“Niamh . . .” I turn my head to look at her. She’s got the silhouette of a cartoon character. Heavy brow, long nose, sharp chin. I still can’t believe I didn’t recognize her from school. “I’m sorry. I genuinely didn’t know why you cared so much.”
“It’s all right,” she says. “You really were a help . . . I’m sorry I didn’t know you broke up with Simon.”
“Oh, Merlin, that’s all right.” I wave my hand. “It’s kind of nice to think there were people at Watford who weren’t paying attention to us.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Well, if it makes you feel better, Itrulydidn’t give a shit about you.”
I roll my eyes back to the window. “Yeah, all right. I get it.”
32
BAZ
Snow is on my last nerve.
“I can’t just walk into a Chosen One rally as the defunct Chosen One!”
“Then let me change your face,” I say for the tenth time.
“I’m not letting you fuck with my face,” he mutters. “Though I’m starting to feel like you really want to . . .”
I’m sitting on his empty living room floor. Simon is pacing in front of me, wings spread, tail whipping around. Every time he stomps past me, he nearly smacks me with it.
“I could just spell your face back to normal when I’m done,” I say, also for the tenth time.
“No,” he says. “No more spells on my wings, no more spells”—he waves his hands from his head to his stomach—“anywhere on my body.”
“Then I’ll go to the Smith-Richards meeting by myself.”
“You’renotgoing by yourself!” He marches past me again, tail snapping like an angry cat’s.
“I’ll befine,Snow. You can listen in on my cellphone.”
He throws his hands in the air. “Oh, because that worked so well last time!”
“It really did, if you’ll remember. I’m not the one who blew our cover.” It was Simon himself who blew our cover in Las Vegas, by breaking the plan, and then by breaking one of the Vampire King’s chairs.
“Yeah, well,” Snow says, “I’m not sitting here and listening while you get yourself killed—or end up going on another date.”
“For Chomsky’s sake,” I say. “It wasn’t adate.” It wasn’t.
“You went out forice cream.”
“So what? Lamb wasn’t even interested in me in that way.” Hereallywasn’t.
Simon stops pacing to roll his eyes at me. His tail is still lashing from side to side.
“He was trying to mentor me,” I say. “He could see I was clueless.”
Simon huffs. “He could see that you’re hot.”
I huff, too. “Well,Iwas actually there, and I didn’t get that vibe from him.”
“You didn’t get that vibe frommeeither, Baz. You’ve got no vibe . . .check.”
Simon starts pacing again. His tail swings towards my face, and I snatch it.
He spins around, grabbing his tail at the base. “Hey!”
