The Mage hoped I’d be able to do it eventually. I had the magic. But I didn’t have the magickal dexterity. I destroyed every object he put in front of me, including some expensive-looking jewellery.
I’m probably lucky it didn’t work. Imagine how many holes I would have blown in the magickal fabric if he’d turned me into a magic-wand factory.
Lady Ruth is back with an olive-green leather case. She sits down and hands the case to me—even though it’ll have to be Baz that uses anything magickal. I flip it open. There are gold wire-framed glasses inside. The arms have springs on the ends that must curl around the back of your ears. Baz is leaning over the table to look.
“Use them with ‘Fine-tooth comb,’ or any finding spell,” she says.
“They’ll give you a boost.”
“Were these your husband’s, too?” I ask.
“My mother’s. I’ve never been much of a reader myself. They’re a family heirloom, I suppose.”
“Lovely,” Baz says. “We’ll be careful with them.”
“I know you will.” She squeezes his arm. “Let me pack up some sandwiches for you to take along.”
I end up eating the sandwiches on the way to Watford.
Baz frowns at me the whole time.
“Sorry,” I say, “am I getting crumbs in the car?” It’s his aunt’s ancient sports car—we took it from her parking space—and it was already full of crumbs and cigarette butts.
“I don’t care about the car,” he says. “I care about my shirt.”
I look down at the shirt he let me borrow—that he made me borrow. （Baz is forcing his clothes on me again; he says none of mine are fit for polite company.） Today’s shirt is baby blue knit, with short sleeves and a diamond pattern. I look like the most laddish member of a boy band. I think Baz is only lending me clothes that he’d never wear himself.
He reaches over and brushes some crumbs off my chest.
“Should I have you spell my wings away?” I ask. They’re origamied tight on my back at the moment.
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to spell your wings.”
“Yeah, but … people can still see them under this shirt, and I don’t really want to put on a raincoat.”
“Who’ll even be at Watford to see them?” he asks. “The students are on break. And Headmistress Bunce has already seen your wings.”
“Yeah…”
We tried to get Penelope to come to Watford with us, but she still isn’t answering my texts. Baz says I need to apologize to her properly. In person.
I’m sure he’s right—I just don’t know where to start. I’ve never really apologized to Penny before. I’ve never had to.
Baz parks in the grass outside the front gates, next to the Bunces’
hatchback.
“Wonder why the headmistress is parked out here,” I say. “The Mage always parked inside the walls.”
“The Mage was a heathen.” Baz opens the gate and holds it open for me.
I follow him onto the Great Lawn and take his hand. Baz came back here for school, after everything with the Mage. He finished the term, lived alone in our old room at the top of the tower …
I couldn’t come back.
And not just because I wasn’t a magician anymore and had no use for a school of magic.
I couldn’t live with the memories. Every day I’d been at Watford was a lie. Every lesson I learned, every battle. All the magic I had, I stole from the World of Mages. I was draining them dry. And the worst part is …
I was happy here.
I was happy as a fraud and a magickal incinerator.
“All right?” Baz asks, when we’re halfway up the Lawn.
“Yeah, all right.”
He holds my hand firmly. “The drawbridge is already down,” he says.
“That’s convenient.”
“Ugh, I forgot about the merwolves.”
“How could you forget about the merwolves?”
“I tried not to think of them, even when we were here.”
“I had a plan to drink them all…” Baz looks wistful. “But it took me all night to catch one—and then it tasted like motor oil. Gamy motor oil.”
“What’d you do with the body?”
“Threw it back in!”
“Gross.”
We walk over the drawbridge and through the fortress walls, into the empty courtyard. The Mage and his Men never left Watford open and unguarded like this, even on summer break. He and his Men were always here over school breaks, working on secret plans and projects. I used to ask the Mage to let me stay at Watford, too—but he said it was good for me to spend time with Normals.