I rest on my heels. We should sit like this more often—I like the way Baz looks, looking up at me.
He wipes his mouth with his butterfly-blue cuff. “Everyone at the meeting tonight will know who you are,” he says.
“Right. That’s the problem.”
“And everyone knows you’ve lost your magic.”
“Apparently they don’t believe it,” I say, thinking of Lady Salisbury.
“So we lean into that.”
“Lean into what?” My knees are killing me. Maybe we shouldn’t make a habit of this. I try to shift onto the floor, but there’s nowhere to put my legs.
“Here.” Baz pulls my left leg over his and then does the same with my right. As soon as he has them settled, he puts his arms around my waist again.
It’s fuckin’ cosy is what it is. “Lean into your whole thing,” he says. “‘ I was never the Chosen One, I’ve lost my magic, I’ve heard that you can help…’”
“Oh,” I say. And then, “Oh. ”
“Right?” Baz says, squeezing me. “Right? ”
“Pretend I’m looking for a saviour.”
“Because why wouldn’t you be! You’d be such a score for this Smith-Richards. If the old Chosen One thinks he’s the Chosen One…”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding, “all right. I can do that. Lean into it. I mean, it sounds kind of humiliating…”
“You’re used to humiliating,” he says.
“Am I.”
“I want to go hunting first.” Baz is already moving on. “You can come,” he adds.
“I always get to come along now, remember?”
He tips his head back and cocks a thick eyebrow. “I don’t think I said always. ”
“Yeah,” I say, “always. Every time. Every night for the rest of my life.”
“Not for the rest of my life?”
“Pfft.” I move closer to him, holding on to his sides. “You’re going to be young and pretty forever.”
Baz pulls me even closer, by the small of my back. “Don’t say that,” he says, soft. “You don’t know that.”
“I don’t mind.”
He shakes his head, like he doesn’t want to think about it. “Snow …
we’ve got a few minutes”—he pulls on me again—“before we have to leave.”
“All right, I’m ready.”
“No, I mean…” Baz moves his head from side to side like he’s trying to find words for something. It’s a rare look on him. “No matter what happens right now,” he says, his eyes on my chin, “we have to stop in a few minutes.
So you don’t have to—you don’t have to worry about it going too far. Or being too much.”
Oh.
Baz glances up at my eyes. His pupils are wide and shiny. I’ve got us both shadowed by my wings. I nod, sucking nervously on my bottom lip.
“Lean into it,” he whispers.
My shirt is untucked. He slides one cool hand under it, just above my tail.
I lean forward to kiss him.
“Just for a few minutes,” he says, before I reach his mouth. “I’ll tell you when.”
The Smith Smith-Richards meeting is in the back room of a trendy pub, the kind of place that hosts acoustic concerts and stand-up comedy. There’s an older man with a clipboard outside, managing the door.
Baz and I watch from the patio of a Costa across the street. We’ve been watching for fifteen minutes. I bought us both muffins.
“All you’ve eaten today is cake,” Baz says.
“I had toast for breakfast. Toast isn’t cake.”
Smith-Richards’s meeting was supposed to start five minutes ago. The man at the door gives one last look up and down the street, then goes inside.
“Now?” Baz asks.
“Not yet,” I say.
A couple is walking quickly towards the door, like they’re late.
I yank on Baz’s arm. “Now. ”
We jog across the street and slip in behind them. I remember to wave Baz through the door.
It’s crowded inside. The room probably holds a hundred people. Baz and I take two of the last empty chairs, in the back. There’s a handsome man already standing onstage, wearing jeans and a worn blue jumper. He looks like he’s in a band. Maybe there is a band playing tonight …
“Hey,” the man says into a microphone. “So, this is cool.” He spreads his arms wide. “Look at us…”