“Grand,” I say.
“What does that mean—does that mean you could use it?”
I laugh, and it comes out more good-natured than I mean it to. “Snow. I think I could cast a sonnet right now.”
“Show me,” he says.
I’m so full of power, I feel like I can see without opening my eyes. Like I could go nova if I wanted to and have my own galaxy. Is this what it’s like to be Simon Snow? To have infinity in your chest pocket?
I speak clearly:“Twinkle, twinkle little star!”
By the time I get to the end of the next phrase, the room around us is gone, and the stars feel close enough to touch.
“Up above the world so high!”
Simon grabs my other hand, and my chest opens wider. “Merlin and Morgana,” he says. “Are we in space?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Is that a spell?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
We both look around us. I don’tthinkwe’re in space; I can breathe just fine. And I don’t feel like floating away—though I am teetering on the edge of hysterical. So much power. So many stars. My mouth tastes like smoke. “Are you holding back at all?” I ask him.
“Not consciously,” Snow says. “Is it too much?”
“No. It’s like you completed the circuit,” I say, gripping his other hand. “I feel kind of drunk, though.”
“Drunk on power?” he asks.
I giggle. “Shit, Snow. Stop talking. This is embarrassing.”
“Do you want me to pull back?”
“No. I want to look at the stars.”
“I’m pulling back,” he says.
And then he does. It feels like the tide going out—if the tide were made of heroin and fire.
I shake my head. I don’t let go of Snow’s hands.
“All right?” he asks.
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine.”
Now we’re just sitting on my bed, holding hands, Simon Snow and I. I can’t look at his eyes, so I stare at his cross.
“Your mother…” he says. “When she came back, she said that thing about stars.‘He said we’d be stars.’”
“I think that’s a coincidence,” I say.
“Yeah.” Simon nods. “Do you have any of it left? Like, did it stay with you? My magic?”
“Residually?” I ask.
