Dinner was endless. Agatha refused to make small talk, and her parents didn’t know where to start. Everything about me is something no one wants to talk about. Hard to ignore the elephant in the room when you’re making chat with the elephant.
I finished my dessert, Eton mess, in three bites, then Dr. Wellbelove invited me into his study. That’s where he likes to have serious talks. The Wellbeloves have been something like a surrogate family for me （something a little more distant than that—like a surrogate surrogate family） ever since I joined the World of Mages. They used to invite me here for school breaks and holidays, even before Agatha and I started dating. And Dr. Wellbelove has always tried to talk to me about father-son things. He sat me down in this
very study when I was 12 to tell me about the birds and the bees. （Though I feel now that he left out some pretty crucial information.） Tonight, he took the seat behind his big glass-topped desk and got a stack of papers out of a drawer. “Simon, I’ve been waiting to talk to you until all the legalities of the Mage’s estate were sorted…”
Legalities. “Sir—am I being arrested?”
Dr. Wellbelove looked up from the papers. “Arrested?”
“For the Mage’s death.”
He took off his reading glasses. “Simon, no. No one is getting arrested.
The Mage’s death was an accident.”
“Sort of…” I said.
“It was certainly self-defence.”
I nodded, miserably.
Dr. Wellbelove put his glasses back on and looked down at the papers.
“The Mage—Davy— David—”
“David?”
“His estate has been settled now.”
I shook my head. “The Mage was called David?”
Dr. Wellbelove looked up at me. He cleared his throat. “David Cadwallader.”
“Oh.”
“There are relatives, of course. But the terms of his will are clear: The bulk of the estate is set aside for you.”
“Me?”
Dr. Wellbelove cleared his throat again. “Yes.”
“But … that can’t be right,” I said. “I killed the Mage.”
“Well,” Dr. Wellbelove said, straightening the papers, “that may be true.
But, legally, it’s irrelevant. You’re still the Mage’s heir.”
The Mage’s estate …
What does a man like the Mage leave behind? He already gave me a sword, but I’m not magickal enough to call it. He gave me his father’s wand, and I left it at Watford. I think.
The Mage made me his heir to get me into Watford—only magicians could go to school there, and I wasn’t one. I was a fluke. Killing the Mage was my last work of magic.
If Penny were here, she’d say that I had to kill the Mage, that we had to kill him. That it was the only way to stop him from killing me and who knows who else. It was already too late to stop him from killing Ebb.
If Penny were here, she’d say it wasn’t my fault.
But they were my words.
I killed him.
I killed my … mentor, I’d guess you’d call him. My guardian. He never talked to me about father-son things, but I was in his charge. I was his blade, his not-so-secret weapon. I had a place at his right hand.
I never even knew he had a name …
“There are some personal effects,” Dr. Wellbelove says, “furnishings. His wand and sword, a collection of daggers—”
“I don’t want them.”
“They’re very rare.”
“His family can have them. You said he had a family?”
“Cousins,” Dr. Wellbelove says, “in Gwynedd.”
“They can have it all.”
“There are other assets,” Dr. Wellbelove says. “His savings.”
“The Mage had money?”
“He had his stipend as headmaster and very few expenses.”
“His cousins can have all that, too.”
“No,” Dr. Wellbelove says firmly. “They can’t. Son—” Dr. Wellbelove calls me “son” sometimes, but he doesn’t mean it like a father would. （Well, maybe he means it like a father, but not like he’s mine.） “Listen to me. I know how unorthodox this is—”
“It’s not unorthodox, it’s demented! I can’t take money for killing him!”
“You’ll take the money because it’s yours, Simon. Legally. And—” Dr.
Wellbelove’s face is getting red. “Justly. The man misused you. We all know that now.”