“What?” Penny asks.
“Can you imagine?” I say. “Christmas with the Mage?”
“Singing carols,” she giggles.
“Pulling crackers.”
“Watching the Queen’s speech.”
“Think of thegifts,” I say, laughing. “He’d probably wrap up a curse for me just to see if I could break it.”
“Blindfold you, drop you in the Hell of the Wood, and tell you to come home with dinner.”
“Ha!” I grin. “Just like in our third year.”
Penny pokes my arm, and I slide away, along the wall. “Talk to him,” she says. “He’s a mad git, but he cares about you.”
***
Baz is one of the last students to leave for break. He takes his time packing his leather trunk. He’s got most of our notes in there… He still hasn’t decided whether to talk to his parents about all this, but he’s going to find out what he can. “Someone has to know something about Nicodemus.”
I’m lying on my bed, trying to think about how nice it will be to have the room to myself—and trying not to watch him. I clear my throat. “Be careful, yeah? I mean, we don’t know who this Nicodemus is, and if he’s dangerous, we don’t want him to twig that we’re looking for him.”
“I’ll talk only to people I trust,” Baz says.
“Yeah, but that’s it, isn’t it—we don’tknowwho to trust.”
“Do you trust Penelope?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust her mother?”
“I trust her not to be evil.”
“Well, I trust my family. It doesn’t matter whether you do.”
“I’m just telling you to be careful,” I say.
“Stop showing concern for my well-being, Snow. It’s making me ill at ease.” He closes the lid of his trunk and snaps the latches. Then he looks at me, frowning, and decides something. I’m familiar with that look. I put my hand over the hilt of my sword.
“Snow…” he says.
“What.”
“I feel like I should tell you something. In the interest of our truce.”
I look over at him, waiting.
“That day you saw Wellbelove and me in the Wood…”
I close my eyes. “How can this possibly be in the interest of our truce?”
He keeps going: “That day you saw me with Wellbelove in the Wood—it’s not what you think.”
I open my eyes. “You weren’t trying to pull my girlfriend?”
“No.”
