Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(89)

It’s everything I ever wanted.

He’s better than I hoped.

Even though he’s more fucked up than I could have imagined …

I don’t want him to lose control down here. I don’t want to have to sit in the dirt to comfort him, with all of my ancestors watching. When he starts pulling too hard on my shirt, I ease him back.

“Come on,” I say softly. “It isn’t much farther.”





50

SIMON

Baz lights a fire in his hand, so I can see.

“I hate it when you do that,” I say.

“What?”

“You’re going to start yourself on fire.” I saw how quickly the vampires went up, in the desert.

Baz scoffs. “I’m completely in control.”

“Seriously,” I say. “Use a torch. There are a thousand of them down here.”

All along the walls.

“Fine.” He waves a hand, and the whole row of them lights up. He shakes the flame out of his hand.

“Look.” I stop walking. We’re standing right by the portrait I remembered.

Of the blond girl. “It’s Lady Ruth’s daughter, isn’t it?”

“It certainly looks like her,” Baz agrees.

Someone has painted her right on the wall—and cast a spell to make it look like she’s crying. “Do you think she died here?”

“Lady Salisbury says she’s still alive.”

“Huh.”

We both stand there for a moment, watching her cry. Then Baz takes one of his roses and sets it on the ground below the portrait.

“I’ll wait here,” I say. It didn’t occur to me until just now that he might want to be alone with his mum. “You go on.”

Baz looks at me, one eyebrow cocked low, then nods. “I won’t be long.”

He kisses my cheek before he walks away. I like that. All the easy kisses he’s giving me. All the checking on me and checking in with me. You might think it would be irritating, but it really isn’t. It makes me think it would have been nice to have someone looking out for me like this all along.

I lean against the wall across from the portrait and slide to the ground.

I wonder who painted it. I can’t really see the paint. Maybe it’s more like a photo. Some sort of magickal wall print. You find all sorts of weird shit down here … I always thought this portrait must be ancient. But Lady Ruth’s daughter would only be in her 40s. Around the same age as Penny’s parents.

She’s about my age, I think, in this portrait. She’s outside, in the sun. Her hair is almost yellow. And even though she’s crying, she doesn’t look unhappy. More … wistful. I used to think she looked like she’d lost something—but maybe I only thought that because I was down here looking for Baz.

It would suck to have to go down into a crypt to visit your mother’s grave.

I swear his family doesn’t even realize how creepy they are.

I get out my phone and take a video of the portrait. I don’t know if I want to show it to Lady Ruth—it’s kind of disturbing. But maybe it’s a clue that could help her find her daughter. Maybe we should help her with that next, after we find Jamie. I hope she’s right, that this girl is alive somewhere. All grown up and just fine.

I really don’t understand why both of Lady Ruth’s kids ran away. She seems grand to me. Laid-back, generous. I like her house. I like the way everything in it feels old. Older than Lady Ruth, even. Like it was built to have multiple lives. I’d like to have a house like that someday.

I wonder what kind of a place Baz wants … I think I hear him coming back up the tunnel.

There he is.

He looks dramatic, lit up by torches. He’s casting two shadows.

I get up from the ground and walk towards him. He turns his face away when I try to kiss him.

“Did you just drink a rat?” I ask.

He shrugs one shoulder.

“I can’t believe you went hunting without me.”





51

AGATHA

I’m driving this time. Dad let me take the Volvo. The drive to Watford has been torturous so far, even with air-con. I’m bad at small talk—because I hate it—but Niamh seems to be incapable.

“When do you become a full-fledged magickal vet?” I ask, after twenty minutes of silence.

“It’s not like there’s a certification,” she says. She’s got her cool sunglasses on, and she’s staring out the window.

“But you’ll be done at some point?”

“I just said, there’s no programme.”

“Right.”

After another twenty minutes, I try again—“Will you have an office of your own someday?”

“Look,” she snaps, “I know that your dad can’t wait to get the thingamapigs out of his waiting area—”

“For snake’s sake, Niamh! That’s not what I was implying. I was just trying to make conversation.”

She looks suspicious. “Why?”

“Because we’re in the car together on a long drive?”

“You didn’t have to come.”

I spread my fingers out over the steering wheel in frustration. “I want to help you with the goats.”