Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(76)

He looks down at his lap, embarrassed again.

“Hey…” I say, thinking. “That vampire couldn’t kill you. Back in the desert. In Nevada.”

“I suspect he could have killed me,” Shepard says, “but he couldn’t Turn me—that’s where the curse interfered.”

“Because if you were immortal,” I say, “your soul wouldn’t show up for the wedding.”

He sighs. “That’s my assumption.”

I bring my legs up onto the couch to cross them, then push my skirt down in the middle. (Baz is always on me to be more ladylike in skirts.) “Has that come into play before?”

“Once,” Shepard says. “I tried to go home with a fairy, but I couldn’t get through the mist.”

“Why were you going home with a fairy?”

He looks back at his knees, clearing his throat.

“With a fairy?” I say. If I sound scandalized, it’s because I am.

He peeks up at me, smiling. “Why not with a fairy?”

“I can’t even believe you found a proper fairy—but, Shepard, they’re evil!”

He smiles at his lap. “She didn’t seem evil.”

“Morgana below, is this part of your whole … thing?”

He lifts his chin up and looks at me like I’m the one being strange. “Is what part of my whole thing? Going home with girls?”

“Going home with creatures. Are you some sort of collector?”

“No!” He’s laughing at me. “No. Not, like, intentionally.”

I fall back against the arm of the sofa, covering my eyes. “I can’t.”

I can still hear him laughing.

“You’re lucky the curse saved you from disappearing into the fairy realm,” I say.

“Didn’t feel lucky at the time.”

I shake my head hard, really not wanting to imagine what else Shepard has followed home over the years. Then I haul myself back up, smoothing my skirt, and trying to sort out the relevant implications … “So you’re not allowed to be with anyone else? Romantically? We should write that down.”

“Oh no,” he says. “That’s not the problem. The curse doesn’t keep me from hooking up. I don’t think the demon cares what I do before I die.”

I can feel my cheeks burning. “Then why couldn’t you pass through the fairy fog?”

“I think it’s because time passes differently with the fairies…”

“Oh, sure,” I say, getting it, “it’s another sort of immortality!”

“Or altered mortality,” he agrees.

“Huh.” I stand up and find my chalk. I make a note of it on the wall: C.V.

can’t be made immortal. And— “Engagement” doesn’t interfere with sexual congress.

“Not how I’d put it,” Shepard says.

I tap the chalk against my chin.

“What happens in the stories?” he asks.

I turn back to him. “Hmm?”

He looks sheepish again. “To the beautiful maidens?”

“Oh, they get out of it, of course. They find a loophole. Or they trick the old creepy guy. My dad used to love to tell this story about a beautiful magician who secretly married her true love and … Oh! Oh my words!!

Shepard!!! I have an idea. ”





43

BAZ

I thought we were going to have to do some detective work to find Smith-Richards’s residential centre, but apparently someone gave Simon a leaflet at the meeting. (No one offered me a leaflet.) (No one ever wants me to join their religion, either.)

Penelope still hasn’t called. Or texted. Simon’s in a funk about it, but hopefully he’ll rally. I sprung for a taxi, so he wouldn’t pout about having to take the train or a bus.

“Pull over here,” I say to the cabbie.

Simon squints out the window. “Here?”

“Apparently,” I say, paying the fare.

We climb out and look across the street. There’s a brick building with a tower and a belfry; it might have been a church once. A small, grey-haired man is hurrying away from the door.

“Is that Professor Bunce?” Simon says.

“Penny’s mum?”

“The other Professor Bunce, her dad.”

“Don’t know.” I pull Simon’s arm. “Come on. And don’t forget to invite me in if no one else does.”

We jog across the street. Simon looks like he’s going to call out to Professor Bunce, but the man is already half a block away.

The building ahead of us has a large, stone doorframe with the words HOME FOR WAIFS engraved in the lintel. “A little on the nose,” I mutter.

“Is it an orphanage?” Simon asks.

“Was, maybe.” I push the buzzer.

Simon smooths down his hair.

“Don’t forget to invite me in,” I whisper.

“When do I ever forget?”

“When we tried to have breakfast at Dishoom.”

“That was one time.”

“I miss America,” I say. “All those ‘welcome’ mats and ‘come in, we’re open’ signs…”

Simon snorts. “You do not miss America—”