Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(94)

He hums, like I might be wrong.

“Simon.”

He jogs to catch up with me. “It’s not just me—everyone thinks vampires are sexy! I’m terrible at metaphors, and I still get it. Every vampire movie is about fucking virgins.”

I shake my head over and over. “I’m not … This is not … You’re not a virgin.”

“Well, that part’s fictional, right? You don’t have to drink virgins, do you?”

“I don’t have to drink anyone! I’m not drinking anyone! I’m not drinking you just because you think it’s kinky. Also, why do you think you could handle anything kinky?”

“Well, not now…”

“Simon. ” I wheel on him. “I’m asking you to stop! This isn’t a metaphor for me. It’s my life. It’s my attempt to have a life. Just … stop. Please.”

He’s biting his bottom lip. His eyebrows are bunched up. “Yeah,” he says, letting go of his lip. “Okay. Of course. I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “I won’t mention it again.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

He bites the other side of his lip. “Just…”

“You said you’d stop.”

“No, I am. Just…”

“Snow.”

He fists his hand in my shirt and yanks me close to him, pressing his cheek into the side of my jaw. His voice is low. “Just know,” he says, “that I’d do anything for you. That I’d let you do anything to me. There’s nothing about you I don’t want.”

And then he lets go of my shirt and runs away from me.

I watch him disappear into the Wood.





53

AGATHA

Niamh and I are quiet on the way to the car. But it’s a better sort of quiet than before—I think we’re both just relieved that no more of the goats have left Watford and that we’ve managed to round them up, at least.

I suppose I have to make peace with Simon continuing to show up to save my day. Whether or not I’ve asked him to. Whether or not he has any claim on me.

“Those spells you were using…” Niamh says.

“Simon said Ebb taught him. I could teach you—”

“I don’t know that you could. You have a way with those goats.” Her bun has come loose again. She takes it down and puts the hairgrips in her mouth while she tries to comb her hair back up with her fingers. It’s like watching someone give themselves a makeunder.

“Oh, Niamh, don’t,” I say, pulling on her arm.

“Don’t what?” She spits out the pins.

I lean over to find them in the grass. “Don’t put your hair in that awful bun. It makes you look a thousand years old.”

“But I can’t work with my hair in my face.”

I hold the hairpins out to her. “You’re not working now.”

She takes the pins from me. She looks like she doesn’t know what to do with them. Or herself.

“You have perfectly good hair,” I say, reaching up to smooth it down.

(Penelope says I have too many opinions about other people’s hair.) “There’s no reason to hide it.”

“I don’t like myself with long hair.”

“Then get it cut. It looked good at school.”

“I didn’t think you remembered it,” she says. “Or me.”

“I remember you now.”

Niamh is frowning very deeply at me. If I didn’t know her face always looked like that, I’d back off. Instead I smooth out the other side of her head.

It is nice hair. Thick and glossy, with just enough wave to take a style. My hair is too straight to wear any way other than how I wear it.

“I don’t want to colour it again,” she says. The way someone else might say, “I don’t want to go to prison.”

“Then don’t,” I reply, arranging her hair around her face. “It’s a good colour. Chestnut. With some auburn highlights in the sun. Lots of people dye their hair this colour. You could wear it short and dark…” I pull her hair back into a ponytail and hold it so the front poofs out. “You’d look good with a quiff.”

Niamh doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are hard, and her eyebrows are tense.

She’d look very, very good like this. Her face looks severe with her hair scraped back into the bun. But this makes her look … fierce instead. Oh, I suppose Niamh looks fierce no matter what. With that nose. That crushed plum of a mouth. That mean chin. But this takes her from fierce to something else … Something very nearly intolerable. She looks like Marlon Brando.

I let her hair fall back down around her face. “You should wear it however you like,” I say. I start walking again.

When we get to the car, I stand by the passenger side, waiting for Niamh to unlock the doors.

“Agatha,” she says, “you drove.”

“Oh … right. Right.” I push the unlock button and go around to my side of the car. “I hope you aren’t going to be late.”

“Late for what?”

I get in and wait for her to sit down. “For your thing.” I start the car. “That you had to get back for. In London.”