Ebb’s late.

Maybe she forgot.

Not like her to forget. Never has, in all these years.

Can’t call her. Don’t even know if she has a mobile these days.

I stand, and pace a bit under the tree. Normally, Ebb casts a spell so that no one sees me.

I’m antsy. I creep up closer to the house. If anyone’s up, I should be able to hear them. The house is dark. One of the kitchen windows is cracked, but I can’t smell dinner. Ebb says she helps Mum with the cooking now. Roasted gammon, it’ll be. And bread and butter pudding. Ebb usually brings me out a plate.

I go up the back steps and peek inside the window in the door. The kitchen is empty. I can’t hear anything.

I twist the knob, not expecting it to turn, but it does, and the door gives. I step forward gingerly, not sure whether I’ll be allowed—but the house accepts me, and I stand there for a moment feeling right sorry for myself in my mum’s kitchen.

I smell the child before I see her.…

She’s hiding behind the doorway, peeking out at me. “Is that you, Aunty?”

“Aunty?” I say. “Do I look like somebody’s aunty?”

“I thought you were my Aunt Ebb. You look like her.”

She’s a little blond one in a red plaid nightgown. Must be my sister Lavinia’s. Vinnie wasn’t much older than this herself last time I saw her.

“I’m family,” I say. “I come to talk to Ebb—why don’t you go get her for me? She won’t be mad.” Not at the girl, anyway.

“Aunty Ebb’s gone,” the chick says. “She left with the Mage. Grandmum’s still crying. We can’t even have Christmas.”

“The Mage?” I say.

“Himself,” the girl says. “I heard everybody say it. Mum says Aunty Ebb was arrested.”

“Arrested! For what?”

“I don’t know. I guess she broke a rule.”

I stare at the child. She stares back. Then I turn for the door.

“Where are you going?” she calls after me.

“To find your aunty.”

71

SIMON

I wake up feeling hungry.

And not until I’m awake do I realize that it’s not me who’s hungry.

The air is dry. And itching. Pulling at my skin—pulling with needles, pricking at me.

I sit up and shake my head. The feeling doesn’t go away. I take a deep breath and then it’s inside my lungs, too. Like sand. Like ground glass.

The Humdrum.

I look over at Baz’s bed—the sheets and blankets are cast aside. He’s not there. I stumble to my feet and out of the room, standing in the blood-dark hallway. “Baz,” I whisper.

No one answers.

I follow the bad feeling down the hallway, down the stairs, to the front door of the manor—the night sky and the snow are so bright, there’s light streaming into the foyer. I open the door and run out into the snow.

The feeling is stronger out here. Worse. Almost like I’m standing inside one of the Humdrum’s dead spots. But when I reach for my magic, it’s still there: It rises to the surface of my skin and hums in my fingertips. It pools in my mouth.

I try to force it down again.

I follow the itchy feeling forward. (I should go back inside. I should put on shoes.) I find myself running towards the private forest that sweeps along the side of the Pitches’ house like a curtain.

I’m wearing Baz’s red-and-gold-striped pyjamas, and they’re wet to my thighs. The hungry feeling gets stronger with every step. It sucks at me. I feel my magic slipping out, sliding around my skin. A tree branch drags against me and catches fire.

I keep pushing forward.

I don’t know where I’m going—I’ve never been in this forest before. Plus there’s no space between the trees. I’m not on a path, there isn’t a clearing.

When I hear him laughing, I stop so abruptly that my magic sloshes forward, spilling up over the sides of me.

He’s right there, leaning against one of trees.

Him. The Insidious Humdrum.

Me.

“Hello,” he says, tossing his ball in the air. He catches it, frowns at me for a second, then tucks the ball into the pocket of his jeans.

“You can talk,” I say.

“I can now. I can do all sorts of things now.” He looks up into the tree and reaches for one of the slimmest branches; his hand passes through it. He grimaces and tries again. This time his hand closes around the twig, and he snaps it off. Then he looks back up at me and grins, like I should be proud of him.

“Why do you look like me?” I ask. This still feels like the most important question.

“This is just what I look like.” He laughs. “Why wouldn’t I look like you?”

“But you’re not me.”

“No.” The Humdrum frowns. “Look at you. You’re different every time I see you. But I always look just like this.” The twig is still in his hands. He breaks it in two, then drops it and steps towards me. “You can do all sorts of things I can’t do.”

I step back. Into a tangle of branches. “Why are you here—what do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. But what does he want from you? That’s the real question.”

I hear someone groan. There’s something moving in the trees.… I wish I could see better, and as soon as I wish it, my magic gets brighter—I’m glowing. The Humdrum laughs again.

“Simon?” someone calls. I think it’s Baz, but he sounds wrong. Like he’s out of breath or in pain.

“Baz? Are you okay?”

“No, no … Simon!”

Then I see Baz ahead of me, twenty feet or so, leaning against a tree. The Humdrum is above us now, sitting on a low branch, watching. Baz’s head hangs low.

I rush forward. “Baz!”

He lifts his face, and it’s wrong, too. Twisted. His eyes are dilated and black, and his mouth is full of white knives—his lips have retracted to make room for them.

I should back away, but instead I squeeze between the trees to try to get to him. It’s Baz who backs away from me. “Something’s wrong,” he says. “I’m hungry.”

“Baz, you’re always hungry.”

“No. It’s different.” He shakes his head and shoulders like an animal. “I saw you in the forest,” he says. “Just now. But you were young—you looked like you did the very first time I saw you.” His words are slurred. Like he’s shoving them through his teeth. “I thought for a minute that you were dead. I thought it was a Visiting.”