Chapter Text
Baz
It stinks in here already. Stinks like river mud and mouldy cardboard. Like politics and the Mage and fresh vomit.
If my family knew where to find me, they’d be here already.
Simon
I’ve searched the fields. The woods. The ramparts, the catacombs, the classrooms.
No one is taking this seriously. Even Baz’s minions freeze me out.
Agatha wouldn’t even talk about Baz with me at all. She said he wasn’t why she dumped me, but I’m not sure.
Miss Possibelf says it’s not the school’s business because he’s eighteen, but I can tell she’s worried.
I can’t believe nothing happens when a Watford student disappears. What if I disappeared? Would they just shrug and say “He’s an adult. He’s on his own”?
I mean, I’ve been on my own a lot, but Penny was always there for the hardest parts. Plus, I can take care of myself. When has Baz ever had to do that? With his servants and minions constantly waiting on him.
He’s probably fine. He’s probably plotting against me.
I just wish he’d plot here.
Baz
Pitches don’t panic. We plot.
Right now, I’m plotting to replay Simon Snow: Greatest Hits in my head until I learn to teleport without a wand.
Simon in fourth year, flubbing Clean as a whistle and scattering papers from his desk. I taunt him about the prophet choo-choo- choo sing him when he can’t cast a second-year spell. He drops his wand and knocks me to the floor. I let him. And he doesn’t hurt me. As he huffs away, I wrap my arms around my chest to capture the feeling of his hands.
I try to repeat the motion now, but can’t, in this tiny box.
Simon practising swordplay in our room. Every curve of his body snapped into hard lines, total attention, total joy. A savage gleam in his eyes that makes me shiver when I imagine it.
I am already shivering. It’s freezing in here.
I ought to ration these memories. Play one a day, or whatever I think a day is. I try not to think about how long they might need to last.
But when I stop thinking about Simon, the darkness and pain and fear crash down on me like a load of rubble. I forget not to claw the coffin lid, not to sob. Simon is the only thing bright enough to clear the shadows.
I binge on memories of his reflected light.
Simon
Baz used to get nightmares. I’d dream of someone whimpering and writhing, only to wake up and find my dream real. I never knew whether I got caught in his nightmare, or he in mine.
I can’t remember the last time I thrashed awake to find Baz sweating and muttering in his bed. It stopped a few years ago, when Baz learned a spell to prevent his nightmares. He would say it quietly, but I’d hear it if I was still awake when he returned from hunting.
“Sweet dreams,” he’d cast on himself, then sleep like the dead. (He is dead, kind of.) And he stopped waking me with his tremors and cries.
I can’t blame tonight’s nightmares on Baz. It’s not his fault I keep dreaming of the Humdrum.
When I try to summon the Sword of Mages, I can’t speak; I just taste blood rising like vomit in my throat. I try to run, but feel stuck in place.
I jerk in my sleep, finally waking up.
It's been like this every night since I came back to school.
Baz
I wake to movement above me. How many days has it been?
A lumpy face looms over me. I’d love nothing more than to punch between its pebble eyes. But I can barely make my arms move.
The numpty throws a pouch of blood at my chest, followed by a straw. This is how they intend to keep me barely alive, barely sane.
I take in the thin shaft of light that flies into the numpties’ lair, before the tomb closes again.
Simon
I’m searching our room. I check Baz’s wardrobe—empty—then his desk.
There’s nothing but dust and a wad of fossilised gum. (From before our time, surely. Baz would never.) And—what’s this?—a scrap of lined paper, carefully cut out from a page.
It’s in Fiona Pitch’s handwriting. (She once scrawled on my headboard and spelled it indelible.) (“Here lies shitboy.”) I read it now.
“What I am”? What you are, boyo, is a Pitch. A fucking marvellous one. If Malcom can’t see that, he’s a bigoted twat.
I never thought of anti-vampirism as bigotry. Am I a bigot? Fuck. Baz, dealing with that from his father, and me, and the rest of the school if they’d listened to me … Maybe that’s why he’s staying away.
I sigh, returning the letter to the back of the desk.
Baz
He used to open the window at first light every morning. The second he rose, sun filled the room. Even on weekends, when I wanted a lie-in, Simon would throw back the curtains and stomp about the room, doing his best to wake me.
Snow always accused me of being a vampire when I complained. Of course, I am. (That’s why I haven’t died in this coffin. I’m already dead.) But the sunlight doesn’t affect me, not indoors. And even humans hate being woken by flung-open curtains and blinding light.
You’d think he’d have dropped it by now. But no. Curtains open every morning, just to bother me. Which meant I was the first thing he thought about every day.
He was always watching me. Always watching out for me. He probably is now.
I’m rambling.
I miss open windows and stomping Simons.
Simon
“Look on the bright side. Now you have your room to yourself.”
