Simon
Penny and Baz are out when the bell rings. I'm startled to see Dev at the door and I whisper the incantation for my sword. I haven't called it since finding out about the Mage, but it comes easily, same as always.
I'm enjoying the feeling of strength I get from the heft of it in my hand when I remember that Dev and Niall helped Baz plan my party. I instantly feel guilty for being so hateful about them. I put away the sword and answer the door.
I haven't seen Dev in a while. Neither has Baz. Baz and I have been so busy being in love that we've kind of ignored the rest of the world. When I'm not actually in his arms kissing him, I'm fantasizing about it.
Now that nothing's forbidden, we've become completely preoccupied with exploring all the ways we can make each other moan. Just thinking about it now makes my toes curl with pleasure and I have to shake myself to remember where I am and who's at my door.
I invite Dev in but he's looking for Baz.
"Aren't you a bit early?" I ask. "Like ten hours? And anyway, aren't you meeting at Fiona's flat?"
It doesn't hurt to remind him of Baz's ferocious aunt. I don't really think Dev would ever hurt Baz, but I just can't get myself to trust him and Niall.
I was surprised when Baz said he was having them over tonight. I think he's been feeling a little guilty about blowing them off after the party. He's missed the last few Thursdays, so this week he arranged to see them again.
Dev explains that he's locked himself out of his flat and Baz has the spare key. I don't like the idea of letting him into Baz's place with my key, but it seems petty of me since he's going there later anyhow.
I figure I can stay to keep watch until he grabs his key, and then lock up behind me. Plus, like I said, it's actually Fiona's flat. Dev may be thick but even he isn't stupid enough to cross her.
I follow him out to his car (he drives a bloody Hummer, I didn't even think those were legal in the UK) and slide into the front passenger seat. I feel a shiver of apprehension but it comes too late. A needle jabs into the side of my neck from behind, and everything goes black.
When I come to I'm freezing. My hands are tied painfully behind my back tightly enough to have dislocated my left shoulder. I guess they wanted to make sure I couldn't go for my sword because they've removed my trousers too, as though perhaps I keep the blade stashed in my hip pocket.
My twisted shoulder competes with my head and neck for sheer agony. I don't know what they stuck in my neck but my throat feels iced shut and my head is split in shards. I turn and vomit on the damp stone floor.
Dev. I am such a fucking idiot.
Penny
It's Friday night. There's no way to know how long Simon's been missing. Neither of us have seen him since early Thursday morning. I was in the lab until late last night, and I assumed Simon was at Baz's when he wasn't here.
But Baz was out late last night with Dev and Niall, and he assumed Simon was at home. I guess I shouldn't have expected him to drop those two once the party was done but I can't help feeling furious with him for not being with Simon. I'm sure he feels the same way about me.
Neither of us even noticed anything was strange until about 4 today when Baz came over for tea and we discovered that Simon was missing.
I'm frantic. I'm totally out of practice with the whole rescuing thing. Plus I'm usually solving things with Simon. And Agatha. Not to mention that every other time something's gone wrong like this, the most likely culprit was always Baz.
Honestly, his family is still at the top of my suspect list, but how the hell can I say that to him? So we're standing here in Simon's bedroom looking around desperately and trying to see if there's any hint of what could have happened.
Baz
Fuck. Fuck. I can't think. Fucking fairies and fauns. Why wasn't I with him? I promised I'd always be watching, that no one would ever hurt him again. Fuck.
Simon
A memory rises unbidden to the surface of my consciousness. I was a kid. 11 years old. I'd gotten into a fight with two boys in my group at the home. We were always fighting, because if you didn't fight you got destroyed, either by the bigger kids or by your own invisibility.
This fight started when a kid spit in my food (such as it was: scrambled eggs made from powder and week-old bread that had been donated by some misguided society that apparently thinks the poor can't detect staleness or mold). Spitting was a common form of challenge in our world, where we had nothing but our bodies to work with.
I stood and smashed my lunch tray up into his nose, which burst and started bleeding through his fingers. His mate grabbed me around the neck while the spitter laid into me. Somehow, despite the fact that when we were found, I was in a chokehold and my lip was split and one eye was already swelling shut, I got blamed for the fight.
That happened a lot because the warden (yes, there were wardens; it was a prison in everything but name) hated me. I was always different. I know why now, I know that it was my magic that set me apart. But I didn't know anything about magic back then. All I knew was that there was something about me made anyone with authority want to crush me.
I was 11 years old, and I was thrown into solitary. They used solitary confinement as a response to everything, from pissing the bed to stealing food to starting fights. It was considered a harmless punishment, I suppose because it didn't leave visible scars. But being shut up in a small dark silent space with no sense or control over when or whether you'd ever be let out is a horror.
I hadn't actually gotten to eat anything before the spitting episode at lunch, and dinner was withheld as further punishment, so I went to sleep so hungry that my insides burned and my stomach cramped and I was curled up in misery in the floor.
That was the first time I went off. I woke up in the center of a crater of destruction that radiated out for a kilometer in every direction. That's where the Mage found me.
Penelope
It's dawn. Baz is a hopeless mess. He hasn't had a single coherent thought in the past twelve hours. I don't know if I'm more touched or furious. Finally I drag him out to his car. We're going to his house. He can't come up with any better leads and I'm too scared to care about hurting his feelings anymore.
