Текст книги "Fangirl"

Автор книги: Rainbow Rowell

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“The night is young!” Wren sang, laying her head against Courtney’s arm.

“I can’t just…” Cath shook her head.

“It’s fucking freezing out here.” Courtney hugged Wren again. “Come on.”

“Not Muggsy’s,” Jandro said, starting to walk away. He glanced back at Cath, and for a second she thought he was going to say something, but he kept on walking. Wren and Courtney followed him. Courtney clomped. Wren didn’t look back.

Cath watched them walk up the block and disappear under another broken neon sign. She wiped the ice off her cheeks.

“Hey,” she heard someone say after a cold, wet minute. Levi. Still standing behind her.

“Let’s go,” Cath said, looking down at the sidewalk. On top of everything else that was going wrong right this minute, Levi must think she was an idiot. Cath’s pajama pants were soaked, and the wind was blowing right through them. She shivered.

Levi walked past her, taking her hood and pulling it up over her head on his way. She followed him to his truck. Now that she realized how cold she was, her teeth were starting to chatter.

“I’ve got it,” she said when Levi tried to help her in. She waited for him to walk away before heaving herself up onto the seat. Levi slid behind the wheel and started the truck, cranking up the heat and the windshield wipers, and holding his hands up to the vents. “Seat belt,” he said after a minute.

“Oh, sorry…” Cath dug for the seat belt.

She buckled up. The truck still didn’t move.

“You did the right thing, you know.”

Levi.

“No,” Cath said. “I don’t know.”

“You had to go check on her. Nine-one-one is nine-one-one.”

“And then I left her—completely wasted—with a stranger and a moron.”

“That guy didn’t seem like a stranger,” Levi said.

Cath almost laughed. Because he hadn’t argued with the moron part. “I’m her sister. I’m supposed to look out for her.”

“Not against her will.”

“What if she passes out?”

“Does that happen a lot?”

Cath looked over at him. His hair was wet, and you could see the tracks where he’d pushed his fingers through it.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said.

“Okay … Are you hungry?”

“No.” She looked down at her lap.

The truck still didn’t move.

“Because I’m hungry,” he said.

“Aren’t you supposed to meet up with Reagan?”

“Yep. Later.”

Cath rubbed her face again. The ice in her hair was melting and dripping into her eyes. “I’m wearing pajamas.”

Levi put the truck into reverse. “I know just the place.”

*   *   *

The pajama pants weren’t a problem.

Levi took her to a twenty-four-hour truck stop near the edge of town. (Nothing in Lincoln was too far from the edge of town.) The place felt like it hadn’t been redecorated ever, like maybe it had been built sixty years ago out of materials that were already worn and cracking. The waitress started pouring them coffee without even asking if they wanted any.

“Perfect,” Levi said, smiling at the waitress and shuffling out of his coat. She set the cream on the table and brushed his shoulder fondly.

“Do you come here a lot?” Cath asked, when the waitress left.

“More than I go other places, I guess. If you order the corned beef hash, you don’t have to eat for days.… Cream?”

Cath didn’t usually order coffee, but she nodded anyway, and he topped off her cup. She pulled her saucer back and stared down at it. She heard Levi exhale.

“I know how you feel right now,” he said. “I have two little sisters.”

“You don’t know how I feel.” Cath dumped in three packs of sugar. “She’s not just my sister.”

“Do people really do that to you guys all the time?”

“Do what?” Cath looked up at him, and he looked away.

“The twin thing.”

“Oh. That.” She stirred her coffee, clacking the spoon too hard against her cup. “Not all the time. Only if we’re around drunks or, like, walking down the street.…”

He made a face. “People are depraved.”

The waitress came back, and Levi lit up for her. Predictably. He ordered corned beef hash. Cath stuck with coffee.

“She’ll grow out of it,” he said when the waitress walked away from their booth. “Reagan’s right. It’s a freshman thing.”

“I’m a freshman. I’m not out getting wasted.”

