“I should probably go home and change,” I say. I’m still wearing my suit from yesterday. (Camel, wool, unlined. Lady Salisbury pretended not to notice.)
“Oh,” Simon says, looking first at my suit and then at the ground, and scratching the back of his head. “Right.”
“I can check in with you later?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Or maybe . . .”
“Maybe?”
He looks up at me. “Maybe we both go to your flat, and instead of changing, you pick up some clothes?”
“And then I . . .” I’m afraid to say it even thoughhe’sthe one saying it. “. . . stay with you?”
He nods quickly, licking his bottom lip. “Yeah.”
“Like, for a few days, or . . .” I have my hands pressed so deep into my jacket pockets that my collar is pulling on my neck. “For a while?”
Simon’s whole body shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” I nod.
He tilts his head forward and pulls at the top of his hair. “Do I have to know?” His eyebrows are up. His forehead is wrinkled. He’s squinting at me like he’s about to place a bet.
“No,” I say. “You don’t have to know.”
Simon lurches forward and grabs me by the elbow. “I don’t know how people do this,” he says, his voice low and urgent. “I’m much better at pushing you away than pulling you close. Are we allowed to be together all the time? Or is that too much? Just tell me if it’s too much.”
That’ll be the day.
I put my hand on his forearm. “Come back to Fiona’s with me,” I say. “I’ll pick up some clothes.”
His eyes are scrabbling on mine. I try to give him whatever it is he’s digging for.
“Yeah?” he says.
“It isn’t too much, Snow.”
He licks his lip and nods.
I pull him towards the stairs.
38
SIMON
In the early days after the Mage was gone, when I was still having video calls with that American therapist, she used to tell me to break life into bites you can swallow.
Like, don’t think about the fact that you don’t have magic and you killed your mentor and you have a fucking tail now . . . (I’m the “you,” obviously.) Just think about the next few hours. Are you going to have lunch? Are you going to see your friends? Will you take a walk?
There were days when even that was too much for me to swallow.
There were days that I broke up into minutes. And days that I could only live one second at a time.Now I’m going to sit up. Now I’m going to piss. Now I’m going to plug in my phone.
I’m doing it again now.
Not because the future is too terrible to reckon with—because it’s too terrifying. Too uncertain. There are parts of it that are too bright.
Is this what people do when they’re in love? Do they just keep touching and talking? Andthenwhat? Like what is it all leading to? I don’t mean sex, I mean . . .