Simon's been missing for at least a day and a half, maybe two. We're running out of time. If he's even still alive. I stomp down hard on that thought and focus on spelling the other cars on the road out of our way. I guess I'm starting to get what Simon sees in this whole not-thinking strategy.
I will not think he's dead. I will not think he's going to die. I will not.
Baz
I'm finally forced to admit that Penny's right. With no Mage and no Humdrum, the only plausible villain left is the Families.
What will I do if it's actually Father who took him? Would he do that? The fact that I can even wonder about it means that I believe he might. But why? Simon doesn't pose any sort of risk to the Families anymore.
My mind dances around the thought that the only reason left to hurt him is me.
Simon
I've spent more than my fair share of days locked up alone in a dark, dank room. But even solitary was better than this.
I was never this cold then. (Quite the opposite. There was no A/C and the dorms were stifling, filled with the stench of two dozen angry teenagers.) I think Dev cursed whatever he injected me with, because I'm freezing and my magic is gone.
The stench is pretty bad here too, even though it's so cold that my teeth are chattering.
I never knew that was an actual thing, chattering teeth. I always thought it was just a saying. I've never been cold before, and it scares me.
I estimate that it's been more than a day since I got here. No one's been by, not even to bring water. There might be somewhere in this hole that I'm supposed to relieve myself but I can't stand or even sit, my legs are tied and my twisted arms are useless to pull me.
So I lie still and leave my body and think about Baz. I think about how his hair looks after he showers. I think about the lines of his shoulders and the shadows made by the muscles that rope around his arms. I think about his surprising gentleness, his sweetness. I think about him playing with his sisters.
I think about long legs in a green suit. I think about him pretending to always be bored. I think about all the times I've gotten to see him when he wasn't pretending anything. I think about his grey eyes. I think about his cool lips. I think about his arms around me.
Then Dev and Niall come for a little visit. I must be in the basement of one of their families' houses. (I don't let myself think the word "dungeon.") They laugh at me for not having any magic to protect myself. I realize they'd stayed away until now so they could be sure I wasn't going to go nuclear.
They laugh more as they watch me whimper and cough up blood after a little prompting from their boots. They punctuate the beating with a creative blend of homophobia and fascism.
I really hate those two.
Apparently, the feeling is mutual. They try to make me think that Baz is behind this but I refuse to believe that. If I start to believe that I'm lost. Besides, if Baz was behind it, there would be some organization to the thing. They seem to have no plan beyond humiliating me. Pitiful really.
They leave me with nothing but my own piss and blood and vomit. I manage to wait until I can't hear their steps or snickers anymore before I let myself add tears to the gruesome mix.
Baz
When we get to Hampshire, Penny and I agree it would be better for her to wait in the car. My family is just sitting down to tea. It's Saturday, when we have an elaborate tea in the early afternoon.
Mordelia runs over to me when I come through the front door, demanding to talk to Simon, saying she needs to show him a trick she invented. She thinks I've brought him with me. She gives me a strange look as I tell her I'm alone.
I keep my head angled down towards Mordelia for a couple of extra seconds to regain my composure before I face my father. He's all about composure.
When I walk into the dining room, my father is looking right at me but Daphne won't meet my eyes even as I bend down to kiss her cheek.
"What a lovely surprise, Basilton," says Father. "We weren't expecting you back before the term break."
"I needed to consult the Rydall Concordance for a paper I'm writing on the thirteenth century demon infestation," I lie calmly, slipping into my usual seat and accepting a napkin and cup of tea from a servant.
I don't trust myself to say anything else, so I just sit and let the girls chatter around me. Daphne is still avoiding looking at me. My father asks me questions about my classes and life in London, and I find myself carrying on a bland conversation with one part of my brain while the rest is consumed by barely suppressed panic.
Tea mercifully ends and I still haven't figured out how to ask if they know where Simon is. I can't read anything into the fact that they haven't asked me about him. Father has always pretended I was straight even when I wasn't dating his mortal enemy.
As Daphne leaves the room, sweeping the children in front of her, I just barely hear her whisper "go to the library, and keep your ears open." It takes a lifetime of practice at keeping my face carefully blank to avoid giving her away to my father, who has remained at the table.
I finally excuse myself, saying I need to check the Concordance, and I head to the library. It's directly under their sitting room, and Daphne knows I can hear easily through the floor.
I hear Father walk into their suite, and I hear Daphne's footsteps approach him. "Really, Mal, don't you think we should tell Basilton about his friend now?"
Then my father's voice: "I certainly do not. He's far safer now that that boy can't hold him under his thrall." It's an odd choice of words, considering that I'm the vampire in the relationship.
"Surely you don't imagine that Basilton could be involuntarily seduced, Malcolm." Clever Daphne.
"What else am I to think? That my son has chosen to betray his family and his honor to indulge a childish crush?"
"Don't be so dramatic, Mal."
"Look, Daphne, it wasn't my idea to kidnap the boy."
So it's true, then. The Families took Simon. I feel rage simmering in my veins like cold fire.
Father is still talking. "It was not my plan, but I'm not going to interfere with the Families once they've decided on a course of action."
Bollocks. He's never let anyone but himself decide on strategy. And this doesn't seem to be part of any larger strategy, anyway.
