The crowd around us claps. These must all be magicians, right? I see a boy who was a few years ahead of us at Watford. I wonder if there’s anyone else I know.
“Yeah, no more meeting in living rooms for us,” the man onstage says, smiling. “No more manky pubs.”
A few people laugh.
“Only the finest pubs for us!” he cheers.
They applaud for him again.
“And now we have our new residential centre … That’s because of you, all of you. You’re making things happen!”
Baz is sitting tall, scanning the crowd. He’s got his toffee-coloured jacket back on, and he did something before we left my flat to make his hair look perfect. It hangs around his face in shiny black waves. Baz didn’t get even a little mussed up tonight when we went hunting. （Apparently he works more cleanly when I’m not talking about my previous sexual partners.） （Partner.） I wonder which of these people is the Chosen One … Maybe they’ve got him stashed in the wings, waiting for his big entrance.
Baz elbows me. I turn, and he points discreetly towards the front of the room. Daphne is sitting there, gazing up at the guy in the jumper. Shit, maybe that’s who she left Baz’s dad for. She’s got stars in her eyes.
I mean … he is fit. Tall and broad-shouldered. Curly, golden-blond hair.
Lead-singer face.
“Thanks for giving me a chance to recuperate,” he says. “Our last meeting was pretty intense. More intense for you than anyone, eh, Beth?” He’s smiling at someone in the audience. I can’t see their reaction. “Why don’t you come up here, and share with us?” He holds out his hand.
A woman is standing up and making her way to the stage. She takes the man’s hand and stands beside him for a moment, smiling at him. She’s pretty.
Chubby. In her late 20s. The man seems older, 30 maybe. I’m not a good judge.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks her gently.
She laughs, wiping her eyes. “Good,” she says.
He takes the microphone off its stand and hands it to her. “Good,” she says again, into the mic.
“Good,” he says, putting his arm around her. “Why don’t you tell us about the last week.”
She laughs tearfully again. “I don’t know where to start!”
He just motions for her to go on.
“I’m not used to using magic,” she says. “So, at first nothing changed.
Then I wrote myself a note, and I stuck it to my desk, and I made myself cast a spell every time I looked at it. It was hard, I kept hearing the Mage. You know how he was— ‘Conserve your magic.’”
I nod. A lot of people nod.
“But then I’d think of you.” She smiles at the man, and he smiles back at her.
“Magic is infinite, ” they say together.
The woman smiles wider, blushing and looking away.
Wait. Is that the Chosen One? That guy in the jumper? Him? I don’t know what I was expecting. Someone more intimidating. Or someone more obviously shamming, maybe even twirling a moustache. Not a hot young guy in jeans.
The woman keeps talking. “But every time,” she says, “my magic came to me when I called for it. There’s been no reaching. No scraping. One morning, I just stood in my kitchen, casting spells. I cast a ‘Full English.’ I cast a ‘Primrose path.’” The crowd is murmuring, impressed. “I cast a ‘Bread and roses’！”
The crowd gasps. A few people start clapping.
“I’ve been using magic every day,” the woman says. She wipes her eyes, but she’s crying too much for it to matter. “Even when I don’t have to. I’ve been casting spells just for the pleasure of it. And I keep thinking … This is what it’s been like for everyone else, all along. My parents, my boyfriend.
It’s always been this easy for them.”
The man—it must be Smith-Richards—pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and actually wipes the woman’s cheeks for her, like she’s a child. She just keeps smiling and blushing. He takes the microphone back.
“This is what you deserve,” he says, still dabbing at her cheeks. “This is what you’ve always deserved. You’re a mage, Beth.”
Merlin, he’s just making her cry more. He’s crying, too.
“You’re a mage!” he says, laughing through his tears. “This was always yours, this was always inside you.”
He stops wiping her face, and they embrace. When they finally pull away from each other, the woman starts talking to him again. He quickly holds the microphone back up to her.