Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell Page 0,82

take it. They’re trying to transplant it.”

“Whatever—can they do it?”

“I should think not,” Lamb says. “If they could, they’d be ruling the world.”

“Magicians have magic,” Simon argues. “And they don’t rule the world.” You can tell as he says it that he’s not sure it’s true. I’m not sure it’s true. What do we know of the world?

The World of Mages is a regional clique.

Watford is an isolationist boarding school.

My parents wouldn’t even let me use the Internet.

“Magicians live in fear of being discovered,” Lamb says. “The Next Blood live in fear of nothing.”

PENELOPE

We drive through the night. Past miles and miles of barren land. I don’t understand this part of America. The heat, the sand, the small towns. Why would you live somewhere that seemed to be doing its best to tell you to go away?

None of us feel like talking. We can’t really strategize. Not without outing Baz as a mage, anyway. He and I keep exchanging significant looks, but I’m not sure what we’re telling each other.

Even Shepard has run out of small talk. He tried to draw Lamb into a conversation when we first set out, but Lamb ignored him, and now I think Shepard has fallen asleep—two feet away from a vampire!

I suppose I’ve done that loads of times.

I wish Simon would go for a kip. He really needed this fight to start three hours ago. I can tell he doesn’t know what to do with himself; he won’t stop huffing and fidgeting. And he refused to let me put his wings away, so they’re crowded against the side of the car and the roof.

This is the moment—these are the hours—when I would normally come up with a plan. And I’m trying. There’s no blackboard, but I’ve got two columns sketched out in my head: What We Know and What We Don’t.

What do we know in this scenario? (I can practically hear Agatha say, “Nothing.”)

1. That vampires have Agatha.

1b. Vampires with ambition.

And what don’t we know? Well, that column is endless.…

1.  Whether Lamb knows what he’s talking about.

2.  Whether we can trust him.

3.  Whether Agatha is okay.

4.  How to get her out.

I’ve come up with thirty-four additional spells for killing vampires. But all the really good ones would kill Baz, too.

I’m far less concerned about sparing Lamb and his friends. Really, if we live through this, we should take out Las Vegas next. Maybe that would redeem us with the Coven. “Yes, we broke every rule in the Book. But we also de-vampired the American West.”

“If we live through this” being the operative clause, unfortunately.

Simon and I have seen plenty of action over the years. We’ve saved Agatha from more serious threats than this in our sleep. (Literally. Second year. The Humdrum sent counting sheep. It was epic.)

But that was a different version of us. Post-Humdrum Penelope and Simon just barely survived seven drunken Renaissance Faire vampires, even with Baz’s help. And without Shepard, we would have lost to a goat and a skunk in western Nebraska. We did lose to that dragon.

We are out of our depth and nearly a hemisphere out of our comfort zone. And it occurs to me, three hours north of Las Vegas, that we are very probably going to lose.

Lamb isn’t expecting us to win. As he heads into the desert, following the speed limit.

We’re just the boiling oil he’s pouring over the castle wall. He’s expecting us to take a few of the other guys down with us. He’s using us to create a diversion.

That is in fact exactly what Shepard proposed to him. Shepard doesn’t think we’re going to win, either! He’s just hoping for a good show. He’s probably going to find a nice safe hill where he can watch and take notes. (That’s how the Americans wrote their national anthem.)

Only Simon, Baz, and I care about finding Agatha. And now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I ever thought that was enough.…

I’m not sure why I thought we had to do this alone.

My mother is one of the wisest witches in the world. She’s one of the most powerful mages in England. And never once did I seriously consider asking her for help.

Pre-Humdrum Penelope never had to. I had the most powerful mage in the world as my best friend. Together we were invincible.

Oh, hell … that was never true, was it?

I was never invincible. I was just in the vicinity.

Simon has no power now, and I’m as powerful as I ever was. Which, it turns