"Remember what we went through when Baz was missing?" Daphne tries.
"Well, there's no one going through that now, is there? The boy has no family."
I hang my head. I get that Daphne's trying to give him a chance to redeem himself but this is taking too long, and all he's doing is confirming his complicity.
Daphne must agree, because her next words are "And what if Basilton decides to drop round at Niall's?"
I'm on my feet before I hear Father respond.
"Unlikely, it's too far. And what, do you think he'll just stop by the dungeons while he's there?"
I'm out the door before the air has stopped vibrating with the force of those words and I hear them echo as I leap into the car.
Simon
I have no idea how much time has passed. I'm still on the floor, shit and blood spread around me like a dark aura. It's so cold that the liquids have frozen into a sickening slush and I keep my eyes closed against the sight. There's no way to protect myself from the smell, though, or the pain.
It's so dark that I wouldn't be able to see at all except that I'm emitting a faint glow. No one has come by since Dev and Niall left. I haven't had a thing to eat or drink since Wednesday night and I start to realize that I am going to die. If no one's found me yet, they're not going to find me. If anyone's even looking.
I don't know if anyone even knows I'm missing except Dev and Niall, who seem to have forgotten it themselves. For all I know they intended to let me out before I died but got distracted by a football match and it slipped their tiny little minds. Bitter thoughts feel good. Better than thinking about my imminent death.
I consider whether I should try to go off. I don't know if I can even do that anymore. But I don't want to find out. I don't want to blow things up. What if Baz is here? What if I'm in Baz's house? What if Mordelia and the twins are here? Or the baby?
Baz can't be part of this, but his father could. His father hates me. Even if it is Baz (it's not) I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want to murder what's left of his family. I don't even want to kill Dev and Niall. I don't want to be the source of death anymore, to anyone, ever again. Perhaps not the best moment to choose radical pacifism, but there it is.
Malcolm
When I heard of the children's plan to teach the mageling a lesson, I stayed out of it. I would not have set such a course of action in motion myself, but I see no harm in letting Baz's friends try to free him from the wretched influence of the Snow boy.
Daphne's been pressing me to tell Baz all along, and now that he's here in the house she's become even more insistent. But I will do no such thing. Let the children work their squabbles out for themselves.
It is right for his friends to intervene. Being queer is all well and good, but it's absurd for Baz to be so certain he fancies boys over girls, when he has never had (nor will he ever have) the opportunity to be intimate in that way with another human. He is a vampire. His nature is death.
A vampire, Merlin help us. When I lost Natasha, I could not bear to lose our child too. For better or worse, Fiona and I kept him alive, and have kept his secret ever since.
Until quite recently, I've never had cause for regret. He has turned out splendidly. Reserved, commanding, superior to his peers in every way that matters.
I cannot speak of my shock last Christmas when he took the mageling in. I didn't know if it was misplaced pity, or brilliant acting, or some ill-conceived adolescent rebellion intended to hurt me.
When their infernal relationship continued beyond the collapse of the Mage and the revelation that the mageling himself had been the Humdrum himself all along... Well, when Baz continued to be associated with the boy beyond that, I threw up my hands.
If he is weak enough to be caught up in the boy's messianic psychosis, what more can I do, beyond waiting for him to come to his senses and return to his duty as future leader of the House of Pitch?
If the Dev and Niall boys want to hasten that process, why would I get in their way?
Baz
I've seen people go into Niall's family dungeons but I've yet to see anyone come out. I can't believe we played billiards and ate kebabs until midnight on Thursday, and the whole time, they'd taken him.
They took Simon. They took him and then they came to my flat and drank my wine and kept me idiotically distracted while Simon rotted in the freezing hell of their family dungeon. Because of me.
None of this would be happening if I'd had the balls to break the Families. I've never even told Simon how right he's always been about them.
I almost did once, when he was beating himself up about following the Mage. I almost told him then that he wasn't completely off all that time, that there was actually some evil in the Families that needed to be opposed.
I don't think it was shame that stopped me. I'd be a better person if it was. I think it was loyalty to the families, a feeling that I'd already betrayed them by loving Simon and that I didn't need to betray all their secrets as well.
But I'm done. I will burn this whole fucking place to the ground. I'll find Simon and then I will set them all on fire.
Simon
The idea that in the end it'll be Dev who bests me makes me start to laugh but it's excruciating and I start coughing blood again.
If I'm going to let anyone murder me, it's going to be Baz.
I try to call my sword, but nothing happens. Maybe because I have no magic, or maybe because I can't move my arms. Maybe because I've passed some threshold and am no longer fully among the living.
There has to be some way. I try to shift so that I'm not lying directly on my dislocated shoulder but pain flares across my back with so much force that I can't breathe.
The movement shakes something free from my shirt pocket and I squint to see it in the faint light I emit. It's the pen that Penny gave me. It can't have been just a couple of weeks ago. But it was. "Mightier than the sword" scrolls magically around its shaft. It has magic, even if I don't.
I get the pen in my mouth and try to move it in some pattern that might resemble words. I'm going to attempt to write out the incantation for the sword of mages. I've never summoned the sword that way before, but it's worth a try. If I'm going to die, it's not going to be Dev that finishes me. And the sword will undoubtedly be faster and less painful than this.
