Simon hassles his curls with one hand. “It’s just… Well, it’s still weird between us, isn’t it?”
I continue ignoring him.
“I mean… you haven’t said… that things are different now for you.I’vesaid that I’m not going to kill you.”
“No, you haven’t,” I say.
“It must have been implied.”
“No.”
“Um, all right.” He clears his throat. “Baz. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to fight you at all, am I?”
“Good,” I say, stepping back from the whiteboard and admiring my columns. “That will make things much easier.”
“What things?”
“Crowley, I don’t know. Whatever the Families cook up for me. Probably I’ll be the one they ask to poison your Ribena, now that you trust me. What Icanpromise, Snow, is to weep over your corpse.”
“Or not,” he says.
“Fine, I’ll weep in privacy when the day arrives.”
“No,” he insists, “I’m serious.Or not.”
I look over my shoulder at him. “What are you trying to say?”
“That we don’t have to fight.”
“You realize that your mentor has raided my house twice this month.”
“Yeah—I mean, no, I didn’t realize that—but the point is,Ididn’t raid your house. What if,” he says, stepping closer, “I help you find out who killed your mum, then you help me fight the Humdrum, and we just forget about the rest?”
“‘The rest,’” I say, turning around. “Way to oversimplify a decade of corruption and abuse of power.”
“Are you talking about the Mage?”
“Yes.”
He looks pained. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“How can I not talk about the Mage when I’m talking tothe Mage’s Heir?”
“Is that how you think of me?”
“Isn’t that how you think of yourself? Oh, right. I forgot—you don’t think at all.”
Simon groans and rakes at his hair. “Jesus Christ. Do you evernotgo for the lowest blow? Like, do you ever think, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say themostcruel thing just now’?”
“I’m trying to be efficient.”
He leans against the shelf where I’ve set the whiteboard. “It’s vicious.”
“You should talk, Snow. You always go for the kill shot.”
“When I’m fighting. We’re not fighting.”
“We’re always fighting,” I say, going back to the board.
