Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(29)

The girl’s on my back faster than I thought possible. I was wrong to turn away from her. I beat my wings, but she hangs on.

“Simon!” Baz yells, and I want to tell him not to get distracted.

I crash my skull back, trying to keep her fangs off me. My wings are still flapping, and I’ve lifted a few feet off the ground, but it’s not enough to take off.

Baz staggers back from his opponent, then stands tall, making two fists at his hips. His eyes go hooded and dark. That’s a very attractive way to die, I think. But then Baz opens his palms, and he’s holding two balls of fire.

He shoves one in the boy vampire’s face, then hurls the other at the beast on my back—she bursts into flames.

And so do I.

I fall to the ground, rolling—as the crowd around us erupts into applause.

Baz reaches for my hand to help me up. I take it, snagging his wand from the ground. I hand it to him. “Penny,” I say.

We both turn to the other end of the square, where Penny has just vaporized the last vampire. He’s there, and then he isn’t. Once he’s gone, she sees us. She gives me a hesitant thumbs-up, then steps around the vampire’s meagre remains.

We all start walking then, almost like we agreed to do it. Slowly. Towards the exit.

The Normals are still applauding. Baz turns and waves at the crowd. He elbows me, so I wave, too.

Penny catches up with us and grabs our arms. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“If we run,” Baz says through his smile, “they’ll follow us.” He bows and waves with both hands.

Penny and I try to imitate him.

“Thank you!” Baz shouts. “We’ll be back with shows at six and nine!”

We back slowly through the edge of the audience. People are taking our photo and grabbing at my wings.

“Keep going,” Baz says.

Queen Elizabeth and her court watch us go by, clapping genteelly.

Baz takes a deep bow.

Then we all start walking faster, as fast as we can without breaking into a run, trying to stay ahead of the dispersing crowd. As soon as we get through the exit, we do run. Down the steps. Past the queue. Past the fairies and the peasants and the vaping warlords. I can’t stop laughing. I haven’t felt this good in a year.





BAZ


We run through the gravel towards the Mustang, and Penny actually leaps into the back seat.

Simon catches up with me and traps me against the car. He’s kissing me before I see it coming, bending me back over the boot. “You were amazing,” he says, taking a breath. “You didn’t even need a wand.”

I hold on to his shoulders. “I’m a little disturbed that you find slaying vampires this exciting.”

He kisses me so hard, my head tips.

“Guys!” Bunce shrieks. “We are literally fleeing a crime. And also still in Middle America.”

She’s right. I give him a push.

“So hot,” Simon says. “Got to see you fight without picking a fight with you myself.”

Bunce throws a plastic bottle over my shoulder, and it smacks Simon in the wing. “I swear to Stevie I’ll leave without you both!”

I look past him. There are a dozen or so people headed our way.

“I promise to be just as hot later,” I say. “I’ll start fires all the way across the Midwest.”

Simon breaks away from me, still with that strange light in his eyes, and jumps into the passenger seat.

I’m not going to be the only one who fusses with a door—I hop into the driver’s seat and start the car, and we roar out of the car park, kicking up a thundercloud of dust and rock.





23





PENELOPE


My mother is going to kill me. She’s going to throw me in a witch’s hole herself; she won’t even call the Coven. We have broken every rule today. The World of Mages doesn’t have many, but we’ve shattered them all:

Don’t pester the Normals.

Don’t interfere with the Normals.

Don’t steal from the Normals.

Above all, don’t let the Normals know that magic exists.

Above even that, don’t let the Normals know that we exist.

Magicians have to live amongst Normals because their language is the key to our magic. But if they knew about us … If Normal people knew that magic existed, and that someone else had it …

We’d never be free.

My mother is going to take away my ring. She’s going to lock me in a tower.

In the old days, magicians would magickally alter their faces if they’d been witnessed doing magic in public. You can only erase memories one at a time (and the ethics are dodgy)—you can’t mindwipe a whole crowd.

Your only options after a big, unfixable scene are, one, to disappear or, two, commit to the sin wholeheartedly: Put on a cape and top hat and go on the road. Once you tell Normals that it’s all a trick, you can do anything in front of them. You can make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Baz was clever. To pretend it was all part of some show.

I’m not that sort of clever. I can’t pretend.

I killed those vampires in front of hundreds of Normals. Mum won’t care about the vampires; you can get a medal for slaying vampires. But I used so much magic, right out in the open.