Penelope
When Baz finally comes out to the car, he is bleached white and shaking so hard that he lets me drive. He just stares straight ahead and speaks only to give me directions.
I don't know where we're going but I don't ask questions, I just drive faster than I ever have before. The story leaks out in bits. I can't believe these people actually have dungeons. I always thought that was one of the things the Mage had invented in order to solidify his control over the Coven through fear.
My mobile starts beeping. At first I ignore it, thinking its Micah. He flew to London on the first plane he could catch after I called him in tears to say that Simon was missing, and he's due in about now. He's supposed to call when he lands, and he knows I might not be able to answer.
Then I realize it's the wrong sound for Micah (he set his ring tone to the Star Wars theme last summer). I pull off to the side of the road with a jolt.
"What in the realm of darkness do you think you're doing?" Baz practically roars at me, but I'm already out of my seat and around to his door.
"It's Simon," I scream. "Just drive, I'll explain on the way."
Baz
I could kiss Bunce. Without biting. She magicked the pen she'd given Simon for his birthday so that it would beep her mobile if he needed her. She's in a kind of trance in the passenger seat, trying to find an animal she can possess so she can find Simon, now that she can use the pen as a beacon to locate him.
We're only about 20 minutes from Niall's now, and I start to hope that we might really get to Simon in time. But he's been gone for something like three days by now.
I make the car fly.
Simon
The sword doesn't materialize. I think I've descended to a new level of hell when a rat starts scratching me on the nose. Then I think I must have slipped into some kind of shocked dementia because I think the rat is talking to me.
It takes me a minute to realize that the rat is talking to me, and it's possessed by Penny. I normally hate this trick of hers but right now that rat is the most glorious thing I've ever seen. It (she?) squeaks at me to hold on, she and Baz are coming, they figured out where I am and they're coming for me. It's so reassuring that I let myself pass out.
Penelope
Baz is in full vampire mode, and it's enormously comforting. The world has gone mental.
I don't know how to tell Baz what I've seen but I think I should prepare him.
Simon is half frozen in a pool of blood and shit. There's more blood leaking from his nose and mouth. His eyes are completely sunken in, and the skin at the base of his throat contracts with every breath. I know enough medicine from Micah to recognize the signs of exposure, severe dehydration, and a punctured lung. His arms are twisted behind him at a crazy angle and I don't think they're attached at his shoulders anymore.
He was conscious when I first found the rat, but he's not conscious anymore. His chest is rising and falling shallowly but I keep expecting it to stop. He somehow managed to get the pen in his mouth. That's how he was able to contact me, though I can't imagine what he was intending to do. I think he understood me when I spoke through the rat but it's hard to know for sure.
Each second is an eternity. I use every speed incantation I can think of and start borrowing from Micah's vocabulary to invent new ones. (Faster than a speeding bullet! Vroom vroom! I think I can! A rolling stone gathers no moss! To infinity and beyond!)
I search the car for something we can use to wrap Simon up when we find him. I had been planning to bring him to my parents' house but I realize now we won't have time for that, so I start making phone calls. I fill myself with things to do so I can't spend time thinking about what I've seen.
Baz
It's like Penny's voice is coming from down a deep well when she describes what she saw. My vision is unnaturally sharp and tinted red and my fangs are out and my fingers are leaving dents in the steering wheel. I hear Penny tearing the leather off the back seat of the car to use as a blanket for Simon and shouting into her mobile and chanting speed spells.
Finally Niall's house comes into view and I think for the first time about how the bloody hell I'm supposed to get in there. I realize that at some point on this drive, I've decided that I will bite anyone who tries to stop me. I can't think right now about what that will mean when it happens.
We pull into the driveway and I race to the door. It turns out that I won't have to face the question of what happens after I bite my first human after all. They're all out at some fucking party while Simon freezes to death slowly in the bowels of their mansion.
Penny stays with the car to stop anyone from coming after me. I rip the front door off its hinges and toss it behind me, reveling for the first time in the sheer power of being a vampire.
I've been in Niall's house countless times and I know how to find the stairs that lead down to the dungeons, though I've never actually descended them before.
I listen for the sound of breathing and I follow the faint rasp of his labored breath until I find the tiny cell they've left him in. I rip that door off its hinges too and I'm screaming as I see Simon twisted in the corner. His face is barely recognizable. He's covered in blood and the stench is overpowering.
I'm scared to lift him but I can't leave him here, so I quickly spell away the filth and free his arms and legs and start layering healing spells as quickly and gently as I can. I wrap him up in Penny's makeshift blanket and lift him in my arms. I'm crying and chanting spells and running up the stairs and holding him carefully and everything behind me burns.
Simon
When I come to, Baz is carrying me up an endless flight of stone stairs. He's strong and graceful and unfaltering as he flies up and up and up. The pain in my arms is mercifully muted and I can move my head again so I lift it up and rest it on his chest.
I become aware that everything around us is burning. I don't know if Baz is doing it consciously or not but I do know that he's like a pocket of pure oxygen, beyond flammable, so I start to extinguish the fires as they approach.
My magic is always easy when I'm touching Baz. Later Penny will tell me how we looked bursting out the door towards the car: Baz a tall black silhouette against a wall of flame, me glowing, and a sphere of power surrounding both of us to protect us from the fire.