“Do I, Pen?” I kick her leg lightly. I can easily reach her from my bed. She’s sleeping in Baz’s, again. “It’s weird, though.”
“What is, Si?”
“Being here alone.”
She’s quiet for a while. Is she thinking or just drifting off?
Penny rolls over. Drifting off, then. She starts mumbling her about-to-sleep noises. Now or never.
“Penny?” I call. “Do you know how to cast Sweet Dreams?”
“Mbzzzt?” Guess she was already asleep. “What?”
“Sweet dreams. Can you cast it?”
“Everyone can. How can you not?” Even half asleep, Penny sounds disappointed. It’s impressive.
“How can you still ask me that? About anything?”
“Fair.” She rolls to face me. “I can teach you. Why, though?”
I didn’t want to worry her, but I guess I always do. “After… last spring, I get nightmares. Sometimes.” Nightly.
“Oh, Simon.” Her voice is tender. I hate that. “It was horrible. I get them too.” I’d have worried about Penny all summer if I’d let myself think about her. “But the spell won’t help you.”
“Look, I know my magic’s shit, but—”
“I mean—it wouldn’t help anyone.” She sounds sad. You can’t cast Sweet dreams on yourself.”
Before I can think about this, Penny’s ring glints in the darkness.
“Sweet Dreams, Simon.”
Baz
I’m slowly starving.
And I’m losing track of what’s real, what’s fantasy.
When I imagine Simon, he appears as an angel, a faceless ray of light. That’s what Simon Snow has become to me.
Was he ever anything else?
I try to turn on my side, but there’s no room. As pain shoots down my leg, I have to struggle not to sob, not to break into tears right then.
I claw at the lid of the coffin, trying to choke back the words. The cries of help on the tip of my tongue. But it’s futile. Nobody can hear me. Nobody would come, even if they could.
Simon
I rip the empty drawers out of Baz’s desk and drag it away from the wall. Nothing behind it but dust rats and paper clips.
I turn to his bed, tripping on an empty drawer and cutting my shin. I throw his mattress off the frame, clawing at the old fabric, which catches and tears.
This is insane. The secret of where Baz is, who he is, is not hidden under the bed.
All the same I tug at the hole in the mattress, yanking out fistfulls of goose feathers that plume through the air like smoke and coat everything. Nothing else to find.
I slam open the door of the ensuite. Throw aside the toilet-tank lid (it cracks on the floor), search the tank: Water. Rust stains. Fling open the frosted-glass window, search the ledge: pigeon shit.
I throw open the cabinet under the sink. No Baz here either, but still I sweep everything out with shaking hands. Soap slivers and splayed toothbrushes and floss that missed the bin.
A bottle, half empty, posh label faded and water-stained. I pop the lid.
Tears soak my face and I slump to the floor, bottle to my nose, sobbing in the smell of him. Breathe in citrus and incense and there’s Baz, rolling over at night, the smell of him carried to me on the breeze from the window.
I don’t know how long I stay there, but eventually the smell of green smoke blots it all out. My eyes are sore, my head light from huffing into a bottle, my stomach strained from crying.
I’m such a fuck up. All I’m good for is killing. I can blow up a dragon and slaughter mobs of goblins, but I can’t find one vampire.
If I were missing and Baz was the one looking, he’d’ve found me weeks ago. He’s so clever. He’d find me anywhere, just to show he could. He’d probably use some clue-finding magic—though if such a spell existed, Penny would know.
Wait.
Penny would know.
To my infinite relief Penny agrees to help me without arguing. I think she’s been expecting this; if she sees I’ve been crying, she doesn’t mention it.
I could cry again with gratitude, here in the dining hall. Penny’s probably expecting that too, because she shoves another sausage roll into my mouth. I bite into it and listen closely.
“There are several possibilities.” She spells a bubble of quiet around us and pulls out her special notebook—the one that means business—and flips to where she’s already written up two columns.
It’s two in the morning and we’ve been working since dinner. She fixed the wreckage of my room with a few sweeps of her wand, and now she’s spelled maps to the walls and over part of the window. A huge map of England that names individual villages. A blanket-sized London street map. A globe that magickally automatically updates names and political boundaries. (The ones in my primary schools still had East Germany.)
For someone who was waiting for me to ask, Penny’s extremely prepared for this quest.
Half Penny’s hair has escaped its ponytail, and she’s pressing under her glasses to rub her eyes. She changed into pyjamas around midnight.
Nothing has worked. We cast You can run, but you can’t hide, for catching enemies. (Is Baz my enemy?)
I tried Penny’s mum’s spell for runaway children, You are my little bunny. Maybe it failed because Baz hasn’t run away. Or maybe because he isn’t mine.