Levi laughed. “Right. Because you’re too busy throwing dance parties. What was the emergency anyway?”

Cath watched him laugh and felt the sticky black pit yawn open in her stomach. Professor Piper. Simon. Baz. Neat, red F.

“Were you anticipating an emergency?” he asked, still smiling. “Or maybe summoning one? Like a rain dance?”

“You don’t have to do this,” Cath said.

“Do what?”

“Try to make me feel better.” She felt the tears coming on, and her voice wobbled. “I’m not one of your little sisters.”

Levi’s smile fell completely. “I’m sorry,” he said, all the teasing gone. “I … I thought maybe you’d want to talk about it.”

Cath looked back at her coffee. She shook her head a few times, as much to tell him no as to shake away the stinging in her eyes.

His corned beef hash came. A whole mess of it. He moved Cath’s coffee cup to the table and scooped hash onto her saucer.

Cath ate it—it was easier than arguing. She’d been arguing all day, and so far, no one had listened. And besides, the corned beef hash was really good, like they made it fresh with real corned beef, and there were two sunny-side-up eggs on top.

Levi piled more onto her plate.

“Something happened in class,” Cath said. She didn’t look up at him. Maybe she could use a big brother right now—she was currently down a twin sister. Any port in a storm, and all that …

“What class?” he asked.

“Fiction-Writing.”

“You take Fiction-Writing? That’s an actual class?”

“That’s an actual question?”

“Does this have something to do with your Simon Snow thing?”

Cath looked up now and flushed. “Who told you about my Simon Snow thing?”

“Nobody had to tell me. You’ve got Simon Snow stuff everywhere. You’re worse than my ten-year-old cousin.” Levi grinned; he looked relieved to be smiling again. “Reagan told me you write stories about him.”

“So Reagan told you.”

“That’s what you’re always working on, right? Writing stories about Simon Snow?”

Cath didn’t know what to say. It sounded absolutely ridiculous when Levi said it.

“They’re not just stories…,” she said.

He took a giant bite of hash. His hair was still wet and falling (wetly, blondly) into his eyes. He pushed it back. “They’re not?”

Cath shook her head. They were just stories, but stories weren’t just anything. Simon wasn’t just.

“What do you know about Simon Snow?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Everybody knows about Simon Snow.”

“You’ve read the books?”

“I’ve seen the movies.”

Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.”

“I’m not really a book person.”

“That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Levi said, grinning some more. “You write stories about Simon Snow.…”

“You think this is funny.”

“Yes,” Levi said. “But also sort of cool. Tell me about your stories.”

Cath pressed the tines of her fork into her place mat. “They’re just, like … I take the characters, and I put them in new situations.”

“Like deleted scenes?”

“Sometimes. More like what-ifs. Like, what if Baz wasn’t evil? What if Simon never found the five blades? What if Agatha found them instead? What if Agatha was evil?”

“Agatha couldn’t be evil,” Levi argued, leaning forward and pointing at Cath with his fork. “She’s ‘pure of heart, a lion of dawn.’”

Cath narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”

“I told you, I’ve seen the movies.”

“Well, in my world, if I want to make Agatha evil, I can. Or I can make her a vampire. Or I can make her an actual lion.”

“Simon wouldn’t like that.”

“Simon doesn’t care. He’s in love with Baz.”

Levi guffawed. (You don’t get many opportunities to use that word, Cath thought, but this is one of them.)

“Simon isn’t gay,” he said.

“In my world, he is.”

“But Baz is his nemesis.”

“I don’t have to follow any of the rules. The original books already exist; it’s not my job to rewrite them.”

“Is it your job to make Simon gay?”

“You’re getting distracted by the gay thing,” Cath said. She was leaning forward now, too.

“It is distracting.…” Levi giggled. (Did guys “giggle” or “chuckle”? Cath hated the word “chuckle.”)

“The whole point of fanfiction,” she said, “is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end when Gemma Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories—”

“Fanfiction,” Levi said.