Penelope
Baz explodes out of the house like an avenging angel wearing a halo of damning fire. For a second it looks like he actually has wings. Then I realize it's Simon's magic billowing out behind them to protect them from the flames. I sag with relief. Simon's magic means Simon is alive.
Baz is whispering an endless stream of healing incantations and I see that Simon is breathing. Micah and my parents are on their way. Micah's an expert in magickal and normal medicine, and my dad knows how to set up a field clinic, and they'll get here soon and Simon is going to be ok. It's going to be ok. He's going to be ok. We're going to be ok.
Simon
There's a flurry of activity all around me but I'm buffered from it by Baz who's enveloping me with his spells and his body and the scaffolding of our magic as it fuses into one monumental force. There's no more pain and no more fear and I sleep with my hand tightly in his and neither of us lets go.
Micah
Holy mother of fuck. What the hell kind of nightmare does Penny live in? It's like there's a pocket of England where the Middle Ages never ended.
As soon as I arrive I grab her and hold her as she sobs. I can't stand to see her like this. I've never seen her like this. All those years that she and Simon were being sent to battle by the Mage or kidnapped by the Humdrum, she's never fallen apart like this.
It's not that I don't like Simon, or that I think it's his fault that he got kidnapped. But I want to get Penny away from him, take her far away from here and keep her away. I want her to worry about papers and finals, not about death.
Anyway, Simon's ok. Well, that's an exaggeration. But he's alive. For now. And he's in good hands. He's with Baz (who's alive! What in Wicca is going on around here?!) and Penny's parents are efficiently erecting a mobile triage stage in the only bit of the countryside that's not engulfed in flames.
There's no way I'm leaving Penny on this miserable time-capsule of an island. She doesn't know it yet but she's coming back to Providence with me.
Baz
I thought I was past the point of surprise but I discover that I'm wrong when Daphne shows up, alone, and starts helping cast a more secure set of walls and wards around us. I never thought of her as having any power, but the space around us quickly becomes impenetrable and every surface sterilized.
Together we stabilize Simon on some kind of souped up cot/hospital bed with a bag of fortified saline attached to his arm (courtesy of Micah). The air fills with the comforting beep of his steady pulse being monitored.
I won't let go of him, and Daphne doesn't ask me to. She sits next to me where I'm sitting next to Simon and she puts her hand gently on my back and then I'm leaning into her and crying like I'm four years old. She lets me cry, and I can't stop. She rubs my back and smooths my hair and kisses the top of my head, and I cry.
When I'm finally still, she brings over a blanket and lays it over me and Simon. She's spelled the cot big enough for us both and I lie down carefully next to him and we sleep hand in hand.
Simon
I wake up screaming and Baz is there and he holds me until my terror ebbs. I can't seem to get warm and the memory of vomit and shit turns my stomach and I retch but there's nothing left inside me to come out.
I notice the thin plastic tube running into the crook of my arm from a bag hanging on a makeshift hook. Micah must be here. I've never known any other magician borrow from Normal medicine like this.
Baz is staring at me intently, a question in his eyes, so I try to smile at him but I can't. I just start to cry instead.
Everything hurts and I'm still not sure that I'm not about to die. Baz looks fierce and sad and I feel safe enough with him here to close my eyes. But my tears won't stop and I let Baz hold my face in his hands and I wait to see if this will ever be over.
Baz
Waking to his face beside mine on the bed is a miracle. But he's shattered and there isn't enough fire in the world to match the rage pulsing through me.
He's been sleeping on and off. He wakes up screaming a few times, and each time my heart wrenches and I sing him back to sleep. "No more, no more. Our time is short. I'm yours."
Simon
Open up your eyes and see like me. Open up your plans and damn, you're free. Open up your heart and you'll find the sky is yours.
Baz
Simon's a little better today (by which I mean we're pretty sure now that he won't die) and Penny and I think it's safer to move him than to stay where we are.
Daphne's chartered a jet to fly the four of us to Boston. The situation hasn't exploded yet, but there's an excellent chance that the Devs or the Nialls will soon report me to the Coven as a vampire. We need to leave the country before that happens.
Penny's been planning to move to the States to be with Micah anyway, so they've just moved up their plans by a few months. Ok, years.
Everything's happening so fast, but it still feels like I can't get away from here fast enough.
Micah
Of course I have to be the one to explain to them that Simon flying this soon is out of the question. He's lucky to be alive. It's ok to drive, but flying is just stupid. This continent ought to be big enough to hide him for a few weeks until he's stronger.
They're panicked because the families are mounting a case against Baz after he stole their hostage and burned their estates to ash.
It's hard for me to imagine that Baz is truly in any danger. Surely his father will find a way to shield him. I mean, what's the point of being the ruling class if you can't buy off the fucking Coven?
But it turns out that Baz and his father haven't even spoken since Simon was found. His dad won't acknowledge that anything fucked up has happened, and Baz can't forgive him. Which I can understand. But his step-mum's here, so there's more going on than meets the eye. Not my problem, anyway.
I make the reasonable suggestion that Baz leave the country without Simon. His face turns vicious and for a second I'm truly terrified that he's going to bite me. But then his face crumples and his whole body sags and then I'm terrified that I've killed him.
