“I do get it.” I pull the blanket up over my head to muffle my voice. “I understand that you’ve lost something—a lot of things—but you’re still the same person. I know, because I loved you then, and I love you now, and I know that’s not enough to make you happy—to make anyone happy—but you’re the same person, Simon. You’re still you.”
He doesn’t answer me. It sounds like he’s pacing. I can hear his wings snapping open and closed.
“It’s enough,” he finally grumbles.
“What is,” I whisper.
“The fact that you love me. It does make me happy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “It doesn’t fix everything. I still don’t know who’s looking back at me in the mirror. But … it makes me happy.”
“You sound ecstatic, Snow.”
He laughs.
There’s a creaking noise, like he’s sitting down—on his mattress or the new sofa. “I want to tell you that I’m sorry I lied to you,” he says. “But then I think about you walking into the Chapel and getting that spell cast at you.
That curse.”
“Why would Smith-Richards have cast a spell on me that would immediately make me more powerful?”
“I don’t know—to hurt you. He’s a fucked-up person!”
“You’ll get no argument there,” I say. “But you can’t lie to me every time there’s trouble. You can’t sideline me from every battle.”
“Are you expecting lots of battles in the future?”
“You may have forgotten who you are, Snow, but I haven’t.”
Simon sighs. He sounds tired. “You said we could set this aside until you come back.”
“You brought it up.”
“I know. I’m sorry. About that, anyway. Are … Are you still coming back?”
“Simon…” I know he’s damaged and insecure, but he keeps questioning the one thing I know for certain. It’s insulting. “I’ll always come back,” I say.
He’s quiet. I can hear him breathing. I can hear the three dots hovering over his head.
“Me, too,” he whispers.
82
BAZ
I hunt before I leave Oxford. （Two more rabbits, a fox.） Then my father drives me to the station.
He doesn’t say anything in the car, and I don’t expect him to.
It’s an hour on the train to London. When I get there, I go to Fiona’s flat first. I let myself in. “Fiona?”
There’s no answer. I suppose I could leave her a note …
“She went to get breakfast,” someone says.
Nico is standing in the door to my aunt’s bedroom, looking like he just threw on jeans and a T-shirt—and looking thoroughly displeased to be speaking to me.
“You could wait for her,” he says.
“I live here.”
“I know that, I just meant…” He smooths back his blond hair and sighs.
“You want tea?”
I frown. And nod. I sit on the sofa.
Nico comes back from the kitchen with two mugs and a pint of milk. He sits on the chair.
I cross one leg over the other and pick a piece of lint off my knee. “So you’re going to marry my aunt.”
“That’s right.” His chin is sticking out, like he’s expecting whatever nasty thing I say next. I can’t overemphasize what an unpleasant face the man has.
Sour and smirking. Handsome in an angry way. Like the lead singer of a band who resents how popular his music is with teenage girls.
He must be nearly 40—he’s Ebb’s twin brother—but he looks like an unhealthy 20-something. His skin is grey, and his eyes are tired. Is this what I look like? Is this what I’ll always look like? Like a 21-year-old who never gets any sleep?
Nico wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. There are gaps where his eyeteeth were. At least I still have my smile.
“Congratulations,” I say. “Does this mean you’re turning over a new leaf?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but my aunt is a vampire hunter.”
He smirks. “Yeah, I’ve noticed—have you?”
I find some more lint on my trousers. Perhaps I should just leave. Fiona doesn’t need my blessing for this.
“I’m not gonna Turn your aunty,” Nico says. “Is that what you’re worried about? If I were gonna Turn Fiona, I woulda done it already. I wouldn’t put a scratch on her.”