Simon tried to help Ebb, but she was cold. Gone. He didn’t cast any spells on her—not even to cover her up—and I thought he must just be as exhausted as Baz and I were, out of magic for once in his life. I didn’t understand until much later that his magic was gone for good.
Baz was exhausted and thirsty. All the blood everywhere—Ebb’s, I think—was making him mental. Finally he started feeding on the birds. Which was disturbing, but like, not half as disturbing as everything else that had happened, and neither Simon nor I tried to stop him.
Mum showed up after a while—with Premal, of all people; he’d been helping her look for me. We were asleep by then, so Mum and Premal thought we were all dead. When I sat up, Mum was pale as a Visitor. I think it was like she’d walked into her greatest fear for me.
Premal wept when he saw the Mage.
Mum took one look at the Mage, cast a spell to preserve his body for the investigation, then never looked at him again.
She called Dad and Dr. Wellbelove, and a few others from the Coven, then took Simon and Baz and me to their room in the tower. (Mum’s the reason I can get in; she broke the ward when Dad lived in Mummers House, and now all the female Bunces can enter.) Premal brought us tea and Hobnobs, and the three of us fell asleep again.
When I woke up, I told Mum about Agatha. I thought she might still be out there in the snow.
When Baz woke up, he called his parents.
When Simon woke up, he wouldn’t talk. Just drank all the tea we gave him and clung to Baz’s arm.
*
I’m not sure what history will say about us. Will they say that Simon killed the Mage? That I did?
I hope that Baz gets credit for ending the war.
The Old Families were still raring to go when Baz went home, even though the Mage was already dead and Simon was powerless—and nobody knew it yet, but the Humdrum was gone, too.
Mum thought the Grimms and Pitches might take the opportunity to seize control of everything.
But Baz went home, the Coven reconvened, there were new elections, and the war just never happened.
Mum’s the headmistress now. Officially. The Coven appointed her.
She tried to talk me into going back to Watford, to finish my diploma. And if Simon had wanted to go back, maybe I would have made the effort. But there were just too many bad memories there. Every time I try to cross the drawbridge, I get sick to my stomach. I don’t know how Baz manages it.
Agatha says she’s never going back. “Over my dead body,” she says. “Which is how I would have ended up if I’d stayed there.”
BAZ
Today’s my leaving ceremony. I’m top of our class—there was no competition after Bunce dropped out—so I have to give a speech.
I told Simon not to come. It’s a bit bleak, being surrounded by magicians all the time, when you can’t even feel magic.
I didn’t want him to come to Watford and think about all the things he isn’t anymore. Not the Mage’s Heir. Not a mage at all.
He’s still everything else he’s always been—brave, honest, inflammably handsome (even with that fucking tail)—but I don’t think he wants to hear all that.
And I find it hard to say, honestly.
It’s hard for us … to talk … sometimes. Lately. I don’t blame him. Life hasn’t exactly kept its promises to Simon Snow. Sometimes I think I should pick fights with him, just to restore his equilibrium.
Anyway. I don’t think he’d want to be here.
My mother gave the speech at her leavers day. It’s in the school archives—I found it, and I’m going to read from it today. It’s about magic, the gift of magic. And the responsibility.
And it’s about Watford. Why my mother loved it. She made this list of everything she’d miss. Like, the sour cherry scones and Elocution lessons, and the clover out on the Great Lawn.
I can’t say that I loved Watford like my mother did.
This was always the place that was taken from her. And the place where she was taken from me. It was like going to school in occupied territory.
Still—I knew I was coming back for my last term, even without Penny and Simon. I wasn’t going to be the first Pitch in recorded history to drop out of Watford.
*