Can a vampire die of a broken heart? I have to remember to add that one to Penny's List of Questions Raised by the Existence of Baz.
They give up on flying and decide that the continent is in fact big enough to hide the both of them.
Daphne has cousins who own a warded country house in southern France, and that's where they head. I'd never met Daphne before, but she kind of reminds me of Penny. She's a force of nature. I'm glad she's on our side. I thought we'd reached the point where there only was one side, but I was obviously wrong.
Penny wants to go with them but I'm worried about her. I convince her they need space, though I really just want to keep her far away from Simon for as long as I can.
Penelope
I feel kind of superfluous. Baz won't let Simon out if his sight. Simon doesn't spend much time awake. Micah is always distracted, monitoring Simon's pulse, CO2 levels, and breathing rate, and adjusting his antibiotics and electrolytes and morphine. Daphne has a spell regimen set up around the clock, and her healing spells are so precise that I don't want to interfere.
After those first terrible minutes when he used every breath to weave medical incantations, Baz let Daphne take over. He's not doing great. He blames himself for all of it. For leaving Simon alone that night (which is absurd), for not opposing the families sooner (which I kind of understand), and for being friends with Dev and Niall (which is just hard to think about).
Apparently, Dev and Niall have been at loose ends since leaving school. With no war to plan, no classes to go to, and no need to work, they had a lot of time to brood about Baz's perceived desertion.
They were furious when they found out Baz hadn't just befriended Simon, but fallen in love with him. Which they didn't figure out until the birthday party. It's not clear why they decided to kidnap Simon, whether they were intending to punish him or Baz. Either way, they succeeded spectacularly.
I can't believe that after what they've done to Simon, it's Baz who has to worry about the Coven coming after him. Turns out he was right all along that the Coven court isn't always concerned about actual facts.
So it's easy for me to agree with Micah to move to America. And it's easy for me to agree to stay in London with him while Baz and Simon relocate to France. I'll finish out the term and start the process of transferring to MIT. And I'll probably show Micah the journals and lab notebooks. He might see something I've missed.
I agree to stay, but it makes me uneasy to watch Simon leave. I want to hold on to him and never let him go.
Simon
They kept me sedated for more than a week, because I kept screaming and thrashing about and ripping out the IVs and disrupting the spells. Micah decided it would be better to keep me out of it for a while.
I'm in no position to mind, though I don't like the idea of losing more time. And I don't like the idea of being kept unconscious. And I don't like the idea of my brain being scrambled by drugs.
I guess I do mind.
Micah seems to have left. Or maybe it's me who left. Either way, I've finally been coming out of the drugged sleep over the past day or two. My eyes still won't open, but I can hear and feel things again.
As far as I can tell, the only person with me is Baz. He hasn't let go of me the whole time we've been here. Wherever "here" is.
When my eyes finally open, I'm in a big light-filled room, lying with Baz beside me in a huge bed on a pale wood frame. Everything in this room is pale wood and beige canvas. It's about as close to the opposite of Baz's parents' house that I can imagine, so I guess it's not theirs.
I find out later that I'm in France, at the house where Daphne spent the summers with her cousins growing up. No one seems to live here anymore, though; we have the house and grounds to ourselves.
Baz hears my eyelids open and he's awake in an instant. He leans over me, his grey eyes staring down at mine, his face a strange mask of agony and joy. I guess that's love in a nutshell, agony and joy. And strange.
"Simon," he says, and his voice sounds hoarse. "Simon." His tears are falling on my face and I can't tell which are his and which are mine as they fall down my cheeks and behind my ears and pool on the pillow my head is on. I can't move my head at all so the tears just fall and soak the pillow.
He helps me sit up. We're both silent. There's too much to say and nothing to say. I guess I just don't know what to say. But I'm used to not knowing what to say, and we're ok being quiet together. So we sit there, hand in hand, and say nothing at all.
Baz
This time when he opens them, Simon's eyes are clear. It's the first time he's been really conscious since I found him. When I say his name, it's an offering of thanksgiving. When I say it again, it's a plea for forgiveness. I don't say it a third time.
He doesn't let go of my hand. It's good to sit together, silent but conscious.
As he starts to fall back asleep, I shift him so he's in front of me. My arms around him, his head resting on my chest, he sleeps. I want to hold him like this forever. I will hold him like this for as long as he lets me.
I don't know what to expect when he finally emerges completely from all the healing spells and Micah's drugs. Everything that happened to him is my fault. The list is clear in my head: The families, the dungeons, my father. Dev and Niall. And me. He loved me. And this is what happened. And it's my fault.
Simon
I'm a mess. My body doesn't have enough strength to even sit up on its own. I'm scared of everything. Everything makes me cry. I try to remember if I've ever felt this way before.
I know I've been messed up before, but in the past, I'd always kind of blocked out the aftermath of every injury and battle. I'm usually on my own for it. There's never been anyone before who sat at my side and cried at my pain and held me so I could sleep. It fuses me to the present in a way I'm not used to. It means both that I can't escape from the moment, and that I don't need to.
Baz
It's like watching a fast-forwarded version of a child growing up. He gets strong enough to sit, then to stand, then to walk, in a couple of days. Once he can walk, we go outside, and he says his first word. Baz. Then more words come, all nouns at first. Sun, grass. Tea. Within a week, he's more or less talking (to the extent Simon ever talked, which was admittedly never his strong suit).
