Simon

Penelope wants to eat lunch out on the Lawn. It's a warm day, she says, and the ground is dry, and we might not have another chance to picnic like this until spring.

I think she just wants to keep me away from Baz and Agatha- they've been playing games with each other all week. Taking turns staring across the dining hall, then quickly looking away. Baz always looks at me, too, to make sure I'm watching.

Everyone's still gossiping about where he's been. The most popular rumours are "dark-coming-of-age ceremony that left him too marked up to be in public" and "Ibiza."

People have been asking Tasha and she's just stays totally unfazed and in her usual calm tone says, "I don't know. And even if I did, I would tell you, now would I?" She's so awesomely calm about literally everything.

"My mother's coming into town tonight," Penny says. "We're sitting against a giant, twisting yew tree, looking out on the lawn in slightly different directions. "We're going to dinner," She says. "Want to come?"

"That's okay, thanks."

"We could go to that ramen place you like. My mum's buying."

I shake my head. "Feels like I need to keep on Baz," I say. "I still don't have a clue where he's been."

Penny signs but doesn't argue. "Tasha, how about you?"

Tasha looks up from her untouched food. "I actually need to talk to Baz. Thanks anyway, Pen."

Penny stares out onto the brown lawn. "I miss the Visitings. They were so magickal..."

I laugh.

"You know what I mean," She says. "Aunt Beryl came back to my mum, and missed it."

"What did she say?"

"The same thing she said last time! 'Stop looking for my books. There's nothing in there for the likes of you.'"

"Wait, she came back to tell you not to find her books?"

"She was a scholar like Mum and Dad. She doesn't think anyone's smart enough to touch her research."

"I can't believe your relative came back just to insult you."

"Mum says she always knew Aunt Beryl would take her bad attitude to hell with her."

"Do ghosts ever show up at the wrong place?"

"I think of them more as souls-"

"Souls, then. So they ever get lost?"

"I'm not sure." Penny turns to face me, holding out a slice of Battenberg cake. I take it.

"I know you can confuse them," Tasha says, also turning to face me. "You can try to hide their target. Like, if you're worried a 'soul' might come back and tell your secret- you can try hide the living person who might get Visited. There've even been murders. If I kill you, you can't you can't get Visited; ergo, you can't hear or tell secret."

"So the Visitors can get mixed-up..."

"Yeah, they just show up where they think someone is supposed to be. Like a living person would. Madam Bellamy said she'd seen her husband lurking at the back of her classroom a few days before he actually came through the Veil."

Just like I saw Baz's mum at the window...

"Here, I'm not hungry." Tasha adds, handing me her food.

"You okay, Nat?" This isn't like her. She usually eats more than me.

"Eh." She shrugs. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

"If you say so."

I should tell them what happened, I always tell them what happened.

"Come on," Penny says, standing and brushing the dead grass off the back of her thighs. "We'll be late to class."

She holds over the napkins and plastic wrap, and spins her wrist. "A place for everything, and everything in its place!" They disappear.

"Waste of magic," I say out habit, picking up our satchels.

Penny rolls her eyes. "I'm so tired of hear that. We're supposed to use magic. What are we saving it for?"

"So, it's there if we need it."

Tasha yawns. "That's horseshit. My magic has always there when and if I need it."

"I know the official answer, Simon- thanks." Penny says, rolling her eyes again. "In America, they think that you become more powerful the more magic you use."

"Just like fossil fuels."

Penny glances over at me and snorts.

"Don't look so surprised," I say. "I know about fossil fuels."


Baz is half my lessons. There are only fifty kids in our year; there have been terms in the past when he and I have had every lesson together, all day long.

We usually sit as far apart as possible, but today in Elocution, Madam Bellamy has us push all the desks out of the way and work in pairs. Baz ends up right behind me.

Madam Bellamy hasn't been the same since her Visiting, it's like- well it's like she's just seen a ghost. She keeps making us do practical work while she wonders around the room, looking lost.

At this point, eighth year, we're past basic Elocution stuff- speaking out, hitting consonants, projection. It's all nuance now. How to give spells more power by saying them with fire and intent. How pausing just before a keyword can focus a spell.

Garth's my partner today. And most days. He's terrible at Elocution. He still drones his spells like he's reading from a cue card. They work, but they land like lead balloons. If Garth levitates something; it jerks; if he transforms something, it looks like it's happening in cheap stop-animation.

Penelope says Garth is painful to watch- and not just because of his ridiculous magic belt-buckle.

Tasha says Garth is more painful to listen to than an elephant playing a grand piano.

