“I just do. How do you not know?”
“Dunno,” he says. He laces his fingers in mine and holds my hand loosely. “I try not to think.”
“About being gay?”
“About anything. I make lists of things not to think about.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he says, “it hurts to think about things that you can’t have or help. S’better not to think about it.”
I rub my thumb back and forth on the back of his hand. “Am I on your list?”
He laughs again and shakes his head; his hair brushes against mine. “Fat chance.” He sounds sleepy. “Trying not to think about you … S’like trying not to think about an elephant that’s standing on my chest.”
I think about that.
About Snow thinking about me.
I grin. “I can’t decide whether that’s a compliment.…”
“Me neither,” he says.
“So you don’t think,” I say.
“S’pointless.”
I raise myself up on one elbow and look down on him. “I don’t understand you. You’re the most powerful magician alive—who’s ever lived, probably. You can have anything you want. How is it pointless for you to think about that?”
Snow pushes up on both elbows and lets his head fall in my direction. “Because it doesn’t matter. In the end, I just do what’s expected of me. When the Humdrum comes after me, I fight him. When he sends dragons, I kill them. When you trick me into meeting a chimera, I go off. I don’t get to choose or plan. I just take it as it comes. And someday, something will catch me unawares or be too big to fight, but I’ll fight anyway. I’ll fight until I can’t anymore—what is there to think about?”
Simon drops back onto the floor. I reach out and very carefully push his curls back off his forehead. He closes his eyes.
“I always thought you were going to kill me,” I say.
“Me, too,” he says. “I tried not to think about it.”
I wind my fingers in his hair. It’s thicker than mine, and curlier, and it shines golden in the firelight. There’s a mole on his cheek that I’ve wanted to kiss since I was 12. I do.
“For a long time,” I say.
“Hmmm?” He opens one eye.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Almost since we met…”
Snow closes his eyes again and smiles like he’s trying not to.
I smile, too, only because he isn’t watching. “I thought it was going to kill me.”
63
AGATHA
Penelope wakes me up by pulling the covers down. I yank them back up.
“Wake up, Agatha. We have to go.”
“I’ll go later. I’m sleeping.”
“No, we have to go. Now. Come on.”
I’m lying at the end of her bed. We slept this way, and she kept kicking me in the back.
“Go away, Penelope.”
“I’m trying. But I need you to drive me.”
I open my eyes. “Drive you where?”
“I can’t tell you. Yet. But I will.”
“Somewhere in London?”
“No.”
“Penny, it’s Christmas Eve. I have to go home.”
“I know!” She’s already dressed. She’s got her hair pulled back in a giant frizzy ponytail that would probably be nice and wavy if she’d put any product in it at all. Anything. Hand lotion. Shaving cream. “And you can go home, Agatha. But first I need you to drive me to the country.”
“Why?”
“It’s a surprise,” she says.
“No.”
“An adventure?”
“I’m going home.”
Penny sighs. “We have to go help Simon.”
I close my eyes and roll away from her.
“Agatha? Come on … Is that a yes or a no? If it’s a no, can I take your Volvo?”
64
BAZ
I wake up at least an hour before Snow.
It’s hard not to watch him sleep.