Carry On

“Simon,” I said, “maybe we should just go.”

He looked confused. He clenched his sword in his other hand. “Pe

“No.” I stepped closer to him, squeezing his hand. “I think this might be our only chance to … to leave.”

He looked at me like I was mental.

I kept at it: “Everyone has already co

He shook his head. “Go where, Pe

“Wherever we have to,” I said. “Away.”

SIMON

Away. There is no away.

There’s only here and Normal. Did Penelope think that would be an escape for me—to run away from magic?

I don’t even think it’s possible. I am magic. And whatever I’m doing, ru

“I have to fix this,” I said. “It’s my job to fix it.”

“I don’t think you can,” she said.

I let go of her hand. “I have to. It’s why I’m here.”

But maybe that’s not why I’m here. Maybe I’m just here to fuck everything up.…

It doesn’t change what I have to do next.

PENELOPE

“I’m going to talk to the Mage,” he said.

“Simon,” I begged, “please don’t.”

But he’d already stopped listening to me. Dark red wings were unfolding from his shoulders, and that arrowlike tail wound its way down his thigh.

He looked at me with his jaw set. And then he took off.

That’s when I called Baz.

He pulls up now in a burgundy sports car. I climb out from the bushes, and Baz has already leaned over to open the car door.

There’s a little cross-eyed dog in the back seat. I break my possession spell, and it yelps.

79

LUCY

We snuck back into Watford on the autumn equinox.

“He’ll be born at solstice,” Davy said, pulling me up the hole in the floor into the old Oracle’s room, at the top of the White Chapel.

“Or she,” I said.

He laughed. “I suppose that’s right.”

I climbed onto the wood floor. “How did the Oracles get up here?”

“There used to be a ladder,” he said.

The room was round, with curved stained glass windows and an intricately painted domed ceiling—a mural of men and women holding hands in a ring, looking up at a field of foiled stars and ornate black script. I could only make out some of it—In time’s womb. Shakespeare. “How did you find this place?”

Davy shrugged. “Exploring.”

He knew Watford like no one else. While the rest of us had flirted and studied, he’d roamed every inch.

I watched him draw a pattern on the floor with salt and oil and dark blue blood. (Not a pentagram—something else.) And I pulled my shawl around my shoulders and legs. We hadn’t brought anything with us. Blankets or pillows. Or mats.

Davy had a stack of notes, and he kept going back to them.

“You’re sure of everything?” I asked for the twentieth time this week. He’d been more indulgent with me since I agreed to this.

I did agree to it.

I thought …

I thought Davy might do it without me. That he might find a way.

I thought that as long I was there, I could keep him from going too far.

And I thought … that Davy wanted a child. Underneath it all, we were talking about a child. He was asking me to have his child. To change our lives.

I wanted that.

“I’m sure,” Davy said. “I’ve compared the ritual and phrases over three sources; the three accounts complete each other, and the divergence is small.”

“Why hasn’t anyone else tried this?” I asked.

“Oh, I think they have,” he said brightly. “But we haven’t. You said it yourself, no one has studied these rituals like I have. None of these scholars had access to each other’s notes.”

He’d shared some of the spells with me. Beowulf. The Bible. I wrapped my shawl tighter. “So there’s no risk—”

“There’s always risk. It’s creation. It’s life.”

“It’s a child,” I said.

He stood and hopped over his designs to crouch in front of me: “Our child, Lucy, the most powerful magician the World of Mages has ever known.”

*   *   *

The room was lit by seven candles.

And Davy chanted every spell seven times.

Why is it always seven? I wondered, lying on my back on the cold wood floor.

I wished that we’d brought music. But there was singing outside—the students at the equinox bonfire out on the Great Lawn.

The night was turning out more solemn than I had expected. It had been a lark, sneaking into Watford, finding the hidden room. But now Davy was focused and quiet.

I wondered how we’d know whether the ritual had worked.…

How would we know if our baby was the most powerful mage in the world? Would he look any different? Would his eyes glow?

Davy said we couldn’t talk at all during the ritual, so instead I caught his gaze. He looked happy, excited.

Because he’s finally doing something, I thought—not just shouting at the sky.

I tried not to talk. I lay very still.

And I knew—oh, I knew the moment it happened that magic and luck were on our side.

There was a pull deep in my belly. Like a star had collapsed there. The world around me went white, and all my magic contracted into a tight ball in my pelvis.

When I could see again, all I could see was Davy’s golden face above mine, as happy as I’d ever known him.

80

AGATHA

The gates are open when I get to Watford, and there’s a single set of tyre tracks in the snow. That’s good; that means the Mage is here. I follow them and park the Volvo in the main courtyard right next to the Mage’s Jeep. I won’t get in trouble—this is an emergency.

I’m not good in emergencies. I can’t wait to find the Mage and hand this off to him. I’ll tell him what I know, then I’ll get as far from this mess as I can.

Maybe I’ll go over to Minty’s house. And we can watch Mean Girls. And her mum will make us virgin mojitos. And we’ll do gel manis—Minty’s got her own machine.

Minty doesn’t care about magic.

Minty won’t even read fantasy novels. “I just can’t make myself care,” she says. “It’s all so fake.”

(I tried to do manicures with Penelope once, and she got distracted, trying to come up with a way to do it magickally.)

I run through the snow to the Weeping Tower and up to the Mage’s office. It’s a thousand stairs, I swear. There are elevators, but I don’t know the spells.

I’m worried about knocking at the Mage’s door, but it’s wide open, and when I walk inside, it’s a catastrophe. It looks like Pe

That’s when I see the lights in the White Chapel.

SIMON

I’m not sure how I know the way to Watford.

I’m not sure I’m really flying anymore. Or if I’m just thinking about being there.

I wonder if this—what I’m doing, the magic I’m using—is enough to tear a new hole, or if it’s just making an old one bigger.