I fell over.

Simon picked me up and threw me over his shoulder (which is pretty amazing, considering I weigh as much as he does). He pushed forward like a Royal Marine, and as soon as he was out of the dead spot, he shifted me around to the front—and big bony wings burst out of his back. Sort-of wings. Misshapen and overly feathered, with too many joints …

There’s no spell for that. There are no words. Simon just said, “I wish I could fly!” and he made the words magic.

(I haven’t told anyone that part. Magicians aren’t genies; we don’t run on wishes. If anyone knew that Simon could do that, they’d have him burnt at the stake.)

We were both hurt, so I tried to cast healing spells. I kept thinking that the Humdrum would haul us back as soon as he found his ball. But maybe that wasn’t the sort of trick he could manage twice in one day.

Simon flew as far as he could with me clinging to him—stuck to him with spells and fading fast. Then I think he realized how mad we looked and landed near a town.

We were going to take a train, but Simon couldn’t get his wings to retract. Because they weren’t wings. They were bones and feathers and magic—and will.

This is what my nightmares are about:

Hiding in a ditch along the side of the road. Simon’s exhausted. And I’m crying. And I’m trying to gather the wings up and push them into his back, so that we can walk into town and catch a train. The wings are falling apart in my hands. Simon’s bleeding.

In my nightmares, I can’t remember the right spell.…

But I remembered it that day. It’s a spell for scared children, for sweeping away practical jokes and flights of fancy. I pressed my hand into Simon’s back and choked out, “Nonsense!”

The wings disintegrated into clumps of dust and gore on his shoulders.

Simon picked someone’s pocket at the train station, so we could buy tickets. We slept on the train, leaning against each other. And when we got back to Watford, it was in the middle of the end-of-year ceremony, and Mum and Dad were there, and they dragged me home.

They almost didn’t let me come back to school this autumn—they tried to talk me into staying in America. Mum and I yelled at each other, and we haven’t really talked properly since.

I told my parents I couldn’t miss my last year. But we all knew that what I really meant was that I wouldn’t let Simon come back without me.

I said I’d walk back to Watford, that I’d find a way to fly.

Now they make me carry a mobile phone.

37

AGATHA

Watford is a quiet place if you’re not dating Simon Snow—and if you’ve spent so many years with Simon Snow that you never bothered making other friends.

I don’t have a roommate. The roommate the Crucible gave me, Philippa, got sick our fifth year and went home.

Simon said Baz did something to her. Dad said she had sudden, traumatic laryngitis—“a tragedy for a magician.”

“That would be a tragedy for anyone,” I said. “Normals talk, too.”

I don’t really miss Philippa. She was dead jealous that Simon liked me. And she laughed at my spellwork. Plus she always painted her nails without opening a window.

I do have friends, real friends, back home, but I’m not allowed to tell them about Watford. I’m not even able to tell them—Dad spelled me mum after he caught me complaining to my best friend, Minty, about my wand.

“I just said it was a hassle carrying it everywhere! I didn’t tell her it was magic!”

“Oh for snakes’ sake, Agatha,” Dad said.

My mother was livid. “You have to do it, Welby.”

So Dad levelled his wand at me: “Ix-nay on the atford-Way!”

It’s a serious spell. Only members of the Coven are allowed to use it. But I suppose it was a serious situation: If you tell Normals about magic, they all have to be tracked down and scoured. And if that’s not possible, you have to move away.

Now Minty (we met in primary school, that’s actually her first name, isn’t it lush?) thinks I go to a super-religious boarding school that doesn’t allow the Internet. Which is all true, as far as I’m concerned.

Magic is a religion.

But there’s no such thing as not believing—or only going through the motions on Easter and Christmas. Your whole life has to revolve around magic all the time. If you’re born with magic, you’re stuck with it, and you’re stuck with other magicians, and you’re stuck with wars that never end because people don’t even know when they started.

I don’t talk like this to my parents.

Or to Simon and Penny.

Ix-nay on my ue-feelings-tray.

*   *   *

Baz is walking by himself across the courtyard. We haven’t talked since he’s been back.

We’ve never really talked, I guess. Even that time in the Wood. Simon burst in before we could get anywhere, and then Simon burst out again.

(Just when you think you’re having a scene without Simon, he drops in to remind you that everyone else is a supporting character in his catastrophe.)

As soon as Simon and Penny disappeared that day, Baz dropped my hands. “What the fuck just happened to Snow?”

Those were his last words to me.

But he does still watch me in the dining hall. It makes Simon mental. This morning, Simon got fed up and slammed his fork down, and when I looked over at Baz, he winked.

I hurry to catch up with him now. The sun is setting, and it’s making his grey skin look almost warm. I know it’s setting my hair on fire.

“Basil,” I say coolly, smiling like his name’s a secret.

He turns his head slightly to see me. “Wellbelove.” He sounds tired.

“We haven’t talked since you’ve been back,” I say.

“Did we talk before that?”

I decide to be bold. “Not as much as I’d like.”

He sighs. “Crowley, Wellbelove, there must be a better way to get your parents’ attention.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says, walking ahead.

“Baz, I thought—I thought you might need someone to talk to.”

“Nope, I’m good.”

“But—”

He stops and sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Look … Agatha. We both know that whatever you and Snow are squabbling about, you’ll soon work it out and be back to your golden destiny. Don’t complicate it.”