Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(127)

She shakes her head. “I don’t get it. My dad’s at peace with his magic— he’s a perfectly capable mage.”

“Not compared to your mother.”

“Baz!” She looks up at me, outraged. “What a thing to say!”

“I’m not insulting your father, Bunce. I just think it’s easy for us to say he should be happy. That Daphne should be happy. We have all the power we’ve ever wanted. We don’t know what it’s like—”

“Shepard, here!” She points out the window. “Get off!”

“Where?”

“This exit! The one that says Watford—get off now!”

“I can’t, there’s a car!”

Bunce holds out her fist. “Sent to Coventry!”

Shepard veers onto the Watford exit ramp at the last possible moment.

We’re still flying over the road. “Tell me you didn’t just disappear that car,”

he says.

“I just moved it…”

“What’s wrong?” Snow has come up to crouch beside me.

“Nothing new,” I say, taking the opportunity to touch his arm.

He’s antsy. He took off his coat, and he keeps spreading his wings out, then drawing them back—like someone clenching his fists. I don’t say anything when they bump into me.

Bunce is navigating Shepard around the city of Watford and into the countryside. We’ve slowed down a bit … The wheels seem to be on the ground again. (Does Bunce really have a flying spell?) “We’re almost th-there,” Pippa says. She and Salisbury have crept up behind us.

“Is that it?” Shepard asks. “Up on the hill?”

“You won’t be able to see Watford from outside the gates,” Penny says automatically.

“What’s that thing up there? That kinda looks like a walled city?”

I look out the front window. At the fortress walls and the top of the Weeping Tower. Normals can’t see Watford. It should sting Shepard’s eyes even to look in that direction.

Simon is looking over my shoulder. “I can see it, too.”

“This is—This is Smith’s doing,” Pippa says.

I turn to Snow. “Or is it the goats?”

“What goats?” Penelope asks.

“The Goats of Watford?” Salisbury chimes in.

“Just park the van,” Simon says. “We have to get inside.” There are more than a hundred cars already parked along the lane. Smith-Richards has apparently drawn quite a crowd.

“Fuck that,” Penelope says, “take us through the gates!”

Shepard does just that. He drives right up through the Great Lawn.

“Over the drawbridge!” she commands.

“Your mother’s going to kill you,” I say.

The van goes tearing over the moat.

“Park here,” she says, once we’re in the courtyard. “Where’s this meeting?”

“The Weeping Tower,” Simon says. “The lecture room at the top. Jamie and I will stay here; we can’t help you.”

“Snow—” I squeeze his arm. I always want Simon’s help. Even without magic, he’s invaluable in a fight. But … now that my spells bounce off him, I wouldn’t be able to heal him if he got hurt.

“Go,” he says.

Bunce is already out the door. “Come on, Baz! You, too, Shepard!”

“I’ll stay with Simon,” Pippa whispers hoarsely. “Please—stop Smith!”

“I will,” I say.

I will.





73

AGATHA

We find the goats in the hills behind Watford, almost completely scattered and in bad temper. They refuse to be herded, even with spells. They run from me and charge at Niamh—one of the old billy goats knocks her off her feet.

Niamh sits up, but doesn’t get off the ground. “I don’t know if we should bother rounding them up or just look for the doe.”

“Let’s look for the doe,” I say, wiping my neck with a handkerchief and walking towards her. “I think they’re all upset about her.”

“Is that another of your ‘feelings’?”

I cross my arms. “Do you want me to share my instincts with you or not?”

“Share them,” she grumbles. “I don’t have any instincts at all.”

“Everyone has instincts, Niamh.”

“Not me. I have … a university education.”

“Oh, shut up.” I’m standing over her, looking down. Her cropped hair looks even better brown than it did platinum. “I’ve seen you play lacrosse.”

“You don’t remember me playing lacrosse…”

“I’ve told you, I remember now. Do you need help getting up?”

She pushes herself up and brushes grass off her thighs and behind. She’s very thick, is Niamh. In her cuffed jeans and her tighter-than-usual T-shirt.

I turn away from her—away from the school and the hills—and look out into the Wavering Wood. I start walking. I can hear Niamh following me.

“The goats don’t like the Wood,” she says. “I never find them there.”

“I just have a—”