I don’t have a roommate. The roommate the Crucible gave me, Philippa, got sick our fifth year and went home.
Simon said Baz did something to her. Dad said she had sudden, traumatic laryngitis—“a tragedy for a magician.”
“That would be a tragedy foranyone,” I said. “Normals talk, too.”
I don’t really miss Philippa. She was dead jealous that Simon liked me. And she laughed at my spellwork. Plus she always painted her nails without opening a window.
I do have friends, real friends, back home, but I’m not allowed to tell them about Watford. I’m not evenableto tell them—Dad spelled me mum after he caught me complaining to my best friend, Minty, about my wand.
“I just said it was a hassle carrying it everywhere! I didn’t tell her it was magic!”
“Oh for snakes’ sake, Agatha,”Dad said.
My mother was livid.“You have to do it, Welby.”
So Dad levelled his wand at me:“Ix-nay on the atford-Way!”
It’s a serious spell. Only members of the Coven are allowed to use it. But I suppose it was a serious situation: If you tell Normals about magic, they all have to be tracked down and scoured. And if that’s not possible, you have to move away.
Now Minty (we met in primary school, that’s actually her first name, isn’t it lush?) thinks I go to a super-religious boarding school that doesn’t allow the Internet. Which is all true, as far as I’m concerned.
Magicisa religion.
But there’s no such thing as not believing—or only going through the motions on Easter and Christmas. Your whole life has to revolve around magic all the time. If you’re born with magic, you’re stuck with it, and you’re stuck with other magicians, and you’re stuck with wars that never end because people don’t even know when they started.
I don’t talk like this to my parents.
Or to Simon and Penny.
Ix-nay on my ue-feelings-tray.
***
Baz is walking by himself across the courtyard. We haven’t talked since he’s been back.
We’ve never really talked, I guess. Even that time in the Wood. Simon burst in before we could get anywhere, and then Simon burst out again.
(Just when you think you’re having a scene without Simon, he drops in to remind you that everyone else is a supporting character in his catastrophe.)
As soon as Simon and Penny disappeared that day, Baz dropped my hands.“What the fuck just happened to Snow?”
Those were his last words to me.
But he does still watch me in the dining hall. It makes Simon mental. This morning, Simon got fed up and slammed his fork down, and when I looked over at Baz, he winked.
I hurry to catch up with him now. The sun is setting, and it’s making his grey skin look almost warm. I know it’s setting my hair on fire.
“Basil,” I say coolly, smiling like his name’s a secret.
He turns his head slightly to see me. “Wellbelove.” He sounds tired.
“We haven’t talked since you’ve been back,” I say.
“Did we talk before that?”
I decide to be bold. “Not as much as I’d like.”
He sighs. “Crowley, Wellbelove, there must be a better way to get your parents’ attention.”
