call this a celebration.”
Simon focused again on the rabbit. Maybe there was something hidden in it. Maybe if he squinted. Or if he looked at it in a mirror. Agatha had a magic mirror; it would tell you if something was amiss. Like if you had spinach in your teeth or something hanging from your nose. When Simon looked at it, it always asked him who he was kidding. “It’s just jealous,” Agatha would say. “It thinks I give you too much attention.”
“It was my choice,” Baz said, breaking the silence. “I didn’t want to go home for Christmas.” He leaned back onto the floor, an arm’s length from Simon. When Simon glanced over, Baz was staring up at the painted stars.
“Were you here?” Simon asked, watching the light from the fire play across Baz’s strong features. His nose was all wrong, Simon had always thought. It started too high, with a soft bump between Baz’s eyebrows. If Simon looked at Baz’s face for too long, he always wanted to reach up and tug his nose down. Not that that would work. It was just a feeling.
“Was I here when?” Baz asked.
“When they attacked your mother.”
“They attacked the nursery,” Baz said, as if he were explaining it to the moon. “Vampires can’t have children, you know—they have to turn them. They thought if they turned magical children, they’d be twice as dangerous.”
They would be, Simon thought, his stomach flopping fearfully. Vampires were already nearly invulnerable; a vampire who could do magic …
“My mother came to protect us.”
“To protect you,” Simon said.
“She threw fire at the vampires,” Baz said. “They went up like flash paper.”
“How did she die?”
“There were just too many of them.” He was still talking to the sky, but his eyes were closed.
“Did the vampires turn any of the children?”
“Yes.” It was like a puff of smoke escaping from Baz’s lips.
Simon didn’t know what to say. He thought it might be worse, in a way, to have had a mother, a powerful, loving mother, and then to lose her—than to grow up like Simon had. With nothing.