I’m not in a hurry, so I stop to drain every rat I find on the way. This school is going to be infested when I leave.
My mother’s tomb is inside Le Tombeau des Enfants. It’s a stone doorway in a tunnel lined with skulls, marked by a bronze placard.
I would have been buried here with her, if I’d died that day. I mean, died properly.
I sit by the door—there’s no handle or lock, it’s a piece of stone wedged into the wall—and set down the flowers.
“Some of this will be familiar to you,” I say, getting out my speech. “But I’ve added a few flourishes of my own.”
A rat watches me from the corner. I decide to ignore it.
When I get to the end of the speech, my head falls back against the stone. “I know you can’t hear me,” I say after a minute or two. “I know you’re not here.…
“You came back, and I missed you. And then I did the thing you wanted me to do, so you probably won’t ever come back again.”
I close my eyes.
“But—I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to carry on. As I am.
“No matter how much I think about it, I don’t think there’s any scenario where you’d want me—where you’d allow me—to go on like this.
“But I think it’s what you would do in my circumstances. It seems like you never gave up. Ever.”
I exhale roughly and stand up.
Then I turn towards the door and bow my head. I speak softly, so that none of the other bones can hear:
“I know I usually come down here to tell you I’m sorry. But I think today I want to tell you that I’m going to be all right.
“Don’t let me be one of the things that keeps you from peace, Mother. I’m all right.”
I wait for a few moments, just … just in case. Then climb out of the Catacombs, brushing the dust from my trousers.
* * *
It’s an especially grim leavers ball. The few friends I have left at Watford are here with dates—or avoiding me. Dev and Niall haven’t quite forgiven me for befriending Simon. Dev said I wasted their entire childhood plotting against him.
“Oh, what else were you going to do with your childhood?” I asked.
Dev didn’t bother answering.
I end up standing next to the punchbowl, talking to Headmistress Bunce about Latin prefixes. It’s a fascinating subject, but I don’t feel like I needed to put on a black tie for it.
I think Professor Bunce is sad that Penelope’s not here. I consider consoling her with the fact that Penelope probably would’ve skipped the ball even if she’d stayed in school, but the headmistress is already wandering off to the other side of the courtyard to check her e-mail.
“I was hoping there’d be sandwiches,” someone mumbles.
I ignore him because I’m not at Watford to make friends or small talk, especially on my way out.
“Or at least cake.”
I turn around and see Simon Snow standing on the other side of the punch table. Wearing a suit and tie, with his hair properly parted and slicked to one side.
He shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on me like that, but he smells different these days—like something sweet and brown. No more green fire and brimstone.
“How’s the party?” he asks.
“Funereal,” I say. “How’d you get here?”
“Flew.”
My jaw drops, and he laughs.
“No,” he says. “Penny drove me. She let me off at the gates.”
“Where’re your wings?”
“Still there. Just invisible. Someone’s already tripped over my tail.”
“I’ve told you to tuck it in.”
“It makes my trousers fit funny.”
I laugh.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he says.
“When will I ever laugh, then?”
Snow rolls his eyes, then cuts them nervously to the side. Towards the White Chapel.
“You don’t have to be here,” I say.
“No,” he says quickly. “I do.” He clears his throat. “I don’t want you to leave without me.”
* * *
Simon Snow can’t dance.
The tail isn’t helping. I take the end in my left hand and wrap it around my wrist, holding it against his lower back.
“We don’t have to do this,” I’d said when we walked out to the stone patio where people were dancing. “No one has to know.”
“Know what?” Snow asked softly. “That I’m obsessed with you? That horse left the barn a long time ago.”
I press my left hand, still holding his tail, into his back and take his hand with my right. He lifts his left hand in the air, then drops it like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
“Put it on my shoulder,” I say. He does. I raise an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t Wellbelove ever teach you to dance?”
“She tried,” he says. “She said I was hopeless.”
“From the mouths of babes,” I say.
At least the song isn’t hopeless. It’s Nick Cave. “Into My Arms.” One of Fiona’s favourites. It’s so slow, we barely have to move.
Snow’s wearing an expensive suit. Black trousers, black waistcoat and tie, and a rich velvet jacket—deep blue with black lapels. It must be Dr. Wellbelove’s. It’s snug at the shoulders, but I can’t see where Snow’s wings are hidden. Someone has spelled him neat and tidy.