“No, tell me the old wives’ tale. About the goats.”
“Oh.” She glances over at me like she’s trying to make sure I’m being sincere. “Well.” She looks at me again. “The story goes that the same herd has been watching over Watford as long as it’s existed. If they ever choose to leave, it would mean the school is truly lost. The goats would take all of their protection with them.”
“Wait, really?”
“Well, really according to the story.”
“That doesn’t sound any less legitimate than half the stuff they taught us in Magickal History,” I say. “Professor Bunce honestly doesn’t care?”
Niamh sighs. “I shouldn’t have said she doesn’t care. She just has a lot on her mind. And this feels very … theoretical to her. There isn’t any hard proof that the goats protect the school, and Headmistress Bunce likes proof.”
“Indeed…”
“I found out the goats were leaving a few months ago. I got called out to Watford to look at Miss Possibelf’s Greater Dane, and I noticed that the goats weren’t in the barn. The headmistress said they hadn’t come back to the school since Ebb Petty died, and that she’d given up worrying about it—that they seemed fine in the fields.”
“They did seem fine,” I say. “They certainly weren’t starving.”
“Their numbers are way down,” Niamh says gloomily. “Half the herd is gone, and only one of the does is with child this year.”
“Well…” I’m feeling frustrated and helpless—and like we shouldn’t drive away from the goats now that I know they might fly away. “Well, what actually happens if they leave?”
“According to the legends? Watford becomes mundane.”
“Like, you couldn’t do magic there?”
“Like the Normals could see it on Google Maps.”
“Niamh. That can’t happen!”
“It probably won’t happen,” she grumbles. “It probably is just an old wives’ tale.” She looks utterly defeated. “I think your father and the headmistress indulge my visits because I’m not hurting anything. It’s my job to take care of the goats whether they’re magic or not.”
I watch the fields roll by us. It doesn’t take long before we’re in the outskirts of Watford, the city, which is really just the outskirts of London.
“Niamh…” I turn my head to look at her. She’s got the silhouette of a cartoon character. Heavy brow, long nose, sharp chin. I still can’t believe I didn’t recognize her from school. “I’m sorry. I genuinely didn’t know why you cared so much.”
“It’s all right,” she says. “You really were a help … I’m sorry I didn’t know you broke up with Simon.”
“Oh, Merlin, that’s all right.” I wave my hand. “It’s kind of nice to think there were people at Watford who weren’t paying attention to us.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I truly didn’t give a shit about you.”
I roll my eyes back to the window. “Yeah, all right. I get it.”
32
BAZ
Snow is on my last nerve.
“I can’t just walk into a Chosen One rally as the defunct Chosen One!”
“Then let me change your face,” I say for the tenth time.
“I’m not letting you fuck with my face,” he mutters. “Though I’m starting to feel like you really want to…”
I’m sitting on his empty living room floor. Simon is pacing in front of me, wings spread, tail whipping around. Every time he stomps past me, he nearly smacks me with it.
“I could just spell your face back to normal when I’m done,” I say, also for the tenth time.
“No, ” he says. “No more spells on my wings, no more spells”—he waves his hands from his head to his stomach—“anywhere on my body.”
“Then I’ll go to the Smith-Richards meeting by myself.”
“You’re not going by yourself!” He marches past me again, tail snapping like an angry cat’s.
“I’ll be fine, Snow. You can listen in on my cellphone.”
He throws his hands in the air. “Oh, because that worked so well last time!”
“It really did, if you’ll remember. I’m not the one who blew our cover.” It was Simon himself who blew our cover in Las Vegas, by breaking the plan, and then by breaking one of the Vampire King’s chairs.