It’s so good.
It’s been so good every time.
I pull away. “I’m not the Humdrum! But why does thinking so make you want to kiss me?”
“Everything makes me want to kiss you. Haven’t you worked that out yet? Crowley, you’re thick.” He kisses me again. And he’s laughing again.
“I’m not the Humdrum,” I repeat, when I get the chance. “I’d know if I were.”
“What you are is a fucking tragedy, Simon Snow. You literally couldn’t be a bigger mess.”
He tries to kiss me, but I hold back—“And you like that?”
“I love it,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because we match.”
* * *
We make our way out of the forest. Baz knows the way.
It really is stocked with deer just for him. It doesn’t creep me out at all to know that—apparently I can get used to anything.
Apparently he can, too.
“That thing,” I try again. “It isn’t me.”
“Maybe it’s you in the past,” he says. “Maybe you’re a time traveller.”
“But wouldn’t I remember it? If he’s me when I was a kid?”
“I don’t know how time travel works,” Baz says. “It’s not magic.”
“You’re not limping,” I say.
He looks down and shakes out his leg. “It feels better,” he says. “Crowley, Snow, you’ve healed me. I wonder if I’m still a vampire?”
I raise my eyebrows, and he laughs. “Calm down, miracle boy, I’m still a vampire—you still smell like bacon and homemade cinnamon buns.”
“How can I smell like bacon and homemade cinnamon buns?”
“You smell like something I’d gladly eat.” Baz stops and holds an arm out in front of me. “Wait. Do you feel that?”
I stop, too. It’s faint, but it’s there. That parched feeling. That scratch in the back of my throat.
“The Humdrum,” Baz says. “Is he back?”
There’s shouting ahead of us, somebody calling Baz’s name.
I hold my hand above my hip, trying to call my blade. It doesn’t come. I can’t feel my magic anywhere.
Baz has his wand tucked into his pyjamas (of course he does). He whips it out and tries to cast a spell. Nothing happens. He tries again.
“It’s a dead spot,” I whisper. “It’s one of the Humdrum’s dead spots.”
“Basilton!” Baz’s stepmother is screaming and running towards us. She’s wearing her nightgown, and her hair is down. “Malcolm, he’s here!”
“The Humdrum…” Baz looks over at me, as pale as I’ve ever seen him, his face chalky and white in the moonlight. “Snow. Run.”
“What?”
“Go,” he says. “You did this.”
72
SIMON
I could probably walk to London.
If I were wearing shoes.
And if there weren’t all this snow.…
When Baz told me to go, when he blamed the dead spot on me, I wanted to argue. But his parents were running towards us, and they were panicking, and I couldn’t tell what was happening. Had the hole swallowed up their entire house? Their whole estate?
I turned to run back into the forest—but it was on fire. From me. From my magic. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it, because now I didn’t have any.
“Go!” Baz said again, so I did. I ran.
I got to the drive, and my feet were going numb from cold, but I kept running. Down the long, long drive. To the road. Away from him.
I’m still running.
My magic comes back to me all at once and sends me to the ground, shaking. If only I had my wand. Or a mobile …
I could hitchhike—would anyone pick me up? Would anyone be driving down this road, in middle-of-nowhere Hampshire in the middle of the night? On Christmas Eve? (Father Christmas isn’t real—the Tooth Fairy is.)
I’m kneeling in the snow at the side of the road. I can do this, I think. I’ve done this before. I just have to want it. I have to need it.
I think about getting away, about getting to Penny, I think about my magic filling me up and shooting out my shoulders. And then I feel them tearing through Baz’s pyjamas—
Wide, bony wings.
There are no feathers this time; I must have been thinking about the dragon. These wings are red and leathery with grey spikes at the hinges. They spread out as soon as I think about them, and pull me up out of the snow.
I tear off the remains of my flannel shirt, and I don’t think about how to fly; I just think about where I want to go—Up. Away.—and it happens. It’s colder up here, so I think about being warm, and my skin starts to flicker with heat.
Baz’s house is below me now, in the distance. The fire I started is still burning; I watch the smoke pouring out of the forest, and try to move closer—but I can’t. I’m made of magic, and there’s no magic there anymore.
I hover in the sky.
I think about putting out the fire. The clouds are full of freezing rain—so I think about pushing them towards the forest, and they go.
And then I think of Baz telling me to go, so I do.
And then I stop thinking.
73
PENELOPE
My little sister, Priya, was the one to get the door. She was waiting up for Father Christmas—and doing a hell of a job, too; she made it until four in the morning. I think she outlasted Mum and Dad.