Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(91)

Baz flicks his wrist, and his wand appears in his hand. “There’s nothing

to see here!”

Simon shudders and shifts mostly out of sight. “I hate that one.”

“You hate them all,” Baz says. “It’ll wear off. I didn’t put much oomph into it.”

Simon flaps his wings and kicks up into the air. Niamh and I squint up at the sky, trying to keep track of him.

“It’s easier if you don’t look directly at him,” Baz advises.

He’s right. I let my eyes drift and watch Simon flying in my peripheral vision.

“I see them!” he shouts down to us. “The goats!”

“Where are they?” Niamh shouts back.

“Kind of … everywhere?”





52

BAZ

We spend the rest of the afternoon out in the hills behind Watford. I eventually stop trying to help; the goats don’t respond to any of my spells. I thought there might be something wrong with my wand, but the Irish girl— Snow’s veterinarian—says it’s the goats, not me. “They only respond to magic if they feel like it,” she says. “My spells roll right off them, too.”

I recognize her from school. Niamh Brody. She used to have fierce blond hair, cut shorter than Simon’s. She played lacrosse and rugby, and she wore heavy work boots with her school uniform. Not Doc Martens or something fashionable. The sort of boots you wear to drive a tractor.

She hasn’t lost her scowl since those days—nor her flair for brute force.

She’s bullying the goats around, blocking them like a brick wall. Simon is herding them along from the air; he’s got a death-from-above move that gets the goats going—and makes him laugh like a maniac. Wellbelove is the only one the goats seem to actually listen to. I can’t tell if she’s using magic on them, or if they just like her.

Anyway, the three of them seem to have made some progress—the goats are at least grazing in the same general area now.

I’m sitting in the grass, watching Snow try to keep an old billy goat from wandering away. He gets in front of it and spreads his wings. “Bah!” The goat goes running in the other direction.

Simon sees me watching him and smiles. He still hasn’t put his shirt back on—he doesn’t seem at all self-conscious about it. I suppose Brody has seen his wings before, and Agatha’s seen the rest of him …

I scratch the back of my neck, looking down at the grass between my legs.

Snow drops to the ground beside me and lies back in the grass, squinting.

The late afternoon sun is picking up every thread of gold in his hair, and throwing every freckle and mole into sharp relief. His cheeks are flushed.

He’s a bit out of breath.

“Enjoying yourself?” I ask.

He grins at me. “Yeah…”

I hold up his shirt. “Any use for this?”

Snow sits up, still smiling, and takes it from me, collapsing his wings, and pulling the shirt up his arms first, then over his head and down his chest and stomach. He’s watching Wellbelove try to bring one of the last goats in. “Use your wand!” he shouts.

“I am!”

“Not like that!”

He’s up again, reaching for her wand. Wellbelove lets him have it. I wonder for a moment if he’s forgotten that he doesn’t have magic. But he’s not casting a spell … He’s just flicking the wand—holding it so that she can see.

Since when does Snow understand advanced wandwork?

He gives the wand back to Wellbelove, and she imitates him, hooking her wrist. “Join the club!”

The goat cocks its head at her and scampers closer.

Wellbelove beams up at Snow. “It’s working!” She casts the spell again, rolling her wrist more precisely.

The goat goes prancing towards the herd.

Agatha grabs Snow’s arm, delighted. “Who taught you that?”

“Ebb,” he says. “I can probably remember a few more tricks. Though I think her staff was better suited for this…”

The two of them trade the wand back and forth, while Snow teaches her the apparently fine art of magickal goat herding.

They look like a painting, standing there. Or a photograph from the 1940s.

Wellbelove is wearing wide-legged blue trousers and a white cotton eyelet shirt. Her hair is down. Straight as a pin and shining. Her colour is high.

Snow stands easily at her side. Comfortable with her in a way he is with almost no one else. He’s got on lightweight grey trousers and that blue argyle shirt I lent him—that I bought, hoping to give to him someday. His curls are bouncing in the breeze.

Crowley, they’re pretty together.

A goat ambles towards me, nosing at the grass—then seems to catch my scent and startles away. “Good instincts,” I say.

Are these goats really magic? Or is Brody having us on?

I look for her on the far side of the meadow. She’s been trying to get a closer look at one of the goats—the pregnant one, I assume. But now she’s just staring at Simon and Agatha. Simon’s holding Agatha’s wrist, helping her with a big swooping gesture. It looks like choreography.

I let my head fall farther between my knees. My hair shades my eyes. I’m getting too much sun.

“Should we bring them in?” Snow shouts. “To the barn?”