How do you keep a promise like that? To take care of a child, when the child is the greatest power you know …
And what does it mean to take care of power? Do you use it? Conserve it? Keep it out of the wrong hands?
I’d thought I could be of more help to Simon, especially by now. Help him come into his power. Help him take hold of it.
There must be a spell for him.… Magic words that would fortify him. A ritual that would make the power itself manageable. I haven’t found it yet, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t out there. That it doesn’t exist!
And if I do find it …
Is it enough to stabilize his power, if I can’t stabilize the boy?
This isn’t in the prophecies; there’s nothing about headstrong children.
I could hide Simon from the Humdrum itself.
I could hide him from everything he isn’t ready to face.
I could—I should! I should order him to go away—he’d still do it. He’d still listen to me.
But what if he didn’t.…
Simon Snow, would I lose you completely?
11
LUCY
Hear me.
* * *
He was the first of his family at Watford, the first with enough power to get past the trials. He came all by himself, all the way from Wales, on the train.
David.
We called him Davy. (Well, some of us just called him daft.)
And he didn’t have any friends—I don’t think he ever had any friends. I don’t even think I was his friend, not at first.
I was just the only one listening.
“World of Mages,” he’d say. “What world, I ask you—what world? This isn’t a school; schools educate people—schools lift people up—do you understand me?”
“I’m getting an education,” I said.
“You are, aren’t you?” His blue eyes glinted. There was always a fire in his eyes. “You get power. You get the secret password. Because your father had it, and your grandfather. You’re in the club.”
“So are you, Davy.”
“Only because I was too powerful for them to deny me.”
“Right,” I said. “So now you’re in the club.”
“Lucky me.”
“I can’t tell if you mean that.…”
“Lucky me,” he said. “Unlucky everyone else. This place isn’t about sharing knowledge. It’s about keeping knowledge in the hands of the rich.”
“You mean, the most powerful.”
“Same difference,” he spat. He always spat. His eyes were always glinting, and his mouth was always spitting.
“So you don’t want to be here?” I asked.
“Did you know that the Church used to give services in Latin, because they didn’t trust the congregation with God’s word?”
“Are you talking about Christianity? I don’t know anything about Christianity.”
“Why are we here, Lucy? When so many others are refused?”
“Because we’re the most powerful. It’s important for us to learn how to manage and use our magic.”
“Is it that important? Wouldn’t it be more important to teach the least powerful? To help them make the most of what they do have? Should we teach only poets to read?”
“I don’t understand what you want. You’re here, Davy. At Watford.”
“I’m here. And maybe if I meet the right people—if I bow and scrape before every Pitch and Grimm, they’ll teach me the trickiest spells. They’ll give me a seat at the table. And then I can spend my life as they do, making sure that no one else takes it from me.”
“That’s not what I’m going to do with my magic.”
He stopped spitting for a second to squint at me: “What are you going to do, Lucy?”
“See the world.”
“The World of Mages?”
“No, the world.”
* * *
I have so much to tell you.
But time is short. And the Veil is thick.
And it takes magic to speak, a soul full of it.
12
SIMON
As it happens, I am alone when I see Agatha.
I’m lying out on the Lawn, thinking about the first time I got here—the grass was so nice that I didn’t think we were allowed to walk on it.
Agatha’s wearing jeans and a gauzy white shirt, and she comes up the hill towards me slowly blocking the sun, so there’s a halo for just a second around her blond hair.
She smiles, but I can tell she’s nervous. I wonder if she’s been looking for me. I sit up, and she sits down on the ground next to me.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hello, Simon.”
“How was your summer?”
She gives me a look like she can’t believe how lame that question is, but also like she’s kind of relieved to make small talk. “Good,” she says, “quiet.”
“Did you travel?” I ask.
“Only for events.”
Agatha’s a show jumper. Competitively. I think she wants to