21
THE MAGE
Books. Artefacts. Enchanted jewellery. Enchanted furniture. Monkeys’ paws, rabbits’ legs, gnomes’ gnoses…
We take it all. Even if I know it’s useless to me.
This exercise has more than one aim. It’s good to remind the Old Families that I’m still running this show.
This school.
This realm.
And there’s not one of them who could do better.
They call me a failure because the Humdrum still drums on, stealing our magic, scrubbing our land clear—but who among them could pose a threat?
Maybe Natasha Grimm-Pitch could have put the Humdrum in his place—but she’s long gone, and none of her friends and relatives have even a fraction of her talent.
I send my Men to take my enemies’ treasures, to raid their libraries. I show them that even a red-faced child in my uniform has more power than they do in this new world. I show them what their names are worth—nothing.
But still…
I don’t find what I need. I don’t find any real answers—I still can’tfixhim.
The Greatest Mage is our only hope now.
But our greatest mage is fundamentally flawed. Cracked. Broken.
Simon Snow is that mage; I know it.
Nothing like him has ever walked our earth.
But Simon Snow—my Simon—still can’t bear his power. He still can’t control it. He’s the only vessel big enough to hold it, but he iscracked.He iscompromised.He is…
Just a boy.
There must be a way—a spell, a charm, a token—that can help him. We are mages! The only magickal creatures who can wield andshapepower. Somewhere in our world, there is an answer for Simon. (A ritual. A recipe. A rhyme.)
This isn’t how prophecies work…
This isn’t how stories unfold…
Incompletely.
If there’s a crack in Simon, then there’s a way to mend him.
And I will find it.
22
SIMON
I’m failing Greek, I think. And I’m lost in Political Science.
Agatha and I get into a fight about going to her house for half-term break: I don’t want to leave Watford, and I don’t think she actually wants me to go home with her. But she wants me to want to. Or something.
I stop wearing my cross and put it in a box under my bed…
