I make a face like, None taken.
“At least this Smith-Richards isn’t asking for money,” she goes on, “though it makes me wonder what else he’s after…”
I’m not going to tell her that I think Smith-Richards might be the real deal.
I understand why she and Baz and Lady Ruth are sceptical. They’ve all already been fooled once—by me. “Isn’t the Coven checking up on these people?” I ask. “Like, can anyone just say that they’re the Greatest Mage?”
“Woof, the Coven.” She leans back in her chair. “We have enough on our hands, trying to clean up the Mage’s messes. Half of us are hoping these new COs fizzle out on their own, and half of us are secretly going to their meetings.”
Baz is paying keen attention. “You’re in the former camp, I gather?”
“I’m so busy out here, I can hardly bother with the rest. My own child could end up doing magic on YouTube, and I wouldn’t have the energy to deal with it.”
I feel my mouth drop open. Baz doesn’t say a word.
Headmistress Bunce pushes up her glasses. “You’re all very lucky that no one believes their own eyes anymore.”
“Yes, Headmistress,” Baz says.
“Yes, Headmistress,” I whisper.
Penny’s mum walks us down to the library, on the other side of the White Chapel. （Here’s something that’s changed: All the stained-glass windows in the Chapel broke the night I killed the Mage. Now they’ve been replaced, but with clear glass. The Chapel looks like all the colour has drained from its face.）
The library is locked, so Penny’s mum lets us in. “Don’t take anything,”
she says. “I mean it. Snap a photo if you need a copy of something.”
“Of course,” Baz says, as if he isn’t a library scofflaw.
She flips on the lights in the hallway. “And just…” She looks right at me.
“Don’t make any headaches for me while you’re here. I have enough.”
“We’re just going to look at books,” I say.
She frowns at me. “Right. Well, I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
We wait for the doors to close behind her.
“Keep up, Snow,” Baz says, moving briskly down the hall. “No need to follow from a distance, hiding in shadows. As is your custom.”
“Are you going to go hunting rats in the Catacombs before we leave? As is your custom?”
“I probably should. As a public service.”
I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t want to go down into the Catacombs.
It’s lousy with skulls down there.
Baz is headed towards the long room at the back of the library where The Magickal Record is kept. He steps inside and whistles.
“Holy shit,” I say, coming in behind him.
Watford’s library used to be pretty low on actual books. The Mage wanted us to focus on Normal books and modern languages. He threw out anything that seemed antiquated—or anything that he disagreed with. He’d always say that movies and television were more useful to us than books. （ “Then why won’t he let us have the Internet?” Penelope would rail.） But this room is full of books. “Was it like this when you were here?” I ask Baz.
He’s standing with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders back, taking it all in. “No. The headmistress has been busy. I’ll bet some of these are the magickal books confiscated by the Mage.”
I have Lady Ruth’s reading glasses in my pocket. I take out the case and hand it to Baz. He puts on the gold-rimmed glasses, winding the springs carefully behind each ear.
I can’t help but laugh once he has them on. His eyes look huge and blinky behind the thick lenses. I slide my arms around his waist. “Look at you, all specky.”
He frowns down at me. He’s only three inches taller, but I swear he stretches it out to six when he feels like it. He looks like a very handsome, very judgy owl.
“Kiss me,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to kiss someone with glasses.”
“Bunce was right there…”
“You look like a steampunk vampire.”
“That’s absurd—”
I kiss him. It is absurd. I can’t even see the glasses like this. I pull away just enough that I can.
Baz cocks an eyebrow above the frames. “I don’t think this is what Lady Salisbury had in mind when she lent us her heirloom reading glasses.”
“I don’t think she’d mind. She seems like she likes a good time.”