This isn’t going off, I think. This is going out.

83

BAZ

I can’t imagine we’re not too late.

And on top of everything else, on top of abject failure, I’m so thirsty, I could drain a Clydesdale.

I should drain that yappy spaniel and put it out of its misery.

Maybe I should put Bunce out of hers.

We come up over a hill, and we can see the school ahead of us. I’m ready to tear through the wide-open gates, but the Jag gets stuck in the snow. Bunce and I get out and start running across the Great Lawn.

It’s a shock when we see Wellbelove running towards us like a panicked rabbit from the opposite direction.

PENELOPE

Agatha’s weeping and panting—and running like she’s Jessica Ennis, even through all this snow. It’s too bad Watford doesn’t have a track team.

She doesn’t stop when she sees us, just grabs my hand and tries to pull me with her. “Run,” she says. “Penny, run—it’s the Mage!”

“What’s the Mage?” I grab her other hand, and she runs in place around me, spinning me in a circle.

“He’s evil!” she says. “Of course he is!”

Baz tries to take her shoulder. “Is Simon here?”

Agatha pulls away from him, jogging backwards, then back towards us. “He just got here,” she says. “But the Mage is evil. He’s fighting the goatherd.”

“Ebb?” I say.

“And he tried to hurt me. He was going to do something, take something. He wants Simon.”

“Come on!” Baz yells.

“Come with us,” I say to Agatha. “Come help us.”

“I can’t,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t.”

And then she runs away.

BAZ

Wellbelove runs in one direction, and Bunce runs in the other.

There’s a noise from the school—like artificial thunder, like a hurricane on a tin roof.

I chase after Penny across the drawbridge. As soon as we make it to the courtyard, it’s immediately clear where Simon is: All the windows have shattered in the White Chapel. There’s smoke pouring out, and the walls themselves seem to be shimmering, like heat on the horizon.

The air is thick with Simon’s magic. That burning green smell.

Bunce stumbles, coughing. I take her arm and lean against her, propping her up. I’d be surprised if she could cast a cliché right now. “All right, Bunce?”

“Simon,” she says.

“I know. Can you take it?”

She nods, pushing away from me and shaking her ponytail resolutely.

The miasma gets worse, the closer we get to the Chapel. Inside the building, it’s unnaturally dark, like something more than light is missing. I think I feel the Humdrum’s presence, the scratch and the suck of him, but my wand stays alive in my hand.

Something rolls through me—like a wave in the air, in the magic—and Bunce pitches forward again. I catch her.

“We don’t have to keep going,” I say.

“Yes,” she says, “we do. I do.”

I nod. I don’t let go of her this time. We walk together towards the worst of it, to what must be the back of the Chapel, through doorways, down halls.

My stomach roils.

There’s no more air, just Simon.

Bunce pushes open another door, and we both throw our arms up in front of our eyes. It’s bright as fire inside.

“Up there!” Bunce shouts.

I try to look where she’s pointing. The light stutters into blackness, then back again. It seems to be coming from an opening in the ceiling—twenty feet above us, at least.

Bunce holds out a hand to cast, but clutches her stomach instead.

I wrap my left arm around her, then point my wand at the trapdoor. “On love’s light wings!”

It’s a hard spell and an old spell, and it works only if you understand the Great Vowel Shift of the Sixteenth Century—and if you’re stupidly in love.

Bunce and I float to the opening, and I don’t try to shield us, because there’s nothing that could.

We climb into a room too loud and strobing to describe, then kneel in broken glass, trying to hold ourselves together. Bunce throws up.

In the seconds when the light isn’t too bright or gone completely, I see Simon in the middle of the room, holding on to the Humdrum like he’s about to tell him something really important.

Simon has those red wings again, and they’re spread wide.

The Mage is here, too, clawing at Simon uselessly—nothing can move Snow when he looks like that, his shoulders hunched forward, and his jaw pushed out.

Bunce is on all fours, trying to lift her head. “What’s he doing?” she rasps, then heaves again.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Should we try to stop him?”

“Do you think we could?”

The light is getting less intense. So is the dark.

I can hardly see the Humdrum anymore, but Simon still has something in a death grip.

The noise is changing, too—getting higher, like it’s winding up, from a roar to a whine.

When the sound stops, my ears pop, and Simon falls forward to the ground, lit only by moonlight through the broken windows.

He falls, and he doesn’t get up.

PENELOPE

For a moment, the only sound is Baz, howling.

Then the Mage falls on Simon’s limp body.

“What have you done?” He’s shaking Simon, and beating on his wings. “Give it to me!”

Simon lifts an arm to push the Mage off, and that sign of life is all it takes to unleash Baz. He moves so fast, my eyes can’t focus on him until he’s holding the Mage by the chest, his fangs open over the man’s neck.

“No!” Simon whispers, trying to pull himself up by grabbing their legs.

The Mage points his silver-tipped wand at Baz, but Simon grabs it and holds it against his own heart. “No,” he says to Baz—or maybe to the Mage. “Stop!”

The three of them twist and stumble. The Mage is covered in blood, and Baz’s mouth is full of teeth.

“Give it to me!” the Mage shouts at Simon. Does he mean his wand?

“It’s gone!” Simon cries, using the wand to hold himself up. “It’s all gone!”

The Mage pushes his wand into Simon’s chest. “Give it to me!”

Baz yanks at the Mage’s hair, pulling him back.

“Stop!” Simon cries. “It’s gone! It’s over!”

No one is listening to him.

I hold out my ring hand and speak as loudly and clearly as I ever have, letting my magic rise up from the empty pit of my stomach—“Simon says!”

Simon’s next words ring out, dense with magic—“Stop it, stop hurting me!”

The Mage jerks away from him, then sags in Baz’s arms.

Baz steps back, confused, and lets the Mage drop to the floor. Then Baz reaches for Simon, but Simon is kneeling over the Mage, grasping at his chest.

“I … I think he’s dead. Penny! I think I killed him. Oh God,” Simon sobs. “Oh Merlin. Penny!”

I’m still shaking, but I crawl across the room towards them. “It’s okay, Simon.”

“It’s not okay—the Mage is dead. Why is he dead?”

I don’t know why he’s dead.

I don’t know what’s happening.

“Maybe that’s the only way he could stop hurting you,” I say.

“But I didn’t mean to kill him!” Simon cries, holding the Mage up, his arms around his back.

“Technically, it was Bunce who killed him,” Baz says, but he says it gently, and there are tears in his eyes.

“He’s dead,” Simon says. “The Mage is dead.”

84

LUCY

I didn’t know that something was wrong; I’d never been pregnant before. And no one had ever been pregnant with you, Simon.

The books say that you’ll feel butterfly wings and twitches. A quickening. I felt so much more.

I felt you humming inside me. Busy and bright. I felt flushed from my belly to my fingertips.

Davy never left my side. He cooked for me. He cast blessings over us both.