Carry On (2 page)

I thought he meant my actual blade, the Sword of Mages. Eventually I figured out that he meant me.

I'm
the blade. The Mage's sword. And I'm not sure if these summers in children's homes make me any sharper.… But they do make me hungrier. They make me crave Watford like, I don't know, like life itself.

Baz and his side—all the old, rich families—they don't believe that anyone can understand magic the way that they do. They think they're the only ones who can be trusted with it.

But no one
loves
magic like I do.

None of the other magicians—none of my classmates, none of their parents—know what it's like to live without magic.

Only I know.

And I'll do anything to make sure it's always here for me to come home to.

*   *   *

I
try
not to think about Watford when I'm away—but it was almost impossible this summer.

After everything that happened last year, I couldn't believe the Mage would even pay attention to something like the end of term. Who interrupts a war to send the kids home for summer holidays?

Besides, I'm
not
a kid anymore. Legally, I could have left care at 16. I could've got my own flat somewhere. Maybe in London. (I could afford it. I have an entire bag of leprechaun's gold—a big, duffel-sized bag, and it only disappears if you try to give it to other magicians.)

But the Mage sent me off to a new children's home, just like he always does. Still moving me around like a pea under shells after all these years. Like I'd be safe there. Like the Humdrum couldn't just summon me, or whatever it was he did to me and Penelope at the end of last term.

“He can
summon
you?” Penny demanded as soon as we got away from him. “Across a body of water? That isn't possible, Simon. There's no precedent for that.”

“Next time he summons me like a half-arsed squirrel demon,” I said, “I'll tell him so!”

Penelope had been unlucky enough to be holding my arm when I was snatched, so she'd been snatched right along with me. Her quick thinking is the only reason either of us escaped.

“Simon,” she said that day, when we were finally on a train back to Watford. “This is serious.”

“Siegfried and fucking Roy, Penny, I know that it's serious. He's got my number.
I
don't even have my number, but the Humdrum's got it down.”

“How can we still know so little about him,” she fumed. “He's so…”

“Insidious,” I said. “‘The Insidious Humdrum' and all that.”

“Stop teasing, Simon. This is
serious.
”

“I know, Penny.”

When we got back to Watford, the Mage heard us out and made sure we weren't hurt, but then he sent us on our way. Just … sent us home.

It didn't make any sense.

So,
of course,
I spent this whole summer thinking about Watford. About everything that happened and everything that
could
happen and everything that's at stake … I stewed on it.

But I still didn't let myself dwell on any of the
good
things, you know? It's the good things that'll drive you mad with missing them.

I keep a list—of all the things I miss most—and I'm not allowed to touch it in my head until I'm about an hour from Watford. Then I run through the list one by one. It's sort of like easing yourself into cold water. But the opposite of that, I suppose—easing yourself into something really good, so the shock of it doesn't overwhelm you.

I started making my list, my good things list, when I was 11, and I should probably cross a few things off, but that's harder than you'd think.

Anyway, I'm about an hour from school now, so I mentally take out my list and press my forehead against the train window.

Things I miss most about Watford:

No. 1—Sour cherry scones

I'd never had cherry scones before Watford. Just raisin ones—and more often plain, and always something that came from the shop, then got left in an oven too long.

At Watford, there are fresh-baked cherry scones for breakfast every day if you want them. And again in the afternoon with tea. We have tea in the dining hall after our lessons, before clubs and football and homework.

I always have tea with Penelope and Agatha, and I'm the only one of us who ever eats the scones. “Dinner is in two hours, Simon,” Agatha will tsk at me, even after all these years. Once Penelope tried to calculate how many scones I've eaten since we started at Watford, but she got bored before she got to the answer.

I just can't pass the scones up if they're there. They're soft and light and a little bit salty. Sometimes I dream about them.

No. 2—Penelope

This spot on the list used to belong to “roast beef.” But a few years back, I decided to limit myself to one food item. Otherwise the list turns into the food song from
Oliver!,
and I get so hungry, my stomach cramps.

I should maybe rank Agatha higher than Penelope; Agatha
is
my girlfriend. But Penelope made the list first. She befriended me in my first week at school, during our Magic Words lesson.

I didn't know what to make of her when we met—a chubby little girl with light brown skin and bright red hair. She was wearing pointy spectacles, the kind you'd wear if you were going as a witch to a fancy dress party, and there was a giant purple ring weighing down her right hand. She was trying to help me with an assignment, and I think I was just staring at her.

“I know you're Simon Snow,” she said. “My mum told me you'd be here. She says you're really powerful, probably more powerful than me. I'm Penelope Bunce.”

“I didn't know someone like you could be named Penelope,” I said. Stupidly. (Everything I said that year was stupid.)

She wrinkled her nose. “What should ‘someone like me' be named?”

“I don't know.” I
didn't
know. Other girls I'd met who looked like her were named Saanvi or Aditi—and they definitely weren't ginger. “Saanvi?”

“Someone like me can be named anything,” Penelope said.

“Oh,” I said. “Right, sorry.”

“And we can do whatever we want with our hair.” She turned back to the assignment, flipping her red ponytail. “It's impolite to stare, you know, even at your friends.”

“
Are
we friends?” I asked her. More surprised than anything else.

“I'm helping you with your lesson, aren't I?”

She was. She'd just helped me shrink a football to the size of a marble.

“I thought you were helping me because I'm thick,” I said.

“Everyone's thick,” she replied. “I'm helping you because I like you.”

It turned out she'd accidentally turned her hair that colour, trying out a new spell—but she wore it red all of first year. The next year, she tried blue.

