The Minotaur folds his arms and snorts when he sees me. “Mr. Pitch,” he says. “I see you’ve decided to join us.”

“I have, sir.”

“We’ll have to discuss your plans to catch up.”

“Of course, sir. Though I think you’ll find I’m still quite ahead of the class; my mother always insisted on summer work in Greek and Latin.” It’s good to mention my mother with the older teachers. They all still remember her—I can see their heads start to dip into a bow.

The Minotaur worked on the grounds when my mother was headmistress; creatures weren’t allowed on staff then. I dare him to hold that against me.

I dare them fucking all.

“We shall see,” he says, narrowing his cow eyes.

I’m not lying. Greek won’t be a problem for me—and I’ll be fine in Latin, Magic Words and Elocution. Political Science could be a bear, depending on how much they’ve covered. Same for History and Astrology.

I’m going to have to break my back to get to first again, and I can’t imagine Coach Mac will let me back on the football team.…

They might all cut me some slack if I told them I’d been kidnapped.

I am never telling anyone I was kidnapped.

Kidnapped. And by fucking numpties, no less.

Numpties are like trolls, but even more hideous. They’re big and stupid, and they’re always cold. They go around wrapped in blankets and dressing gowns if they have them, and if they don’t, they cover themselves in leaves and mud and old newspapers. They usually live under bridges. Because they like to live under bridges. And they’re just smart enough to hit you over the head with a club and drag you back to their hovel, if there’s something in it for them.

Aunt Fiona was appalled when she found me in the numpty den. She berated me all the way home, and all the way back to Watford. She made me sit in the back seat of her MG. (A ’67. Glorious.) “The front seat is for people who’ve never been kidnapped by bloody numpties. Jesus Christ, Baz.” (Aunt Fiona likes to swear like a Normal. She thinks she’s punk.)

I could tell she was half disgusted with me, half relieved that I was still alive.

I’d been stuck under that bridge for six weeks, in a coffin—and I don’t even think the numpties were trying to torture me. I think they thought that was humane treatment for a vampire. So to speak. They even brought me blood. (I decided not to think about where they got it.) They did not bring food. Most people don’t realize that vampires need both. Most people know fuck-all about vampires.…

I know fuck-all about vampires. It’s not like I got an instruction pamphlet when I was bitten.

The numpties kept me in the coffin for six weeks, and every day or so, they threw in some blood. (In a thirty-two-ounce plastic cup with a bendy straw.) I can go without food longer than regular people, but I was pretty ruined by the time Fiona got there.

Fortunately, my aunt is an utter badass. She laid waste to the numpties before she found my coffin; then she bombarded me with healing magic. “Early to bed and early to rise!” she kept whispering. And “Get well soon!”

(It reminded me of the day I was Turned—Fiona and my father both hitting me with healing magic that mended the bite marks and bruises but didn’t touch the changes already churning inside me.)

I was still weak when Fiona helped me out of the coffin.

“All right?” she asked.

“Hungry. Thirsty.”

She kicked a dead numpty—they look like giant stones when they die, great heaps of mud and grey matter—“Can you drink one of these?”

I sneered. “No.” Numpty blood is swampy and brackish, definitely nonpotable. Which is probably why someone sent them after me.

“I’ll take you to McDonald’s,” she said.

“Take me to school.”

Fiona bought me three Big Macs, and I swallowed the first one in two bites—it came right back up. She pulled the car over to let me heave at the side of the road. “You’re a wreck, Basil. I’m taking you home.”

“It’s September, take me to school.”

“It’s October, I’m taking you home to rest.”

“It’s October? Take me to school, Fiona. Now.” I wiped my mouth on my shirt. I was still in my tennis whites—the numpties had nabbed me outside the club; my clothes were stained in every way imaginable and newly vomited on.

Fiona shook her head. “School doesn’t matter now, boyo. We’re in the middle of a war.”

“We’re always in the middle of a war. Take me back to Watford—I’ll be damned if Penelope Bunce finishes our last year at the top of the class.”

“Baz, everything is different now. You’ve been kidnapped. And held for ransom.”

I leaned on her car. “Is that why the numpties didn’t kill me? Because you paid the ransom?”

“Fuck no, Pitches have never paid ransoms, and we’re not starting now.”

“I’m the only living heir!”

“That’s just what your father said. He wanted to pay up. I told him I knew my sister had scraped bottom when she married a Grimm, but I wasn’t letting him have any more of our pride. No offence, Basil.” She handed me another Big Mac—“Try again. Slower.”

I took a bite. “Why’d they kidnap me?” I asked through three layers of bun and two all-beef patties.

“They said they wanted money. Then they wanted wands.”

“What would numpties want with wands?”

“They wouldn’t! The question is who hired them. Or who won them over … I don’t know how you get a numpty to do your bidding; maybe you just bring them hot water bottles. They kept calling us from your mobile, until it died. Your dad thinks they took you, and then tried to figure out later what to do with you. But it all smells like the Mage to me. It’s not enough that he’s laid us low; he wants everything that’s ever made us powerful.”

“You think the Mage had me kidnapped? The headmaster of my school?”

“I think the Mage is capable of anything,” she said. “Don’t you?”

I did think so. But Fiona blames everything on the Mage. So it’s hard to take her seriously, even after she’s just murdered someone to save your life.

Mostly, at that moment, I was thinking about lying down.

“Oh,” Fiona said. “Here.” She fished my wand—polished ivory with a leather hilt—out of her giant handbag and stuck it in my shorts pocket. I pulled it out. “So,” she said. “Obviously, you are not going back to that school, right into that bastard’s clutches.”

“I am so.”

“Basilton.” Full name, all three syllables.

“He’s not going to bother me at school,” I argued, “not with everyone watching.”

“Baz, we have to get serious. He’s attacked our family again, directly.”

“I am serious. I’m more valuable as a spy than a soldier, anyway—that’s what the Families have always said.”

“That’s what we said when you were a child. You’re a man now.”

“I’m a student,” I said. “What do you think my mother would say if she knew you were pulling me out of school?”

Fiona huffed and shook her head. We were still standing at the side of the road. She opened the car door for me. “Get in, you manipulative cur.”

“Only if you take me back to Watford.”

“I’m taking you home first. Your father and Daphne want to see you.”

“And then to Watford.”

She pulled me towards the car. “Jesus. Yes. If you still want to go.”

Of course I still wanted to go to Watford …

 … once I’d seen my father. Once my stepmother had wept over me. Once I’d slept for twelve hours under a new barrage of healing spells.

I stayed in bed a fortnight.

They all tried to talk me into staying longer.

Even Vera, my old nanny was brought in to apply some guilt. (Vera’s a Normal. She rationalizes all our strangeness by pretending we’re in the Mafia. Father spells her innocent whenever it gets to be too much for her.)

But after two weeks, I got up out of bed, packed my bags, and went and sat in the front seat of Fiona’s car.