They’re imagining my father sitting me down in a leather club chair and saying,“Basilton, there’s something I need to tell you…”
He’s never said those words.
Nobodytellsanyone anything in my family. You just know. You learn to know.
No one had to tell me that we talk about Mother, but we don’t talk about Mother’s death.
No one had to tell me I was a vampire:
I remembered being bitten, I grew up with the same horror stories everyone else did—then I woke up one day craving blood. And no one had totellme not to take it from another person.
“I learned it in school,” I say. “Same as you.” They both look surprised.
“What happened to the vampires?” Snow asks. “Not the ones your mother killed—the others.”
“The Mage drove most of them out of England,” I say. “I think it’s the only time my family has co-operated with his raids.”
“Mum says the war started with the vampire raids,” Bunce says.
“Which war?” Snow asks.
“All of them,” she says. She leans over Snow’s lap to reach the brownies.
I take a sandwich and the apple, and stand up. “I need some air.”
I wait until I’m down in the Catacombs to tuck in. I don’t really like eating in front of people.
47
SIMON
Penny is back at the blackboard, making notes.
Talk to Dad at Xms break. OK to wait that long? Ask him to send notes?
“Whyallof them?” I ask.
“Hmm?”
“Why all the wars? Why did theyallstart with the vampire raids?”
“The war with the dark things started there,” she says. “That should be obvious. I mean, mages and vampires have never got on—we need Normals alive, and they need them dead. But invading Watford, that was an act of war. And it was the first real attack by the Humdrum, too.”
“What about the war with the Old Families?”
“Well, the Mage’s reforms started then,” she says.
“I wish there were just one war,” I say. “And one enemy that I could get my head around.”
“Wow,” Penny says, finally turning away from the board, “what are you going to do with yourself now that you don’t have Baz?”
“I still have Baz.”
“Not as an enemy.”
“We’re just having a truce,” I say.
“A magic-sharing truce.”