“Yes.” Cath was embarrassed by how sincere she sounded, how excited she felt whenever she actually talked about this. She was so used to keeping it a secret—used to assuming people would think she was a freak and a nerd and a pervert.…

Maybe Levi thought all those things. Maybe he just found freaks and perverts amusing.

“Emergency dance party?” he asked.

“Right.” She sat back in the booth again. “Our professor asked us to write a scene with an untrustworthy narrator. I wrote something about Simon and Baz.… She didn’t get it. She thought it was plagiarism.” Cath forced herself to use that word, felt the tar wake up with a twist in her stomach.

“But it was your story,” Levi said.

“Yes.”

“That’s not exactly plagiarism.…” He smiled at her. She needed to come up with more words for Levi’s smiles; he had too many of them. This one was a question. “They were your words, right?”

“Right.”

“I mean, I can see why your professor wouldn’t want you to write a Simon Snow story—the class isn’t called Fanfiction-Writing—but I wouldn’t call it plagiarism. Is it illegal?”

“No. As long as you don’t try to sell it. GTL says she loves fanfiction—I mean, she loves the idea of it. She doesn’t actually read it.”

“Is your professor reporting you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is she reporting you to the Judicial Board?”

“She didn’t even mention that.”

“She would have mentioned it,” he said. “So … okay.” He waved his fork in a straight line between them, holding it like a pencil. “This isn’t a big deal. You just don’t turn in any more fanfiction.”

It still felt like a big deal. Cath’s stomach still hurt.

“She just … she made me feel so stupid and … deviant.”

Levi laughed again. “Do you really expect an elderly English professor to be down with gay Simon Snow fanfiction?”

“She didn’t even mention the gay thing,” Cath said.

“Deviant.” He raised an eyebrow. Levi’s eyebrows were much darker than his hair. Too dark, really. And arched. Like he’d drawn them on.

Cath felt herself smile, even though she was trying to hold her lips and face still. She shook her head, then looked down at her food and took a big bite.

Levi scraped more eggs and hash onto her plate.

Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair …

Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.

“He’s plotting,” Simon would say.

“He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.

“He’s looming,” Simon would say.

“He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”

“No taller than me.”

“Mmm … a bit.”

It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.

Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.

—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie

TWELVE

It was too cold to wait outside before Fiction-Writing, so Cath found a bench inside Andrews Hall and sat with one leg tucked beneath her, leaning back against the cream-colored wall.

She took out her phone and opened a fic she’d been reading. (She was too nervous to study.) Cath never read other people’s Simon/Baz anymore—she didn’t want to unconsciously mimic another author or steal someone’s ideas—so when she did read fic, it was always about Penelope. Sometimes Penelope/Agatha. Sometimes Penelope/Micah (the American exchange student who only appeared in Book Three). Sometimes just Penelope, all on her own, having adventures.

It felt like an act of open rebellion to be reading fanfiction while she sat in the English building, waiting to see Professor Piper for the first time since their talk. Cath had actually considered skipping class today, but she figured that would just make it even more painful to face Professor Piper the next time. It’s not like Cath could skip class for the rest of the semester—better to just get it over with.

Cath’d already faced Wren, and that hadn’t gone nearly so badly as she’d expected. They’d eaten lunch together twice this week, and neither of them had brought up the scene at Muggsy’s. Maybe Wren had been too drunk to remember the details.

Courtney didn’t seem to get that they were avoiding the subject. (That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer’s Gifts shop.)

“Hey, Cath,” Courtney said at lunch, “who was that cute blond boy you were with Friday night? Was that your hot librarian?”

“No,” Cath said. “That’s just Levi.”

“Her roommate’s boyfriend,” Wren said, stirring her vegetable soup. Wren seemed tired; she wasn’t wearing mascara, and her eyelashes looked pale and stubby.

“Oh.” Courtney stuck out her bottom lip. “Too bad. He was super cute. Farm boy.”

“How could you tell he’s a farm boy?” Cath asked.

“Carhartt,” they both said at once.

“What?”

