Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(38)

“All right,” Simon says, “but we need to pull over for a second.” He turns to me. “Baz…”

“Pull over,” I order.

“There’s a rest stop in five minutes,” the Normal says. “Sanctuary.”





SIMON


It’s too loud to talk in the back of the truck.

I huddle close to Baz, half in his lap, while the shock of still being alive passes. He holds me there, a little too tightly. Usually I forget Baz is so much stronger than me. He doesn’t carry himself like he’s that strong. He doesn’t touch me that way. He never pulls or pushes me, not like that. Not any harder than I can push back.

I push in a little closer.

His voice is thick, strained. “You should be wearing your cross.”

“We’ve been through this—I’d rather risk a bite.”

His arms tighten. It’s a bit hard for me to breathe.

“I would never,” he says.

“I know.”

After a few minutes, we pull over at some roadside services. Baz gets out to hunt, and I get out to piss. Penny charms a vending machine—it takes her a few tries—and I grab armfuls of crisps and cheese biscuits.

She leans, headfirst, against the glass. “I’m running on empty. I couldn’t cast a truism right now.”

I nod. “Baz’s the same. He dumped all his magic on cloaking us. Can we trust Shepard?”

Penny pushes away from the vending machine, shaking her head. “My magic says yes, but my gut says no. Simon, he knows too much—how does he know so much? We should leave him here and steal his truck.”

That feels harsh. “He did save us. And we don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Fine,” she says. “But we lose him at the next stop. Steal someone else’s car, spell him stupid.”

I lick my lips and nod.



* * *



Baz is steadier when he climbs back into the truck. But he still looks a shambles. His hair is as wild as I’ve seen it, and his fancy blouse is shredded and stained with blood. He looks like some sort of disgraced angel. (I suppose that’d be a demon.) He drops down next to me, and I rap my knuckles on the back window. We roll out. The engine was already running.

I hand Baz some crisps. “All right?”

“I’ve had better holidays, Snow.”

I sneak my arm around him—the mood has changed, and I’m not sure this is still okay. “Have you?” I say.

Baz casts his eyes down and smiles—girlishly, I would have said, but on him it’s not girlish. It’s, I don’t know, vulnerable. He leans in, so I can hear him, his mouth at my ear. “Does Bunce have a plan?”

I nod. “Get to Colorado, lose the Normal, regroup.”

“We need to rest,” he says.

“We can rest first.”

“Maybe we should go home.”

I feel Baz’s back under my arm. I feel his shoulder in my palm. “Yeah,” I say. “Probably.”





PENELOPE


“How many hours to Denver?”

The Normal sneaks a look at me. He’s been very eyes-on-the-road, lips-sealed since the rest stop. “Three.”

“And we’re clear of the … Quiet Zone?”

“Yeah. There’s not that much of it. There aren’t many places left without people, even around here.”

“Who…” I think about what I want to ask him, and whether I want to encourage more conversation. “Who makes the rules?”

He looks over again and smiles. I wouldn’t say it’s a nice smile, but there’s nothing obviously evil about it. I think of a few more defensive spells I could cast on him, but I don’t have the magic in me. Simon used to ask me how that felt—to be empty. When Simon had magic, he never ran low.

It’s like losing your voice, I’d tell him. Like knowing you only have a few words left until it gives out completely. The only way to get it back is to rest. And to wait.

Some mages never cast big spells unless they absolutely need them. That’s what the Mage taught us: Save your magic for defence.

But my mother taught me to cast big spells every day. To be bold with my magic. “Build up your lungs,” she’d say. “Dig a deeper well for your reserves. Train your body to hold more magic and carry it.”

Today would have exhausted even a powerful mage. I threw everything I had at those vampires, then everything I didn’t have on our Stonehenge getaway. (I did ask the Normal about the standing-stone cars. He said it was folk art. A roadside attraction.) Anyway, the most I could do to him at the moment is irritate him.

“Tell you what,” he says with his not-evil, but also not-working-on-me smile. “I’ll trade you—question for a question.”

“Tell you what,” I say. “You answer my questions, and I won’t turn you into a newt.”

“That’ll work, too.” He shifts in his seat, making himself more comfortable. Now that we’re not in immediate, apparent danger, I realize I haven’t taken a good look at him. He’s tall. At least as tall as Baz. And lanky. The black guys at Watford all shaved their hair close, but his is longer, taller, with tight, dense curls on top.