That’s all right. I don’t need to be. I just need to keep this wand on me, and I need one spell at the tip of my tongue.
I’m not letting it happen again.
By “it,” I mean “kidnapped by megalomaniacal vampires.” And I also mean “hidden at the bottom of a well because someone was mad at my boyfriend.” And: “chased by were-wolves.” As well as: “treed by a direhog.”
Never. Not again. Not one more time.
The next person who touches me is ash. The next thing to look at me funny . . .
There’s a stuffed bear sitting on my dresser. One of its eyes is hanging by a thread. Simon gave it to me. He won it for me at a funfair.
I point my wand at it—“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!”
The bear dissolves in a satisfying puff, coating my dresser in soot. Good. Now it matches my duvet and the rug. I may have to leave my room soon; I’m running out of things to point my wand at.
“Agga, darling . . .” My dad has opened my door and is standing there with his arms folded. I don’t snap at him. He probably knocked. “Why don’t you get dressed,” he says cheerfully.
“I am dressed.”
“Why don’t you get changed, then. I need your help with something.”
Well.
This is a dreary scenario. My parents apparently have limits. They’ve taken charge.
I have a job now.
I’m to go to work every morning with my father, and then hang about his surgery, taking orders from literally everyone. So far today, I’ve hoovered the waiting area, kept an eye on two toddlers whose mother might have shingles, and learned how to empty the bins. Now I’m answering the phone while the receptionist monitors me to make sure I’m doing it correctly. I’ve hardly seen my father at all. His waiting room has been full all day.
My dad’s the only magickal doctor in this part of England. He went to Normal medical school, too, so magicians come to see him for every sort of ailment.
There isn’t a magickal veterinarian in the World of Mages (the only one died a few years ago), so Dad also sees a lot of farm animals and pets. He’s got an intern now who’s studying to be a magickal vet. A hulking Irish girl with a face like a battleship. She made me clean Exam Four three times before she was satisfied.
“Miss Wellbelove.” Crowley, there she is again—Niamh—looming in the doorway to summon me for some grim new task.
“I can’t right now,” I say. “I’m covering the phones.”
“She’s covering the phones,” the receptionist agrees, as if she’s my new supervisor.
Niamh frowns at me. “Quickly, Miss Wellbelove. Now.”
I reluctantly get up to follow her. She’s three inches taller than me, and twice as broad, and she wears her hair in a large, dark knot at the back of her head. She’s headed for an exam room. The light over the door means a patient is inside.
“I don’t have any medical training,” I say.
“I’m well aware.” She opens the door.
Simon Snow is standing there. Shirtless. Shaking. His devil wings clenched against his back. He’s holding a scalpel.
“Simon?”
“Agatha?” There are more knives on the floor. And broken glass. Cotton swabs. The exam room looks like it’s been ransacked. Simon’s eyes are wild. “I’m sorry!”
“It’s no trouble,” Niamh says. “We’ll just try again. Wash your hands, Miss Wellbelove.”
“I—”
She gives me a pointed look, so I close my mouth and go to wash my hands in the sink.
Simon hands Niamh the scalpel and crouches to pick something else up from the floor—a large saw.
“I’ve got this,” she says, taking it from him. “Sit down, Mr. Snow.” She mumbles a spell, and the room rights itself, all the sharp tools flying up onto a tray.
Simon sits at the end of the exam table, looking numb and exhausted. It’s the look that used to mean he’d just blown all his magic at once—the look he’d get right after he came to, a burned-out husk. I can practically smell the ozone. (Merlin, Simon used to stink of magic. It turned my stomach.)
Niamh joins me at the sink, pulling another face at me and nodding her head towards Simon. I still have no idea what my role is here, but when she nods his way again, I walk over to him.
Simon glances up at me, then folds his arms over his chest—as if I haven’t seen him like this before. I mean, I suppose I haven’t. Not with the wings. And Simon’s thicker now than he used to be. I can’t see his ribs.
But I know all this golden skin . . . I’ve counted these moles.
It’s a strange feeling to look at someone’s chest and know it’s nothing to do with you anymore, but still to remember kissing every inch.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he says.
“Sorry,” I say. “I can go.”
“No,” he says. “Please.”
Just as Niamh says, “No. I need your help.”
“Sorry,” Simon says again, to Niamh. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs miserably in his neck.
“Nonsense,” she says. “I startled you. We’re going to start fresh . . .”
He nods. I stand there uselessly—I don’t know what we’re starting.
“Now I’m going to extend just the left side,” Niamh says, gingerly touching Simon’s wing.
Simon flinches—and nearly stabs her in the throat with one of the stony spikes that poke out at the peak of each wing. Niamh frowns at me. She has a fantastic face for frowning: long and wide, with a nose that looks like a prosthetic an actress would wear to win an Oscar. “Miss Wellbelove,” she says.
Simon’s face is pale. His jaw muscles are popping out of his cheeks, and his hands are knotted in fists on his thighs. Niamh tugs at his wing again, and he squeezes his eyes shut.
I touch his hand. “Can I—”
His eyes jerk up to mine, and he nods, clamping my hand in his. I take his other hand, too, and he squeezes it. “Does it hurt?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. It just”—he shakes his head again—“feels wrong to be touched there.”
Niamh has his left wing spread out. It takes up most of the small exam room. She’s got a bottle of iodine and a cloth. Has Simon been injured? I mean, recently? Penelope and Baz healed all his bullet holes in the desert. Simon and I haven’t really talked since . . .
Well, ever. We didn’t talk after the Mage died. And we didn’t talk much in San Diego. And we haven’t talked at all since we got home. I didn’t even ask him what my father wanted the other night.
Niamh swabs the back of his wing with her cloth, and his whole body clenches. “All right?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” Simon says, white-knuckling my hands. “Niamh’s a vet student,” he tells me.
I nod. “I know.”
“Lucky for me.” He’s trying to smile. His face is so pale that his skin looks yellow, and there are purple circles under his eyes.
“Lucky for me,” Niamh says flatly. “I’d never get a chance to dissect an actual dragon’s wings.”
Dissect?
Simon’s still trying to smile at me. “Don’t worry. She’s going to take them off first.”