Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(67)

I shudder at the implications.

We lay the food out on the bed. “Were you planning on feeding an army?” Shepard asks.

“I was planning on feeding Simon.”

But Simon took off into Vampire-opolis this morning as soon as he woke up and realized that Baz was already gone. I tried to stop him from leaving. I stood in the doorway and forbade it.

“I’ll be fine, Penelope. Move.”

“The vampire risk is untenable, Simon.”

“How is that different from the rest of my life?”

“You know damned well.”

“I need some fresh air.”

“You won’t find it in the casino downstairs.”

“Then I’ll find it somewhere else. Move.”

“Simon, I’m begging you, as the person who will cry the most at your funeral, please don’t.”

“Penny, if I don’t get out of this room, I’m going to go off.”

I should have said, “You can’t go off, Simon. You don’t have anything left that goes. And I don’t really care if you feel crazy—because crazy isn’t dead.”

Instead I spelled his wings away and stood aside.

I’m still worried about him. And Baz. And Agatha. I start to cry. I can’t help it.

Shepard is sitting at the other end of the bed. “What do you think?” His voice is gentle. “Denver omelette? Eggs Benedict? Corned beef hash?”

I point at the plate of eggs Benedict, and he hands it to me.

“I can leave,” he says. “If you’d like to have some space to yourself.”

“I am not letting anyone else walk out into that bloodbath!”

“Penelope. I didn’t know you cared.”

I roll my eyes, trying to keep myself from crying. “How does this place even exist? Where are the mages? If my mother were here, she’d burn this entire city down.”

“Maybe we should call her,” Shepard says.

“Ha!” I poke my fork into my poached egg and watch the yolk spill out. “She’d murder me first, then destroy Las Vegas.”

“Nah, I’m sure she wouldn’t.”

“You’ve never met her. She’s a force to be reckoned with, she’s a—what do you call them—tornado.”

Shepard laughs. He’s eating the corned beef hash I ordered for Simon. “Then I’d love her,” he says. “I used to be a storm chaser, you know.”

“What’s that, someone who chases older women?”

“No, someone who chases storms. Tornadoes, specifically.”

“How do you chase a tornado?” My mouth is full, but I don’t care. I have no one to impress here. I’m still going to try to erase Shepard’s memory when all this is over. “Do you use magic?”

“You use meteorology. And your own senses. When a storm rolls in, you get into a car with your friends and you see if you can find it.”

“To what end?”

“Because it’s cool! To be close to all that power, to see the storm in action. The air changes. The hair on your arms stands up. It’s like nothing else.”

“It sounds like something else.…” I’m remembering Simon. I shake it off. “It sounds dangerous.”

“Incredibly dangerous,” Shepard grins.

“You said you used to be a storm chaser. Did it get too risky?”

“Nah, I just got more excited about chasing magic. It’s a bigger rush.”

Ah. Of course. I make a hmmph sound in my nose, and it comes out just as judgmental as I intended.

“What was that?” Shepard asks.

“Nothing,” I say.

“That was you reaffirming your disapproval over my interest in magic.”

“You can’t just chase us,” I say. “We’re not storms. Or stories. We’re people.”

“I don’t chase people.”

I clear my throat and raise my eyebrows.

“I usually don’t chase people,” he says. “I just pursue … their acquaintance.”

“And their secrets.”

Shepard’s dumping ketchup on his potatoes. (They send up a tiny bottle of ketchup no matter what we order, and Shepard practically drinks it with a straw.) “People offer up their secrets,” he says. “You don’t have to chase them. There’s nothing people—and nixies and trolls and giants—would rather tell you than their secrets.”

“Well, I don’t feel like telling you anything.”

“You are exceptional.” He takes a bite. “This hash is also exceptional.”

“Why would a magickal creature volunteer secrets to a Normal? The risk is absurd.”

“They’re not telling ‘a Normal.’ They’re telling me—Shep! Their friend!”

“But you’re preying on them! You’re only their friend because you want to pin them in your weird scrapbook!”

He looks insulted. “I never take samples.”

“Blechch. Listen to you!”

He leans towards me, over his breakfast. “Yes, okay, I strategically seek out and befriend magickal beings. But my friendship is sincere!”

“Sincerely manipulative.”