I already had my blade out. “I knew I would.”
“Now what?” He didn’t even stand. Just brushed some dust off his grey trousers and leaned back against the bones.
“Now you tell me what you’re up to,” I said.
He laughed at that. Baz was always laughing at me that year, but it came out flatter than usual. There were torches staining the grey room orange, but his skin was still chalky and white.
I adjusted my stance, spreading my feet below my hips, squaring my shoulders.
“They died in a plague,” he said.
“Who?”
Baz raised his hand—I flinched back.
He cocked an eyebrow and swept his arm in a flourish at the room around us. “Them,” he said.“Les enfants.”A lock of black hair fell over his forehead.
“Is that why you’re here? To track down a plague?”
Baz stared at me. He was 15, we both were, but he made me feel 5. He’s always made me feel like a child, like I’ll never catch up to him. Like he was born knowing everything about the World of Mages—it’shisworld. It’s in his DNA.
“Yes, Snow,” he said. “I’m here to find a plague. I’m going to put it in a steaming beaker and infect all of Metropolis.”
I gripped my blade.
He looked bored.
“What are you doing down here?” I demanded, swinging the sword in the air.
“Sitting,” he said.
“No.None of that. I’ve finally caught you, after all these months—you’re going to tell me what you’re up to.”
“Most of the students died,” he said.
“Stop it. Stop distracting me.”
“They sent the well ones home. My great-great-uncle was the headmaster; he stayed to help nurse the sick and dying. His skull is down here, too. Maybe you could help me look for it—I’m told I share his aristocratic brow.”
“I’m not listening.”
“Magic didn’t help them,” Baz said.
I clenched my jaw.
“They didn’t have a spell for the plague yet,” he went on. “There weren’t any words that had enough power, the right kind of power.”
I stepped forward. “What are you doing here?”
He started singing to himself.“Ring around the rosie / a pocket full of posies…”
“Answer me, Baz.”
“Ashes, ashes…”
I swung my sword into the pile of bones beside him, sending skulls rattling and rolling.
He sneered and sat up, catching the skulls with his wand—“As you were!”They turned in the air and rolled back into place.
