“Niamh. I went to Watford, too. I’m not anti-Watford.” I’m leaning over the gear shift to make my point.
She’s trying to watch the road and argue with me at the same time. “Then I’d think you’d be concerned about the goats!”
I shrug my shoulders with my palms in the air. “I mean, I’m more concerned than I was yesterday. I’ve bonded with a few of them now.”
“The goats of Watford are wandering away,” she says, hunching over the steering wheel, “and no one cares! Not you, not even the headmistress—she has too many other problems. The whole World of Mages has too many other problems! Or too many other distractions. Most of them care more about who’s going to replace your boyfriend than—”
I cut her off. “If you call him my boyfriend one more time, I’ll scream.”
“Why? Are you engaged now? Are you Simon Snow’s fiancée?”
“No! We broke up ages ago! Everyone knows this!”
“What?” Niamh sits back in her seat, chastened. “I didn’t know that.”
“You must live under a rock.” I fold my arms and look out my window.
“It’s all anyone talked about for months.”
“I don’t really pay attention to gossip…” she says.
“Well, we broke up our last year at Watford, and now he’s with Baz Pitch.
It was like boy– Romeo and Juliet. ”
“Romeo was already a boy.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Simon Snow dumped you for a Pitch?” Niamh sounds thoughtful. “Which one, again?”
“He didn’t dump me, actually, but—you know, Baz. He was at school with us.”
“What did he look like?”
I turn back to her. Is she kidding? “Basilton Grimm-Pitch? The headmistress’s son?”
“Oh, right…” She still looks uncertain. “Pale? Crooked nose?”
“I mean, yes. But I’ve never heard him described that way.”
Niamh shrugs. “Like I said, I didn’t really follow your whole soap opera.”
“You are so exceedingly unpleasant,” I say. “I almost forgot that for a few hours. You’re so much easier to be around when you’re yelling at goats.”
“Yeah, well, we have that in common.” We’re at a stop sign, and Niamh is redoing her bun again, making it even tighter. I’m this close to telling her how bad it looks that way. But she doesn’t deserve constructive advice. I huff instead.
She ignores me.
I try to ignore her back, but it only lasts a minute. “I don’t want Watford to fall, by the way. I’ve helped save Watford multiple times. Tangentially.”
“Well,” she says, “all your efforts will be in vain if the goats leave.”
“Oh good, back to the goats again.”
“I know that you believe the Goats of Watford are just a myth. But a myth is just another word for a story, and what do we have if we don’t have stories!”
“Niamh! I’ve never even heard of the Goats of Watford— should I have?”
She rolls her eyes. “I mean, I think so. I think the heritage and care of magickal animals matter, that these are things we should study and share and —”
“Wait, they’re magickal goats?”
Niamh puffs out a frustrated breath. “Why doesn’t anyone know this? The goats are part of Watford history! They’re in the coat of arms!”
“I thought those were pegasus … ses.”
“No, they’re goats.”
“But they have wings,” I say.
“So do the goats.”
“What?”
“How do you think the goats are getting out over the wall, Agatha?”
“I thought they were jumping. They’re magickal, flying goats?”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously not obviously. Do people know this?”
“They should!” she half shouts, then looks embarrassed to have raised her voice. Her shoulders fall. “The story’s so old that it seems like an old wives’
tale now,” she mutters. “And it’s hard to find any scholarly accounts. The Mage hoarded books on magickal history but didn’t let anyone else read them —and he was notoriously dismissive of animals and creatures. He’s the reason we haven’t had a vet in years—”
“Tell me the story.”
“Agatha, I’m trying—”