the Eye, then sort of half-fly down the streets to find your house. I’ve only ever come here before on the Tube.”
“I wonder if anyone saw you.”
“I don’t know. I tried to think about being invisible—”
“You what?”
I close my eyes now and think about the wings. I think about how I don’t need them anymore. I feel the magic welling up in me. (The magic is always welling up in me lately. Always coming up the back of my throat.) I think about how I don’t want to fly, then I think about pulling the wings back into my back.
When I open my eyes again, Penny is staring at me, her hand empty where the wing had been. She looks spooked. “What did you just do?”
“Got rid of the wings.”
“What about the tail?”
I reach down and feel a ropy, leathery tail. “Jesus.” I think hard about getting rid of it, and it zips through my hand, scratching my palm on its way back into my body.
“Why did you even have a tail?” Penny asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer, sitting up. “I must have been thinking about that dragon.”
“Simon…” She’s shaking her head. “What happened last night?”
“The Humdrum,” I say. “He attacked me at Baz’s house. He tried to use Baz against me.”
“He created the biggest hole in Great Britain!”
“What?”
“My dad got the call this morning. All of Hampshire is gone.”
“What?”
“Dad and the team are there now, but the Pitches told them they can’t come on their land. They’re calling it an act of war.”
“By the Humdrum?”
“By the Mage,” she says. “They say he’s controlling the Humdrum—maybe even that the Mage is the Humdrum. The Old Families have convened a Council of War, no one knows where. Mum says the Mage is looking for you, but she’ll be damned if she tells him you’re here. Unless you want her to tell him. Do you want her to tell him?”
“I don’t know, I guess so.… Why would the Pitches blame the Mage for this?”
Penny bites her lip and looks down. “I think because of you, Simon. Everyone is saying that you went to the Pitches’ on Christmas Eve and did some dark ritual to kill their magic.”
“I was fighting the Humdrum! I mean, I was trying. The Humdrum did something to Baz—he sent him after me like he does the dark creatures.”
“So you fought Baz?”
“No! I gave him my magic, so he could fight the Humdrum off. It was like a spell. The Humdrum was there, Penny, looking like me again—and he talked to me this time. In my voice. He watched us. And then … then he just disappeared. What if he stole the magic at Baz’s house out of spite? Because I beat him?”
Penny keeps biting her lip. “I still don’t understand why you had a tail.…”
“I—I needed to get out of there.” I’ve got my hands in my hair. I try to remember it, clearly, how it happened. “When Baz was himself again, we walked out of the forest right into a dead spot. His parents were freaking out, and Baz told me to go. So … I did. I didn’t have any other way to get here.”
“So you flew.”
“Yeah.”
She looks more worried than I’ve ever seen her outside of a kidnapping situation. “What spell did you cast, Simon?”
“Penny … It was just like last time. I didn’t cast any spell. I just—I did what I needed to do.”
She’s watching herself wring her hands in her lap.
“Penny?”
“Yeah?” She doesn’t look up.
“What should I do?
She sighs. “I don’t know, Simon. Maybe Agatha’s right.” She finally meets my eyes. “Maybe it is time to talk to the Mage.”
* * *
Penny decides we should eat lunch first. Late lunch. I’ve been sacked out most of the day.
Her parents are gone, and there’s nothing in the fridge but a raw turkey. Penny doesn’t trust herself to spell it cooked, so we eat cereal and toast and Christmas sweets.
Her little sister wanders in. “You’re the reason that Father Christmas didn’t come,” she says to me. “You scared him off.”
“Father Christmas will come, Priya,” Penny says. There are five kids in their family: Premal, Penny, Pacey, Priya, and Pip. (Penny says her mother should be charged for child cruelty, and her father for neglect.)
“Father Christmas is a lie,” Pacey calls from the living room. “So is God.”
I don’t know Pacey well. He’s at Watford, year five, but he and Penny don’t get on. Penny and her siblings all argue constantly. I’m not sure they know