“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.”