“The curry chicken are the best,” I say.
“Wrong again, Snow,” Baz says. “It’s the lemon and prawn.”
“I make those with magic.” Lady Ruth smiles.
“You’d have to,” he says.
“Nothing beats Mum’s egg and cress,” Jamie says.
“I can teach you that recipe,” she tells me. “There’s no magic at all.”
We don’t talk about Lucy. Or the Mage.
But we stay at the table till we’re hungry again, and every time I try to hand the sword to Jamie, he shoves it off. “What do I need with a sword?” he says.
What do I need with a sword, I wonder.
I’ve never seen Baz eat at a table like this. With people. Every time he laughs—Lady Ruth makes him laugh, and I do, too, sometimes—I look for his fangs. I don’t see them.
Could this be real?
Is it something else that will blow up in my face?
Does everything I believe in fall apart?
Jamie boils more water. Baz refills the milk jug. Lady Salisbury shows us this trick, where she makes roses bloom from the end of her wand. She tries to teach Baz, but he can’t match it.
I turn my chair around and sit on it backwards to make room for my wings.
“Have more cake,” Lady Salisbury says, cutting another piece of the chocolate.
“All right,” I say, and I do.
90
PENELOPE
Shepard has a new T-shirt—GOG & MAGOG: WORLD TOUR 1993. It’s something to do with giants; my dad gave it to him.
We went back to my house for dinner last night. I was worried about Shepard learning too many magickal secrets—our house is full of magic, my mum keeps her scrying glass in the kitchen—but it was the other way around.
My dad spent the whole night asking Shepard questions. About magickal creatures and America. Even a few about the weather. Dad thinks Shepard is marvellous.
（Shepard is a bit marvellous.）
Mum was more cautious. She at least didn’t cast any more spells on him.
“A Normal, Penelope,” she said, when it was just the two of us setting the table. （We ordered takeaway kebabs, with tabouleh and labneh and lentil soup.）
“I don’t want to hear it, Mum.”
“You’ll only be able to marry him in three dimensions.”
“That you know of,” I said.
She sighed. “Micah was at least a skilled magician…”
I dropped the last plate onto the table. “Honestly, Mum. Can you hear yourself? Can you hear yourself in the context of this day?”
She frowned at me. “Fair point. I just…” She shook her head. She looked tired. Mum looks like she hasn’t had a full night’s sleep since the Mage died.
“I want you to have a rich and challenging magickal life, Penelope.”
“I want that, too,” I said, and then I smiled like—well, like someone I’d mock, like a twitterpated pixie. “Give him a chance, Mum.”
After dinner, Shepard came back to my flat with me and slept in Simon’s old room, and then we woke up and went to the British Museum and Westminster Abbey, and now we’re taking an Overground train to check on Simon. （ “come hungry,” he texted. “i’ve got 1000 finger sandwiches.” ） “I’m going to miss the Overground,” Shepard says. “And the Underground.” We’re sharing a pole. He towers over me.
“No subways in Nebraska?” I tease.
“We barely have buses.”
“Sounds terrible.”
“It’s not so bad,” he says, smiling.
“No public transportation, no pie…”
“We have excellent steaks.”
“I don’t eat steak.”
“Hmmm…” He looks thoughtful. “We have pretty good tacos.”
“We have tacos here,” I say.
He laughs. “Is this like your pizza? Because I’ve tried your pizza.”
“You should stay!” I blurt out. Too loudly. A man standing next to us scowls at me.
Shepard tilts his head and looks down at me. He bites his bottom lip.
“You should stay,” I say again. More sanely.
“Penelope…” he says quietly, “I’m not even here legally.”
“You know that’s not an issue, Shepard.”
“It never seems to be for you…”
I’m holding on to the pole with both hands. “There’s still so much you haven’t seen. Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London. There are magickal swans in Oxford, we could take a day trip. And then Scotland—great snakes, you could probably bond with the Loch Ness Monster!”