Carry On (25 page)

“And since
when,
” Penny says to me, “are you a power outlet that other magicians can just plug in to?”

“I don't know,” I say. “I've never tried it before.”

“Try it again now,” she says, flopping down on my bed next to me.

“Penny, no, I don't want to hurt you.”

She puts my hand on her shoulder. “Simon, imagine what we could do with your power and my spells. We could finish the Humdrum off by dinner—and then take on hunger and world peace.”

“Imagine what the Mage will do when he realizes he has a nuclear power generator in his backyard,” Baz croons from his bed.

I swallow and look at the wall. Penny's hand drops. I have to admit that I'm not eager to tell the Mage—or anybody—what I did today. It's bad enough that I can't control my power. I don't want it pulled completely out of my hands.

Penny's hand covers mine on the bed. “Was it a special spell?” she asks softly.

“No,” I say. “I just … pushed.”

“Show me.”

Baz raises himself up on one elbow to watch. I lock eyes with Penny.

“I trust you,” she says.

“That doesn't mean I won't hurt you.”

Penny shrugs. “Pain is temporary.”

“That doesn't mean I won't
damage
you.”

She shrugs again. “Come on. We have to figure out how this works.”

“We never
have
to,” I say. “You just always
want
to.”

She squeezes my hand.
“Simon.”

I can see she's made up her mind; she won't leave me alone until I do this. I try to remember how it felt out on the Lawn. Like I was opening, unwinding—just a little. Just barely letting go …

I give the very smallest
push.

“Great snakes!” Penny says, snatching her hand away from me and jumping off the bed. “Fuck a nine-toed
troll,
Simon.” She's shaking her hand, and there are tears in her eyes. “Stevie Nicks and Gracie Slick!
Fuck!
”

I'm on my feet. “Sorry! Penny, I'm sorry, let me see!”

Baz drops back onto his bed, cackling.

Penelope holds out her arm. It looks red and mottled. “I'm so sorry,” I say, gently taking her wrist. “Should we go to the nurse?”

“I don't think so,” she says. “I think it's passing.” Her arm is quivering. Baz gets off his bed to take a look.

“Did it feel like I cast a spell on you?” I ask.

“No,” they both say at once.

“It was more like a shock,” Penelope says, then looks up at Baz. “What about for you?”

He gets out his wand. “I don't know. I was focusing on the dragon.”

“Did it hurt?” she asks him.

“Maybe you didn't see what you think you saw,” Baz says. “Maybe Snow really
was
just giving me moral support.”

“Right. And maybe you're the most gifted mage in five generations.”

“Maybe I
am,
” he says, tapping his ivory wand against her arm.
“Get well soon!”

“How did
that
feel?” I ask her.

“Better,” she says reluctantly, pulling her arm away from us. She frowns at Baz—“Hot.”

He grins, hitching up that eyebrow again.

“I meant temperature-wise,” she says. “Your magic feels like a grease-burn, Basil.”

Baz waves his wand in a shrug and turns to the chalkboard. “Runs in the family.”

Like I said, everyone's magic feels different. Penelope's magic feels thick and makes your mouth taste like sage. I quite like it.

“So…,” she says, following him to the chalkboard. “You got a Visiting. An actual Visiting—Natasha Grimm-Pitch was
here.
”

Baz glances back over his shoulder. “You sound impressed, Bunce.”

“I am,” Penelope says. “Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history.”

Baz is looking at Penny like they've never met.

“And,”
Penny goes on, “she defended your father in three duels before he accepted her proposal.”

“That sounds barbaric,” I say.

“It was traditional,” Baz says.

“It was brilliant,” Penny says. “I've read the minutes.”

“Where?” Baz asks her.

“We have them in our library at home,” she says. “My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions.”

“That's lovely,” Baz says, and I'm terrified because I think he means it.

“I'm going to make time stop when I propose to Micah,” she says.

“The little American? With the thick glasses?”

“Not so little anymore.”

“Interesting.” Baz rubs his chin. “My mother hung the moon.”

“She was a legend,” Penelope beams.

“I thought your parents hated the Pitches,” I say.

They both look at me like I've just stuck my hand in the soup bowl.

“That's politics,” Penelope says. “We're talking about
magic.
”

“Obviously,” I say. “What was I thinking.”

“Obviously,” Baz says. “You weren't.”

“What's happening right now?” I say. “What are we even doing?”

Penelope folds her arms and squints at the chalkboard. “We,” she declares, “are finding out who killed Natasha Grimm-Pitch.”

“The legend,” Baz says.

Penelope gives him a soft look, the kind she usually saves for me. “So she can rest in peace.”

 

46

BAZ

Penelope Bunce is a fierce magician, I don't mind saying.

Well, I don't mind saying, now that she's standing momentarily on my side of things.

No wonder Snow follows her around like a congenitally stupid dog on a very short leash. I'm fairly certain we don't know anything now that we didn't know before, but Bunce is so sharp and confident that every minute with her in the room feels like progress.

Also she fixed our window, and now it doesn't creak.

I can tell she still finds me both loathsome and distasteful, but Rome wasn't built on mutual admiration. She's got a fine mind for magickal history—her house must be teeming with forbidden books—and half her opinions would get her thrown in a dungeon if her name were Pitch instead of Bunce.

(There must be mundanity in her blood somewhere; Bunce is the least magickal name in the Realm. And you should see her father,
Professor Bunce.
He's a book full of footnotes brought to life. He's a jacket made of elbow patches. He taught a special unit on the Humdrum last term, and I don't think I ever managed to follow him to the end of a sentence.)

Snow and Bunce send me down to get dinner—because I'm the one who has an in with Cook Pritchard; she's a distant cousin—and when I come back, Bunce has a piece of green chalk, and she's adding notes to my notes in small, cramped handwriting on the blackboard.