“His coat,” Wren explained. “All the farm boys wear Carhartt.”

“Trust your sister on this.” Courtney giggled. “She knows all the farm boys.”

“He’s not my hot librarian,” Cath had said.

No one is my hot librarian, she thought now, losing her place in the fic she was reading. No one is my hot anything.

And besides, Cath still wasn’t sure whether Nick was actually hot or whether he just projected hotness. Specifically in her direction.

Someone sat down next to her on the bench, and Cath glanced up from her phone. Nick tilted his chin up in greeting.

“Think of the devil,” she said, then wished she hadn’t.

“You thinking about me?”

“I was thinking … of the devil,” Cath said stupidly.

“Idle brains,” Nick said, grinning. He was wearing a thick, navy blue turtleneck sweater that made him look like he was serving on a Soviet battleship. Like, even more so than usual. “So, what did Piper want to talk to you about last week?”

“Nothing much.” Cath’s stomach was such a mess today, she hardly felt it wrench.

Nick unwrapped a piece of gum and set it on his tongue. “Was it about taking her advanced class?”

“No.”

“You have to make an appointment to talk to her about it,” he said, chewing. “It’s like an interview. I’m meeting with her next week—I’m hoping she’ll give me a teaching assistantship.”

“Yeah?” Cath sat up a little straighter. “That’d be great. You’d be great at that.”

Nick gave her a sheepish smile. “Yeah, well. I wish I would have talked to her about it before that last assignment. It was my worst grade of the semester.”

“Really?” It was hard to make eye contact with Nick—his eyes were almost buried under his eyebrows; you had to dig into his face. “Mine, too,” Cath said.

“She said that my writing was ‘overly slick’ and ‘impenetrable.’” He sighed.

“She said worse about mine.”

“Guess I’ve gotten used to writing with backup,” Nick said, still smiling at her. Still sheepish.

“Codependent,” Cath said.

Nick snapped his gum at her. “We writing tonight?”

Cath nodded and looked back at her phone.

*   *   *

“Reagan isn’t here,” Cath said, already closing the door.

Levi leaned into the door with his shoulder. “I think we’re past that,” he said, walking into the room. Cath shrugged and went back to her desk.

Levi flopped down on her bed. He was dressed in black—he must have just gotten off work. She frowned at him.

“I still can’t believe you work at Starbucks,” she said.

“What’s wrong with Starbucks?”

“It’s a big, faceless corporation.”

He raised a good-natured brow. “So far, they’ve let me keep my face.”

Cath went back to her laptop.

“I like my job,” he said. “I see the same people every day. I remember their drinks, they like that I remember their drinks, I make them happy, and then they leave. It’s like being a bartender, but you don’t have to deal with drunks. Speaking of … How’s your sister?”

Cath stopped typing and looked at him. “Fine. She’s … fine. Back to normal, I guess. Thanks, you know, for driving me. And everything.” Cath had told Levi thank you Friday night, but she felt like she owed him a few more.

“Forget about it. Did you guys have a big talk?”

“We don’t have to have big talks,” she said, holding two fingers to her temple. “We’re twins. We have telepathy.”

Levi grinned. “Really?”

Cath laughed. “No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No.” She went back to typing.

“What are you working on?”

“A biology essay.”

“Not secret, dirty fanfiction?”

Cath stopped again. “My fanfiction is neither a secret, obviously, nor is it dirty.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick up in the middle in sandy blond plumes. Shameless.

“What do you put in your hair to make it stick up like that?” she asked.

He laughed and did it again. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? Something—”

“I think it does that because I don’t wash it.…”

She grimaced. “Ever?”

“Every month or so, maybe.”

Cath wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “That’s disgusting.”

“No, it isn’t. I still rinse it.”

“Still disgusting.”

“It’s perfectly clean,” he said. He leaned toward her, and his hair touched her arm. This room was too small. “Smell it.”

She sat back. “I’m not smelling your hair.”

“Well, I’ll smell it.” He pulled a piece down his long forehead; it came to the bridge of his nose. “It smells like freshly mown clover.”

