Fangirl

“S’okay,” she said. The atmosphere was getting to her, too. They’d been waiting in line for more than two hours. The bookstore was playing the Simon Snow movie soundtracks, and there were people everywhere. Cath recognized a few of them from past midnight releases; it was like they were all part of a club that met every couple years.

11:58.

The booksellers started setting out big boxes of books—special boxes, dark blue with gold stars. The manager of the store was wearing a cape and an all-wrong pointed witch’s hat. (Nobody at Watford wore pointy hats.) She stood on a chair and tapped one of the cash registers with a magic wand that looked like something Tinker Bell would carry. Cath rolled her eyes.

“Spare me the theater,” Reagan said. “I’ve got a final tomorrow.”

Levi was bouncing again.

The manager rang up the first person in line with great ceremony, and everyone in the store started applauding. The line jerked forward—and a few minutes later, Cath was there at the register, and the clerk was handing her a book that was at least three inches thick. The dust jacket felt like velvet.

Cath stepped away from the register, trying to get out of the way, clutching the book with both hands. There was an illustration of Simon on the front, holding up the Sword of Mages under a sky full of stars.

“Are you okay?” she heard someone—Levi?—ask. “Hey … are you crying?”

Cath ran her fingers along the cover, over the raised gold type.

Then someone else ran right into her, pushing the book into Cath’s chest. Pushing two books into her chest. Cath looked up just as Wren threw an arm around her.

“They’re both crying,” Cath heard Reagan say. “I can’t even watch.”

Cath freed an arm to wrap around her sister. “I can’t believe it’s really over,” she whispered.

Wren held her tight and shook her head. She really was crying, too. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Cath,” Wren laughed hoarsely. “It’s never over.… It’s Simon.”

Simon stepped toward the Humdrum. He’d never been this close. The heat and the pull were almost too much for him; he felt like the Humdrum would suck his heart through his chest, his thoughts from his head.

“I created you with my hunger,” Simon said. “With my need for magic.”

“With your capacity,” it said.

Simon shrugged, a Herculean effort in the presence and pressure of the Humdrum.

Simon had spent his whole life, well, the last eight years of it, trying to become more powerful, trying to live up to his destiny—trying to become the sort of magician, maybe the only magician, who could defeat the Insidious Humdrum.

And all he’d ever done was stoke the Humdrum’s need.

Simon took the last step forward.

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

—from chapter 27, Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, copyright © 2012 by Gemma T. Leslie

THIRTY-EIGHT

It was her last Friday night in Pound Hall.

There was a boy in her room.

In Cath’s bed, taking up way more than his fair share of space, and eating the rest of her peanut butter.

He pulled the spoon out of his mouth. “Did you turn it in?”

“Slid it under her door. I’ll e-mail it, too, just in case.”

“Are you go

“Pfft.” Cath got The Eighth Dance out of her bag and dropped it onto the bed. “Priorities,” she said. “Make room.”

Levi scrunched his nose and tried to suck the peanut butter off his teeth.

Cath shoved his shoulder—“Make room”—and he gri

“Are you getting peanut butter in my hair?”

“It’s preventative. When I get gum in your hair later, it won’t stick.”

She opened the book and tried to find their place. It was massive. They’d been reading for two days, taking breaks between studying and finals, and they still had four hundred pages left. They had one weekend left together, and Cath was going to read until she ran out of air.

“I can’t believe I haven’t been spoiled yet,” she said.

“I was pla

“I had lunch with Wren today, and she almost spoiled me four different times. I don’t dare get on the Internet—people are blabbing all over FanFixx.”

“I made a sign to wear on my apron that says, DON’T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS TO SIMON SNOW.”

“Maybe I should write that on my forehead,” Cath said.

“I could make that part of the despoiling.…”

“Do you remember where we left off? I dropped the bookmark.”

“Page three nineteen. The Humdrum had turned the merwolves against the school, and they were crawling around, dragging their fins, getting everything wet and gnashing their teeth at little kids, and then Penelope Bunce, the hero of our story, cast a spell that made the clouds rain silver—”

“I think Baz cast that spell.”

“Yeah, but Penelope watched. She was instrumental.”

“Page three nineteen,” Cath said. “Are you ready?”

Levi jostled her around, kissed her neck a few times, then bit it, pinched Cath between his knees and squeezed her middle. “Ready.”

Cath imagined his eyes closing—then cleared her throat.

The silver bounced like mercury off Simon’s skin, but it was drawn sickly into the merwolf’s fur. Steely grey lines appeared in the beast’s yellow eyes, and it went limp, sloshing to the ground.

Simon caught his breath and looked around the lawn. All the merwolves had collapsed, and Penelope was herding the younger kids back into the relative safety of the fortress.

Basil strode across the lawn toward Simon, brushing the silver from his black cloak. He wasn’t even bothering to hide his fangs; Simon could see them from here.

Simon adjusted his grip on the Sword of Mages and held it up in warning.

Baz stopped in front of him and sighed. “Give it a rest, Snow.”

Simon held the sword higher.

“Do you really think I want to fight you?” Baz asked. “Now?”

“Why should today be any different from every other day of our lives?”

“Because today we’re at war. And we’re losing. You’re losing … for once. And it isn’t nearly as satisfying as I always thought it would be.”

Simon wanted to argue—to say that he wasn’t losing, that he couldn’t afford to lose this fight—but he didn’t have the heart for it. He was afraid, terrified, that Baz was right. “What do you want, Baz?” he asked wearily, letting the sword fall to his side.

“I want to help you.”

Simon laughed and wiped his face on his sleeve. It left streaks of blood and silver. “Really? You’ll excuse me, I hope, if I don’t take you at your word, given the last eight years of you trying to kill me, et cetera.”

“Don’t you think I would have killed you by now if I really wanted to?” Baz raised a dark eyebrow. “I’m not that ineffectual, you know. I mostly just wanted to make you miserable … and to steal your girlfriend.”

Simon’s fingers tensed on the hilt of his sword. Baz took a step closer.

“Snow, if you lose this, we all lose. I may want a world without you—and a world without your tyrant of a father. But I don’t want a world without magic. If the Humdrum wins…”

Simon studied Baz’s pale, grave face and his smoldering grey eyes. There were times when Simon thought he knew those eyes better than his own—

Levi giggled.

“Shhh,” Cath said. “I can’t believe this is happening.…”

—times when he thought he could read his enemy’s face better than anyone else’s. Better even than Agatha’s.

“Let me help you,” Baz said. There was something Simon didn’t recognize in his voice. Sincerity, maybe. Vulnerability.