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I’m holding Baz now, tight enough to bruise. I’m biting him hard enough to break. It’s only okay because he isn’t human
And my hands are on his neck now. My hands are on his stomach. He’s cold, and it isn’t enough. Where is this going? What’s it all for?
try to kiss him, I’m lost. (I’m lost, I’m lost, nothing is enough.) “Simon,” he says. “Stop.”
Baz lets go of my wrists and holds my face instead. “It’s fine—I’m fine. I mean, if you still had your magic, I think I’d be dead…” I laugh, but only because I feel so pathetic. “You think I’m going off?” “Yeah … I don’t think you have gears, Snow. I think you only go full throttle.”
I laugh again, miserably, and then the weeping starts—I knew it would. I try to turn my face away. “I’m sorry, Baz. I’m never going to get this right.” “Shut up,” he says. “We’ve only just started trying.”
My heart
I close my eyes. Now is when I’d leave. Normally. Now is when I can’t leave. I need to ride this out. I need to keep riding this out.
“What if it never gets better?” I say. “What if I never get better at any of this?” Baz runs his thumb from the bridge of my nose to my temple and back. “What if every kiss leads us here?” My eyes burn again. “Yeah.” “Okay,” he says. I open my eyes. “Okay?” He shrugs. “I’ll take it.”
THIS
“Don’t fuck with me.” He wraps one hand around the back of my neck. “I’m not fucking with you! I’ll take it.
I’m a traumatized vampire. I never thought I’d have a normal relationship. I thought I was going to marry some girl, and sneak out at night to sleep with strangers and drink their pets.” I roll my eyes. “When did you think that?” “I don’t know,” he says. “Pretty much from age thirteen to … however old I was the night you kissed me.” “Fuck, Baz. You deserve better.”
Yikes
He shrugs again, then squeezes my neck. “I’ll take it. I’ll take you.” He kisses my mouth quickly,
“I never thought I’d have a normal relationship, either,” I say. Baz snorts. “Because you were going to have a royal wedding. There were going to be commemorative tea towels when you and Agatha tied the knot.”
Facts
He’s being too gentle. I shudder and shake my head, pulling away. Baz lowers an eyebrow, watching. He waits for me to relax next to him again, then puts his hand right back in my hair. He rubs his fingertips into my scalp. It’s better. It’s good.
“Lucky for you,” I say, opening my eyes just enough to see him. “You’ve got it all.” Baz curls his lip. “Yeah, that’s me. Nobody can shut up about my good luck.”
You and Penny. You’re like…” I reach my hand up his back, under his shirt. His skin is cool. “Aristocrats. Like, kings and queens compared to everyone else.” “What’d that make you, Snow, a god?”
“Maybe we should just summon the demon and see what happens.” “We are not summoning the demon, Penelope.” “Don’t want me to meet your girlfriend?”
I bring my legs up onto the couch to cross them, then push my skirt down in the middle. (Baz is always on me to be more ladylike in skirts.)
Of course he has
apparently someone gave Simon a leaflet at the meeting. (No one offered me a leaflet.) (No one ever wants me to join their religion, either.)
Simon steps in and looks around. I fold my arms, waiting. He turns back to me and grins. “This is a good game,” I say flatly.
Snow reaches out and grabs my elbow, pulling me across the threshold and against him. He’s laughing silently and kissing my cheek. (For someone who is afraid of looking gay in public, he sure gets off on public displays of affection.) (That’s probably connected.)
Aw
Smith-Richards turns to Simon again, looking a bit dazed and overawed himself. (Fair. Simon is incredibly attractive. Especially when he’s being all dogged and earnest like this. With his cheeks pink and his eyebrows drawn low and his throat bobbing every time he fortifies himself to ask a question.)
I will save this world. And Simon Snow will help me.
Will he?
Baz is lying on my bed when I get out of the shower. He brought pyjamas with him from his flat. I wonder if this is what he always sleeps in—cotton trousers and a T-shirt. I usually sleep in my pants, but I’ve been wearing joggers while he’s here.
It’s always easier to make a decision when your back’s against the wall, and there’s a knife at your throat. No time to think; just do. Grab the thing you need. Grab the thing you want. Steal the kiss. I’d live like that all the time if I could.
