Levi had turned sideways to face her. His arms were folded, and his shoulder was pushed into the wall. He smiled at her and shrugged.
Cath shook her head again, wasn’t sure what she meant by it, then looked down at the computer and started to read.
Simon was tired, too. He wondered if there was an enchantment in the nursery that made you sleepy. He thought about all the little babies, the toddlers—about Baz—waking up to a room full of vampires. And then Simon fell asleep.
When he woke up, Baz was sitting with his back to the fire, staring up at the rabbit.
“I decided not to kill you in your sleep,” Baz said without looking down. “Happy Christmas.”
Simon rubbed his eyes and sat up. “Thanks?”
“Have you tried any spells?”
“On what?”
“The hares.”
“The letter didn’t say to spell them. It just said to find them.”
“Yes,” Baz said impatiently. They must not have slept long—Baz still looked tired. “But presumably the sender knows you’re a magician and assumes you might actually consider using magic from time to time.”
“What kind of spells?” Simon asked, glancing up at the sleeping rabbit.
“I don’t know.” Baz waved his white-tipped wand in the air. “Presto chango.”
“A changing spell? What are you trying to do?”
“I’m experimenting.”
“Didn’t you say I should do more research before barreling forward into danger?”
“That was before I’d stared at this damnable rabbit for half the night.” Baz flicked his wand. “Before and after.”
“Before and after only works on living things,” Simon said.
“Experimenting. Cock-a-doodle-doo.” Nothing happened.
“Why didn’t you stay asleep?” Simon asked. “You look like you haven’t slept since first year. You’re pale as a ghost.”
“Ghosts aren’t pale, they’re translucent. And pardon me if I don’t feel like snuggling up with you in the room where my mother was murdered.”
Simon grimaced and cast his eyes down. “Sorry,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Stop the bleeding presses,” Baz said, and waved his wand at the rabbit again. “Please.”
Baz gulped. Simon thought he might be crying, and turned away to give him some space.
“Snow … are you absolutely sure there was nothing more in that letter?”
Simon heard a heavy rustling above them. He looked up to see the giant, luminous animal stirring in its sleep. Baz was stumbling to his feet. Simon stood, too, and stepped back, taking Baz’s arm. “Careful,” Baz hissed, jerking away from Simon and away from the fireplace behind them.
“Vampire,” Levi said smugly. “Flammable.” Levi’s eyes were closed now and his head was tipped against the wall. Cath looked at him for a moment. He opened an eye and nudged her leg with his knee. She hadn’t thought she was sitting that close.
Above them, the rabbit seemed to take on dimension and heft. It stretched its back legs against the sky and twitched its nose. Its ears quivered to attention.
“Are we supposed to catch it?” Baz asked. “Talk to it? Sing it a nice, magical song?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said. “I was awaiting further instructions.”
The rabbit opened one boulder-sized, pink eye.
“Here’s an instruction—do you have your sword?”
“Yes,” Simon said.
“Unsheathe it.”
“But it’s the Moon Rabbit…,” Simon argued. “It’s famous.”
The rabbit turned its head from the ceiling (on closer inspection, its eyes were more red than pink) and opened its mouth—to yawn, Simon hoped—revealing incisors like fangs, like long white knives.
“Sword, Snow. Now.” Baz was already holding his wand in the air like he was about to start conducting a symphony. He really was grandiose sometimes.
Simon held his right hand over his hip and whispered the incantation the Mage had taught him. “In justice. In courage. In defense of the weak. In the face of the mighty. Through magic and wisdom and good.”
He felt the hilt materialize in his hand. It wouldn’t always come, the Mage had warned him; the blade had a mind of its own. If Simon called it in the wrong situation, even in ignorance, the Sword of Mages wouldn’t answer.
The hare reached with its forepaw almost timidly toward the floor of the nursery—then fell from the ceiling in a graceful lump, like a pet rabbit shuffling off a sofa.
