“Because we’re solving a mystery, Snow. I like to organize my thoughts.”
“Is this how you normally plot my downfall?”
“Yes. With multicoloured pieces of chalk. Stop complaining.” He opens up his book bag and takes out a few apples and things wrapped in wax paper. “Eat,” he says, throwing one at me.
It’s a bacon roll. He’s also got a pot of tea.
“What’s all this?” I say.
“Tea, obviously. I know you can’t function unless you’re stuffing yourself.”
I unwrap the roll and decide to take a bite. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” he says. “It sounds wrong.”
“Not as wrong as you bringing me bacon butties.”
“Fine, you’re welcome—when’s Bunce getting here?”
“Why would she?”
“Because you do everything together, don’t you? When you said you’d help, I was counting on you bringing your smarter half.”
“Penelope doesn’t know anything about this,” I say.
“She doesn’t know about the Visiting?”
“No.”
“Why not? I thought you told her everything.”
“It just… seemed like your business.”
“Itismy business,” Baz says.
“Right. So I didn’t tell her. Now, where do we start?”
His face falls into a pout. “I was counting on Bunce to tell us where to start.”
“Let’s start with what we know,” I say. That’s where Penelope always starts.
“Right.” Baz actually seems nervous. He’s tapping the chalk against his trouser leg, leaving white smudges.Nicodemus,he writes on the blackboard in neat slanted script.
“That’s what we don’t know,” I say. “Unless you’ve come up with something.”
He shakes his head. “No. I’ve never heard of him. I did a cursory check in the library during lunch—but I’m not likely to find anything inA Child’s Garden of Verses.”
Most of the magickal books have been removed from the Watford library. The Mage wants us to focus on Normal books so that we stay close to the language.
Before the Mage’s reforms, Watford was so protective of traditional spells that they’d teach those instead of newer spells that worked better. There were even initiatives to make Victorian books and culture more popular with the Normals, just to breathe some new life into old spells.
“Language evolves,”the Mage says.“So must we.”
Baz looks back at the blackboard again. His hair is dry now and falling in loose locks over his cheeks; he tucks a piece behind his ear, then writes a date on the blackboard:
12 August 2002.
I start to ask what happened that day, then I realize.
