Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(57)

“What were we supposed to do with them?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. Shouldn’t we have taken them down to the barn?”

“I already told you, you can’t pen up the goats of Watford. The best you can do is invite them in.”

“Invite them? Are they vampire goats?”

Niamh was about to start the car, but now she’s turned in her seat to frown at me. “You’re just like everyone else, aren’t you.”

“Oh, lay off.” I roll down the window. “I tried to help.”

“I suppose that’s true,” she mutters, starting the car. “You were extremely helpful for someone who doesn’t care at all about anything outside of herself.”

My head whips back to her. “Hey. You don’t even know me.”

Niamh scoffs, backing the car out onto the road. “Everyone knows you, Agatha. You’re Simon Snow’s girlfriend. You’re the Chosen One’s chosen one. You so much as break a nail, and he burns down the Wavering Wood.”

“I feel like you’re once again referring to a time when I was kidnapped…”

She looks over at me, actually angry now. “Maybe it doesn’t matter to you whether Watford falls—but it’s the heart of who we are, as magicians. It’s our only institution, the only thing we’ve ever managed to get done and make work.”

“Niamh. I went to Watford, too. I’m not anti-Watford.” I’m leaning over the gear shift to make my point.

She’s trying to watch the road and argue with me at the same time. “Then I’d think you’d be concerned about the goats!”

I shrug my shoulders with my palms in the air. “I mean, I’m more concerned than I was yesterday. I’ve bonded with a few of them now.”

“The goats of Watford are wandering away,” she says, hunching over the steering wheel, “and no one cares! Not you, not even the headmistress—she has too many other problems. The whole World of Mages has too many other problems! Or too many other distractions. Most of them care more about who’s going to replace your boyfriend than—”

I cut her off. “If you call him my boyfriend one more time, I’ll scream.”

“Why? Are you engaged now? Are you Simon Snow’s fiancée?”

“No! We broke up ages ago! Everyone knows this!”

“What?” Niamh sits back in her seat, chastened. “I didn’t know that.”

“You must live under a rock.” I fold my arms and look out my window.

“It’s all anyone talked about for months.”

“I don’t really pay attention to gossip…” she says.

“Well, we broke up our last year at Watford, and now he’s with Baz Pitch.

It was like boy– Romeo and Juliet. ”

“Romeo was already a boy.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Simon Snow dumped you for a Pitch?” Niamh sounds thoughtful. “Which one, again?”

“He didn’t dump me, actually, but—you know, Baz. He was at school with us.”

“What did he look like?”

I turn back to her. Is she kidding? “Basilton Grimm-Pitch? The headmistress’s son?”

“Oh, right…” She still looks uncertain. “Pale? Crooked nose?”

“I mean, yes. But I’ve never heard him described that way.”

Niamh shrugs. “Like I said, I didn’t really follow your whole soap opera.”

“You are so exceedingly unpleasant,” I say. “I almost forgot that for a few hours. You’re so much easier to be around when you’re yelling at goats.”

“Yeah, well, we have that in common.” We’re at a stop sign, and Niamh is redoing her bun again, making it even tighter. I’m this close to telling her how bad it looks that way. But she doesn’t deserve constructive advice. I huff instead.

She ignores me.

I try to ignore her back, but it only lasts a minute. “I don’t want Watford to fall, by the way. I’ve helped save Watford multiple times. Tangentially.”

“Well,” she says, “all your efforts will be in vain if the goats leave.”

“Oh good, back to the goats again.”

“I know that you believe the Goats of Watford are just a myth. But a myth is just another word for a story, and what do we have if we don’t have stories!”

“Niamh! I’ve never even heard of the Goats of Watford— should I have?”

She rolls her eyes. “I mean, I think so. I think the heritage and care of magickal animals matter, that these are things we should study and share and —”

“Wait, they’re magickal goats?”

Niamh puffs out a frustrated breath. “Why doesn’t anyone know this? The goats are part of Watford history! They’re in the coat of arms!”

“I thought those were pegasus … ses.”

“No, they’re goats.”

“But they have wings,” I say.

“So do the goats.”

“What?”

“How do you think the goats are getting out over the wall, Agatha?”

“I thought they were jumping. They’re magickal, flying goats?”