It’s the strangest feeling when the magic starts to work on you. I was worried that itwouldn’twork on me—because I was an outsider. All the other kids started moving towards each other, and I still didn’t feel anything. I thought about faking it, but I didn’t want to get caught and booted out.
And then Ididfeel the magic, like a hook in my stomach.
I stumbled forward and looked around, and Baz was walking towards me. Looking so cool. Like he was coming my way because he wanted to, not because there was a mystical magnet in his gut.
The magic doesn’t stop until you and your new roommate shake hands—I held my hand out to Baz immediately. But he just stood there for as long as he could stand it. I don’t know how he resisted the pull; I felt like my intestines were going to burst out and wrap around him.
“Snow,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, waggling my hand. “Here.”
“The Mage’s Heir.”
I nodded, but I didn’t even know what that meant back then. The Mage made me his heir so I’d have a place at Watford. That’s also why I have his sword. It’s a historic weapon—it used to be given to the Mage’s Heir, back when the title of Mage was passed through families instead of appointed by the Coven.
The Mage gave me a wand, too—bone with wooden handle, it was his father’s—so I’d have my own magickal instrument. You have to have magic in you, and a way to get it out of you; that’s the basic requirement for Watford and the basic requirement to be a magician. Every magician inherits some family artefact. Baz has a wand, like me; all the Pitches are wandworkers. But Penny has a ring. And Gareth has a belt buckle. (It’s really inconvenient—he has to thrust his pelvis forward whenever he wants to cast a spell. He seems to think it’s cheeky, but no one else does.)
Penelope thinks my hand-me-down wand is part of the reason my spellwork is such shit—my wand isn’t bound to me by blood. It doesn’t know what to do with me. After seven years in the World of Mages, I still reach for my sword first; I know it’ll come when I call. My wand comes, but then, half the time, it plays dead.
The first time I asked the Mage for a new roommate was a few months after Baz and I started living together. The Mage wouldn’t hear of it—though he knew who Baz was, and knew better than I did that the Pitches are snakes and traitors.
“Being matched with your roommate is a sacred tradition at Watford,” he said. His voice was gentle but firm. “The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You’re to watch out for each other, to know each other as well as brothers.”
“Yeah, but, sir…” I was sitting in that giant leather chair up in his office, the one with three horns attached to the top. “The Crucible must have made a mistake. My roommate’s a complete wanker. He might even be evil. Last week, someone spelled my laptop closed, and Iknowit was him. He was practically cackling.”
The Mage just sat on his desk, stroking his beard. “The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You’re meant to watch out for him.”
He kept giving me the same answer until I gave up asking. He even said no the time there wasproofthat Baz had tried to feed me to a chimera.
Bazadmittedit, then argued that the fact that he’d failed was punishment enough. And the Mage agreed with him!
Sometimes the Mage doesn’t make any sense to me…
It was only in the last few years that I realized the Mage makes me stay with Baz to keep Baz under his thumb. Which means, I hope—Ithink—that the Mage trusts me. He thinks I’m up for the job.
I decide to take a shower and shave while Baz is still gone. I only nick myself twice, which is better than usual. When I get out, wearing flannel pyjama bottoms and a towel around my neck, Baz is by his bed, unpacking his schoolbag.
His head whips up, and his face is all twisted. He looks like I’ve already laid into him.
“What are you doing?” he snarls through his teeth.
“Taking a shower. What’s your problem?”
“You,” he says, throwing his bag down. “Always you.”
“Hello, Baz. Welcome back.”
He looks away from me. “Where’s your necklace?” His voice is low.
“My what?”
I can’t see his whole face, but it looks like his jaw is working.
“Your cross.”
My hand flies to my throat and then to the cuts on my chin. My cross. I took it off weeks ago.
I hurry over to my bed and dig it out, but I don’t put it on. Instead I walk around Baz and stand in his space until he has to look at me. He does. His teeth are clenched, and his head is tipped back and to the side, like he’s justwaitingfor me to make the first move.
