“Am I the half, or is Agatha?”
“You’re both three-fourths.”
“Fucking Bunce.”
Simon touches my chin. “You smell good.”
“Soap,” I say.
“Where’d you go tonight?”
“Hunting.”
“Before that.”
I shudder, and he moves even closer, nose to nose, bringing a wing around us.
“Do you need a blanket?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just stay close.”
“Where’d you go, Baz?”
“I realized I’d left something at Fiona’s…”
“What?”
I shake my head. “Can we talk about it tomorrow? I’m done in.”
“Yeah.” He brushes my hair away from my face. “I thought you were asleep.”
I run my palm up his back and between his wings. He’s so warm. He smells like blood, but I’m too sloshed for the smell to sting. “Did you feel anything when he cast the spell?” I don’t feel like saying Smith-Richards’s name right now, here.
Simon shrugs again. “I felt his magic. The way you do when someone casts a spell on you.”
“What does his magic feel like?”
He nestles even closer, his chest rubbing against mine, through my T-shirt.
“I’m so tired of magic,” he says.
“Did it hurt?”
“No. It made me feel … full.”
“Full?”
“Like I was a bubble popping.”
I pull Simon in tighter. “I’m really angry with you for letting him cast that spell on you.”
“You don’t look angry.”
“You can’t see me.”
“You smell good,” he says again.
“It’s soap. What spell did you try to cast? To test your magic?”
Simon twines his fingers in my hair. “I tried a few. It was humiliating.”
“Which ones did you try?”
“I just said it was humiliating…”
“All right.” I sigh. I’m wrung out. So is he. We can talk about this tomorrow. I’m glad to have tomorrow at least. I’m glad to be here tonight.
It’s just … “It’s just … Simon, how do you know his spell didn’t work?”
He makes a fist in my hair. “Because I felt it. I felt it not working.”
SIMON
Smith’s building was quiet. Everyone was still out celebrating his big announcement. He took me into his office, and we sat in two folding chairs, facing each other.
“What are you going to do first?” he asked. “When you get your magic back?” He was wearing a shirt the colour of his eyes, with a little scarf that made him look like he spent the day on a racing sailboat. Maybe he did.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t even have a wand anymore.”
“I have an extra you can have.”
“You have an extra wand?”
“I inherited my grandfather’s—and both of my parents’。 I use my mother’s.” He flicked his wrist, and his wand slid out of his sleeve into his palm. That’s how Baz wears his wand sometimes; he has a holster that straps to his forearm. It’s dead sexy when he takes off his shirt.
“Are you nervous?” Smith asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “I suppose I don’t want to let you down.”
He laughed. “You won’t let me down, Simon. This is about helping you.
Are you ready?”
“Sure.” I was as ready as I was going to get. “Yeah, Smith. Let’s do it.”
Smith sat a little straighter. He held out his left hand to me, and I took it.
（I’m not used to touching someone who’s as warm as I am; he felt almost feverish.） Then he pointed his wand at my chest.
Even in that moment, I was telling myself not to get my hopes up, that the spell wouldn’t work. But I’d seen Smith cure other people. I couldn’t help but think it might work …
“Simon Snow,” Smith said in his onstage voice, like I wasn’t his only audience. “You’ve given so much to the World of Mages. Too much. It’s time for you to step back into the light. Let it all out! ”
I felt it right away. Smith’s magic hit me at my core and then moved outward. It was like a bubble growing in me, filling me up, pushing against my skin, then popping.
He was smiling at me. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know…”