Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(123)

“Fuck.” I run after Penny—out the door, into the passageway. It’s a properly creepy basement. One step up from the Catacombs. We run past a bunch of empty rooms and round the corner. Penny gets to the last doorway and stops—I run into her back.

There’s an old man standing inside the room with a wand to Baz’s head.

“Drop your wands.”





69

BAZ

“Drop your wands,” the man says.

And instead Penelope Bunce raises her fist. “K.O.!”

The man slumps to the ground.

“Evander!” Salisbury shouts.

“For fuck’s sake, Bunce, you could have killed me.” I pick up my wand and rub my temple. I wonder if I have enough blood in me to bruise.

“But I didn’t,” she says. “Who’s Evander?”

Salisbury’s kneeling over the fallen man—who I’m fairly certain is the same person who runs the door at Smith-Richards’s meetings. “It’s Smith’s godfather,” he says, distressed. “Did you kill him?”

“No.” Penny puts her hands on her hips. “Not intentionally.”

Evander Feverfew is an older white guy, around 60 maybe, with longish grey hair, a diamond earring, and an elaborately tooled leather wand holster on his belt. Shepard stoops to pick Feverfew’s wand up from the floor and hands it to Penelope. She tucks it in her waistband.

I let them fuss over him—I need to get to Philippa. The duffel bag is hauling me deeper into the room, where Smith’s godfather shoved her. She’s lying on her side on the floor, arms and legs tied. She’s still so small. She still reminds me of a mouse …

When she sees me, she tries to squirm away.

“Pippa…” I say. Should I untie her first, or—No. I just need to— I fall on my knees before her and unzip my bag. The tape recorder tries to sail out; I catch it. It pulls my arms straight and my body forward.

Philippa sees the tape recorder, and her eyes get wider. She’s crying now.

Kicking the floor to get away from me.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say. “I promise!”

She twists her face away from me.

“I have your voice, Pippa. I—” Circe, what am I waiting for? There’s nothing I can say or explain. I hold the tape recorder out and press play.

There’s a staticky sound, and then Philippa’s squeaky little voice rings out from the speaker. “Hiya, Simoooooooooooon!”

The last syllable disintegrates into a long squeak. Then there’s a sound like a record being played backwards. Like a little girl talking very quickly, in reverse.

Lying on the floor, Philippa gasps—and swallows and swallows. The noise gets higher and more chaotic, like a high-pitched waterfall.

Then the tape snaps to a stop. The squealing ends, and Philippa’s head falls to the floor. The tug has gone out of the tape recorder. I drop it.

“Pippa…” I say, scooting forward to free her hands. Simon is already working on her ankles.

As soon as she can, she sits up—and scuttles away from us. She’s rubbing her throat.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer. Her shoulders are shaking.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know, back at Watford. I thought it was temporary. I’m so sorry.”

“Here,” Shepard says. He’s getting a bottle out of his backpack. “Have some water.”

Philippa takes the water and swallows some.

“Philippa,” Simon says, crouching next to me, “are you okay?”

She looks up at him, her eyes still wide, but no longer fearful. “S-Simon,”

she rasps. “We have to stop—stop Smith. His spell … is a curse. ”





70

SIMON

“Pippa, that’s not true!”

“It—it is, Jamie! Smith lied to—to you.”

We’re in the kitchen again. I made them all come upstairs to sort things out. (I hate basements.) Penelope “Light as a feather”-ed the old guy to get him up here, and now she’s tying him to the radiator.

“You can’t do that,” Jamie says, genuinely distraught. “That’s Smith’s godfather…”

“We don’t have time—time for this,” Philippa says. Her voice is still scratchy, like her throat isn’t used to managing it, and she trips over every word. She hasn’t calmed down at all since we untied her. She keeps pulling on my sleeve. “We have—We have to st-stop Smith!”

“We will,” Baz says, standing on her other side. I think he’d give her anything she asked for right now. “Won’t we, Snow?”

I’m not sure.

I’d like to believe Philippa …

No, that’s not true. What I’d like is to know what’s really happening here.

Philippa would have us believe that Smith is a villain who tied her up and locked her in a basement. But I’ve tied things up and locked them away before, and I’ve always had a good reason …

I mean, we’re tying up Smith’s godfather right now. Is he a villain? Rather seems that way—he did have a wand to Baz’s head. But Jamie Salisbury doesn’t think so. He’s been arguing with Philippa since she opened her mouth. (I think Baz is going to smite him if he doesn’t stop.) Who’s good, who’s bad—it’s all about which side of the wand you’re standing on. And who you’re trying to protect.