Security at the Watford gate and along the outer wall has got stiffer every year.
One of the Mage’s Men—Penelope’s brother, Premal—is stationed just inside today. He’s probably pissed off about the assignment. The rest of the Mage’s team’ll be up in his office, planning the next offensive, and Premal’s down here, checking in first years. He steps in front of me.
“All right, Prem?”
“Looks like I should be asking you that question.…”
I look down at my bloody T-shirt. “Goblin,” I say.
Premal nods and points his wand at me, murmuring a cleaning spell. He’s just as powerful as Penny. He can practically cast spells under his breath.
I hate it when people cast cleaning spells on me; it makes me feel like a child. “Thanks,” I say anyway, and start to walk past him.
Premal stops me with his arm. “Just a minute there,” he says, raising his wand up to my forehead. “Special measures today. The Mage says the Humdrum’s walking around with your face.”
I flinch, but try not to pull away from his wand. “I thought that was supposed to be a secret.”
“Right,” he said. “A secret that people like me need to know if we’re going to protect you.”
“If I were the Humdrum,” I say, “I could’ve already eaten you by now.”
“Maybe that’s what the Mage has in mind,” Premal says. “At least then we’d know for sure it was him.” He drops his wand. “You’re clear. Go ahead.”
“Is Penelope here?”
He shrugs. “I’m not my sister’s keeper.”
For a second, I think he’s saying it with emphasis, with magic, casting a spell—but he turns away from me and leans against the gate.
*
There’s no one out on the Great Lawn. I must be one of the first students back. I start to run, just because I can, upsetting a huddle of swallows hidden in the grass. They blow up around me, twittering, and I keep running. Over the Lawn, over the drawbridge, past another wall, through the second and third set of gates.
Watford has been here since the 1500s. It’s set up like a walled city—fields and woods outside the walls, buildings and courtyards inside. At night, the drawbridge comes up, and nothing gets past the moat and the inner gates.
I don’t stop running till I’m up at the top of Mummers House, falling against my door. I pull out the Sword of Mages and use it to nick the pad of my thumb, pressing it into the stone. There’s a spell for this, to reintroduce myself to the room after so many months away—but blood is quicker and surer, and Baz isn’t around to smell it. I stick my thumb in my mouth and push the door open, grinning.
My room. It’ll be our room again in a few days, but for now it’s mine. I walk over to the windows and crank one open. The fresh air smells even sweeter now that I’m inside. I open the other window, still sucking on my thumb, and watch the dust motes swirl in the breeze and the sunlight, then fall back on my bed.
The mattress is old—stuffed with feathers and preserved with spells—and I sink in. Merlin. Merlin and Morgan and Methuselah, it’s good to be back. It’s always so good to be back.
The first time I came back to Watford, my second year, I climbed right into my bed and cried like a baby. I was still crying when Baz came in. “Why are you already weeping?” he snarled. “You’re ruining my plans to push you to tears.”
I close my eyes now and take in as much air as I can:
Feathers. Dust. Lavender.
Water, from the moat.
Plus that slightly acrid smell that Baz says is the merwolves. (Don’t get Baz started on the merwolves; sometimes he leans out our window and spits into the moat, just to spite them.)