Penelope
I did tell him. I've told him several times. Even when I'm not obligated to tell him. I could throw a party in my flat and don't have to ask for his permission. Because it's not his flat. Even when he tends to forget about it.
"How long will he stay in the first place?" Baz asks now with crossed arms and without looking at me.
"As long as he needs to," I answer. "He wants to look for universities. This takes a while."
"So, he will move to London eventually? In our flat?"
"It's not …" I sigh. "Maybe. I don't know what the future will bring, but it's possible."
"Have you ever met this guy, Snow?" Baz asks and leans forward to talk to Simon, who sits in front of him. "I mean besides when he visited our school in third year?"
"What?" Simon asks abstractedly and turns his head to Baz, who pokes his shoulder to get his attention.
"He hasn't met him since," I answer instead. "But Micah always enquires about Simon. And about you too, sometimes."
"Ah," Baz says and leans back. "So you share the details of our relationship with him, too."
"Of course, I do. I practically live with you two, so of course, I tell him what I'm going through all day." And he's the only one I can complain to about them. (Which is sometimes inevitable.)
"Wow", Baz sneers. "First Agatha. Now Micah. It won't be long until whole America is SnowBaz shipper."
Simon
"Are the two of them always like that?" The cab driver smiles at me as we stop at a red traffic light. He has short brown hair which is getting grey at his temples and there are some deep shadows under his eyes, but all in all, he looks nice.
"Yes", I say nodding. "Sometimes I ask myself if they are related. They fight like siblings."
The man laughs. "My sister and I were the same. We couldn't sit next to each other without breaking into a squabble. Do you have any siblings?"
"No", I answer. On the backseat, Baz and Penny start discussing the legitimate owners of our flat again. (Baz thinks he owns at least a quarter. Penny doesn't agree.) "But I have Penelope." I point at Penny. "And she's almost like a sister, so…"
"Sounds like a lot of fun is going on in your apartment. It's always nice to have people around who feel like family." The driver accelerates the cab and turns left. (The road is completely empty. I've never been here before.)
"Yeah," I say and smile a bit. "I guess it is."
I glance at the review mirror to take a look at my friends – my family. It's small but bigger than I ever thought…
Penelope
"It's not like you're better", Baz says. "You always forget to make the dishes. Or to vacuum. Even when you could just use your ring."
"Yeah, because we agreed at the beginning to be…well, you know…more Normal," I argue.
"But Normal doesn't mean to live in your own rubbish."
"Now you're exaggerating."
"Smoke and mirrors!" Simon yells, completely out of sudden.
"What's happened, Snow?", Baz asks confused. He turns around to us – his face all pale. The cab driver watches him frowning and asks if he's okay. He just nods and stares at me and Baz.
"I just…It's just…", he stammers. I wrinkle my forehead at him. He opens his mouth again and tries to find the right words.
"Are you alright, Simon?", I ask.
"What? Yes. Of course. I'm perfect." He starts rumbling through the backpack on his lap.
Something's wrong.
Simon
I'm without magic. How am I supposed to solve this without my magic? But then I remember something.
I never used my magic in situations like this.
Baz
"What are you searching for?" I ask. "What's wrong, Simon?"
"Do you feel sick? Do you want me to pull over?" the driver asks him.
"Smoke and mirrors", Simon mumbles again. But so softly this time that I'm the only one who can hear it.
Because I'm the only one who's supposed to hear it.
Simon
I never used my magic in situations like this.
I used my sword.
Penelope
Baz squints to the review mirror.
Baz
"Smoke and Mirrors!" I speak.
Simon
I grip for the first hard and kind of sharp thing I can find in Pen's bag.
I use the second of confusion and distraction when the cab driver transforms back into his real form. Then, without even looking at my weapon, I ram it into his neck.
Penelope
I pull the handbrake.
Simon
Screeching tyres. The green-skinned head of the goblin falling to the ground. Blood spreading all over me.
Penelope
"Fuck!", I scream. "Fuck a nine-toed troll!" I rip the door open and jump out of the car. "I mean what the bleeding hell?! Have they still not elected their fucking king?! Are they still after your head, Simon?!"
I pull the drivers door open and the dead body of the goblin falls against me. (Headless.) I kick it away and reach for the head which is still laying on the seat. His red lips are curled into a grim pout, his eyes staring at me. If he wasn't…well…that decapitated, I would be afraid that he would snatch at me.
"How did he find us? And… shit, don't they know that you aren't the Chosen One anymore?" I throw the head to the ground and look at Simon, who still sits on his seat and stares at his improvised weapon in his hands.
"For Christ sake," he mumbles. "what is that?"
Faster then I can look, Baz pushes his door open and even in the same second, he's kneeling next to Simon.
"Aleister Crowley! Are you alright?", he asks and scans Simon from top to toe, who's all covered in blood but I'm pretty sure it's not his.
"Yeah", he answers and climbs out of the door. Baz helps him to get on his feet but he isn't swaying. If anything, he seems even calmer than a minute ago. He wants to run around the car, probably to look at the goblin, but Baz holds him back – clutching his shoulders, scanning him again in the shine of the headlights.
"Are you sure you're okay?", he asks a second time.
"I'm fine, Baz. Nothing happened."
"We just made an emergency stop and you killed a bloody goblin with a… what is that anyway?"