“I don’t think you mow clover.”

“Can you imagine how sweet it would smell if you did?” Levi sat back, which was a relief—until he picked up her pillow and started rubbing his head into it.

“Oh, God,” she said, “stop. That’s such a violation.”

Levi laughed, and she tried to grab her pillow from him. He held it to his chest with both hands. “Cather…”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Read me some of your secret, dirty fanfiction.”

“It’s not dirty.”

“Read me some anyway.”

She let go of the pillow; he’d probably already filthed it beyond redemption.

“Why?”

“Because I’m curious,” he said. “And I like stories.”

“You just want to make fun of me.”

“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”

“That’s what you and Reagan do when I’m not here, right? Make fun of me. Play with my commemorative busts. Do you have a stupid nickname for me?”

His eyes sparkled. “Cather.”

“I don’t exist to amuse you, you know.”

“One, are you sure? Because you do. And, two, we don’t make fun of you. Very much. Anymore. And, three…”

He was counting on his fingers, and his cheeks were twitching, and it was making Cath laugh.

“Three,” he said, “I won’t make fun of you, to anyone but you, from now on, if you’ll just once, right now, read me some of your fanfiction.”

Cath gave him a level stare. A mostly level stare. She was still giggling a little. And blinking hard. And occasionally looking up at the ceiling. “You’re curious,” she said.

He nodded.

She rolled her eyes again and turned to her laptop. Why not. She didn’t have anything to lose. Yes, but that’s not the point, part of her argued. What do you have to gain?

It’s not like Levi was going to be impressed by her fanfiction; entertained wasn’t the same as impressed. He already thought she was a weirdo, and this was just going to make her seem that much weirder. Did the bearded lady get excited when cute guys came to her freak show?

Cath shouldn’t want this kind of attention. And Levi wasn’t even that cute. His forehead was lined even when he wasn’t making a face. Sun damage, probably.

“Okay,” she said.

He grinned and started to say something.

“Shut up.” She held up her left hand. “Don’t make me change my mind. Just … let me find something.…”

She opened the Simon/Baz folder on her desktop and scrolled through it, looking for something suitable. Nothing too romantic. Or dirty.

Maybe … yeah. This one’ll do.

“All right,” she said, “you know how, in the sixth book—”

“Which one is that?”

“Simon Snow and the Six White Hares.”

“Right, I’ve seen that movie.”

“Okay, so Simon stays at school during Christmas break because he’s trying to find the fifth hare.”

“And because his dad has been kidnapped by monsters in creepy costumes—so no happy Christmas dinner at the Snow house.”

“They’re called the Queen’s Ogres,” Cath said. “And Simon still doesn’t know that the Mage is his dad.”

“How can he not know?” Levi demanded. Cath was encouraged by how indignant he sounded. “It’s so obvious. Why does the Mage show up every time something important happens and get all weepy, talking about how ‘he knew a woman once with Simon’s eyes—’”

“I know,” Cath said, “it’s lame, but I think Simon wants so badly for the Mage to be his dad that he won’t let himself accept the overwhelming evidence. If he were wrong, it would ruin him.”

“Basil knows,” Levi said.

“Oh, Baz totally knows. I think Penelope knows, too.”

“Penelope Bunce.” Levi grinned. “If I were Simon, I’d be all-Penelope, all the time.”

“Ech. She’s like a sister to him.”

“Not like any of my sisters.”

“Anyway,” Cath said. “This story takes place during that Christmas break.”

“Okay,” Levi said, “got it.” He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, holding Cath’s pillow. “All right. I’m ready.”

Cath turned to the computer and cleared her throat. (Then felt stupid about clearing her throat.) Then glanced back at Levi one more time. She couldn’t believe she was doing this.…

Was she really doing this?

“If you keep pacing like that,” Baz said, “I’m going to curse your feet into the floorboards.”

