Probably Snow himself would put me out of my misery if I tried either one.
Those were my fifth-year fantasies: kisses and blood and Snow ridding the world of me.
I watched the football practice this afternoon, just for an excuse to sit down, then slipped away from the team when everyone else headed for dinner.
Wellbelove catches me in the courtyard and tries to suck me into her maiden-fair drama, but I haven’t got time for the pain. I heard Miss Possibelf say that the Mage is coming back to Watford tomorrow—and I still haven’t snuck up to his office. (Probably because it’s an idiotic idea.) But if I go up there and take something, it will at least get Fiona off my back for a while.
I haul myself to the Weeping Tower, and skip the spiral staircase to take the staff elevator up to the very top.
I walk past the door to the headmaster’s rooms. When my mother was headmistress, I lived with her here. I was just a toddler. Father would come in most weekends, and we’d all go back to the house in Hampshire every summer.
My mother used to let me play in her office while she worked. She’d come get me from the nursery, and I’d spread my Lego bricks out on her rug.
When I get to the headmaster’s office, the door opens easily for me—the Mage never took down the wards my mother cast to let me in. I can get in his rooms, too. (I snuck in once and found myself puking in his toilet.) Fiona would have me inspecting his chambers every night, but I’ve told her we have to save that trick until we really need it. Until we can use it. And not just to leave steaming bags of shit in his bed.
“Furthermore, Fiona, I’m not shitting in a bag.”
“I’ll do the shitting, you knob; it can be my shit.”
My stomach clenches when I walk into the office. When I see my mother’s desk. It’s dark in here—the curtains are drawn—so I light a fire in my palm and hold it out in front of me.
It terrifies my stepmother when I do this. “Basilton, don’t. You’re flammable.”
But bringing fire is as easy for me as breathing; it hardly takes any magic, and I always feel utterly in control. I can make it twist through my fingers like a snake. “Just like Natasha,” my father always says. “He’s got more fire than a demon.”
(Though Father did draw a hard line when he caught me smoking cigarettes in the carriage house. “For Crowley’s sake, Baz, you are flammable.”)
The headmaster’s office looks exactly the same as it did when I played here. You’d think the Mage would have thrown all my mother’s things out and hung up Che Guevara posters—but he didn’t.
There’s dust on his chair. On my mother’s chair. And thick dust on the computer keyboard—I don’t think he even uses it. He’s not the sitting, typing type, the Mage. He’s always stalking around or swinging a sword, or doing something to justify his Robin Hood costume.
I open his top drawer with my wand. Nothing here … Dried-up office supplies. A phone charger.
My mother kept tea in this drawer, and mint Aero bars and clove drops. I lean in to see if I can smell them—I can smell things other people can’t. (I can smell things no people can.) (Because I’m not a person.)
The drawer smells like wood and leather. The room smells like leather and steel and the forest, like the Mage himself. I open the other drawers with my hand. There aren’t any booby traps. There’s nothing personal at all. I’m not even sure what to take for Fiona. A book, maybe.
I hold my flame up to the bookshelves and think about blowing, just setting the whole room on fire. But then I notice that the books are all out of order. Obviously out of order. Stacked, instead of set on their shelves—some of them lying in piles on the floor. I feel like putting them back, sorting them by subject the way my mother used to. (I was always allowed to touch her books. I was allowed to read any book, as long as I put it back in its place and promised to ask if something confused or frightened me.)
Maybe I should take advantage of the fact that the books are out of order: No one will notice if one goes missing—or several. I reach for one with a dragon embossed on the spine; the dragon’s mouth is open, and fire spews out forming the title: Flames and Blazes—The Art of Burning.
A shaft of light widens on the shelf before me, and I jerk around, sending the book sailing, pages flapping. Something flies out as the book hits the floor.
Snow is standing in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” he demands. His blade is already out.
I’ve seen that sword in action enough, you’d think I’d be terrified—but instead it’s reassuring. I’ve dealt with this, with Snow, before.
I must truly be exhausted, because I tell him the truth: “Looking for one of my mother’s books.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” he says, both hands on his sword.
I hold my light higher and step away from the shelves. “I’m not hurting anything. I just want a book.”
“Why?” He looks down at the book lying between us and rushes forward, abandoning his stance to beat me to it. I lean back against the shelves and swing one ankle over the other. Snow’s crouching over the book. He probably thinks it’s a clue, the thing that will blow my conspiracy wide open.
He stands again, staring at a small piece of paper in his hand. He looks upset. “Here,” he says softly, holding it out to me. “I’m … sorry.”
I take the paper, a photograph, and he watches me. I’m tempted to shove it in my pocket and look at it later, but curiosity gets the best of me, and I hold it up.…