I step next to them, whisper a small Get Well Soon at Simon – just in case – and look at the thing in Simon's hands. He inspects it but can't identify it because of all the blood it's covered with.
"Snakes alive, Simon," I say. "You just killed a goblin with a shrunken ice skate!"
"A what?" Simon asks in disbelief and turns to me. Baz lets go of him and crouches next to the head of the goblin.
"Shit, Snow," Baz says and pokes with his finger into the cheek of the dead goblin. "You're a killing machine!"
"Why do you have a shrunken ice skate in your backpack, Penny?" Simon asks confused, holding the small shoe in front of his face.
"What do you think?" I say. "So, you could decapitate a goblin with it, of course."
"How did you even manage that?" Baz asks as he eyes the throat of the devil. "Such a neat cut with this dull skid?"
"I just did," Simon says shrugging and kneels next to him. "I just imagined it was my sword. All I had to do was to cut."
Simon
It's the truth, actually. When I first realized the cabdrivers real face – when I saw it in the review mirror, I didn't know what to do. I had no wand – no magic to defend myself. And I couldn't just tell Penny and Baz what I knew. The goblin would've killed me immediately. (I still wonder why he didn't hunch that I knew his real identity when I gave this small yelp. Maybe he was a dumb devil.) (Or I was just a really good actor in overplaying it.) (I'm sure it was the latter.)
I didn't actually mean Baz to speak an unmasking spell. I just wanted him to look into the mirror and see what I saw. But it gave me valuable seconds to catch the goblin unprepared. Then I just did what I always did. Using a blade instead of a wand.
"Do you think he followed us from the pub?" Penny asks me even when she already knows that she's probably right. "That they haven't found you all this time because you weren't near magic and now you were and boom! – this poor thing saw his chance to become king?"
"I guess," I mumble. "He must have recognized me as the Chosen One."
"But…but why?" Baz chews on his bottom lip. "It's not like you're…you know…the greatest magician of the world anymore…"
"I don't know…" I shrug. "Maybe it's like you said, Pen. They're still after my head because they need a king. Maybe this policy never changed."
"So, they're just bad at democracy?" Penny snorts. "Someone should take pity and help them to rearrange their social system."
"Someone should herd them together and slaughter them all," Baz says and gets up again. "It's not like Simon has always an ice skate he can use to fight them."
"I should probably tell my dad about this incident. Maybe he has an idea how we can protect you from following attacks." Penny casts the body of the goblin away and speaks my clothes clean. I can see how Baz automatically exhales. I know that all this blood makes him tense, even when he doesn't show it. He reaches for my hands and helps me up again. I kind of slump against him because my legs are a bit wobbly.
"He got a vampire on his side", he says and puts one arm around my waist to steady me. "I guess that's a pretty good protection."
"I don't really think they will come after you", Penny suggests. "They remained silent for over one year and it didn't seem like this friend here," she points at the green head which is still laying on the street, "had a big army behind his back. His competitors will probably never know about the retrieval of the lost Chosen One." She Into Thin Air's the head before she goes on. "But we should be careful anyway. Maybe there is a spell or magickal relic which hides you from these devils."
"I wish I just could have my sword back," I mutter yawning. "This would make things easier."
"But you can't run around with a sword, Simon," Penny says and smiles sadly.
"I know."
She squeezes my hand, then she sighs and hugs me stormily. It makes me stumble against Baz who is standing right behind me.
"Don't think I will join this", Baz grumbles and steps back with raised hands.
"Come on, Baz," Penelope says somewhere behind my ear. "We all know you love hugs."
"I do?"
"I can confirm this," I mumble while the wind blows Penny's hair in my face. (It smells like sage tea.)
"Well, I'm not into family hugs in the middle of nowhere," Baz says sniffing. "Where the hell are we after all?"
Penny sighs and lets go of me. I turn around and try to identify the environment. We're in a very dark street – all streetlights are missing. The only lights come from the headlights of the car. It creepily illuminates the ruins of some old townhouses around us which are buried under a blanket of snow. The windows are broken and the entrance doors are missing. Sinister shadows hide behind the doorways and windowsills.
It never means something good if someone drives you here in the middle of the night. Or even in the early evening. This is the place where murders happen.
"Do we drive home now?" I ask and sit down on the bonnet of the cab. "Before it starts snowing again?"
"We still didn't make our last stop," Penny says and winks at me.
"Are you serious?" I ask, disbelieving her persistence about this stupid last stop. "We just had a crash and I fought a bloody goblin. I'm really fed up with surprises for today."
"I have to admit that he's got a point there…" Baz mutters and sits down next to me on the car. "I wouldn't mind if –"
"Are you kidding me?" Penny steps in front of us, her hands on her hips. "Just a while ago stuff like this was completely commonplace for you. You fought a dragon before breakfast and killed any kind of dark creatures in a blink. You literally said – just a minute ago – that nothing happened. So, don't act like this is too overwhelming for you now." She gives me one of her Don't be like this, Simon looks. "And you," she points at Baz, "you can't ditch now. We planned this together so now we gonna see it through to the finish! End of discussion." She walks around the car and takes place at the driver's seat. She starts honking. (Did she just steal the cab?)
"I don't think we have a choice," Baz says and slips off the car.
"I'm pretty sure we haven't." Baz pulls me back on my feet and without hiding a loud yawn, I stumble back into the car.