“Fucking Bunce.”
Simon touches my chin. “You smell good.”
“Soap,” I say.
“Where’d you go tonight?”
“Hunting.”
“Before that.”
I shudder, and he moves even closer, nose to nose, bringing a wing around us.
“Do you need a blanket?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just stay close.”
“Where’d you go, Baz?”
“I realized I’d left something at Fiona’s . . .”
“What?”
I shake my head. “Can we talk about it tomorrow? I’m done in.”
“Yeah.” He brushes my hair away from my face. “I thought you were asleep.”
I run my palm up his back and between his wings. He’s so warm. He smells like blood, but I’m too sloshed for the smell to sting. “Did you feel anything when he cast the spell?” I don’t feel like saying Smith-Richards’s name right now, here.
Simon shrugs again. “I felt his magic. The way you do when someone casts a spell on you.”
“What does his magic feel like?”
He nestles even closer, his chest rubbing against mine, through my T-shirt. “I’m so tired of magic,” he says.
“Did it hurt?”
“No. It made me feel . . . full.”
“Full?”
“Like I was a bubble popping.”
I pull Simon in tighter. “I’m really angry with you for letting him cast that spell on you.”
“You don’t look angry.”
“You can’t see me.”
“You smell good,” he says again.
“It’s soap. What spell did you try to cast? To test your magic?”
Simon twines his fingers in my hair. “I tried a few. It was humiliating.”
“Which ones did you try?”
“I just said it was humiliating . . .”
