I can feel the kid. I can feel the legs.
“I’ve got them,” I say.
“One at a time,” Niamh says. “You’re doing well.”
Niamh’s hand is between my shoulders. She’s casting spells over the doe.
The doe is crying. I have the legs—I have them. I’m pulling them out one at time. “Push for me, darling,” I say. “I know you’re tired.”
Niamh whispers her spells. The doe pushes. The kid slides out into my hands, still in its sack. Niamh passes me a towel, and I rub the little goat clean.
“It isn’t moving,” I say.
Niamh presses her wand into the kid’s chest. “The beat goes on!”
It doesn’t move.
Its mother cries.
The dryad is sitting on Ebb’s grave, ignoring us.
“I’m sorry,” Niamh says to me. “We were too late.”
74
SIMON
We wait for Baz and Penny and Shepard to disappear inside the Weeping Tower.
Then Pippa looks at me. “You lied to them.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to st-stop Smith?”
“Yes.”
“The White Chapel,” she whispers. “Hurry!”
AGATHA
“It’s all right,” Niamh says.
It isn’t all right. Nothing is all right. The kid is dead. The mother is crying.
And the fucking dryad is acting like none of us are here.
“Why didn’t you do something?” I shout at her. I stand up and walk around Ebb’s headstone. The dryad is twirling her rotten parasol over her knees.
“Why didn’t you help it?”
“I’m not the goat’s keeper,” the dryad says, watching her umbrella spin.
“It came here for help!”
Her eyes snap up at me, flashing. “No. It came here to die. That’s what this place is.”
“The goats protect Watford—don’t you know that? If they leave, the school will fall!”
“You care about Watford? Watford doesn’t care about you, fair one! It doesn’t miss you. It won’t protect you.” She runs one hand along the top of the stone. Caressing it. “She loved it, too, and all it gave her in return was a grave.”
“Did you know Ebb?”
The dryad laughs. It sounds like wind passing through a tree. “Yes.”
“Were you friends?”
She caresses the stone again. “No.”
“I hardly knew her,” I say, “but I know this—she loved these goats. If you let a goat suffer, on her grave, she will never forgive you. She’ll haunt you forever.”
The dryad laughs again. “Too late for that. Too late, golden one. You were too late.”
SIMON
I’m going to stop Smith.
I don’t know if he’s the Chosen One. I don’t know if his spell works.
But he can’t cast that spell today—not on Penny’s dad and Baz’s stepmum.
Not with Jamie hidden in his basement and a wand to Pippa’s head. There are too many red flags here.
And I know that’s rich coming from me. I’m wearing a suit made of red flags, metaphorically speaking, twenty-four-fucking-seven. But this …
（I really hate basements.） （You shouldn’t hide people in basements. Even bad people. But certainly not your friends.）
I’m going to stop Smith.
I’m going to call a time-out. To keep him from making any more mistakes.
I get to the White Chapel first. （Pippa and Jamie are behind me somewhere—they’re running, I’m flying.） I never wanted to come back here, but here I am. I land in front of the gilded doors and push them open.
The Chapel is full of mages, more than I’ve seen at Smith’s meetings so far. Word must be getting out.
Smith is onstage, near the altar. So is Daphne. He’s holding her hand. He’s holding his wand. He’s wearing a white suit—there’s a microphone clipped to his collar.
I just have to stop him.
I don’t have to figure it all out, I don’t have to have any answers. I just have to stop this, today. For today.
Smith sees me. He says my name, but not loud enough for the microphone to pick it up.
I nod at him and raise my hand. Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding. I keep walking down the centre aisle. I’ll just ask him to step away for a moment, so we can talk.
“Simon Snow,” he says again, and everyone hears.
They all turn to look at me. To gape.
“Is it really him?”
“Does he really have dragon wings?”