“Language evolves,” the Mage says. “So must we.”
Baz looks back at the chalkboard again. His hair is dry now and falling in loose locks over his cheeks; he tucks a piece behind his ear, then writes a date on the chalkboard: 12 August 2002.
I start to ask what happened that day, then I realize.
“You were only 5,” I say. “Do you remember anything?”
He looks at me, then back at the board. “Some.”
43
BAZ
Some. I don’t remember how the day started or any of the normal parts.
I remember only a few things about that whole year: A trip to the zoo. The day my father shaved his moustache and I didn’t recognize him.
I remember going to the nursery, in general.
That we got digestives and milk every day. The rabbit mural on the ceiling. A little girl who bit me. I remember that there were trains, and I liked the green one. That there were babies, and sometimes, if one was crying, the miss would let me stand over the cradle and say, “It’s okay, little puff, you’ll be all right.” Because that’s what my mum would say to me when I cried.
I don’t think there were that many of us there. Just the children of faculty. Two rooms. I was still in with the babies.
I don’t specifically remember going there on the twelfth of August. But I do remember when the vampires broke down the door.
Vampires—we—are unusually strong when we’re on the hunt. A heavy oak door carved with bunnies and badgers … that wouldn’t be a barrier for a team of us.
I can’t tell you how many vampires came to the nursery that day. It seemed like dozens, but that can’t be right, because I was the only child who was bitten. I remember that one of them, a man, picked me up like I was a puppy—by the back of my dungarees. The bib came up and choked me for a second.
The way I remember it, my mother was right behind them, there almost immediately. I could hear her shouting spells before I saw her. I saw her blue fire before I saw her face.
My mother could summon fire under her breath. She could burn for hours without tiring.
She shot streams of fire over the children’s heads; the air was alive with it.
I remember people scrambling. I remember watching one of the vampires light up like a Roman candle. I remember the look on my mother’s face when she saw me, a flash of agony before the man holding me sank his teeth into my neck.
And then pain.
And then nothing …
I must have passed out.
When I woke up, I was in my mother’s quarters, and Father and Fiona were casting healing spells over me.
When I woke up, my mother was gone.
44
SIMON
Baz lifts his hand to the board and writes Vampires, and then, On a mission from the Humdrum, and then, one fatality.
I don’t know how he can do this—talk about vampires without acknowledging that he is one. Pretending that I don’t already know. That he doesn’t know I already know.
“Well, not just one fatality,” I say. “There were also the vampires, weren’t there? Did your mother kill them all? How many?”
“It’s impossible to say.” He folds his arms. “There were no remains.” He turns back to the chalkboard. “There are no remains, in that sort of death—just ashes.”
“So the Humdrum sends vampires to Watford—”
“The first breach in school history,” he says.
“And the last,” I add.
“Well, it’s got a lot harder, hasn’t it?” Baz says. “That’s one thing we can give your Mage—this school’s as tight as a drum. He’d hide Watford behind the Veil if he could.”
“Have there been any vampire attacks since then?”
Baz shrugs. “I don’t think vampires normally attack magicians. My father says they’re like bears.”
They.
“How?” I ask.
“Well, they hunt where it’s easiest for them, among the Normals, and they don’t attack magicians unless they’re starving or rabid. It’s too much fuss.”
“What else does your father tell you about vampires?”