We’ve just taken an oath. I’ve never taken an oath before. Baz could still break it—he could still turn on me—but his hand would cramp up, and he’d lose his voice for a few weeks. Maybe that’s part of his plan.

We’re both staring at our joined hands. I can still feel his magic.

“We can talk about this after our lessons,” Baz says. “Back here.”

His grip loosens, and I yank my hand back. “Fine.”

*   *   *

I get to breakfast late, and Penelope hasn’t set any kippers or toast aside for me.

She says she doesn’t feel like talking, and I don’t feel like talking either, even though I have so much I need to tell her.

Agatha still isn’t sitting with us. I don’t even see her this morning—I wonder if she’s off somewhere with Baz. I should have added that to the truce: And also you have to leave my girlfriend alone.

Ex-girlfriend, I guess. Anyway. “Have you heard any more from your mum?” I ask Penny.

“No,” she says. “Is Baz going to turn me in?”

“No. Is the Mage back?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

She eats half as much of her breakfast as usual, and I eat twice as much, just to keep my mouth busy. I leave early for my Greek lesson because I feel like I’ve let Penny down—I can’t take her side against the Mage. For what it’s worth, I could never take his side against her, either.

When I get to the classroom, Baz is already there. Ignoring me. He ignores me all morning. I see him in the hallway a few times, whispering with Dev and Niall.

When it’s time to meet back in our room, I tell Penny that I’m skipping tea to study, and run across the courtyard to get back to Mummers House.

I get as far as the stairs before I start wondering whether the meeting is a trap—which is just paranoid. Baz doesn’t have to lure me to our room; I’m there every night.

It’s not like the time he tried to feed me to the chimera. That time, he asked me to meet him in the Wavering Wood. He said he had information for me, about my parents, and that it was too dangerous to risk saying it on school grounds.

I knew he was lying.

I told myself I was going to the Wood just to see what he was up to and beat him into the ground. But part of me still thought that maybe he really did know something about my parents—I mean, someone must know who they are. And even if Baz was just going to use what he knew against me, it would still be something.

It was fucking beautiful when the chimera noticed Baz first, hiding in the trees, and went after him instead of me. I should have let the monster have a go at him. It would have served Baz right.…

Then there was the time when we were sixth years, and he left me a note in Agatha’s handwriting, telling me to wait for her under the yew tree after dark. It was freezing, and of course she didn’t show up, and I was stuck outside all night until the drawbridge was lowered the next morning. My heat spell wouldn’t work, and the snow devils kept throwing chestnuts at my head. I thought about smashing them, but they’re a protected magickal species. (Global warming.) I kept expecting something worse to show up. Why would Baz torture me with snow devils? They’re just half-sentient snowballs with eyebrows and hands. They’re not even dark. But nothing else came, which meant Baz’s evil plan fell apart—or that his evil plan was to freeze me only half to death on the night before a big exam.

Then last year, he told me Miss Possibelf wanted to see me, and when I got to her office, he’d trapped a polecat in there. Miss Possibelf was sure I must be responsible—even though she really likes me.

I retaliated by putting the polecat in his wardrobe, which wasn’t much of a retaliation because we share a room.

I’m at our door now. Still trying to decide whether this is a trap. I decide it doesn’t matter—because even if I knew for sure that it was a trap, I’d still go in.

When I open the door, Baz is wheeling an old-fashioned chalkboard in front of our beds.

“Where did that come from?” I ask.

“A classroom.”

“Yeah, but how did it get up here?”

“It flew.”

“No,” I say, “seriously.”

He rolls his eyes. “I Up, up and away-ed it. It wasn’t much work.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re solving a mystery, Snow. I like to organize my thoughts.”

“Is this how you normally plot my downfall?”

“Yes. With multicoloured pieces of chalk. Stop complaining.” He opens up his book bag and takes out a few apples and things wrapped in wax paper. “Eat,” he says, throwing one at me.

It’s a bacon roll. He’s also got a pot of tea.

“What’s all this?” I say.

“Tea, obviously. I know you can’t function unless you’re stuffing yourself.”

I unwrap the roll and decide to take a bite. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” he says. “It sounds wrong.”

“Not as wrong as you bringing me bacon butties.”

“Fine, you’re welcome—when’s Bunce getting here?”

“Why would she?”

“Because you do everything together, don’t you? When you said you’d help, I was counting on you bringing your smarter half.”

“Penelope doesn’t know anything about this,” I say.

“She doesn’t know about the Visiting?”

“No.”

“Why not? I thought you told her everything.”

“It just … seemed like your business.”

“It is my business,” Baz says.

“Right. So I didn’t tell her. Now, where do we start?”

His face falls into a pout. “I was counting on Bunce to tell us where to start.”

“Let’s start with what we know,” I say. That’s where Penelope always starts.

“Right.” Baz actually seems nervous. He’s tapping the chalk against his trouser leg, leaving white smudges. Nicodemus, he writes on the chalkboard in neat slanted script.

“That’s what we don’t know,” I say. “Unless you’ve come up with something.”

He shakes his head. “No. I’ve never heard of him. I did a cursory check in the library during lunch—but I’m not likely to find anything in A Child’s Garden of Verses.”