Simon ignored him. He was thinking about the clues he’d found so far, trying to see a pattern … the rabbit-shaped stone in the ritual tower, the stained glass hare in the cathedral, the sigil on the drawbridge—

“Snow!” Baz shouted. A spell book sailed past Simon’s nose.

“What are you thinking?” Simon asked, genuinely surprised. Flying books and curses were fair game in the hallways and classrooms and, well, everywhere else. But if Baz tried to hurt him inside their room—“The Roommate’s Anathema,” Simon said. “You’ll be expelled.”

“Which is why I missed. I know the rules,” Baz muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Did you know, Snow, that if your roommate dies during the school year, they give you top marks, just out of sympathy?”

“That’s a myth,” Simon said.

“Lucky for you I’m already getting top marks.”

Simon stopped pacing to really look at his roommate. Normally he liked to pretend that Baz wasn’t here. Normally, Baz wasn’t here. Unless he was spying or plotting, Baz hated to be in their room. He said it smelled like good intentions.

But Baz had hardly left the room in the last two weeks. Simon hadn’t seen him in the caf or at football, he’d seemed drawn and distracted in class, and his school shirts—usually pressed and bright white—were looking as manky as Simon’s.

“Because he’s a vampire, Simon!” Levi interjected.

“In this story,” Cath said, “Simon doesn’t know that yet.”

“He’s a vampire!” Levi shouted at her laptop. “And he’s hunting you! He stays up all night, watching you sleep, trying to decide whether to eat you whole or one chunk at a time.”

“Simon can’t hear you,” Cath said.

Levi sat back, hugging the pillow again. “They are kind of gay, aren’t they? What with all the watching each other sleep … and the ignoring Penelope.”

“They’re obsessed with each other,” Cath said, as if this were one of life’s absolute givens. “Simon spends the entire fifth book following Baz around and describing his eyes. It’s like a thesaurus entry for ‘gray.’”

“I don’t know,” Levi said. “It’s hard for me to get my head around. It’s like hearing that Harry Potter is gay. Or Encyclopedia Brown.”

That made Cath laugh out loud. “Big Encyclopedia Brown fan?”

“Shut up. My dad used to read them to me.” He closed his eyes again. “Okay. Go on.”

“Is … something wrong?” Simon asked, then couldn’t believe he’d asked it. It’s not like he really cared. If Baz said yes, Simon would likely say “Good!” Still, it seemed cruel not to ask. Baz may have been the most despicable human being Simon had ever met … but he was still a human being.

“I’m not the one pacing the room like a hyperactive madman,” Baz mumbled, his elbows on his desk, his head resting in his hands.

“You seem … down or something.”

“Yes, I’m down. I’m down, Snow.” Baz raised his head and spun his chair toward Simon. He really did look terrible. His eyes were sunken and shot with blood. “I’ve spent the last six years living with the most self-centered, insufferable prat ever to carry a wand. And now, instead of celebrating Christmas Eve with my beloved family, drinking mulled cider and eating toasted cheese—instead of warming my hands at my ancestral hearth … I’m playing a tortured extra in the bloody Simon Snow Show.”

Simon stared at him. “It’s Christmas Eve?”

“Yes…,” Baz groaned.

Simon walked around his bed glumly. He hadn’t realized it was Christmas Eve. He’d have thought that Agatha would have called him. Or Penelope …

Levi sighed. “Penelope.”

Cath read on.

Maybe his friends were waiting for Simon to call them. He hadn’t even bought them gifts. Lately, nothing had seemed as important as finding the white hares. Simon clenched his square jaw. Nothing was as important; the whole school was in danger. There must be some pattern he wasn’t seeing. He quickened his step. The stone in the tower, the stained glass window, the sigil, the Mage’s book …

“I give up,” Baz whined. “I’m going to go drown myself in the moat. Tell my mother I always knew she loved me best.”

Simon stopped pacing at Baz’s desk. “Do you know how to get down to the moat?”

“I’m not actually going to kill myself, Snow. Sorry to disappoint.”

“No. It’s just … you use the punts sometimes, don’t you?”

