I let the towel drop around my neck. “Do you notwantto sleep in the bed?”
He shakes his head. “No. I . . . I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I sigh. “You’ve got to stop questioning me. I’m holding on by a thread.”
He looks down. “Sorry.”
That came out wrong. I throw the towel into the bathroom and climb onto the bed beside him. “Hey, no . . . I’m sorry.”
Baz looks up at me, pushing his damp hair back behind his ears. “Simon, are you sure you want me here?”
“Christ, I just told you not to question me.”
“Yeah, I know, but you also told me you’re holding on by a thread. I don’t want to put you in that position.”
“I’malwaysholding on by a thread! I thought the important thing was that I’m holding on!”
“Right.” He rubs his face. “Right. It is. I’m sorry. I wish I were more confident. I’m not really built for this.”
I breathe out a laugh.
He scowls at me. “What?”
“How can you be insecure, Baz? You’re the most arrogant person I’ve ever met.”
“They run on different tracks.”
I laugh again.
“I’m going to sleep in your bed,” he says, like it’s a legal declaration.
“All right.”
“Until you tell me you don’t want me to.”
“Or until you don’t want to,” I say.
“That might be never, Snow.”
“All right.”
Baz looks down, smiling with one side of his mouth, his eyelashes stark against his cheeks.
I get under the sheets he magicked up for me—they’re already going threadbare, I suppose I’ll need to buy real ones soon—and lie on my side.
Baz climbs in, too, and lies down facing me. After a second, he’s got my tail in hand, and he’s twisting it through his fingers. “So we’re going to wait for the next revival meeting?”
“Seems like it,” I say. “Do you have a better idea?”
“I think that’s what Smith-Richards wants—for you to come to another of his meetings.”
“You can’tstillthink he’s up to something nefarious . . .”
Baz lifts his head. “What’s the alternative? That’s he’sactuallythe Greatest Mage?”
“If he’s giving people magic, that’s pretty great.”
“He isn’t giving it to them. They were already magicians.”
