They aren’t halfway down the walk before the Pitch boy is taking the Chosen One’s hand. Ah, I’d heard as much. Now that I’ve met them, I’m glad to know it’s true. They could both use a fierce ally, I think.
Did the Mage hurt anyone worse than that boy?
Even my Lucy got away.
But Simon Snow was snatched off the streets and turned into a puppet of war. There’s no official account of what happened, but we all know that Simon defeated the Humdrum and then the Mage—and that the Coven, packed as it was with Davy’s friends, was still unanimous in acquitting the boy.
What could Davy have done to turn his most loyal disciple against him?
And what did it cost Simon Snow to make that turn? To bite the only hand that ever fed him?
I’m glad he’s not alone in this.
That he has someone to take his hand when they think old women like me aren’t looking.
Can two boys do what the rest of the World of Mages won’t?
Perhaps. They’ve done it before, haven’t they?
29
SIMON
Baz made us take the Underground to get to Lady Salisbury’s.
I hadn’t been on the Tube for more than a year. Not since I got my wings. But Baz insisted they’re hardly noticeable now that I’ve got them folded up so tight.
“I look strange,”I said to him on the ride to Mayfair.“People are staring.”
“Yeah, but they don’t think you havewings.”
“They think I have ahump.”
“They’ll get over it. Bodies come in different shapes.”
I suppose he was right—no one jumped me or threw holy water on me. So now we’re taking the train back to my flat, standing side by side, holding on to a bar.
It was relatively easy to talk Baz into coming back to mine—I don’t think he wants to deal with his aunt yet—but he’s still whinging about it.
“You don’t have a sofa,” he says.
“We can sit on the floor.”
“You don’t have food. I’ll bet you don’t have cutlery. Or bath towels. You don’t even have a bed.”
“I have a bed. A mattress is a bed.”
He looks away from me. I think he might be blushing. With Baz, that’s more of an expression than a change in colour. I knock my shoulder into his, and he smiles at the floor.
“So, what do you think?” I ask him.
“About what?”
“Lady Salisbury, Smith-Richards—the whole thing.”
Baz glances around us. Nobody’s paying any real attention. There are a few girls checking him out, but there’s never any getting away from that.
“I think Daphne might be caught up in it,” he says. “What do you think?”
