Carry On

“Don’t know what,” I say, yanking my hands back.

“Don’t know about you. What you are.”

“Get off my bed, Snow.”

“It won’t change anything—”

“Won’t it?”

“Well, it would make things easier,” he says. “How can we discuss what we know about vampires when you won’t even admit that you are one?”

“Get off my bed.”

Snow stands up, but doesn’t stand down. “I know. I’ve known since our fifth year. How’re we supposed to help you if you’re still keeping all these secrets? Like, why did you start school late this term? And what happened to you? And why are you limping?”

“That’s none of your business,” I hiss. “None of it.”

“You’re right, but you said you wanted my help. So you made it my business.”

“I’ll tell you whatever I think is relevant.”

“We’re supposed to find out who sent blood-sucking vampires to kill your mother, and you are a blood-sucking vampire. You don’t think that’s relevant?”

As if I can just admit that. Out loud. On the record. As if every other magician wouldn’t gladly light me up if they knew it to be true.

As if Snow himself hasn’t been trying to expose me every day for seven years.

I clamp my jaw shut.

I should leave. Go back to the Catacombs. But Snow’s magic has wiped me out—I’m not sure I could stand now. So I just close my eyes.

“I’m done with you today,” I say. “I’ve been struck by lightning twice in the last twelve hours, and now I’m just done.”

49

SIMON

Agatha wants to talk to me after our Magic Words lesson.

She hasn’t said a word to me since we broke up—she hardly even looks at me—so when she approaches me now, my initial response is to look at the floor and try to walk around her. She has to grab my sleeve to get my attention, which is awkward for both of us.

“Simon,” she says. “Could I talk to you?”

She looks so nervous; she’s biting her bottom lip. I have to admit, my first thought is that Agatha misses me. That she wants to get back together.

I’ll say yes, of course. I won’t even make her ask. We can go right back to how we were. Maybe I’ll even tell her what’s going on with Baz—maybe she can help.

Then I think about Agatha being in the close quarters of our room, close enough that Baz can smell her pulse—and decide that I won’t tell her about everything, not right away.

But I will take her back.

This has all been such shit. Ignoring each other. Sitting apart. Acting like enemies when all we’ve ever been is friends.

I’ll take her back. Just in time for Christmas.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmas lately. I always spend it with the Wellbeloves. I have since I first came to Watford.

I think at first it must have been a philanthropic thing for her dad, Dr. Wellbelove. That’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do—open the house up on Christmas to orphans.

It’s how Agatha and I got to be friends. I’m not sure she ever would have talked to me if she hadn’t been trapped with me in her house every year for two weeks.

It’s not that Agatha’s stuck up—

Well … She is a bit stuck up. I think she likes being prettier than everyone else and having better clothes and being luckier.

I can’t blame her for that.

But also, she’s just not that social. Especially at school. She used to be really involved in dance, before Watford, and she’s still all caught up in horses, and I think she’s closer to her summer Normal friends than anybody here.

Agatha’s not like Pe

I don’t think Agatha cares that much about magic, full stop. The last time we talked about the future, she was thinking about becoming a veterinarian.

Dr. Wellbelove is all about Normal–magickal equality, and how it doesn’t serve mages to think of ourselves as better than Normals. (“I get what Welby’s saying,” Penelope’s mum will say, “but we can do everything the Normals can do, plus magic. How is that not better?”)

Her dad’s never pressured Agatha to choose a magickal career. I think she could probably even date a Normal, if she wanted. (Her mum might mind that; Normals aren’t allowed at the club.)

Anyway, I love being at the Wellbeloves, so long as they’re not throwing a posh di

Agatha’s mum’s always out, and her dad’s usually at the clinic. (He’s a Normal doctor, too, but most of his patients are mages. He specializes in acute abNormal ailments.) They’ve got a maid-type person, Helen, who cooks for Agatha and drives her around. But nobody treats Helen like a maid. She dresses in regular clothes, not any uniform, and she’s obsessed with Doctor Who.

They’re all good to me, Helen included. Agatha’s mum gives me nice clothes for Christmas, and her dad talks to me about my future like I’m not going to die in a ball of fire.

I just really like them. And I like Christmas. And I’ve been thinking about how weird it’s going to be to sit around the di

Agatha and I stay in the Magic Words classroom after everyone else leaves.

She’s still biting her lip.

“Agatha…,” I say.

“It’s about Christmas,” she says.

She pushes her hair behind her ears. She has perfectly straight hair that parts in the middle and naturally frames her face. (Pe

“My dad wants you to know that of course you’re still welcome at our house for Christmas,” Agatha says.

“Oh,” I say. “Good.”

“But I think we both know how uncomfortable that would be,” she goes on. She looks very uncomfortable, just saying it. “For both of us.”

“Right,” I say. It would be uncomfortable, I guess.

“It would ruin Christmas,” she says.

I stop myself before I can say, “Would it? Would it really, Agatha? It’s a big house, and I’ll stay in the TV room the whole time.”

“Right,” I say instead.

“So I told him that you were probably going to stay with the Bunces.”

Agatha knows I can’t stay with the Bunces. Penelope’s mum can only take about two or three days of me before she starts treating me like a Great Dane who can’t help knocking things over with its tail.

The Bunces’ house isn’t small, but it’s full of people—and stacks and stacks of stuff. Books, papers, toys, dishes. There’s no way not to be underfoot. You’d have to be incorporeal not to knock anything over.

“Right,” I say to Agatha. “Okay.”

She looks at the floor. “I’m sure my parents will still send gifts.”

“I’ll send them a card.”

“That would be nice,” she says. “Thank you.” She pulls her satchel up over her shoulder and takes a step away from me—then stops and flips her hair out of her face. (It’s just a gesture; her hair is never in her face.) “Simon. It was amazing how you beat that dragon. You saved its life.”

I shrug. “Yeah, well, Baz did it, didn’t he? I would’ve slit its throat if I could have figured out how.”

“My dad says the Humdrum sent it.”

I shrug again.

“Merry Christmas, Simon,” Agatha says. Then she walks past me out the door.

50

SIMON

“You should really just let me stay in your room,” Penelope says. “It would make things easier.”

“No,” Baz and I say at once.

“Where would you sleep,” I ask, “the bathtub?”

The chalkboard is still taking up the open area at the end of our beds, and there are stacks of books around it now. Every useful book in the Watford library has made its way to our room, thanks to Baz and Penelope—and not a one of them properly checked out, I’m sure.