“Don’t strike,” Simon said. “We still don’t know its intentions.… What are your intentions?” he shouted. It was a magic rabbit—perhaps it could talk.
The rabbit cocked its head, as if in answer, and shrieked at the empty spot in the sky.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” Simon said. “Just … calm down.”
“Crowley, Snow, are you going to ask it to heel next?”
“Well, we’ve got to do something.”
“I think we should run.”
The rabbit was crouching between them and the door. Simon reached for his wand with his left hand. “Calm down, Please!” he shouted, trying the powerful word again. The rabbit sent a stream of angry spittle in his direction.
“Yes, all right,” Simon said to Baz, “we run. On the count of three.”
Baz had already made a break for the door. The rabbit screeched at him but wouldn’t turn its back on Simon. It swiped at Simon’s legs with a deadly-looking claw.
He managed to jump clear, but the hare immediately aimed at him from the other direction. When it cuffed him on the head, Simon wondered if Baz would even bother to bring back help. It probably wouldn’t matter; no one would ever get here in time. Simon swung his sword at the rabbit, slicing it, and it pulled back its paw as if it’d caught a thorn there. Then the beast rose up onto its haunches, practically howling.
Simon scrambled to his feet … and saw ball after ball of fire catch in the rabbit’s white fur.
“You filthy, bloody rodent!” Baz was shouting. “You’re supposed to be a protector. A good-luck charm. Not a fucking monster. To think I used to make cakes for you and burn incense.… I take back the cakes!”
“You tell him,” Simon said.
“Shut up, Snow. You’ve got a wand and a sword, and you choose to wag your useless tongue at me?”
Simon swung his sword again at the rabbit. In a fight, he always favored his sword over his wand.
In between balls of fire magic, Baz was trying paralyzing spells and painful curses. Nothing but the fire seemed to make a difference.
The sword was working—Simon could hurt the rabbit—but not enough. He may as well have been scratching at it with an embroidery needle.
“I think it’s immune to magic!” Baz yelled, just as the rabbit charged toward him.
Simon ran up the hare’s back and tried to sink his sword through the dense fur at its scruff. The blade slid along its hide without piercing it.
Baz charged, too, casting his wand aside and leaping onto the rabbit’s chest. The animal thrashed, and Simon grabbed its neck and held on. He caught glimpses of Baz through the frenzy of fur and fang. The rabbit was swinging at Baz with its teeth, and Baz was holding on to a long ear—bashing at its nose with his arm. Then Baz’s head disappeared into the rabbit’s fur. The next time Simon saw a flash of him, the other boy’s face was painted red with blood.
“Baz!” Simon lost his grip, and the rabbit threw him across the room. He landed on the ring of futons and tried to roll with the impact. When he picked himself up again, he saw that the rabbit was flailing around on its back, all four paws tearing at the air. Baz lay across its stomach like he was hugging a giant stuffed animal—the white fur around his head a bloody mess.
“No,” Simon whispered. “Baz. No!” He ran toward the rabbit, holding his sword with both hands over his head, then plunged it with all his strength into one red eye. The rabbit collapsed, utterly limp, a paw
falling into the fire.
“Baz,” Simon croaked, tugging at the other boy’s arm. He expected Baz to be limp, too, but he wouldn’t budge. Simon tried again, digging his fingers into Baz’s slim shoulder. Baz reached back and pushed him off. Simon fell to the ground, confused.
That’s when he noticed that Baz was pressing his face into the rabbit’s neck. Nursing at it. There were gashes along the hare’s throat and ear, much deeper than anything Simon had accomplished with his sword. Baz hiked his knees up the rabbit’s chest and pushed its giant maw to the side, craning his head deeper into the gore at its neck.
“Baz…,” Simon whispered, slowly finding his feet. For a moment—for a few moments—he just watched.
Finally Baz seemed … finished.
He dropped down off the rabbit and stood there, with his back to Simon. Simon watched as Baz reached for the Mage’s Sword and slid it bloodily from the beast’s eye.
