“His family travels,” Agatha offers.
Oh, really? I want to say. Is that what you talk about alone in the woods? Your shared love of travel? I rip off a chunk of bread and knock over my milk. Penny winces.
“He wouldn’t miss school,” I say, picking up my glass. Penny spells the milk away. “He cares too much about school.”
Nobody argues with me. Baz has always ranked first in our class. Penny used to give him a run for his money, but being my sidekick eventually affected her grades. “I’m not your sidekick,” she likes to say. “I’m your dread companion.”
“Maybe,” she suggests now, “his family has decided to stop pretending that we’re all at peace. Eighth year is optional anyway. In the old days, lots of people left after seventh. Maybe the Pitches have decided to get serious.”
“Go to the mattresses,” I say.
“Exactly.”
“Against the Mage and me? Or the Humdrum?”
“I don’t know,” Penny says. “I always thought the Pitches would just sit back and watch both sides destroy each other.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean, Simon—the Old Families don’t want the Humdrum to win. But they don’t mind him beating the Mage down. They’ll wait to attack when they think the Mage is weak.”
“When they think I’m weak.”
“Same difference.”
Agatha is staring over at the table where Baz usually sits. Niall and Dev, another of Baz’s friends—his cousin or something—are sitting next to each other, talking with their heads close.
“I don’t think Baz dropped out,” she says.
Penny, sitting across from us, leans into Agatha’s line of sight. “Do you know something? What did Baz tell you?”
Agatha looks down at her plate. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
“He must have told you something,” Penny says. “You talked to him last.”
I clench my teeth. “Penelope,” I say without unclenching them.
“I don’t care if you two have agreed to move on.” She waves her hand at Agatha and me. “This is important. Agatha, you know Baz better than any of us. What did he tell you?”
“She doesn’t know him better than I do,” I argue. “I live with him.”
“Fine, Simon, what did he tell you?”
“Nothing to make me think he’d drop out of school and miss a whole year of making me miserable!”
“He doesn’t even have to be here to do that,” Agatha mutters.
This pisses me off, even though I was thinking the same thing myself, just yesterday.
“I’m done,” I say. “I’m going up to my room. To enjoy the solitude.”
Penny sighs. “Calm down, Simon. Don’t punish us just because you’re feeling confused. We haven’t done anything.” She glances over at Agatha and tilts her head. “Well, I haven’t.…”
Agatha stands up, too. “I’ve got homework.”
We walk together to the door, then she turns off for the Cloisters.
“Agatha!” I call out.
But I don’t say it until she’s too far away to hear.
*
I have the room to myself, and I can’t even enjoy it, because Baz’s empty bed just seems sinister now.
I summon the Sword of Mages and practise my form on his side of the room. He hates that.
16
SIMON
Baz isn’t at breakfast the next morning. Or the next.
He isn’t in class.
The football team starts practising, and someone else takes his place.
After a week, the teachers stop saying his name when they take attendance.
I trail Niall and Dev for a few days, but they don’t seem to have Baz hidden away in a barn.…
I know I should be happy about Baz being gone—it’s what I’ve always said I wanted, to be free of him—but it seems so … wrong. People don’t just disappear like this.
Baz wouldn’t.
Baz is … indelible. He’s a human grease stain. (Mostly human.) Three weeks into the term, I still find myself walking by the pitch, expecting to see him at football practice, and when I don’t, I take a hard turn out into the hills behind the school.