“I’d like to test a few things.”
I do what she asks. I point and repeat. I let her cast spells on me that I’ve never heard before. Nothing happens—I’m inert.
But I’m not sucking up her magic; that’s a good sign.
Eventually, she folds her arms. She’s standing in front of me, frowning up into my face. Her hair is especially huge at the moment. “Martin has a theory,” she says, “that Smith-Richards was allowing people to tap their magickal potential. The way you’d tap a birch tree. What did he tap in you, Simon . . .”
“I don’t know, Professor Bunce—I mean, Headmistress.”
She sighs. “You’re cursed with usefulness, aren’t you?”
“I don’t feel very useful.”
“Penelope says you have a new flat.”
“Yes.”
“I’d like you to go home to your new flat and get some rest.” She turns away from me before I can reply, and opens the door. “Come on in, Jamie.”
I get up to leave.
“Simon,” Penny’s mum says, “don’t run off yet. I’d like you to see Mr. Salisbury back to London.”
“Yeah, sure—I’ll wait outside.”
“You can stay,” Jamie says. “Mitali’s just going to test my magic. I don’t think it’ll be much of a show.”
Headmistress Bunce and Jamie Salisbury seem to know each other. She’s gentle with him, patient, running him through most of the same tests she did me. I wonder how they met. It couldn’t have been at Watford—he never went here.
I don’t know what Jamie looks like on a normal day, but he looks done in right now. His face is shiny, his eyes are puffy. He needs a shave. He’s having trouble following Headmistress Bunce’s instructions. “Sorry, Mitali. I’m so shagged out, I’m not sure I could cast a spell even if Ihadmagic.”
The headmistress lowers her wand. She looks apologetic. (I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Penny’s mum look apologetic before.) “You should go home,” she says. “I’ll follow up in a few days—with both of you. Dr. Wellbelove will want to see you, as well. This could still all be temporary.”
“I’ll be at my mum’s,” Jamie says. Well, that’s good news.
“I’ll take you,” I say. “We should get you something to eat first.”
He nods. Headmistress Bunce walks us to the lift.
As we wait for it, Jamie says, “You don’t hear from her, do you, Mitali?”
“No,” she says quietly. “Do you?”
“Not once. My mum hoped that when he died . . .”
She nods. “Me, too.” The lift arrives. Headmistress Bunce looks at me. “Simon, please tell my daughter not to leave Watford without me.”
Baz is waiting in the courtyard. With Penelope and her dad and Shepard. Penny runs at me as soon as I walk out of the Tower, and wraps me in a tight hug. I’m just getting my arms around her when she shoves me away.
“What onearthwere youthinking,Simon?!”
“Penny . . .” I say. Baz is just behind her. I reach for him. “Baz. . .”
His arms are folded, and his top lip is curled.
My wings flap out without my permission—it makes my cuts sting. “You guys can’t be mad at me about this.”
“Like hell,” Baz says. “You lied to us!”