Baz say Garth wouldn't have even got into Watford in the old days.

Baz's elocution is flawless. So, is Tasha's. In four languages. (Though I suppose I'm just taking their word when it comes to French and Greek and Latin.)

I can hear him and Tasha behind me, rattling off cooling and warming spells one after another. I can feel the change in air on the back of neck.

"Slow down, Mr. Pitch, Miss. Pitch," Madam Bellamy says. "No need to waste magic."

I can hear the irritation in Baz's voice as starts shooting the spells out even faster. Tasha laughs and does the same.

Sometimes it's disturbing how much Baz and Penelope have in common. I've mentioned it to her before- "And," I said. "Your families both hate the Mage."

"My family is nothing like the Pitches!" She argued. "They're speciest and racist. Baz probably doesn't even think I should be at Watford. No offence, Tasha."

"None taken, Pen. My family is pretty speciest and elitist. We aren't really rasist though. You definitely would get in to Watford. Your speech is flawless and your magic is amazing." Tasha replies, smiling.

"Is he racist?" I ask. "Isn't he a race? His mum looks sort of Spanish or Arabic in her painting."

"My family is Egyptian..." Tasha says, confused.

"Arabic is a language, Simon. And everyone is a race. And Baz is the whitest person I've seen.

"Only because he's a vampire." I say.

Penny rolls her eyes.

Damn it all, I have to tell Baz about his mum. Or I have to tell Penny about Baz's mum... Or even the Mage. If it wasn't the Humdrum who had Baz's mum killed, who was it? Maybe, I should talk to Tasha...

I can't keep a secret this big. I don't have the room.


Penny sneaks up to my room before she leaves that night with her mum.

She's stupidly brave- it's the only stupid thing about her- and I swear it gets worse when we go too long between emergencies. I'm tempted to slam the door when I see it's her.

"Baz will turn you in if he catches you in our tower." I say. "And you will get suspended."

She waves a hand, dismissively. "He's out on by the pitch with Tasha, watching the team practice. Pitches on the pitch.

She shoves at the door and I stop her. "Someone else will turn in, then."

"Nah. All the boys in our year are scared of me. They think I'll turn them into frogs."

"Is there a spell for that?"

"Yes, but it's enormously draining, and I'd have to kiss them to turn them back."

I sigh and let go of the door, peeking down the stairs while Penelope slips past me into my room.

"I'm just here to talk you into coming with me," She says.

"Not gonna work."

"Come on, Simon. My mum won't lecture me so much if you're around."

"She'll lecture me instead." I sit down on my bed. I've got a few books spread out there. And some old documents from the library.

"Right. It's a shared burden—hey, are you reading The Magickal Record?"

The Record is the closest thing magicians have to a newspaper. It keeps track of births and deaths, magickal bonds and laws, plus minutes from every Coven meeting. I snuck a few bound volumes from the early 2000s out of the library. "Yep," I say, "I've heard it's fascinating."

"You heard that from me," she says, "and I know you weren't listening. Why are you reading The Magickal Record?"

I look up from the books. "Have you ever heard of a magician called 'Nico' or 'Nicodemus'?"

"Like, in history?"

"No. I don't know—maybe. Just anybody. Maybe a politician or someone who was on the Coven? Or a professor?"

She's leaning against my bed. "Is this for the Mage? Are you on a mission?"

"No." I shake my head. "No, I haven't even seen him. I was—it's about Baz." Penny rolls her eyes.

"I was thinking about his mum," I say, "something I heard, that maybe she had an enemy."

"The Pitches have always had more enemies than friends."

"Right. Anyway, it's probably not important."

Penny isn't that interested, but I've asked a question, so she tries to answer it. "An enemy named Nico…" But then something in her coat pocket chimes. Her eyes get big, and she jabs her hand in her pocket.

I feel my eyes get big, too. "Do you have a phone?"

"Simon—"

"Penelope, you can't have a mobile at Watford!"

She folds her arms. "I don't see why not."

"Because of the rules. They're a security risk."

She frowns and pulls out the phone—a white iPhone, a new one. "My parents feel better if I carry it."

"How does that even work in here?" I ask. "There're supposed to be spells.…"

Penelope's checking her texts. "My mum magicked it. She's here now, at the gates—" She looks up. "—Please come with us."

"Your mum would make a terrifying supervillain."

Penny grins. "Come to dinner, Simon."

I shake my head again. "No, I want to look this stuff over before Baz comes back."

Finally, she gives in, and runs down the tower stairs like she doesn't give a fig about getting caught. I go to the window to see if I can spot Baz out on the pitch.