He frowns. “I thought—I mean . . . I’ve killedso manythings for you.”
I laugh. It might be another sob, but maybe it’s just a laugh. “What are you, a house cat? Am I supposed to know how you feel because you brought me a mouse?”
The corner of Snow’s mouth twitches. “I brought you a cow once, remember? And I killed that chimera for you in fifth year.”
“You killed itnearme. There’s a difference.”
He reaches a hand up towards my face, then hesitates.
I hesitate, too—I feel torn in every direction—then I slowly close the distance.
Snow’s thumb connects with my chin. He tucks his knuckles under my jaw. He swallows, and it’s a whole show. “I do,” he says. “Love you.”
I close my eyes for a moment. Like I’m trying to trap his words in my head. Then I open them again. “What about . . . everything else?”
“What else?”
“Everything you said last night. About magic.”
“Oh. Well, I meant all of that. I still mean it.”
I shake my head. “Fucking hell, Snow.”
He holds on to my chin. “I don’t want to live in the World of Mages, Baz—I want a Normal life. But maybe we could, like, meet in between?”
“In between.”
“Like, you do your thing. Magic. And I’ll do mine. And we don’t have to talk about it all the time.”
“You said it makes you miserable, that I remind you of everything you’ve lost.”
“Well, I can work on that.”
“Can you?”
“Yeah . . .” He reaches his fingers up my cheek and sucks one side of his bottom lip into his mouth. (It’s an entire Joni Mitchell song. It’s a Mercury Prize.) “Yeah,” he says, letting his lip go. “Maybe when I feel that way, I’ll turn it into being glad that I didn’t lose you, as well.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “This is you trying, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.” There’s a lightness in his expression that I haven’t seen for so long. I want more of it. Even if I can’t trust it.
“If we do this”—my chin hits his palm with every syllable—“I want the full Simon Snow treatment.”
“What does that mean?”
“I want the locked jaw. The squinty eyes. The shoulders.”
He wrinkles his forehead. “The shoulders?”
“I want you to slay a dragon before you give up on me, do you understand?”
“I thought you didn’t like it when I slew dragons . . .”
I press my hands into Snow’s chest and clutch them in his jumper. “I want you to tryeverythingbefore you give up on us again.”
He rubs his thumb below my lip. “I won’t give up, Baz. Unless you tell me to. Unless you’re, like,really clearthat you want me to. And even then, I won’t give up. I’ll just persist from a distance.”
“You can’t put me through this again, Simon. I don’t want to spend my whole life, losing you. Watching you slip away. I never want to come home to another note.”