Nicodemus

—Check library

—Ask Mum? (Any risk?)

—Ask the Mage? No.

—Google? Yes! (Can't hurt, Simon.)

Even her notes are addressed to Snow. They're like Ant and Dec, the pair of them. Joined at the hip. Hmm … I wonder if Wellbelove will be coming aboard, too.

“Simon's right about the vampires,” Bunce says without turning away from the chalkboard.

The dinner tray tilts in my hands. I stoop a bit to correct it. “What?”

“The vampires,” she says, turning around and putting her hands on her hips. Her skirt is covered with chalk dust.

Snow puts down a book and comes to take the jug of milk off the tray. He lifts it towards his mouth, and I kick his shin.

“Anathema!” he says.

“I'm not trying to hurt you; I'm trying to protect you from your own disgusting manners. The room won't blame me this time, you oaf. There are glasses right here.”

He sets the milk down on the table between our beds, then takes the drinking glasses and the handkerchief full of sandwiches. “Cook Pritchard just
gave
you all this?” He unwraps a stack of brownies.

“She likes me,” I say.

“I thought she liked
me,
” he says. “I saved her from a kitchen skink!”

“Yes, well she likes me for who I am.”

“Vampires,”
Penelope says. “Are you even listening?”

I sneer. Out of habit. “Put a sandwich in it, Bunce.”

“How can we guess who sent the vampires or what the vampires even wanted,” she prattles on, “if we don't know anything about vampires?”

“Vampires want blood,” Snow says through a maw full of roast beef.

“But they can get that anywhere,” she says. “They can get it easily. In Soho. After midnight.” She picks up a sandwich and sits on Snow's bed, crossing her legs. I could see right up her skirt if I felt like it—and if I tipped my head a bit. “I can't think of a more difficult place for a vampire to get blood,” she says, “than Watford, in the middle of the day.”

She's got a point there.

“So why even try it?” she asks.

“Well, the term hadn't started yet,” I say, picking up an apple, “so no one was on guard.”

“Yeah, but it's
Watford.
” She shakes her long hair. “Even back then, there was a wall of wards against dark creatures.”

“It doesn't have to make sense,” Snow says. “The Humdrum sent the vampires. Just like that dragon today.
It
didn't want to be here either.”

I wasn't sure Snow realized that, or believed me when I told him. I thought he was going to murder that dragon hen in cold blood in front of the whole school.

Well, not in cold blood—it
was
attacking us. But slaying a dragon is dark stuff, too dark even for my family. You don't slay a dragon unless you're trying to open a doorway to hell.

“But if Headmistress Grimm-Pitch was talking about the Humdrum,” Bunce says, “why would she throw that on Baz's shoulders—does she expect him to kill the Humdrum? And what about this Nicodemus?”

Snow frowns. “We should stop thinking of it as an isolated attack.”

“It's the only vampire attack in the history of the school,” I argue.

“Yeah,” he says, “but all sorts of other stuff was going on back then. The Mage said the dark creatures thought we were getting weak—they were making a serious move on our realm.”

“When did he say that?” Penny asks.

“It's in
The Record,
” Snow says. “The Mage gave a speech to the Coven—even before the Watford invasion.” He sticks what's left of his sandwich in his mouth and reaches around Penny for a book. His jacket and jumper are on the floor, and his white shirt tugs out of his trousers on one side.

He finds the right page soon enough, holding it out to us. I stand above them, not prepared to actually sit on Snow's bed.

It's the front page of
The Record.
The Mage's speech is printed in full, and there's a large chart with dates and bold-faced atrocities—all the attacks on magickind over a fifty-year period.
OUR DOMINION IN DANGER?
the headline asks.

“Wait a minute.…” Bunce takes the book from him and hands him her sandwich to hold; he takes a bite. “There's nothing about the Humdrum.” She flips ahead to the story about my mother's death, then scans it with her finger. “No Humdrum here either.”

She closes the book and taps the cover with her ring.
“Fine-tooth comb—Humdrum!”
The book opens, and the pages start rifling forward. They pick up speed towards the end; then the book slams shut on her lap.

“No mentions,” Penny says.

“That doesn't make sense,” I say. “The Humdrum existed then. The first dead spot appeared in the late '90s. Near Stonehenge. We've studied it in Magickal History.”

“I know,” she says. “My mother was pregnant with me when it happened. She and Dad visited the site.” Bunce takes what's left of her sandwich back from Snow and takes a bite. She looks up at me, chewing suspiciously. “I wonder how they knew…”

“Who?” I ask. “What?”

“I wonder how they figured out that it was the Humdrum behind everything,” Bunce says, “behind the dark creature attacks and the dead spots? How would they know it was him before they knew how he felt? That's how we identify him now. That
feeling.
”

“Did you feel the Humdrum?” Snow asks. “That day in the nursery?”

“I was a bit distracted,” I say.

“What did they tell you?” Bunce asks.

“What did who tell me?”

“Your family. After your mother died.”

“They didn't tell me anything. What was there to say?”

“Did they tell you it was vampires?”

“They didn't have to tell me that. I was there.”

“Do you remember?” she asks. “Did you see the vampires?”

“Yes.” I set the apple back on the tray.

Snow clears his throat. “Baz, when
did
you first hear that it was the Humdrum who sent the vampires?”

They're imagining my father sitting me down in a leather club chair and saying,
“Basilton, there's something I need to tell you.…”

He's never said those words.

Nobody
tells
anyone anything in my family. You just know. You learn to know.

No one had to tell me that we talk about Mother, but we don't talk about Mother's death.

No one had to tell me I was a vampire:

I remembered being bitten, I grew up with the same horror stories everyone else did—then I woke up one day craving blood. And no one had to
tell
me not to take it from another person.