Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(87)

I push my chest against his. The shelf behind him creaks.

How much kissing would there have been? If I’d figured it out sooner?

In the library, on the Great Lawn. In our room …

Christ. Baz in our room, his hair slicked back, his tie perfectly knotted— hating me. (But not really hating me. Not only hating me.) He puts his other hand in my hair, too, like he’s trying to hold me steady.

Every time I push my face forward, the back of his head knocks books off the shelf behind him.

How many walls could I have shoved him up against? How many empty corners could we have found?

This was our place. Watford. Ours like no one else’s. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but it’s true. His, because his mother died here. Mine, because it was mine to protect.

His mouth opens for me …

(I don’t understand what this is. Why people do it. Why we stoke fires in each other. What are we burning?)

The shelf creaks again. I rub my cock into his hip.

How many walls? How many hallways?

What else would I have figured out, if I’d got to this sooner?

Baz turns his face away and unhooks Lady Ruth’s glasses from his ears.

“I’m sorry,” I pant.

He looks confused. The spring on one side is caught in his hair. “For what?”

I shrug. I don’t know. I hug him closer. My arms are crossed in the small of his back. “Breaking your nose. In fourth year.”

He laughs. “Oh. Well. You should be sorry about that.”

I lean forward and bite his nose, right at the crooked part.

“Crowley, Snow—don’t break it again!”

I let go of his nose. And look in his normal-sized eyes. “I’m sorry…” I shake my head. “That I didn’t figure it out sooner. I—I would have liked to have had you for a friend here.”

He sets the reading glasses on the shelf next to him and puts his hands in my hair again, smoothing my curls down and watching them bounce back.

I think Baz would have liked it, too—to have me, here, on his side—but he says, “It was probably meant to happen like it did.”

“Do you believe in that?” I ask. “Fate?”

He shrugs. His back is still against a shelf. My weight is still against him.

“Not exactly. But it’s hard to argue with the timing. My mother’s ghost, the Mage’s plan … My father says that some things—that some people—are written.”

“Like Smith-Richards?”

Baz’s eyes go hard, and he shoves at my shoulder. “Not like Smith-Richards.” He steps forward, pushing me some more. “Make way, Snow. We need to get to the bottom of this nonsense.”

I step aside.

Baz puts the glasses back on and gets his wand out. He stands in front of the wall where The Magickal Record is shelved. “Fine-tooth comb—

Smith!”

The entire wall of bound volumes starts trembling.

“Oh fuck,” Baz says. He grabs my arm and pulls me back, just as a hundred books shake themselves off the shelves.

When the dust clears—not a figure of speech—there are less than a dozen volumes still on the wall.

“It is a common name…” I say.

Baz just sighs.





49

BAZ

We could have used Bunce’s input—and her wand—but we’re making progress. I’d initially planned to get a broader picture of the Smith family.

But narrowing the search to “Smith-Richards” gives us a much smaller stack of books to sort through: just two.

Snow starts re-shelving while I search through the first book. With Lady Salisbury’s reading glasses on, I can turn directly to the page I’m looking for —it’s a list of announcements.

Announcements constitute the bulk of The Magickal Record—births, deaths, and, after the Mage took power, arrests. Only huge magickal news warrants more detailed coverage in The Record, something like an attack on Watford. (I wonder whether they’ll write up this rash of potential saviours.

Meet the candidates. )

I scan the page for “Smith-Richards” …

“Here it is,” I say. “His birth announcement.” Simon comes to look over my shoulder while I read aloud: “Smith-Richards-comma-Smith. Jemima Smith and Hugh Richards of Skipton are delighted to announce the birth of their son, Smith. The child was named for his paternal grandfather, Smith Alan Richards, who died in June. Young Smith will inherit his grandfather’s oaken wand. His mother reports that the child was born during June’s solar eclipse. How auspicious!”

“Huh, look at that,” Simon says, “he was born under an eclipse.”

“Hmm. According to his mother.”

Snow pokes my shoulder. “Why would she lie about that?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s a very boastful thing to mention in a birth announcement.”

“So Smith is thirty … He looks good for thirty.”

“Does he?” I reach for the second book.

“I expect this’ll be his parents’ death,” Snow says.



He’s right. He rests his forearms on my shoulders, and I hold up the book, so we can both read the report: