Carry On

But I couldn’t give it up. Not when all my clues were just starting to come together …

The blood on Baz’s cuffs. The fact that he could see in the dark. (He’d come back to our room at night and dress for bed without ever turning on the light.) Then I found a pile of dead rats in the Chapel basement, all pinched and used, like squeezed-up lemons.

I was alone when I finally confronted him. Deep in the Catacombs, inside the Children’s Tomb. Le Tombeau des Enfants. Baz was sitting in the corner, skulls stacked along the walls around him.

“You found me,” he said.

I already had my blade out. “I knew I would.”

“Now what?” He didn’t even stand. Just brushed some dust off his grey trousers and leaned back against the bones.

“Now you tell me what you’re up to,” I said.

He laughed at that. Baz was always laughing at me that year, but it came out flatter than usual. There were torches staining the grey room orange, but his skin was still chalky and white.

I adjusted my stance, spreading my feet below my hips, squaring my shoulders.

“They died in a plague,” he said.

“Who?”

Baz raised his hand—I flinched back.

He cocked an eyebrow and swept his arm in a flourish at the room around us. “Them,” he said. “Les enfants.” A lock of black hair fell over his forehead.

“Is that why you’re here? To track down a plague?”

Baz stared at me. He was 16, we both were, but he made me feel 5. He’s always made me feel like a child, like I’ll never catch up to him. Like he was born knowing everything about the World of Mages—it’s his world. It’s in his DNA.

“Yes, Snow,” he said. “I’m here to find a plague. I’m going to put it in a steaming beaker and infect all of Metropolis.”

I gripped my blade.

He looked bored.

“What are you doing down here?” I demanded, swinging the sword in the air.

“Sitting,” he said.

“No. None of that. I’ve finally caught you, after all these months—you’re going to tell me what you’re up to.”

“Most of the students died,” he said.

“Stop it. Stop distracting me.”

“They sent the well ones home. My great-great-uncle was the headmaster; he stayed to help nurse the sick and dying. His skull is down here, too. Maybe you could help me look for it—I’m told I share his aristocratic brow.”

“I’m not listening.”

“Magic didn’t help them,” Baz said.

I clenched my jaw.

“They didn’t have a spell for the plague yet,” he went on. “There weren’t any words that had enough power, the right kind of power.”

I stepped forward. “What are you doing here?”

He started singing to himself. “Ring around the rosie / a pocket full of posies…”

“Answer me, Baz.”

“Ashes, ashes…”

I swung my sword into the pile of bones beside him, sending skulls rattling and rolling.

He sneered and sat up, catching the skulls with his wand—“As you were!” They turned in the air and rolled back into place.

“Show some respect, Snow,” he said sharply, then slumped and leaned back again. “What do you want from me?”

“I want to know what you’re up to.”

“This is what I’m up to.”

“Sitting in a fucking tomb with a bunch of bones.”

“They’re not just bones. They’re students. And teachers. Everyone who dies at Watford is entombed down here.”

“So?”

“So?” he repeated.

I growled.

“Look, Snow…” He got to his feet. He was taller than me—he’s always been taller than me. Even after the summer when I grew three inches, I swear that jammy bastard grew four. “You’ve been following me,” he said, “looking for me. And now you’ve found me. It’s not my fault if you still haven’t found what you’re looking for.”

“I know what you are,” I snarled.

His eyes locked onto mine. “Your roommate?”

I shook my head and squeezed the hilt of my sword.

Baz stepped into my reach. “Tell me,” he spat.

I couldn’t.

“Tell me, Snow.” He stepped even closer. “What am I?”

I growled again and raised the blade an inch. “Vampire!” I shouted. He must have felt the force of my breath on his face.

He started giggling. “Really? You think I’m a vampire? Well, Aleister Crowley, what are you going to do about that?”

He slipped a flask out of his jacket and took a swig. I didn’t know that he’d been drinking—my sword dipped. I tried to remind myself to stay battle ready, and pulled it up again.

“Stake through the heart?” he asked, falling back into the corner and resting an arm on a pile of skulls. “Beheading, perhaps? That only works if you keep my head separate from my body, and even then I could still walk; my body won’t stop until it finds my head.… Better go with fire, Snow, it’s the only solution.”

I wanted to just slice him in two. Right then and there. Fucking finally.

But I kept thinking of Penelope. “How do you know he’s a vampire, Simon? Have you seen him drink blood? Has he threatened you? Has he tried to put you in his thrall?”

Maybe he had. Maybe that’s why I’d been following Baz around for six months.

And now I had him.

“Do something,” he teased. “Save the day, Snow. Or the night. Quick, before I … Hmm … what horrible thing shall I do? It’s too late for everyone down here—there’s just you to hurt, isn’t there? And I don’t think I’m in the mood to suck your blood. What if I accidentally Turned you? Then I’d be stuck with your pious face forever.” Baz shook his head and took another pull at his flask. “I don’t think undeath would improve you, Snow. It would just ruin your complexion.” He giggled again. Mirthlessly. And closed his eyes like he was exhausted.

He probably was. I was. We’d been playing cat and mouse in the Catacombs every night for weeks.

I dropped my sword but kept it unsheathed, then stepped out of my stance. “I don’t have to do anything,” I said. “I know what you are. Now I just have to wait for you to make a mistake.”

He winced without opening his eyes. “Really, Snow? That’s your plan? Wait for me to kill someone? You’re the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen.”

“Fuck off,” I said. Which always means I’ve lost an argument. I started backing out of the tomb. I needed to talk this through with Penelope; I needed to regroup.

“If I’d known it was this easy to get rid of you,” Baz called after me, “I would’ve let you catch up with me weeks ago!”

I headed for the surface, hoping that he couldn’t turn into a bat and fly after me. (Pe

I could hear him singing, even after I’d been walking for ten minutes. “Ashes, ashes—we all fall down.”

*   *   *

I haven’t been back to the Catacombs since that night.…

I wait until I’m fairly sure everyone is in bed, hopefully asleep—then I sneak down to the White Chapel.

Two busts guard the secret door in the Poets Corner—the most famous of the modern mage poets, Carroll and Seuss. I’ve got some nylon rope, and I tie one end around Theodor’s neck.

The door itself, a panel in the wall, is always locked, and there isn’t any key. But all you have to do to open it is possess a genuine desire to enter. Most people simply don’t.

The door swings open for me. And closed behind me. The air is immediately colder. I light a wall torch and choose my first path.

Down in the winding tu

Magic words are tricky. Sometimes to reveal something hidden, you have to use the language of the time it was stashed away. And sometimes an old phrase stops working when the rest of the world is sick of saying it.

I’ve never been good with words.