Baz kept trying to have a normal relationship with me, after I lost my magic. He’d bring me dinner and try to get me to watch films. Maybe that’s what he wants now …
“Do you not want to sleep in the bed?” He shakes his head. “No. I … I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” “For fuck’s sake,” I sigh. “You’ve got to stop questioning me. I’m holding on by a thread.”
“Simon, are you sure you want me here?” “Christ, I just told you not to question me.” “Yeah, I know, but you also told me you’re holding on by a thread. I don’t want to put you in that position.”
I thought the important thing was that I’m holding on!” “Right.” He rubs his face. “Right. It is. I’m sorry. I wish I were more confident. I’m not really built for this.”
“How can you be insecure, Baz? You’re the most arrogant person I’ve ever met.”
Si soy
“Why would anyone lie about being an orphan?” “For sympathy,” Baz says, scooting closer to me, “and because orphans are always marked by destiny, aren’t they? They’re never just some poor kid. They’re always Luke Skywalker. Or Moses.”
“Hey…” I squeeze him. “I’m an orphan.” “You’re only proving my point, Snow. I’ll bet you were born during an eclipse, too, but nobody bothered to write it down.”
Baz is sonsmart bye
“He’s stealing your act, Simon.” “That’s what I said, Lady Salisbury!” Baz couldn’t be more pleased with himself.
“Smith-Richards also claims he was born under an eclipse.” She rolls her eyes. “Was he trying to convert you or get in your trousers?” “I mean,” Baz agrees,
“I don’t care about the car,” he says. “I care about my shirt.”
(Baz is forcing his clothes on me again; he says none of mine are fit for polite company.) Today’s shirt is baby blue knit, with short sleeves and a diamond pattern. I look like the most laddish member of a boy band. I think Baz is only lending me clothes that he’d never wear himself.
“Kiss me,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to kiss someone with glasses.” “Bunce was right there…” “You look like a steampunk vampire.” “That’s absurd—” I kiss him. It is absurd.
“I’ve never kissed you in the library. Think of all the places we could have kissed if we’d figured this out sooner.” He looks up at my forehead, threading one hand into my hair. His grey eyes are enormous. “If you’d figured it out sooner…”
I could argue with him, tease him, return his serve. But I don’t want to. I push him back against a bookshelf and kiss him some more. My hands are on his waist.
He said he dressed up for Lady Ruth, but I think he just likes to dress up. I think he likes to look like he’s going somewhere important.
Baz baz baz
How much kissing would there have been? If I’d figured it out sooner? In the library, on the Great Lawn. In our room … Christ. Baz in our room, his hair slicked back, his tie perfectly knotted—hating me. (But not really hating me. Not only hating me.)
How many walls could I have shoved him up against? How many empty corners could we have found?
(I don’t understand what this is. Why people do it. Why we stoke fires in each other. What are we burning?)
“I’m sorry,” I pant. He looks confused. The spring on one side is caught in his hair. “For what?” I shrug. I don’t know.
“I’m sorry…” I shake my head. “That I didn’t figure it out sooner. I—I would have liked to have had you for a friend here.”
“It was probably meant to happen like it did.” “Do you believe in that?” I ask. “Fate?”
Simon giggles. “I can’t believe we’re in the Catacombs together.” Before I can say anything, he’s pushing me against a stone wall and kissing my neck.
“For fuck’s sake, Snow, this is hallowed ground!” “I’m not doing anything to unhallow it.” He keeps kissing me.
“New plan,” he says. “We retrace our old steps, and do this all of the places we used to fight.” “That’s everywhere.” “Everywhere, then.”
He’s got his arms around my waist, and his chest and hips against mine. This is all my fifth-year fantasies come true: Simon Snow manhandling me in the library, in the Catacombs …
Oh basilton
“We could go up to the tower,” he says. “That’s someone else’s room now.” “It will always be our room more than anyone else’s.”
“I can’t believe I had you in my room every night,” he says, “and I didn’t take advantage of it.” “You could have had me in your room every night for the last year.” He groans into my collar. “I’m such a twat.”