“Everyone does.”

“Not me,” Simon said. “I can’t swim.”

“Really…,” Baz hissed with a hint of his old vigor. “Well, you wouldn’t want to swim in the moat anyway. The merwolves would get you.”

“Why don’t they bother the boats?”

“Silver punt poles and braces.”

“Will you take me out on one?” It was worth a try. The moat was one of the only places left in the school that Simon hadn’t searched.

“You want to go punting with me?” Baz asked.

“Yes,” Simon said, tilting his chin up. “Will you do it?”

“Why?”

“I … want to see what it’s like. I’ve never done it—why does it matter? It’s Christmas Eve, and you obviously don’t have anything better to do. Apparently even your parents can’t stand to be around you.”

Baz stood suddenly, his grey eyes glinting dangerously in the shadow of his brow. “You know nothing about my parents.”

Simon stepped back. Baz had a few inches on him (for now), and when Baz made an effort, he could seem dangerous.

“I’m … look, I’m sorry,” Simon said. “Will you do it?”

“Fine,” Baz said. The flare of anger and energy had already faded. “Get your cloak.”

Cath glanced over at Levi. His eyes were still closed. After a second, he opened one. “Is it over?”

“No,” she said. “I just didn’t know if you wanted me to go on. I mean, you get the idea.”

Levi closed his eyes and shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. Keep going.”

Cath looked at him for another second. At the lines in his forehead and the scruff of dark blond hair along his jaw. His mouth was small, but bowed. Like a doll’s. She wondered if he had trouble opening it wide enough to eat apples.

“Your madness must be catching,” Baz complained, untangling a rope.

The boats were stacked and tied off for the winter. Simon hadn’t been thinking about the cold.… “Shut up,” he said anyway. “It’ll be fun.”

“That’s the point, Snow—since when do we have fun together? I don’t even know what you do for fun. Teeth-whitening, I assume. Unnecessary dragon-slaying—”

“We’ve had fun before,” Simon argued. Because he didn’t know how to do anything with Baz but argue—and because surely Baz was wrong. In six years, they must have shared some fun. “There was that time in third year when we fought the chimaera together.”

“I was trying to lure you there,” Baz said. “I thought I’d get away from the thing before it attacked.”

“Still, it was fun.”

“I was trying to kill you, Snow. And on that note, are you sure you want to do this? Alone with me? On a boat? What if I shove you over? I could let the merwolves solve all my problems.…”

Simon twisted his lips to one side. “I don’t think you will.”

“And whyever not?” Baz cast off the last of the ropes.

“If you really wanted to get rid of me,” Simon said thoughtfully, “you would have by now. No one else has had as many opportunities. I don’t think you’d hurt me unless it played into one of your grand plans.”

“This could be my grand plan,” Baz said, shoving one of the punts free with a grunt.

“No,” Simon said. “This one is mine.”

“Aleister Crowley, Snow, are you going to help me with this or what?”

They carried the boat down to the water, Baz swinging the punt pole lightly. Simon noticed for the first time the silver plating at one end.

“Snowball fights,” he said, following Baz’s lead as they settled the boat in the water.

“What?”

“We’ve had lots of snowball fights. Those are fun. And food fights. That time I spelled gravy up your nose…”

“And I put your wand in the microwave.”

“You destroyed the kitchen,” Simon laughed.

“I thought it would just swell up like a marshmallow Peep.”

“There was no reason to think that.…”

Baz shrugged. “Don’t put a wand in the microwave—lesson learned. Unless it’s Snow’s wand. And Snow’s microwave.”

Simon was standing on the dock now, shivering. He really hadn’t considered how cold it would be out here. Or the fact that he’d actually have to get into a boat. He glanced down at the cold, black water of the moat and thought he saw something heavy and dark moving below the surface.

“Come on.” Baz was already in the punt. He jabbed Simon’s shoulder with the pole. “This is your grand plan, remember?”

Simon set his jaw and stepped in. The boat dipped beneath his weight, and he scrabbled forward.