Baz looks at her. Licks his lips. “Not the Mage?” he asks.
“Themurderer,” Penny says—looking all too pleased about it, considering that murderer is still at large.
“If that’s true,” Agatha says, “then we need to tell the Mage about all of this. Immediately.”
66
PENELOPE
All right, fine. It was probably a mistake to bring Agatha.
But it had gone on too long, all this tension between her and Simon. I didn’t want them to go all year without sorting it out.
And I thought maybe a good mystery might distract her from—well, from everything else. I should have remembered that Agatha doesn’t appreciate a good mystery.
And also that she’s the world’s worst snitch.
“Wehaveto tell the Mage,” she says, crossing her arms and then her legs. “You all know it.”
She’s doing her best not to look at either of the boys… I also should have thought through their whole love-triangle dynamic before I dragged Agatha to Baz’s house. But their whole love-triangle dynamic is so persistently stupid, you can’t blame me for blocking it out.
“Agatha,” I say, “we’re just starting to make some progress here.”
“Towards what?” she asks. “Infiltrating the numpties?”
“We could just talk to them,” Simon offers. “Can numpties talk?”
“Barely,” Baz says. “And what are we going to ask them—‘Lose something?’”
“We’re going to ask who hired them to kidnap you,” I say.
“They might not feel co-operative,” Baz says. “My aunt did kill a few of them.”
Simon looks horrified. “Your aunt murdered numpties?”
“In self-defence!”
“Did they attack her?”
“Inmyself-defence,” Baz says. “Are you really taking their side? They held me hostage for six weeks.”
“Your aunt should have asked for help!”
“If you’d have been there, Snow,allthe numpties would be dead.”
“Maybe.” Simon sticks his chin out. “But it wouldn’t have taken six weeks.”
“So we’ll interrogate the remaining numpties,” I say.
“We will not,” Agatha says. “We’ll tell the Mage and let him handle this—it’s his job to handle it. We’re talking about kidnapping! And murder!”
“Look here, Wellbelove,” Baz says. “We’re not going to the Mage. We’ve all already agreed.”
“Well,Ididn’t agree.” Agatha looks furious, and also fed up, and also I think she was supposed to be home two hours ago.
Simon puts his hand on her shoulder. “Baz, she’s right. A lot has changed. We know about Nicodemus now, and we’ve connected your mum’s murder to your kidnapping—”
“No,” I say. “We’re not going to the Mage.”