Daphne comes every few days to check on him (and on me, I suppose). She slowly starts undoing the spells, now that his body is healed. She does it carefully, removing them one at a time over a couple of weeks, waiting each time until she's confident there's been no regression before undoing the next one.
But there's no regression. The internal bleeding has stopped. His broken ribs have set. His diaphragm is rebuilt, and his lungs are whole. The tendons in his shoulders have reknit. The bruises have faded (so many fucking bruises). The skin around his wrists and ankles has grown back, the sores on his legs have healed, the frostbite has receded, the bones of his fingers reformed.
His entire right hand had been pulverized. It's like someone froze it brittle and then stomped on it with their boot. Which, I imagine, is exactly what happened. Micah reassured me that he probably didn't even feel it because his arms were so tightly bound that he was certain to have lost all feeling in his hands. That's Micah's idea of being reassuring.
The walls of his heart have recovered (apparently when you starve, your body starts to digest its own heart). His vocal cords have healed (the thought of him in that pit screaming enough to damage his vocal cords makes me so angry that the rug next to the bed bursts into flames. I quickly 'make a wish' it out before Simon can notice).
His lymph nodes have refilled. His blood... I can't think about blood. Haven't gone to hunt since this started. A month, give or take. I've been making do with what I can find close enough to grab. Anyway, all his T cells and platelets and whatever are back.
The list goes on: his bilirubin levels have returned to normal range, his potassium levels have stabilized, his CO2 consumption is down, and more things I don't understand well enough to recite.
I can't believe how much damage they did to his body in three days. I still don't know how much damage they've done to his mind, or his soul.
If I'd listened to Penny immediately, if we'd gone straight to my father and demanded to know where Simon was, could I have spared him any of the pain he went through? Would he have been free on Friday instead of Saturday? The questions eat through me like acid.
I won't let go of his hand. I'm grateful for every minute of every day he lets me be with him. Alive. Alive.
Simon
Being outside is like, well, like magic, I suppose. I start to re-enter my body. It's ok to do now, it doesn't hurt anymore, and it seems to work like before, except that it gets so tired so quickly.
Then my magic starts coming back, flowing into me and out of me, and I'm whole again. I'm ok. I'm alive. I'm ok. It's ok.
I don't have to tell Baz that my magic is back, because he's right next to me, and he sees it. Then he's smiling for the first time I can remember in forever and so am I. Smiling feels great. So I do it for a little longer. Then I kiss Baz, and that feels great. So I do it for a little longer, too.
Baz
I can see it the moment Simon's magic comes back. It'slike a light goes on behind his eyes, and he smiles. It is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. So I smile too. And then he kisses me. He must know it was Dev and Niall. I still don't know the half of what he went through. But he kisses me. It's my fault, all of it, and he kisses me anyway.
Simon
I can eat again, and I'm ravenous. I have to eat in tiny amounts at first. Then carefully calibrated increases dictated from afar by Micah or Daphne every day. But I can cook and bake as much as I want. The kitchen here is huge, and everything - the eggs, the milk, the aubergines and tomatoes, nothing is more than a few hours old. It's brilliant.
Baz is quiet, too quiet. And he's too grey. I don't think he's really eaten (food or blood) since this started. And his eyes have this angry sadness in them that didn't used to be there.
The plus side of having (more than once) felt like that myself is that I am confident I can navigate the situation. So I suggest we walk in the countryside. I really want him to hunt, but first I want him to know this isn't his fault. Any of it. If he was able to get me to believe that, I can do it too.
Baz
He's infuriating. He uses all my own words against me. (Fine. Maybe 'against' isn't quite the right word.) He tells me that I'm not the monster. Dev and Niall are the monsters. They used me, and I'm not them. He tells me that I defied my father and the Families, to save him. I burned their world to ash to save him. I'm not the monster.
There's a disturbing symmetry that's obvious once he's pointed it out. Each of us has been kidnapped by someone close to the other. Each of us feels like it's our fault that the other suffered. Each of us feels like it's not the other one's fault.
To forgive the other, we have to be willing to forgive ourselves. And if there's nothing to forgive the other, we have to accept the logic that there must be nothing to forgive ourselves.
I point out the asymmetries. I may not be Dev and Niall, but I am part of the Families. I kept the knowledge I had secret, about the Families and their dungeons. He tells me that I'm being idiotic. (Stealing my lines again.)
Those are all symmetries, not asymmetries, he insists, and points them out one by one. He was part of the Mage's inner circle. He kept the things he saw secret, the Mage's men and their trucks of stolen treasures. He knew the Mage was the dictatorial general of a private army. But he trusted him not to be evil.
He says that I knew my friends' parents had dungeons. But I didn't think my friends were evil. It's all even-steven (a phrase he's gotten from some American comic book Micah gave him in third year).
Then I quietly confess to the fact that Penny had wanted to go to Hampshire immediately, as soon as we realized he was missing on Friday afternoon, but I didn't want to believe my family would know he was taken and not do anything to stop it. The hours it took for her to convince me were hours he suffered that I could have prevented if I hadn't been unwilling to face the dark truth about my own family.