We cast A good man is hard to find, but it fails. I still don’t fully believe that Baz is good. (I suggested A hard man is good to find,but Penny said no.)
Penny tried Love will find a way, but they’re not in love with each other. Maybe Agatha could cast it, but she hates quests—she said so when we broke up.
We even cast Somewhere out there from the ramparts. It’s incredibly reliable, but only if the target casts on the same star, within the same lunar cycle. Useless if they haven’t planned.
Or can’t see the sky. Or don’t have a wand. (We have to find him.)
Penny’s nearly out of magic. I wish I could give her some of mine. Instead, I tuck her in and turn out the lights.
I sleep better than I have in weeks, knowing I’m not searching alone.
Baz
I feel the slap of another bag of blood hit my chest just before the numpties slam the lid back on.
I don’t even try to escape anymore. I know I can’t get past them. And I’ve just been fed for the first time in three days.
My fangs pop as I skip the straw and puncture the bag with my teeth, letting the blood flow straight into my mouth. When it’s nearly gone, I rip the plastic open, licking at the corners.
Then I allow myself a few more dreams of blue eyes and golden sunlight and school. And everything else I miss. Hunting in the catacombs, getting fresh blood, Simon always on my tail. Following me to the end.
Where are you now, Snow?
Simon
Penny insists we take proper showers the next morning. (“Self-care isn’t selfish.”) (Did she get that in America?)
And I don’t argue about breakfast, but limit myself to two plates in the dining hall. (We bring extra back to the room.)
“I have an idea, Simon,” Penny begins, sitting up on Baz’s bed.
“Mmrrrff?” I freeze mid-chew.
“I’m going to possess Baz.”
For a second I want to argue that I should be the one possessing Baz. He’s my roommate.
“I thought mages can’t be possessed.”
Penny rolls her eyes. “'Can’t be done. People just say that when they can’t do something. It’s harder to possess mages because we’re better at resisting magic. But it can be done. Especially when the vessel is tired, or mentally weakened.”
Baz, mentally weakened? Ridiculous. I say so.
“Look Si, either it will work or it won’t. And if it does, more reason to hurry, yes?”
I shrug.
“Watch the time. Wake me in three minutes if I don’t come back on my own.” (We learned that in fourth year, when Penny got stuck in a selkie.) She sets the timer on her illegal mobile.
Penny settles back on Baz’s bed, closes her eyes, and incants: “I aten’t dead—Basilton Grimm-Pitch.”
At first I think it didn’t work. Then her face goes slack—she’s hooked into something. Could it really be Baz?
I can’t sit still, watching her like this, so I pace around the bed. It feels like ages, but the timer’s gone less than a minute when Penny bolts up with a gasp.
“Penny?” I grab her hand and squeeze next to her on Baz’s bed.
She stares at me wildly. For a moment, her eyes are almost black, barely ringed with grey.
They look like death. They look like home.
“Simon.” Penny’s voice is low and rough. She blinks her eyes clear and brown.
“Simon, we have to find him.”
Baz
I wake from another strange dream—the ceiling of our room at Watford, the plush of a bed—my bed—beneath me. Simon frantically walking about the room, muttering things… about me? About Bunce? I could barely hear.
I watch Snow pace and mutter as I try to hang onto this dream—onto anything that’s not being stuck in this box.
Simon
Penny staggers to the window, flings it open, and sticks her face in the rain, taking deep breaths before turning back to me.
“You’re not going to like this,” she cautions.
“Merlin, Penny, just tell me.”
“It was definitely Baz. I felt tall, even though I was lying down. I was so hungry. Literally starving. And thirsty like I've never felt before.” She rubs her knee. “My leg hurt. It might be broken.”
Shit. “Where was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” I blurt. “That was the whole—”
“Simon, it was dark.” Her voice quavers. “Completely. I was in a wooden box. The lid was right in my face.”
This makes no sense. “Must be big box if he’s lying down.”
“Simon. I think it was a coffin.”
No. Baz doesn’t sleep in a coffin.
I turn away from Penny. I can’t look in her eyes, just yet.
“I can’t believe I possessed a mage,” she says to herself.
Baz’s leg is broken.
“They said it can’t be done—”
Why hasn’t it healed?
“—but I did it.”
Baz is hungry. He’s thirsty.
“This has all kinds of implications—”
He needs blood.
“—for magic, and science—”
He’s trapped.
“—and magickal science.”
“Penny.” I face her.
“Not even my mum can—”
“Penny.”
Penny sees my face and grabs my hand. “Simon. Shit.”
I feel like I’m on fire. (He’s flammable.)
“Simon, hang on!”
Someone buried Baz. Like he’s dead.
He isn’t dead. Smoke and magic are rolling off me.
“Simon, just calm down—”
“I don’t need to calm down,” I growl. “I need to find Baz! ”
The map of London bursts into flames.