Carry On

She squeezes my hand. “Simon.”

I can see she’s made up her mind; she won’t leave me alone until I do this. I try to remember how it felt out on the Lawn. Like I was opening, unwinding—just a little. Just barely letting go …

I give the very smallest push.

“Great snakes!” Pe

I’m on my feet. “Sorry! Pe

Baz drops back onto his bed, cackling.

Penelope holds out her arm. It looks red and mottled. “I’m so sorry,” I say, gently taking her wrist. “Should we go to the nurse?”

“I don’t think so,” she says. “I think it’s passing.” Her arm is quivering. Baz gets off his bed to take a look.

“Did it feel like I cast a spell on you?” I ask.

“No,” they both say at once.

“It was more like a shock,” Penelope says, then looks up at Baz. “What about for you?”

He gets out his wand. “I don’t know. I was focusing on the dragon.”

“Did it hurt?” she asks him.

“Maybe you didn’t see what you think you saw,” Baz says. “Maybe Snow really was just giving me moral support.”

“Right. And maybe you’re the most gifted mage in five generations.”

“Maybe I am,” he says, tapping his ivory wand against her arm. “Get well soon!”

“How did that feel?” I ask her.

“Better,” she says reluctantly, pulling her arm away from us. She frowns at Baz—“Hot.”

He grins, hitching up that eyebrow again.

“I meant temperature-wise,” she says. “Your magic feels like a grease-burn, Basil.”

Baz waves his wand in a shrug and turns to the chalkboard. “Runs in the family.”

Like I said, everyone’s magic feels different. Penelope’s magic feels thick and makes your mouth taste like sage. I quite like it.

“So…,” she says, following him to the chalkboard. “You got a Visiting. An actual Visiting—Natasha Grimm-Pitch was here.”

Baz glances back over his shoulder. “You sound impressed, Bunce.”

“I am,” Penelope says. “Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history.”

Baz is looking at Pe

“And,” Pe

“That sounds barbaric,” I say.

“It was traditional,” Baz says.

“It was brilliant,” Pe

“Where?” Baz asks her.

“We have them in our library at home,” she says. “My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions.”

“That’s lovely,” Baz says, and I’m terrified because I think he means it.

“I’m going to make time stop when I propose to Micah,” she says.

“The little American? With the thick glasses?”

“Not so little anymore.”

“Interesting.” Baz rubs his chin. “My mother hung the moon.”

“She was a legend,” Penelope beams.

“I thought your parents hated the Pitches,” I say.

They both look at me like I’ve just stuck my hand in the soup bowl.

“That’s politics,” Penelope says. “We’re talking about magic.”

“Obviously,” I say. “What was I thinking.”

“Obviously,” Baz says. “You weren’t.”

“What’s happening right now?” I say. “What are we even doing?”

Penelope folds her arms and squints at the chalkboard. “We,” she declares, “are finding out who killed Natasha Grimm-Pitch.”

“The legend,” Baz says.

Penelope gives him a soft look, the kind she usually saves for me. “So she can rest in peace.”

46

BAZ

Penelope Bunce is a fierce magician, I don’t mind saying.

Well, I don’t mind saying, now that she’s standing momentarily on my side of things.

No wonder Snow follows her around like a congenitally stupid dog on a very short leash. I’m fairly certain we don’t know anything now that we didn’t know before, but Bunce is so sharp and confident that every minute with her in the room feels like progress.

Also she fixed our window, and now it doesn’t creak.

I can tell she still finds me both loathsome and distasteful, but Rome wasn’t built on mutual admiration. She’s got a fine mind for magickal history—her house must be teeming with forbidden books—and half her opinions would get her thrown in a dungeon if her name were Pitch instead of Bunce.

(There must be mundanity in her blood somewhere; Bunce is the least magickal name in the Realm. And you should see her father, Professor Bunce. He’s a book full of footnotes brought to life. He’s a jacket made of elbow patches. He taught a special unit on the Humdrum last term, and I don’t think I ever managed to follow him to the end of a sentence.)

Snow and Bunce send me down to get di

Nicodemus

—Check library

—Ask Mum? (Any risk?)

—Ask the Mage? No.

—Google? Yes! (Can’t hurt, Simon.)

Even her notes are addressed to Snow. They’re like Ant and Dec, the pair of them. Joined at the hip. Hmm … I wonder if Wellbelove will be coming aboard, too.

“Simon’s right about the vampires,” Bunce says without turning away from the chalkboard.

The di

“The vampires,” she says, turning around and putting her hands on her hips. Her skirt is covered with chalk dust.

Snow puts down a book and comes to take the jug of milk off the tray. He lifts it towards his mouth, and I kick his shin.

“Anathema!” he says.

“I’m not trying to hurt you; I’m trying to protect you from your own disgusting ma

He sets the milk down on the table between our beds, then takes the drinking glasses and the handkerchief full of sandwiches. “Cook Pritchard just gave you all this?” He unwraps a stack of brownies.

“She likes me,” I say.

“I thought she liked me,” he says. “I saved her from a kitchen skink!”

“Yes, well she likes me for who I am.”

“Vampires,” Penelope says. “Are you even listening?”

I sneer. Out of habit. “Put a sandwich in it, Bunce.”

“How can we guess who sent the vampires or what the vampires even wanted,” she prattles on, “if we don’t know anything about vampires?”

“Vampires want blood,” Snow says through a maw full of roast beef.

“But they can get that anywhere,” she says. “They can get it easily. In Soho. After midnight.” She picks up a sandwich and sits on Snow’s bed, crossing her legs. I could see right up her skirt if I felt like it—and if I tipped my head a bit. “I can’t think of a more difficult place for a vampire to get blood,” she says, “than Watford, in the middle of the day.”

She’s got a point there.

“So why even try it?” she asks.

“Well, the term hadn’t started yet,” I say, picking up an apple, “so no one was on guard.”

“Yeah, but it’s Watford.” She shakes her long hair. “Even back then, there was a wall of wards against dark creatures.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Snow says. “The Humdrum sent the vampires. Just like that dragon today. It didn’t want to be here either.”

I wasn’t sure Snow realized that, or believed me when I told him. I thought he was going to murder that dragon hen in cold blood in front of the whole school.

Well, not in cold blood—it was attacking us. But slaying a dragon is dark stuff, too dark even for my family. You don’t slay a dragon unless you’re trying to open a doorway to hell.