Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow #3)(26)

“There is so much to unpack in that sentence.”

He laughs, but he looks miserable again.

I tug at his jumper. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Snow. You’re not allowed to feel sorry for yourself as long as you get to have me.”

I mean it. I’m thinking about kissing him, to drive the point home, but I’m gun-shy and unsure of my permissions. Maybe we have to build back up to kissing. Maybe Snow needs a high-speed chase to get him in the mood.

I’m thinking about it. About what I’m allowed. And what I deserve. And what I can stand—

And then he kisses me.

I kiss him back.

And back.

And back.





17

SIMON

I was worried that Baz wouldn’t want to kiss me—but it turns out, that wasn’t an issue.

He held my face with both hands, and I held his, and we kissed until my chin hurt from pushing into him. Baz can probably kiss for days without getting sore. With his superhuman vampire chin. His lips don’t even get puffed up.

We’ve stopped kissing now, but we’re still holding on to each other. I think we’re both afraid to pull away.

Baz smells terrible. Like day-old sweat, but also like day-old raw meat.

I’m trying to remember if he’s ever smelled bad before. I don’t mind it, really. More proof that he isn’t dead.

He’s rubbing the corner of my mouth. “You’re bleeding,” he says, looking worried. “Did I cut you?”

I shake my head. “I think that’s from you. You’ve got a little…” I rub at the blood lingering near his chin.

“Oh, fuck!” he says, turning away from me and covering his mouth.

“That’s rat blood. I got rat blood in your mouth.”

I try to pull him back by the shoulders. “Hey, I don’t mind.”

“You don’t mind rat blood?”

I shrug. “I’ll brush my teeth.”

“Fat lot of good that’ll do against the plague.” He’s still pulling away.

“Don’t go,” I say. “Not yet.”

Baz’s shoulders soften in my hands. He lets me turn him back. He lets me touch his chin, his cheeks. His hand is still over his mouth—I kiss it. I’m so relieved to still be here, I can feel it rolling off me in waves. I’m surprised it’s not visible.

“I need a shower,” Baz says. “I haven’t cleaned up since Oxford.”

“I’m kind of enjoying it.” I grin. “I didn’t know you could get rank.”

He rolls his eyes, and shoves at me. “You need a shower, too. You smell like—actually I don’t know what you smell like. Something corrosive.”

“It’s my wings,” I say.

His face falls. And so does his hand. I lick my thumb and scrape the rest of the rat blood from his mouth.

“Does it hurt?” he asks. He’s looking at my shoulder.

I shake my head. “Oh, uh— no. I mean, I didn’t have it done yet. I chickened out.”

It wasn’t quite like that. I didn’t chicken out. It was more like I got overwhelmed. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Baz had said and how I needed to talk to him. Immediately. It felt like some window was closing. It was probably already closed, and I’d need to break it open. And what if I needed my wings somehow? To get to him?

I told Niamh I was sorry, said good-bye to Agatha, and left.

Baz sits up tall and reaches around my shoulder to where my wings are flattened against my back. He hasn’t touched me there since I walked in. “I thought these were bandages,” he says, patting them.

“No. Just my wings. They, like, pulled in super tight when the doctor was trying to clean them. Some sort of panic response, I think.”

“Could you do this on purpose?” He’s probing my back with his fingers, one eyebrow cocked. “If you could, you wouldn’t even need a spell to hide them—they’re hardly noticeable like this.”

“Pfft, I look like that Disney character with the droopy eye.”

He stares at me for a second. “Quasimodo? ”

“Yeah, him.”

He rolls his eyes again. “All right, maybe, but you don’t look like a dragon.”

“They’re so bunched up, I’m afraid to move them. It hurts a bit.” I pull my hoodie and T-shirt up over my head and turn, so Baz can see my bare back.

“Circe…” he says.

He touches me there, and I wince.

“They’re folded up like origami, Snow. How is that possible?”

“How is any of it possible? Dragons are magic, I reckon.”

Baz runs his hand up one wing to the bony black talon that’s curled against my shoulder. “Is this where it hurts?”

“No, it’s more like a muscle cramp, in the wings themselves.”

“Maybe from clenching them so tight?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“You’re sticky,” he says. “There’s this orange film…”

“That’s the Betadine. The disinfectant.”

“So you did go in for the surgery?”

I glance at him over my shoulder. “Yeah. I went. And then … Well. I needed to come here. I’m still going to do it, have them off, but I—I needed to talk to you.”