Miss Possibelf and Dr. Wellbelove. And just friendly ones like Rhys and Gareth. If I followed Penny’s rules, I’d never find enough people for a football match.
She waves halfheartedly at the boys, then sits between me and them, turning towards me to close off our conversation. “I saw Agatha with her parents,” she says, “earlier, in the Cloisters.”
The Cloisters is the oldest and largest girls’ house, a long low building at the other side of the grounds. It only has one door, and all the windows are made up of tiny panes of glass. (The school must have been mega-paranoid when it started letting girls in back in the 1600s.)
“You saw who?” I ask.
“Agatha.”
“Oh.”
“I can go get her if you want,” she offers.
“Since when do you pass notes for me?”
“I thought you might not want to talk to her for the first time in front of everyone,” she says. “After what happened.”
I shrug. “It’ll be fine. Agatha and I are fine.”
Penny looks surprised, then dubious; then she shakes her head, giving up. “Anyway,” she says, tearing off a piece of her sandwich, “we should track down the Mage after lunch.”
“Why?”
“‘Why?’ Are you playing dumb today because you think I’ll find it cute?”
“Yes?”
She rolls her eyes. “We need to track down the Mage and make him tell us what’s been going on all summer. What he’s found out about the Humdrum.”
“He hasn’t found out anything. I already talked to him.”
She stops mid-bite. “When?”
“He came to my room this morning.”
“And when were you going to tell me this?”
I shrug again, licking butter off my thumb. “When you gave me a chance.”
Penny rolls her eyes again. (Penny rolls her eyes a lot.) “He didn’t have anything to say?”
“Not about the Humdrum. He—” I look down at my plate, then quickly around us. “—he says the Old Families are causing trouble.”
She nods. “My mum says they’re trying to organize a vote of no confidence against him.”
“Can they do that?”
“They’re trying. And there’ve been duels all summer. Premal’s friend Sam got into it with one of the Grimm cousins after a wedding, and now he’s on trial.”
“Who is?”
“The Grimm.”
“For what?”
“Forbidden spells,” she says. “Banned words.”
“The Mage thinks I should go,” I say.
“What? Go where?”
“He thinks I should leave Watford.”
Penny’s eyes are big. “To fight the Humdrum?”
“No.” I shake my head. “To just … go. He thinks I’d be safer somewhere else. He thinks everyone here would be safer if I left.”
Her eyes keep getting bigger. “Where would you go, Simon?”
“He didn’t say. Some secret place.”
“Like a hideout?” she asks.
“I guess.”
“But what about school?”
“He doesn’t think that’s important right now.”
Penny snorts. She thinks the Mage undervalues education at the best of times. Especially the classics. When he dropped the linguistics programme, she wrote a stern letter to the faculty board. “So he wants you to do what?”
“Go away. Stay safe. Train.”
She folds her arms. “On a mountain. With ninjas. Like Batman.”
I laugh, but she doesn’t laugh with me. She leans forward. “You can’t just leave, Simon. He can’t stash you in a hole your whole life.”
“I’m not going,” I say. “I told him no.”
She pulls her chin back. “You told him no?”
“I … well, I can’t just leave Watford. It’s our last year, isn’t it.”
“I agree—you told him no?”
“I told him I didn’t want to! I don’t want to hide and wait for the Humdrum to find me. That doesn’t feel like a plan.”
“And what did the Mage say?”
“Not much. I got upset and started to—”
“I knew it. Your room smelled like a campfire. Oh my word! You went off on the Mage?”
“No. I pulled back.”
“Really?” She looks impressed. “Well done, Simon.”
“I think I scared him, though.”
“It’d scare me, too.”
“Penny, I…”
“What?”
“Do you think he’s right?”
“I just said I didn’t.”
“No. About … me being a danger to Watford. A danger to—” I look over at the first year tables. They’ve all skipped sandwiches and are eating big bowls of jam roly-poly. “—everyone.”
Penny starts tearing at her sandwich again. “Of course not.”
“Penelope.”
She sighs. “You pulled back, didn’t you? This morning? When have you ever hurt anyone but yourself?”
“Smoke and mirrors, Penny—should I make a list? I’ll start with the decapitations. I’ll start with yesterday.”
“Those were battles, and they don’t count.”
“I think they count.”
She folds her arms again. “They count differently.”
“It’s not even just that,” I say. “It’s … I’m a target, aren’t I? The Humdrum only attacks me when I’m at Watford, and he only attacks Watford when I’m here.”