“You realize that your mentor has raided my house twice this month.”
“Yeah—I mean, no, I didn’t realize that—but the point is, I didn’t raid your house. What if,” he says, stepping closer, “I help you find out who killed your mum, then you help me fight the Humdrum, and we just forget about the rest?”
“‘The rest,’” I say, turning around. “Way to oversimplify a decade of corruption and abuse of power.”
“Are you talking about the Mage?”
“Yes.”
He looks pained. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“How can I not talk about the Mage when I’m talking to the Mage’s Heir?”
“Is that how you think of me?”
“Isn’t that how you think of yourself? Oh, right. I forgot—you don’t think at all.”
Simon groans and rakes at his hair. “Jesus Christ. Do you ever not go for the lowest blow? Like, do you ever think, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say the most cruel thing just now?’”
“I’m trying to be efficient.”
He leans against the shelf where I’ve set the whiteboard. “It’s vicious.”
“You should talk, Snow. You always go for the kill shot.”
“When I’m fighting. We’re not fighting.”
“We’re always fighting,” I say, going back to the board.
I’m facing the board; he’s standing next to me, facing the room. He leans towards me a bit, without looking at me, and bumps his arm against mine, ruining the word I’m writing. “Or not,” he says.
I erase the word and start over. I’m working on the Everything we still don’t list. I’m tempted to write: everything important and also: whether Simon Snow is actually gay. And: whether I’ll live forever.
“I’ll help you find out who killed your mother,” he says again, like he’s laying out a plan. “And you’ll help me stop the Humdrum—that’s a shared goal, yeah?—and then we’ll worry about the rest later.”
“Is this how you get what you want? By just repeating it until it comes true?”
“Isn’t that how you cast a spell?”
My chalk hand drops, and I turn to him, exasperated. “Simon—”
“A-ha!” he shouts, springing up and pointing. It scares the hell out of me. I’ve seen him kill a dog with less effort. (He said the dog was were; I think it was just excited.) “You did it again!”
“Did what?” I say, slapping his hand away from my face.
He sticks his other hand in my face, pointing. “Called me Simon.”
“What would you prefer—Chosen One?”
His hand dips. “I prefer Simon, actually. I … I like it.”
I swallow, and it must be obvious how nervous I am, because he looks down at my neck. “Simon,” I say, and swallow again, “you’re being idiotic.”
“Because I like this better than fighting?”
“There is no ‘this’!” I protest.
“You slept in my arms,” he says.
“Fitfully.”
He lets his hand fall, and I catch it. Because I’m weak. Because I’m a constant disappointment to myself. Because he’s standing right there with his tawny skin and his moles and his morning breath.
“Simon,” I say.
He squeezes my hand.
“It’s not that I don’t prefer this. It’s that…” I sigh. “I can’t even imagine it. My family objects to everything the Mage stands for.”
“I know,” he says emphatically. “But I actually think we have bigger problems than that. If we find out who killed your mum, and then we go after the Humdrum together—maybe we can help everyone see that we’re better off uniting, and then—”
“And then the whole World of Mages will see how much better it is to work together, and we’ll sing a song about co-operation.”
“I was thinking we’d stop cursing each other,” he says, “and locking each other up in towers.”
“Potato, potahto.”