“Did I take his magic?” he repeats, like it’s a hilarious question. “No. I don’t take anything. I’m just what’s left when you’re done.” He grins, like the cat with the canary, and it’s an expression I’ve never seen on my own face.
“Simon!” Baz is shouting beneath me. I look down—he’s glowing now, too. His fangs are gone, but he still looks like he’s in pain. He’s squeezing my triceps. “Enough!”
I let go of him and roll away. But the magic is still pouring out of me, through me. Itislike a tap. I concentrate on turning it off. When it feels like the magic’s staying inside me again—when I stop glowing—I get up on my hands and knees. “Baz?”
“Here,” he says.
I move towards his voice. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” He’s lying on the ground. “I just feel a bit… burnt.”
“Are you on fire?”
“No,” he says. “No. Burnt on the inside.”
I look around, but I don’t see the Humdrum. Or hear him. Or feel him sucking at my breath.
“Is he gone?” Baz asks.
“Seems like it.” I collapse next to him.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Baz gropes for me with his arm, and when he feels me, he wraps his arm around my neck and shoulders, weakly pulling me towards him. I move closer until my head falls on his chest.
“Are you okay?” he asks again.
“Yeah. You?”
“Tip-top.” Baz coughs, and I push my face into his chest. “Whatwasthat?” he asks.
“The Humdrum.”
“Simon, areyouthe Insidious Humdrum?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
BAZ
I feel burnt out.
Incinerated.
That kid—itwasSimon—emptied me somehow. Like he pressed my magic out or down…
And then Simon filled me up again with fire.
I feel like a phoenix rebirthed itself in my lower intestines.
Simon’s hiding his face in my chest, and I hold him tighter.
ItwasSimon. Like seeing him again for the very first time. Crap jeans and dirty T-shirt. That rawness in his skin, that hunger in his eyes. When I saw him step out from between the pines tonight, I wanted to kick him in the knees—it was definitely Simon.
Simon—the grown one—is trembling, so I wrap my other arm around him, too. My arms feel hollow, but Simon feels solid through.
