“Why can’t it be both?” Penny says. “We’ve always wanted to take a road trip across America.”
Baz tilts his head. “Have we?”
Penny looks at me and smiles. “Simon and I have.”
She’s right, we have. And for a moment, I can see it: The three of us, speeding down some abandoned motorway—no, highway—in an old convertible. I’m driving. We’re all wearing sunglasses. We’re listening to The Doors, and Baz is complaining about it. But he’s got his shirt unbuttoned to his navel, so I’m not complaining about anything. The sky is huge and blue and full of lens flare. America …
My wings shudder. That happens now when I’m uncomfortable. “We can’t go to America.”
Penny kicks me. “Why not?”
“Because I’ll never make it through airport security.” My tail is mostly squashed beneath me at the moment, but I flick the end up around my thigh to remind her it’s there.
“I’ll coat you with spells,” she says.
“I don’t want to be coated with spells.”
“I’ve been working on a new one, Simon, it’s a thing of beauty—”
“Eight hours on an aeroplane with my wings bunched up…”
“The new spell makes them disappear,” she grins.
I look up at her, startled. “I don’t want them to disappear.”
That’s a lie; I want them gone. I want to be myself again. I want to be free. But … I can’t. Yet. I can’t explain why not. (Even to myself.)
“Temporarily,” Penny says. “I think it will just make them go away for a while, until the spell wears off.”
“What about this?” I flick my tail again.
“We’ll have to use another spell. Or you can tuck it.”
America …
I never really thought I’d get to America—unless I had to chase the Humdrum there.
“The thing is…” Penny bites her bottom lip and wrinkles her nose, like she’s both ashamed and excited. “I’ve already bought the tickets!”
“Penelope!” It’s a bad idea. I have wings. And no money. And I don’t want to get dumped by my boyfriend at the Statue of Liberty. I’d rather get dumped right here, thanks. Also I don’t know how to drive. “We can’t just—”
She starts singing “Don’t Stop Believing.” Which is hardly the United States’ national anthem, but it was our favourite song in third year, when we first said we were going to take this road trip, someday, when we’d won the war.
Well … we have won the war, haven’t we? (Never thought that would mean killing the Mage and sacrificing my own magic, but it’s still, technically, a win.)
Penny is telling me to “hold on to that feel-layy-anng.” Baz is watching us from the door.
“If you’ve already bought the tickets…” I say.
Penny jumps to her feet on the sofa. “Yes! We’re going on holiday!” She stops and looks at Baz. “Are you in?”
Baz is still looking at me. “If you think I’m letting you traipse around a foreign country by yourselves, especially in this political climate—”
Penelope is jumping again. “America!”
3
PENELOPE
All right, so, yes, things haven’t been going so well. And I should have been the one to see it coming.
Was Simon supposed to see it coming? He doesn’t see anything coming! He’s taken aback by Tuesdays!
Was Baz supposed to see it coming? All Baz has been able to focus on for the last year is Simon; he can’t see past the hearts in his own eyes.
No, it should have been me.
But I was just so happy to be through everything. The Humdrum vanquished, the Mage revealed, most of us still alive to talk about it … Simon, all in one piece! Simon with extra pieces, yes, but hale and whole, with a future!
Simon Snow, in no grave danger—my most ardent prayer answered.
I just wanted to enjoy it.
I wanted to get a flat and go to university, and just be a normal teenager for once, before we left our teens behind us. I didn’t want to do anything radical—I didn’t fuck off to California and leave my magic wand behind, for example. But I wanted to relax.
Lesson learned: Relaxation is the most insidious humdrum.
We all moved to London last year and started uni, as if our world hadn’t just been turned upside down and shaken. As if Simon hadn’t just been turned inside out.
I mean—he killed the Mage, the closest thing he’d ever had to a father. It was an accident, but still.
And the Mage killed Ebb, who wasn’t exactly Simon’s mother figure, but who was definitely like his weird aunt. Ebb loved Simon. She treated him like he was one of her little goats.
So, yes, I knew that Simon had suffered—but I thought winning would make up for it. I thought victory would be enough. That relief would fill in all those holes.
I think Baz believed love would do the trick.…
It really is a miracle that the two of them ended up together in the end. (Star-cross’d lovers. “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.” The whole shebang.)
But it was a mistake thinking of that as an end. There is no end. Bad things happen, and then they stop, but they keep on wreaking havoc inside of people.
I know perfectly well that going on holiday isn’t going to magickally fix everything. (If there were a way to magickally fix this, I swear to Stevie I’d have figured it out by now.) But we could all use a change of scenery.
Maybe it’ll do Simon good to see himself in a new context. There are no bad memories waiting for him in America. No good ones either—but anything’s a win that gets him off the sofa.
4
AGATHA
I never call Penelope back.
Who even calls people anyway? Who leaves voicemails?
Penelope Bunce. That’s who.
I’ve told her to text me like a normal person. (I texted her to tell her.)
“But you don’t reply to my texts!” she replied.
“Yes, but at least I read them, Penny. When you leave a voicemail, I just recoil in horror.”
“Well, then tell me what I need to do to get a reply, Agatha.”
I didn’t reply to that.
Because there’s nothing I could say that would satisfy her.
And because I’ve left that world behind! Including Penelope!
There’s no way to leave the World of Mages behind and hold on to Penelope Bunce—she’s the mage-iest mage of them all. She lives and breathes magic. You can’t even eat toast without Penelope magickally melting the butter.
One time, I turned my phone off to get a break from her, and it still beeped when she sent a text.
“No more magickal texts!” I texted her.
“Agatha!” she texted back. “Are you coming home for Christmas?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t go home.
My parents were relieved, I think.
The World of Mages slipped into chaos when Simon killed the Mage. (Or when Penelope did. Or Baz. I still don’t get how it went down.)