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“Why would we be in this situation?” “We’re being held captive.” I shove him. “You’ll break us out.” “I don’t have magic, remember?” “Then I’ll break us out.” He steps closer to me, wrapping his arms loosely around my neck. “You can’t, you’re too weak—you need blood.”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you making me imagine a terrible situation where I lose my humanity and have to do the very worst thing to the person I care about most?” “Because…” he whines. “Because it’s kinda hot.”
“Come on. It’s sexy. Admit it.” I’m walking away from him. “Cannibalism isn’t sexy.”
“Just know,” he says, “that I’d do anything for you. That I’d let you do anything to me. There’s nothing about you I don’t want.”
“Oh, Niamh, don’t,” I say, pulling on her arm.
“You have perfectly good hair,” I say, reaching up to smooth it down.
“I don’t want to colour it again,” she says. The way someone else might say, “I don’t want to go to prison.” “Then don’t,” I reply, arranging her hair around her face.
“I was worried we’d, like, end up at a pub.” “Heaven forfend.”
She’s rubbing her forehead. “Do you want to stop and get something to eat?” “With me, a human being? Won’t you feel like the second wheel?” “Do you want to go to a pub?” “Yeah,” I laugh. “All right.” I really do.
I’ve been reading a book about magical genealogy—when I haven’t been distracted by her legs.
She rolls her eyes. “That wasn’t her real name…” “It’s the name she told me.” “Why would a fairy name their kid Fey? That’s like a magician naming their kid Warlock!”
“Yeah?” he asks when his mouth is nearly touching mine. “Yeah,” I say, and it’s more of a noise than a word. Shepard kisses me.
“If you can’t be gay at Ikea,” Snow reasoned, “where can you?”
My breath catches in my throat. Agatha’s old roommate!
She stands on tiptoe to kiss me again.
I snort. As if I’m going to open that box right now, the one labelled, My fuckup vampire-hunter aunt is hooking up with a vampire fuckup. No, thank you. I have enough on my plate.
“Pfft. It’s almost impossible to hide from someone you love.”
“Magickal power-ups.” Baz sits down at Simon’s other side. “Like Super Mario mushrooms. He’s promised to turn my stepmother into Baba Yaga.”
Simon leans into me, knocking my shoulder with his. “That sounds like Penny.” “So no one is cursed…” Baz says. “Just you, babe,” Simon says.
What if they were a group of bloodless friends enjoying a day out with their fully blooded girlfriends, sharing a consensual sip in the shade …
Simon brings a knee up over my thigh. “She said she only has two and a half friends, and she can’t afford to lose any.” “Am I the half, or is Agatha?” “You’re both three-fourths.” “Fucking Bunce.”
That’s how Baz wears his wand sometimes; he has a holster that straps to his forearm. It’s dead sexy when he takes off his shirt.
My lungs won’t hold on to it—they betray me every time I exhale.
“Don’t say ‘please,’ Baz.” “Why not?” “Because you don’t have to,” I say. “You don’t have to, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
He’s rocking into me, and I need this to happen again someday in the light. I don’t know what Baz’s face looks like, like this, when he’s coming undone. And I can’t keep my eyes open anyway, when I’m coming against him.
“You should stay right here with me. It’s not like you’re gonna get a UTI…” “A what?”
“It was so good,” I whisper. It comes out as a concession, even though I meant it as a compliment. He laughs a little, just enough to make his chest hitch. “Yeah,” he says, like he’s agreeing with me. “Next time will be even better.” “Next time you can do it for you.”
do just that: “Are you serious? You’re marrying that sleazy Kurt Cobain wannabe?” “That’s not how I’d describe him…” “His name was stricken from the Book, Fiona!” “Well.” She shrugs with both arms. “I’m not the Book, am I.”
Penelope frowns at him. “Oh no, I’m not letting anyone in this room out of my sight, ever again.”
Baz shoots his wand into his hand and points at my new sofa. “Tickled pink!” The sofa turns pink. “Hey…” I say.
“You did something unconscionable because an adult you trusted said it would matter. Join the fucking club, Basilton.”
I touch his cheek. “I forgive you.” He just barely shakes his head. “How could you, Snow?”
Niamh is standing in the hall behind me. Not dressed for the office. She’s wearing jeans cuffed high over brown work boots, and a green T-shirt that clings to her shoulders and breasts. And … well … and … She’s cut her hair.
“I’m going to get arrested,” Shepard says. “I’ll break you out,” she tells him.
“Fuck that,” Penelope says, “take us through the gates!” Shepard does just that. He drives right up through the Great Lawn. “Over the drawbridge!” she commands. “Your mother’s going to kill you,” I say.
It makes me feel like I’m about to be kissed. And like I’m a fool to want it.
To think that my teachers thought pop songs were unstable—my own son brought down a classroom wall with a “
No one will believe me later when I tell them that Headmistress Bunce jumped from a window at the top of the Weeping Tower, but I saw it with my own eyes. She used the same spell I used once on the ramparts—“Float like a butterfly.”
I never knew a kiss could ask this much from me.
