Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(61)

“Yeah,” I say, nodding, “all right. I can do that. Lean into it. I mean, it sounds kind of humiliating…”

“You’re used to humiliating,” he says.

“Am I.”



“I want to go hunting first.” Baz is already moving on. “You can come,” he adds.

“I always get to come along now, remember?”

He tips his head back and cocks a thick eyebrow. “I don’t think I said always. ”

“Yeah,” I say, “always. Every time. Every night for the rest of my life.”

“Not for the rest of my life?”

“Pfft.” I move closer to him, holding on to his sides. “You’re going to be young and pretty forever.”

Baz pulls me even closer, by the small of my back. “Don’t say that,” he says, soft. “You don’t know that.”

“I don’t mind.”

He shakes his head, like he doesn’t want to think about it. “Snow …

we’ve got a few minutes”—he pulls on me again—“before we have to leave.”

“All right, I’m ready.”

“No, I mean…” Baz moves his head from side to side like he’s trying to find words for something. It’s a rare look on him. “No matter what happens right now,” he says, his eyes on my chin, “we have to stop in a few minutes.

So you don’t have to—you don’t have to worry about it going too far. Or being too much.”

Oh.

Baz glances up at my eyes. His pupils are wide and shiny. I’ve got us both shadowed by my wings. I nod, sucking nervously on my bottom lip.

“Lean into it,” he whispers.

My shirt is untucked. He slides one cool hand under it, just above my tail.

I lean forward to kiss him.

“Just for a few minutes,” he says, before I reach his mouth. “I’ll tell you when.”

The Smith Smith-Richards meeting is in the back room of a trendy pub, the kind of place that hosts acoustic concerts and stand-up comedy. There’s an older man with a clipboard outside, managing the door.

Baz and I watch from the patio of a Costa across the street. We’ve been watching for fifteen minutes. I bought us both muffins.

“All you’ve eaten today is cake,” Baz says.

“I had toast for breakfast. Toast isn’t cake.”

Smith-Richards’s meeting was supposed to start five minutes ago. The man at the door gives one last look up and down the street, then goes inside.

“Now?” Baz asks.

“Not yet,” I say.

A couple is walking quickly towards the door, like they’re late.

I yank on Baz’s arm. “Now. ”

We jog across the street and slip in behind them. I remember to wave Baz through the door.

It’s crowded inside. The room probably holds a hundred people. Baz and I take two of the last empty chairs, in the back. There’s a handsome man already standing onstage, wearing jeans and a worn blue jumper. He looks like he’s in a band. Maybe there is a band playing tonight …

“Hey,” the man says into a microphone. “So, this is cool.” He spreads his arms wide. “Look at us…”

The crowd around us claps. These must all be magicians, right? I see a boy who was a few years ahead of us at Watford. I wonder if there’s anyone else I know.

“Yeah, no more meeting in living rooms for us,” the man onstage says, smiling. “No more manky pubs.”

A few people laugh.

“Only the finest pubs for us!” he cheers.

They applaud for him again.

“And now we have our new residential centre … That’s because of you, all of you. You’re making things happen!”

Baz is sitting tall, scanning the crowd. He’s got his toffee-coloured jacket back on, and he did something before we left my flat to make his hair look perfect. It hangs around his face in shiny black waves. Baz didn’t get even a little mussed up tonight when we went hunting. (Apparently he works more cleanly when I’m not talking about my previous sexual partners.) (Partner.) I wonder which of these people is the Chosen One … Maybe they’ve got him stashed in the wings, waiting for his big entrance.

Baz elbows me. I turn, and he points discreetly towards the front of the room. Daphne is sitting there, gazing up at the guy in the jumper. Shit, maybe that’s who she left Baz’s dad for. She’s got stars in her eyes.

I mean … he is fit. Tall and broad-shouldered. Curly, golden-blond hair.

Lead-singer face.

“Thanks for giving me a chance to recuperate,” he says. “Our last meeting was pretty intense. More intense for you than anyone, eh, Beth?” He’s smiling at someone in the audience. I can’t see their reaction. “Why don’t you come up here, and share with us?” He holds out his hand.

A woman is standing up and making her way to the stage. She takes the man’s hand and stands beside him for a moment, smiling at him. She’s pretty.

Chubby. In her late 20s. The man seems older, 30 maybe. I’m not a good judge.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks her gently.

She laughs, wiping her eyes. “Good,” she says.