Carry On

We’ve been working here every night, though we don’t have much but a mess to show for it.

“I don’t mind sleeping in the bath,” Pe

“No,” Baz says. “It’s bad enough sharing a bathroom with Snow.”

“Pe

“Simon, a perfectly good room wouldn’t have Trixie in it.”

“That’s your roommate?” Baz asks. “The pixie?”

“Yes,” Penelope says.

He curls his lips up and down at the same time. “Imagine you’re a pixie,” he says. “I know it’s distasteful, but imagine—you’re a pixie, and you have a daughter, and you name her Trixie. Trixie the pixie.”

“I think it’s kind of cute,” I say.

“You think Trixie’s kind of cute,” Pe

“Trixie is cute.” I shrug.

“Snow,” Baz says. “I’ve just eaten.”

I roll my eyes. He probably thinks pixies are a lesser species. Half-sentient, like gnomes and Internet trolls.

“It’s like being a fairy named Mary,” he goes on.

“Or a vampire named Gampire,” I say.

“Gampire isn’t even a proper name, Snow. You’re terrible at this game.”

“In Trixie’s defence,” Penelope says, and you can tell it pains her to say it, “the pixies probably don’t go around calling themselves ‘pixies.’ I mean, you could be a human named Newman or a boy named Roy, and no one would think twice.”

“I’ll bet your room is covered in pixie dust,” Baz says, shuddering.

“Don’t get her started,” I say. “Good-night, Pe

“Fine,” she says, climbing to her feet and picking up the book she was reading. It’s a bound copy of The Record; we’ve all taken to reading them straight through, looking for clues. We’re becoming experts in decade-old current events.

It’s all so weird.…

Not just to be working with Baz, but to have him around all the time when I’m hanging out with Pe

He still won’t talk to us outside of the room.

Baz says it would confuse his minions to see him consorting with the enemy. He actually called them that—“my minions.” Maybe he was taking the piss.…

I can’t always tell when Baz is mocking me. He’s got a cruel mouth. It looks like he’s sneering even when he’s happy about something. Actually, I don’t know if he ever is happy. It’s like he’s got two emotions—pissed off and sadistically amused.

(And plotting, is that an emotion? If so, three.)

(And disgusted. Four.)

Anyway, Penelope and I still don’t tell Baz everything. We never talk about the Mage, for example—it turns immediately into a fight if we do. Plus Pe

Pe

But I’m not sure I’m the one who needs reminding. Half the time we’re together, I’m just sitting on my bed reading while Penelope and Baz are comparing their Top 10 favourite spells of the 1800s or debating the magickal worth of Hamlet versus Macbeth.

The other day, he walked her over to the Cloisters on his way to the Catacombs. When he came back, he reported that there weren’t any clues about how she gets into Mummers House. The next day, she told me he didn’t acknowledge at all that he was on his way to suck blood out of rodents.

“You going my way?” she says to him now, from the doorway.

“No, I’m in for the night,” he says.

So fucking weird.

“See you guys at breakfast,” Pe

If Baz isn’t going hunting tonight, I may as well take a shower and go to sleep. We tend to fight more viciously when it’s just the two of us.

I’m getting my pyjamas together when he speaks up:

“So what’s your plan next week? For the holidays?”

I feel my jaw tighten. “Probably go home with Pe

“Not celebrating round the Wellbelove family hearth?”

I slam my wardrobe shut. We haven’t talked about this yet. Me and Baz. About Agatha.

I don’t know if the pair of them’re talking. Or meeting. Agatha doesn’t even come to di

“Nope,” I say, walking past his bed.

“Snow,” he says.

“What.”

“You should come to Hampshire.”

I stop and look at him. “What? Why?”

Baz clears his throat and folds his arms, lifting his chin to emphasize how much he looks down on me.

“Because you’ve sworn to help me find my mother’s killer.”

“I am helping you.”

“Well, you’ll be more help to me there than you are here. The library at home is far too big for me to cover myself. And I have a car there—we could actually investigate. You don’t even have the Internet here.”

“You’re suggesting I go home with you.”

“Yes.”

“For Christmas.”

“Yes.”

“With your family.”

Baz rolls his eyes. “Well, it’s not like you have any family of your own.”

“You’re mad.” I move again towards the bathroom.

“How is it mad?” he demands. “I could use your help, and there’s nothing here for you—you’d think you’d appreciate the company.”

I stop at the door and turn back again. “Your family hates me.”

“Yes, and? So do I.”

“They want to kill me,” I say.

“They won’t kill you—you’ll be a guest. I’ll even cast the spell if you want. Be our guest.”

“I can’t stay in your house. Are you kidding me?”

“Snow, we’ve lived in the same room for seven years. How can you have a problem with this?”

“You’re mad!” I say, closing the door.

Completely off his nut.

*   *   *

“Your mum doesn’t trust me?” I say.

We’re walking down the hall, and Penelope immediately starts shushing me with her hand. “She does trust you,” she says. “She trusts you completely. She knows that you’re honest and forthright, and that if you hear something you shouldn’t, you’ll go right to the Mage with it.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“You might, Simon.”

“Pe

“Shhhhh.”

“Pe

“She’s sent his Men away again,” Pe

“Then I should be there,” I say. “He’d never hurt her in front of me.”

Pe

I stop, too. “No. Of course he wouldn’t.”

She leans in. “Mum’s filing an appeal with the Coven; she thinks this will work itself out. But you know I need to research the Watford Tragedy while I’m home, and there’s no way Mum will let you into our library with everything that’s happening. She calls you Mini-Mage.”

“Why doesn’t she like me?”

“She likes you,” Pe

“Your mother does not like me, Pe

“She just thinks you attract trouble. And you do, Simon. Possibly literally.”

“Yeah, but I can’t help it.”

Penelope starts walking again. “You are preaching to the head of the choir.”

It’s not that I mind being alone at Watford—I don’t mind it much. But nobody’s here on Christmas Day. I’ll have to break in to the kitchen to eat. I guess I could ask Cook Pritchard for the key.…

We get to my next lesson, and I intentionally slam my shoulder into the wall next to the door. (People who tell you that slamming and bashing into things won’t make you feel better haven’t slammed or bashed enough.) “Is that what we’re calling it now?” I ask. “‘The Watford Tragedy’?”

It takes Pe