Penelope's mum is Indian, and her dad is English—actually, they're both English; the Indian side of her family has been in London for ages. She told me later that her parents had told her to steer clear of me at school. “My mum said that nobody really knew where you came from. And that you might be dangerous.”

“Why didn't you listen to her?” I asked.

“Because nobody knew where you came from, Simon! And you might be dangerous!”

“You have the
worst
survival instincts.”

“Also, I felt sorry for you,” she said. “You were holding your wand backwards.”

I miss Penny every summer, even when I tell myself not to. The Mage says no one can write to me or call me over the holidays, but Penny still finds ways to send messages: Once she possessed the old man down at the shop, the one who forgets to put in his teeth—she talked right through him. It was nice to hear from her and everything, but it was so disturbing that I asked her not to do it again, unless there was an emergency.

No. 3—The football pitch

I don't get to play football as much as I used to. I'm not good enough to play on the school team, plus I'm always caught up in some scheme or drama, or out on a mission for the Mage. (You can't reliably tend a goal when the bloody Humdrum could summon you anytime it strikes his fancy.)

But I do get to play. And it's a perfect pitch: Lovely grass. The only flat part of the grounds. Nice, shady trees nearby that you can sit under and watch the matches …

Baz plays for our school. Of course. The tosser.

He's the same on the field as he is everywhere else. Strong. Graceful. Fucking ruthless.

No. 4—My school uniform

I put this on the list when I was 11. You have to understand, when I got my first uniform, it was the first time I'd ever had clothes that fit me properly, the first time I'd ever worn a blazer and tie. I felt tall all of a sudden, and posh. Until Baz walked into our room, much taller than me—and posher than everyone.

There are eight years at Watford. First and second years wear striped blazers—two shades of purple and two shades of green—with dark grey trousers, green jumpers, and red ties.

You have to wear a boater on the grounds up until your sixth year—which is really just a test to see if your
Stay put
is strong enough to keep a hat on. (Penny always spelled mine on for me. If I did it myself, I'd end up sleeping in the damn thing.)

There's a brand-new uniform waiting for me every autumn when I get to our room. It'll be laid out on my bed, clean and pressed and perfectly fitted, no matter how I've changed or grown.

The upper years—that's me now—wear green blazers with white piping. Plus red jumpers if we want them. Capes are optional, too; I've never worn one, they make me feel like a tit, but Penny likes them. Says she feels like Stevie Nicks.

I like the uniform. I like knowing what I'm going to wear every day. I don't know what I'll wear next year, when I'm done with Watford.…

I thought I might join the Mage's Men. They've got their own uniforms—sort of Robin Hood meets MI6. But the Mage says that's not my path.

That's how he talks to me.
“It's not your path, Simon. Your destiny lies elsewhere.”

He wants me to stand apart from everyone else. Separate training. Special lessons. I don't think he'd even let me go to school at Watford if he weren't the headmaster there—and if he didn't think it was the safest place for me.

If I asked the Mage what I should wear after Watford, he'd probably kit me out like a superhero.…

I'm not asking anybody what I should wear when I leave. I'm 18. I'll dress myself.

Or Penny will help.

No. 5—My room

I should say “our room,” but I don't miss the sharing-with-Baz part of it.

You get your room and your roommate assignment at Watford as a first year, and then you never move. You never have to pack up your things or take down your posters.

Sharing a room with someone who wants to kill me, who's wanted to kill me since we were
11,
has been … Well, it's been rubbish, hasn't it?

But maybe the Crucible felt bad about casting Baz and me together (not literally; I don't
think
the Crucible's sentient) because we've got the best room at Watford.

We live in Mummers House, on the edge of school grounds. It's a four-and-a-half-storey building, stone, and our room is at the very top, in a sort of turret that looks out over the moat. The turret's too small for more than one room, but it's bigger than the other student rooms. And it used to be staff accommodation, so we have our own en suite.

Baz is actually a fairly decent person to share a bathroom with. He's in there all morning, but he's clean; and he doesn't like me to touch his stuff, so he keeps it all out of the way. Penelope says our bathroom smells like cedar and bergamot, and that's got to be Baz because it definitely isn't me.

I'd tell you how Penny manages to get into our room—girls are banned from the boys' houses and vice versa—but I still don't know. I think it might be her ring. I saw her use it once to unseal a cave, so anything's possible.

No. 6—The Mage

I put the Mage on this list when I was 11, too. And there've been plenty of times when I thought I should take him off.

Like in our sixth year, when he practically ignored me. Every time I tried to talk to him, he told me he was in the middle of something important.

He still tells me that sometimes. I get it. He's the headmaster. And he's more than that—he's the head of the Coven, so technically, he's in charge of the whole World of Mages. And it's not like he's my dad. He's not my anything.…

But he's the closest thing I've got to anything.

The Mage is the one who first came to me in the Normal world and explained to me (or tried to explain to me) who I am. He still looks out for me, sometimes when I don't even realize it. And when he does have time for me, to really talk to me, that's when I feel the most grounded. I fight better when he's around. I think better. It's like, when he's there, I almost buy into what he's always told me—that I'm the most powerful magician the World of Mages has ever known.

And that all that power is a
good
thing, or at least that it will be someday. That I'll get my shit together eventually and solve more problems than I cause.

The Mage is also the only one who's allowed to contact me over the summer.

And he always remembers my birthday in June.

No. 7—Magic

Not
my
magic, necessarily. That's always with me and, honestly, not something I can take much comfort in.

What I miss, when I'm away from Watford, is just
being
around magic. Casual, ambient magic. People casting spells in the hallway and during lessons. Somebody sending a plate of sausages down the dinner table like it's bouncing on wires.