I can't even look at him as I admit to this, to the guilt that is surely mine alone. I don't know what he'll do now that he knows how much my cowardice and stubbornness cost him.
But he just takes my face gently in his hands, and turns it so I have to face him. I still can't bear to look at him.
He takes my hands and brings them softly to his lips and he says that there's no way to know what would have happened. He says that if I had burst into my parents' house a day earlier demanding to know where he was, I may never have found him at all. My father was never going to tell us, and Daphne might not have defied him on Friday. Or her ruse might not have worked. Or they might not have been home.
He reminds me that he felt the same way when he found out that all the time I'd been missing last fall, he could have been saving me instead of prowling around imagining the plots I was hatching.
I'm not convinced, but he pulls me to him and holds me as I sob and he tells me there will always be doubts we can use to torment ourselves, but all that does is keep the pain going into the future, instead of letting it remain in the past where it belongs.
His philosophy is a strange mix of knowing and not knowing, of being fully in the present when the present is good and hiding from it until it gets better when the present is bad.
Then he tells me that while he was trapped down there, he thought about me. That he survived it by thinking about me. And so I tell him about the coffin, about how I got through that by thinking about him. He's surprised, since we were technically still enemies at that point.
Then I'm telling him more. For the first time, I'm able to tell someone what happened to me. I tell him about how the numpties would open the coffin every few days and I would hope that maybe it was finally over, but they would just throw in a cup of semi-congealed blood with a fucking bendy straw to keep me alive. Or dead. Or whatever I am.
I tell him about how I still thought, every fucking time the lid opened, maybe this time it's over. About what it was like to get that cup of blood every time instead. Week after week after endless week. About what it was like to choke down the revolting liquid. How they never gave me water, or food, so I was conscious but in agony. How time lost all meaning and it seemed I had always been in that coffin and I would always be in it, that there was nothing else.
He tells me about Dev and Niall kicking him until he was choking on his own blood, and all the things they said as they did it. He tells me about being cold, so cold, when he's always been so warm. He tells me about feeling his cheek frozen to the floor in a puddle of blood. He tells me how he couldn't move at all, not even to get away from his own vomit. About the humiliation of sitting in his own filth, unable to move.
And I tell him how that's what happened to me, too. There was nowhere to move, nowhere to move at all in that coffin. I lay there for six weeks covered in shit and piss and blood.
And they kept me alive and I wished they wouldn't, I wished they would just let me die. So I'd leave my body and think of him. And he tells me he wished he could die too. When he called Penny he'd been trying to call his sword so he could die. But all he could do to escape was to leave his body and think of me.
And I realize that we really do match, just not in the ways I used to think. That the way I feel, the helpless fury I feel about someone hurting him, the protective roar inside me that won't let me leave his side even though I expect him to hate me for what he went through- he feels all those same things, but towards me. And I know with complete certainty that I don't blame him or hate him. So I have no choice but to believe that he doesn't blame me or hate me either.
With a jolt, I also realize we're talking about suffering without shame. And something inside me shifts, releasing a crushing weight. All I want is to make his life sweet again, to see him smile. And to let him do the same for me, because that that's all he wants too.
And I want to hunt. Simon's right. I need to drink.
He's immature enough to still find the whole thing cool rather than repulsive. I love the feeling of his magic moving through me. I can see in his face that he loves it too, he loves the power he has, which is new.
So I drink and I drink and I drink. And I hold him and let him hold me. And we both start to get warm again, even as the snow begins to fall.
Simon
Baz and I allow ourselves to live in the frozen present. We let go of all the ways we've failed each other, and hold on to the truth that we're not failing right now.
We kiss whenever we want, wherever we are. We have the house and gardens and fields and woods to ourselves and we rediscover one another. We rediscover life and pleasure and joy.
It's taken me so long to recover that it's already the middle of December. There's no point in trying to rush off to California for Christmas. And I have what I wanted, a beautiful quiet place where Baz and I are completely removed from the UK and everything in it.
Daphne decides to bring the girls out here to the country and stay through Christmas. And Penny and Micah are going to join us on Christmas Eve and stay through New Years.
I don't know what's happening with Baz's dad. I can't imagine him staying in London instead of having Christmas with his family, but I also can't imagine what will happen when he and Baz are in the same room.
Baz told me all about how his father knew I'd been taken and knew exactly where I was and didn't tell him. But I don't care. I was already terrified of the man. I already knew he hated me, so I find it easy to forgive this particular trespass.
Baz says I can't forgive someone who shows no remorse, it's like semantically impossible or something. Not to mention emotionally and morally.
When he says morally, I raise an eyebrow at him (I'm rather proud of how good I've gotten at that), and he concedes "Ok, maybe morally. But the rest still holds. And how you feel doesn't count."
I start to object (do I even need to object?!) and he quickly says "that's not what I mean. What I mean is, you've basically forgiven Dev and Niall too. So who you are and are not willing to forgive is not a bar the rest of us need to aim for."
I haven't exactly forgiven Dev and Niall. If I ever see them again I will certainly feel something that bears no resemblance to forgiveness. It's just that I don't want to think about them, I don't want them to have earned any space in my head. I want to put them away in England and leave them there forever. It's Baz's choice whether he wants to leave his father there forever too, so I'm no help at all (his words, not mine).