“No,” I growl. “You know what everything else.” I think of the last seven years of my life. Of every empty threat he’s made—and every full one. “You want me to work on this with you, but … you also want to push me down the stairs.”
“Fine. I promise not to push you down the stairs until we solve this.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I can’t help you if you’re setting me up all the time.”
He sneers. “Do you think this is a setup? That I brought my mother back from the dead to fuck with you?”
“No.”
“Truce,” he says.
“Truce?”
“I’m fairly certain you know what ‘truce’ means, Snow. No aggression until we’re through this.”
“No aggression?”
He rolls his eyes. “No acts of aggression.”
I grab my wand off the table that sits between our beds and walk over to him, raising it in my left hand and holding out my right. “Swear it,” I say. “With magic.”
He narrows his eyes at me. I see the tension in his chin.
“Fine,” he says, swatting my wand away. “But I’m not letting you anywhere near me with that.” He slips his own wand out of the pocket inside his jacket and holds it between us. Then he takes my hand in his—he’s cold—and I pull back, out of reflex. He tightens his grip.
“Truce,” Baz says, looking in my eyes.
“Truce,” I say, sounding much less certain.
“Until we know the truth,” he adds.
I nod.
Then he taps our joined hands. “An Englishman’s word is his bond!”
I feel Baz’s magic sink into my hand. Someone else’s magic never feels like your own—like someone else’s spit never tastes like your own. (Though I guess I can only speak for Agatha’s.) Baz’s magic burns. Like heat rub. It hangs in the muscles of my hand.
We’ve just taken an oath. I’ve never taken an oath before. Baz could still break it—he could still turn on me—but his hand would cramp up, and he’d lose his voice for a few weeks. Maybe that’s part of his plan.
We’re both staring at our joined hands. I can still feel his magic.
“We can talk about this after our lessons,” Baz says. “Back here.”
His grip loosens, and I yank my hand back. “Fine.”
* * *
I get to breakfast late, and Penelope hasn’t set any kippers or toast aside for me.
She says she doesn’t feel like talking, and I don’t feel like talking either, even though I have so much I need to tell her.
Agatha still isn’t sitting with us. I don’t even see her this morning—I wonder if she’s off somewhere with Baz. I should have added that to the truce: And also you have to leave my girlfriend alone.
Ex-girlfriend, I guess. Anyway. “Have you heard any more from your mum?” I ask Penny.
“No,” she says. “Is Baz going to turn me in?”
“No. Is the Mage back?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
She eats half as much of her breakfast as usual, and I eat twice as much, just to keep my mouth busy. I leave early for my Greek lesson because I feel like I’ve let Penny down—I can’t take her side against the Mage. For what it’s worth, I could never take his side against her, either.
When I get to the classroom, Baz is already there. Ignoring me. He ignores me all morning. I see him in the hallway a few times, whispering with Dev and Niall.
When it’s time to meet back in our room, I tell Penny that I’m skipping tea to study, and run across the courtyard to get back to Mummers House.
I get as far as the stairs before I start wondering whether the meeting is a trap—which is just paranoid. Baz doesn’t have to lure me to our room; I’m there every night.
It’s not like the time he tried to feed me to the chimera. That time, he asked me to meet him in the Wavering Wood. He said he had information for me, about my parents, and that it was too dangerous to risk saying it on school grounds.
I knew he was lying.
I told myself I was going to the Wood just to see what he was up to and beat him into the ground. But part of me still thought that maybe he really did know something about my parents—I mean, someone must know who they are. And even if Baz was just going to use what he knew against me, it would still be something.
It was fucking beautiful when the chimera noticed Baz first, hiding in the trees, and went after him instead of me. I should have let the monster have a go at him. It would have served Baz right.…
Then there was the time when we were sixth years, and he left me a note in Agatha’s handwriting, telling me to wait for her under the yew tree after dark. It was freezing, and of course she didn’t show up, and I was stuck outside all night until the drawbridge was lowered the next morning. My heat spell wouldn’t work, and the snow devils kept throwing chestnuts at my head. I thought about smashing them, but they’re a protected magickal species. (Global warming.) I kept expecting something worse to show up. Why would Baz torture me with snow devils? They’re just half-sentient snowballs with eyebrows and hands. They’re not even dark. But nothing else came, which meant Baz’s evil plan fell apart—or that his evil plan was to freeze me only half to death on the night before a big exam.
Then last year, he told me Miss Possibelf wanted to see me, and when I got to her office, he’d trapped a polecat in there. Miss Possibelf was sure I must be responsible—even though she really likes me.