Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(134)

76

AGATHA

The second kid slides out, just the way it’s supposed to. I catch it—I can already feel it squirming inside its bag. “It’s alive!” I shout. “Niamh! Look!”

“You’re doing so well,” she says, handing me another clean towel.

The kid kicks its way out of the membrane, while I scrub at it. The doe cranes her head back, too exhausted to reach it. I bring the baby over to her face, and she licks away the gunk. “There you are, mother,” I say. “Good work, darling.”

I’m crying.

I’m laughing.

Niamh lays her hand on my back. “You saved them both, Agatha.”

“I didn’t—” I turn to Niamh. For once, she doesn’t look angry. Niamh is looking at me the way lots of people do sometimes, but she never has. Like I’m … well, like I’m …

“You’re amazing,” she says.

I’ve turned right into her arm. Her hand stays on my back. Niamh’s eyes are royal blue. Her eyelashes are short and dark. Her colour is high. Here, in the clearing, under the solid gold sun.

“Agatha,” she says.

My hands are covered in goo and jelly. I lift up my chin, so it’s there, if she wants it …

She does. She kisses me.

Niamh.

Her long nose in my cheek. Her chin as sharp as it looks. Her lips the softest part of her, surely.

Niamh.

I would like …

Niamh.

More of this …

Niamh.

Please.

Niamh kisses me.

“Agatha,” she says, “you saved Watford.”





77

BAZ

Smith-Richards has been arrested. He’ll be kept in a tower until his trial.

There’s an emergency Coven meeting; three members were already here for Smith-Richards’s rally. (Which I find alarming.) Headmistress Bunce makes everyone in the Chapel stay to give a statement. Even Penelope and me.

“I’m not telling you anything until you tell me where Snow is,” I say when it’s my turn.

“Easy, Baz. He’s in my office.”

“Is he under arrest?”

“Not yet.” The headmistress narrows her eyes. “Should he be?”

“No. He should be given a medal. And a pension.”

“We’ll take that under advisement.”

When the Coven is done with me, I go looking for my stepmother …

I find her on a bench in the courtyard, looking like she’s run out of tears. I sit down next to her. “Are you all right?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Daphne says, her eyes cast down.

I look more closely. She’s wearing a lovely floral garden-party dress.

High-heeled jute sandals. Her cheeks are red and chafed.

“Did you…” I’m not sure how to say it. “Were we too late?”

She looks up at me. “Oh. No. Simon stopped him. No one took Smith’s spell today. But … I would have.” She starts crying again. “Oh, Basilton, I’ve been such a fool.”

I put my arm around her and fish a handkerchief out of my pocket. “There, there.”

“I believed in him.”

“I know.”

“And now … oh, and now…” She sniffs. “Basil, will you just take me home?”

Thank fucking Crowley. “Of course. As soon as I’ve spoken to Simon.”

Daphne nods, wiping her eyes.

A shadow falls over us. We both look up. It’s Penelope’s father, holding a stack of three empty glasses. “Hello, Daphne. Gin and tonic?”

She smiles up at him and nods her head, laughing tearfully. “Thank you, Martin.”

Professor Bunce takes a glass and taps it with his wand. “Dutch

courage!” He casts it again on a glass for himself. (In my good opinion, anyone who can cast that spell twice in a row doesn’t need a power upgrade.) He holds the last empty glass out to me. “Basil?”

“No, thank you, sir. I’m driving.”

“Could I trade places with you for a moment?”

“Yes, of course.” I stand, and Professor Bunce takes my place on the bench.

“Shepard has lemonade,” he says.

I nod and catch Daphne’s eye. “I won’t go far.”

Shepard does have lemonade. And Penelope has tea and biscuits. They’re moving through what’s left of the crowd, offering refreshments. (Shepard may be the first true Normal on Watford grounds—it’s a spectacular transgression.) (How many history books is Penelope going to end up in?

And for how many reasons?)

I take the biscuits from Bunce and do my part to help. Now that the danger has passed, people seem glad for the chance to gossip. And now that Smith-Richards has been disgraced, people are quick to say they only came today out of curiosity, and didn’t they get a show for their trouble. They’re already talking about the other prospective Chosen Ones …

My own Chosen One has been in the headmistress’s office for ages. We run out of tea and biscuits, and go to wait for him outside of the Weeping Tower.

I’m pacing the tiled pathway. Penelope is sitting cross-legged on a bench —never mind her short skirt—anxiously plucking leaves off a rosebush.