Carry On

He has the magic.

He could do anything.

I’m still humming with his magic, and it’s been hours since he pulled his hand away. He’s thrown spells at me before, but this was different. This was like being struck by benevolent lightning. I felt scorched clean. Bottomless …

No, that’s not right, not bottomless. Centreless. Like I was bigger on the inside. Like I could cast any spell—back up any promise.

At first it was as if Snow was giving magic to me. Sending it to me. But then the magic was just there. It was mine, in that moment, everything that was his.

All right. I have to stop thinking about it like this. Like it was a gift. Snow would never have opened himself up to me if there hadn’t been a dragon overhead.…

I wonder if I could take the magic from him if I tried, but the thought turns my stomach.

I change in the bathroom and brush my teeth, and when I come out, I see that Snow is sitting up in his bed.

“Baz?”

“What.” I sit on my own bed, on top of the covers.

“I … can you come here?”

“No.”

“I can come over there, then.”

I cross my legs and arms. “You may not.”

Snow huffs, exasperated. Good, I think.

“Just. Come here,” he says. “Okay? I have to try something.”

“Can you even hear how ridiculous you sound?”

He gets up. It’s dark in our room, but the moon is out, and I can always see him better than he sees me. He’s wearing grey fla

“You can’t sit on my bed,” I say as he sits on my bed. “And neither can Bunce. My bed reeks of intensity and brownies.”

“Here,” he says, holding out his hand.

“What do you want from me, Snow?”

“Nothing,” he says. And he means it, the actual bastard. “We have to try again.”

“Why?”

“So that we know that it wasn’t a fluke,” he says.

“It was a fluke. You were fighting a dragon, and I was helping you—it was a fluke squared.”

“Merlin, Baz, don’t you want to know?”

“Whether I can tap into you like a generator?”

“It wasn’t like that,” he says. “I let you do it.”

“Are you going to let me do it again?”

“No.”

“Then it doesn’t matter if it was a fluke!”

Snow’s still sitting on my bed. “All right,” he says. “Maybe.”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe I’d do it again,” he says. “If it were a situation like today—if there were lives at risk, and this might be a solution, an option other than, you know, going off.”

“What if I turned it against you?”

“My magic?”

“Yes,” I say. “What if I took your magic, cast it against you, and settled Baz versus Simon, once and for all.”

Snow’s mouth is hanging slightly open. His tongue shines black in the dark. “Why are you such a villain?” He sounds disgusted. “Why have you already thought of that?”

“I thought of it when I was still rhyming at the dragon,” I say. “Didn’t you?”

“No.”

“This is why I’m going to beat you,” I say.

“We’re on a truce,” Snow says.

“I can still think antagonistically. I’m thinking violent thoughts at you constantly.”

He grabs my hand. I want to pull it away, but I don’t want to look scared—and also I don’t want to pull it away. Bloody Snow. I’m thinking violent thoughts at him right now.

“I’m going to try now,” he says.

“Fine.”

“Should you be casting a spell?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “This is your experiment.”

“Don’t, then,” he says. “Not right away. But tell me if it hurts.”

“It didn’t hurt before,” I mutter.

“It didn’t?”

“No.”

“What did it feel like?”

“Stop talking about feelings,” I say, shaking his hand. “Hit me. Or charge me. Whatever it is you want to do.”

Snow licks his bottom lip and closes his eyes halfway. Is this how he looked this afternoon? Crowley.

I feel his magic.

At first it’s a buzz in my fingertips, then a rush of static up my arm. I try not to squirm.

“Okay?” he asks. His voice is soft.

“Fine. What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “Opening? I guess?”

The static in my arm settles into a heavy thrum, like electrical sparks catching into flames. The discomfort goes away, even though the licking, flaming feeling gets stronger. This I know what to do with: This is fire.

“Still okay?” he asks.

“Grand,” I say.

“What does that mean—does that mean you could use it?”

I laugh, and it comes out more good-natured than I mean it to. “Snow. I think I could cast a so

“Show me,” he says.

I’m so full of power, I feel like I can see without opening my eyes. Like I could go nova if I wanted to and have my own galaxy. Is this what it’s like to be Simon Snow? To have infinity in your chest pocket?

I speak clearly: “Twinkle, twinkle little star!”

By the time I get to the end of the next phrase, the room around us is gone, and the stars feel close enough to touch.

“Up above the world so high!”

Simon grabs my other hand, and my chest opens wider. “Merlin and Morgana,” he says. “Are we in space?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Is that a spell?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

We both look around us. I don’t think we’re in space; I can breathe just fine. And I don’t feel like floating away—though I am teetering on the edge of hysterical. So much power. So many stars. My mouth tastes like smoke. “Are you holding back at all?” I ask him.

“Not consciously,” Snow says. “Is it too much?”

“No. It’s like you completed the circuit,” I say, gripping his other hand. “I feel kind of drunk, though.”

“Drunk on power?” he asks.

I giggle. “Shit, Snow. Stop talking. This is embarrassing.”

“Do you want me to pull back?”

“No. I want to look at the stars.”

“I’m pulling back,” he says.

And then he does. It feels like the tide going out—if the tide were made of heroin and fire.

I shake my head. I don’t let go of Snow’s hands.

“All right?” he asks.

“Yeah. You?”

“Fine.”

Now we’re just sitting on my bed, holding hands, Simon Snow and I. I can’t look at his eyes, so I stare at his cross.

“Your mother…,” he says. “When she came back, she said that thing about stars. ‘He said we’d be stars.’”

“I think that’s a coincidence,” I say.

“Yeah.” Simon nods. “Do you have any of it left? Like, did it stay with you? My magic?”

“Residually?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

I shake my head. “No. A feeling. A hum. Not power.”

“Can you do it on your end?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re still touching,” he says. “Try to tap into it.”

I close my eyes and try to be open, try to be a vacuum or a black hole. Nothing happens. I try to pull at Snow, then. To suck at him with my own magic … Still nothing.

I open my eyes. “No. I can’t take it from you. I’ve never heard of a magician taking someone else’s magic. Can you imagine? If there were a spell for that? We’d tear each other apart.”

“We’re already tearing each other apart.”

“I can’t take it,” I say again.

“Do you think it hurt you, my magic?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So we could do it again.”

“We just did, Snow.”

He looks uncharacteristically thoughtful. I wonder if he’s forgotten that he’s holding my hands. Or if he’s forgotten what it means to hold hands. Or if he’s forgotten who I am entirely.

I think again about pulling my hands away—but Snow could light fires in my palms at this point, and I wouldn’t pull away. It feels like he has.

“Baz,” he says, and it’s not unprecedented for him to say my name, but I know he avoids it. “This is stupid. If we’re going to be working together, you can’t keep pretending that I don’t know.”