Her eyes are wide and shining. “What if the greatest threat to magic is the thing that holds each of us back? What if the threat to magic was inside of us, all along?”
Well, that’s crap, and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to tell her so.
“Who’s that Jamie?” Simon asks. “The one they mentioned?”
Daphne practically beams. “Oh, Jamie Salisbury. He was one of Smith’s first believers—Jamie is his first miracle.”
“So Jamie can do powerful magic now?” Snow is doing a poor job pretending he doesn’t know who Jamie is. He seems far too happy for him.
“Yes,” Daphne says, “and he was the least among us. He couldn’t even cast a ‘Light of day.’”
“That’s so cool,” Simon says. “Is he here?”
“No,” she says, “Jamie hasn’t come to meetings lately. I think the attention was getting to be too much for him. Plus, people were jealous that Smith chose him first. Politics.” She rolls her eyes. “You can’t get away from it, I suppose.”
I touch her arm. “Will you at least answer my texts? So that I can reach you in an emergency?”
Daphne sighs. “I’ll unblock you, Baz. But you can’t tell your father. I can’t let myself get distracted right now.”
“Distracted from what, Mum? Aren’t you just here waiting your turn?”
“Your father hasn’t exactly been supportive…”
“Can you blame him?”
“Yes, Basil, I do blame him! If there was a way for you to heal yourself, I would support you, even if the means were unorthodox.”
（Genuinely not sure whether she means the vampire thing or the gay thing.） “When you love someone,” she says, “you support them!” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She’s patting the air with both hands, like she’s trying to gather herself. “Right now I just need to stay focused on Smith and Smith’s message.”
“What is Smith’s message?” I ask.
She looks up at me again, like she’s hoping I’m really listening. “That he’s the Greatest Mage, and that if we follow him, he can make us all great.”
“Well, that was bollocks,” I say, as soon as we’re on the street again.
“Wait till we’re home,” Simon says quietly, glancing back at the door.
“Are we…” I don’t quite know how to ask what I’m asking. Are we going home together? Whose home? For how long?
Simon arches his back. Like his wings are bothering him under his coat.
“We could get Nando’s and take it to my flat?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Good.”
“Yeah,” he says, smiling at me. “Good.”
35
SMITH
Simon Snow …
Here. To see me.
It’s a sign. Another sign—Evander was thrilled.
It’s happening this time! It’s right! Everything is lining up for me. Planets.
People. I know that if I harvested seven duck hearts and threw them, they’d land right in a row.
Simon fucking Snow …
Here.
To see me.
The Chosen One.
36
PENELOPE
“Why are you being so quiet?”
Shepard looks away from the window and smiles at me. “I thought I was supposed to be quiet on the train.”
“You are,” I say. “But usually you aren’t.”
He holds his Cornish pasty out to me. “Are you sure you don’t want a bite of this?”
I shake my head.
“I can’t believe you can just get these anywhere,” he says.
“You don’t have pasties in Nebraska?”
“No. We have so much less pie, in general. It isn’t fair. I guess we have runzas…”
“What’s a runza?”
“This”—he smiles again, pointing the pasty at me—“but with cabbage.”
He takes another bite, then looks out the window. I’ve never seen Shepard like this before; I think he might be pensive.
“Are you afraid?” I ask.
His face jerks back to me. “Afraid? No. What would I be afraid of?”
“Well, we are going to meet some shady dark creatures in their lair…”
“Why do you assume every magickal being is dark?”
“Asks the man who thought he should befriend a demon.”
Shepard sighs.
“Is that it?” I ask. “Are you afraid to see the demon again?”