Swithin stops crying during “Martha My Dear” and finally falls asleep the second time through “I Will.” I ease myself down onto the sofa, trying not to disturb him.
“Oh, Basilton. Thank magic.” My father’s standing in the doorway, looking a hundred years old. He drops into a leather club chair and groans.
If he had asked me at the time, I would have told him that 46 was too bloody old to start a second family. The man was already past his prime when he had me! But Daphne was young and had baby fever, and he was in love.
That was eight years and four children ago. Magic knows whether Daphne wants to have more; she’s still in her 30s and doesn’t seem to have any other interests.
“Is Daphne at book club?”
Swithin makes a fussy noise, but settles back on my chest when I pat him. I look up at my father to see if he heard me.
He’s starting to cry.
7
SHEPARD
“Hey. Penelope. It’s all right.”
She’s been pacing for an hour. “I know it’s all right,” she snaps.
“Okay, good,” I say. “That’s good. Maybe you could sit down?”
“I don’t feel like sitting down. I feel like pacing. It helps me think. I need a blackboard, why doesn’t this flat have a blackboard!”
Her phone pings. It’s been going off every ten minutes or so since we left her parents’ house.
“Is that your mom again?”
“Yes.” Penelope has paused her pacing to furiously thumb out a reply.
“What are you telling her?”
“Lies.”
“You don’t have to lie to your mother for my sake.”
“I think I do, Shepard, unless you’d like me to magically concuss you and leave you in Piccadilly Circus.”
“I told you—I can just go home.”
“You don’t even have a real passport!”
“Cast a few spells my way, and I’ll get on a plane. It’ll be fine.”
She stops raging at her phone to rage at me directly. “You. Will. Not. Be. Fine. There’s nothing fine about being cursed by a demon!”
“We all die someday, right?”
“Yes, but most of us aren’t obligated to go to hell afterwards.”
“I don’t think it’s hell exactly. I’ve done some reading . . .”
“For snake’s sake, Shepard—”
“My point is—” I say.
She takes a deep breath, like she’s about to shout at me.
I keep talking, holding up both hands. “My point, Penelope, is that it’s not your problem to fix.”
“Of course it is!”
“Why?”
“Be-because—” she sputters. “Because it’s a problem that—that exists.”
“You’re responsible for all existing problems?”
She buries her hands in her hair. “No! But yes. What sort of person would be if I didn’t help you?”
I try to look reassuring. “A normal one.”
“I’m not Nor—”
“You know what I mean. If I had cancer, would you feel like it was your job to cure me?”
“Possibly.”
“Penelope, listen—”
“No, Shepard, you listen! I understand I can’t fix everything. But it’s like, you can’t pick up every piece of litter, right? You can’t stop and pick up every napkin or piece of paper you see on the street. But my mum used to say that once we touched something, we were responsible for it. So if we picked up a can or a sweet wrapper, we had to deal with it—throw it away or recycle it or whatever—because we’d made it our business.”
“Okay.” I nod. “I think I get what you’re saying . . . I’m like a piece of trash that you picked up.”
“Exactly! I can’t just drop you now. Then I’d be the one littering.”
“What if I give you permission to throw me back?”
“It doesn’t work like that. You’ve penetrated my sphere of accountability.”
“Penelope . . .” I smile. “Does that mean we’re friends?”
She rolls her eyes—like she thinks I’m worth helping, but not talking to—and starts with the pacing again. “I can’t believe Mum was so dismissive. She’s the one who taught me the sphere of accountability.”
“Maybe it doesn’t apply to Normals.”
“Normals are still people, Shepard!”
“I’m surprised to hear you say so.”
She doesn’t look up. “On top of everything else, I owe you a life debt. We might all owe you a life debt. I can’t just—”
The front door bangs open, and Simon walks in, shuffling off his raincoat. His wings spring out.
“Simon, thank Morgana!” Penelope says. “You won’t believe what Mum did tonight—”
Simon walks past her. “We can talk about it tomorrow, yeah?”
“Simon, it’s urgent, I—”
He walks into one of the bedrooms and shuts the door behind him.
8
SIMON
Dr. Wellbelove told me to sleep on it. So I did.
And I woke up thinking he was right. I’m taking the money.
I don’t deserve it. Nobody owes me. But I could use it—I could really use it right now.
I’ve been trying to hang on to the World of Mages because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Because I couldn’t find a way forward. I thought I’d find my way at the bottom of a cider can. I thought I’d find it, or something, driving across America. And for a few hours—a few hours in the back of a truck, somewhere in Utah—I fooled myself into thinking that I had.
But the only way forward is out.
This money is my way out.
There’s enough to get a flat. I won’t have to worry about rent for a year, at least. And I’ll have a job by then. I made an appointment with Dr. Wellbelove to finally deal with the wings. It’s going to have to be surgical, he says; magic won’t touch them. That’s fine. I’m ready.
I’m ready to let go—to be me again. The me I thought I was before the Mage ever showed up.
9
BAZ
“I just tried to call you. I’m going to stay down here for another day. Things are a bit of a mess. I think my father and Daphne had a fight. Text me when you wake up.”
“Are you around?”
“Are you sleeping? You shouldn’t sleep in the middle of the day when you’re jet-lagged.”
“I don’t have a room here. I slept on the sofa. Mordelia woke me up this morning, playing video games.”
“Daphne still isn’t home. She hasn’t returned my texts. There’s a lot of that going around . . .”
“I’m staying another day, maybe two, I’m not sure. I still haven’t cornered my father.
I don’t know how to corner my father.
Anyway . . .
I can’t leave yet.”
“I’ll just pretend you’ve replied with a thumbs-up emoji.”