Baz turned then, pulling his shoulders back and lifting his chin in the air. His face, his whole front—his school tie and his white shirt—were slick with blood. It dripped from his nose and his chin, and was already puddling under the hand that held the sword. So much blood. As wet as if he’d just stepped out of the bath.
Baz tossed the sword, and it fell at Simon’s feet. Then he rubbed his sleeve across his mouth and eyes. It just moved the blood around, not away.
Simon didn’t know what to say. How to respond to … this. All this bloody information.
He picked up the sword and wiped it clean on his cloak. “You all right?”
Baz licked his lips—like they were dry, Simon thought—and nodded his head.
“Good,” Simon said. And realized that he meant it.
Cath stopped reading. Levi’s eyes were open. He was watching her. His mouth was closed, but not tight—and he looked almost excited.
“Is that the end?” he asked.
She held on to the laptop. “Is this why you like me?”
“Why?”
“Because I read to you?”
“Do I like you because you know how to read?”
“You know what I mean.”
His smile widened, so she could just see his teeth. It was strange to look at him like this. Up close. Like she was allowed to.
“Partly,” he said.
Cath looked anxiously over his shoulder. “Is Reagan going to mind, you think?”
“I don’t think so. We haven’t been together since high school.”
“How long did you date?”
“Three years.”
“Were you in love?”
He pushed back his hair, abashed but not ashamed. “Desperately.”
“Oh.” Cath shifted away.
Levi tilted his head to catch her eyes. “It was a small town, there were eleven people in our high school class—there was nobody else in a two-hundred-mile radius that either of us would have even considered dating.”
“What happened?”
“We came here. We realized that we weren’t the only two datable people on the planet.”
“She said she cheated on you.”
Levi’s eyes fell, but he didn’t completely stop smiling. “Also that.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
Cath nodded. “You seem older.”
“It’s the hair,” he said, still smiling.
“I love your hair,” she blurted out.
He raised an eyebrow. Just the one.
Cath shook her head, embarrassed, closing her eyes, closing the laptop.
Levi let his head fall slowly toward her so that his bangs hung forward and brushed her ear. She pulled her head away, knowing she was blushing.
“I like your hair, too,” he said. “I think, anyway.… It’s always roped up and tied down.”
“This is crazy,” Cath said, scooting away.
“What?”
“This. You and me. This conversation.”
“Why?”
“Well, I don’t even know how it happened.”
“I don’t think anything’s happened quite yet.…”
“We don’t have anything in common,” she said. She felt like she was brimming with objections, and they were just now starting to spill out. “You don’t even know me. You’re old and you smoke—and you have a job. You have experience.”
“I don’t really smoke unless someone else is smoking.…”
“That counts.”
“But it doesn’t matter. Nothing you just said matters, Cath. And most of it isn’t even true. We have lots of stuff in common. We talk all the time—we used to. And it just made me want to talk to you more. That’s a really good sign.”
“What do we have in common?”
“We like each other,” he said. “What more is there? Also, compared to the rest of the world, we have everything in common. If aliens came down to earth, they probably wouldn’t even be able to tell us apart.”
This was too much like what she’d said to Nick.…
“You do like me…,” Levi said, “right?”
“I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t like you,” Cath said.
“You might have—”
“No,” she said firmly. “I wouldn’t have. And I wouldn’t have stayed up all night reading to you.…”
Levi smiled so that she could see his canine teeth. And then his bicuspids. It was wrong. He shouldn’t be smiling.
“Why did you tell me it was just a kiss?” she asked, waiting for her voice to break. “I don’t even care about that other girl. I mean, I do, but not as much. Why was your first instinct to tell me that what happened between you and me didn’t matter? And why should I believe you now when you say that it did? Why should I believe anything you say?”
Levi got it now. That he shouldn’t be smiling. He looked down at his lap and turned, settling his back against the wall. “I guess I panicked.…”
Cath waited. Levi pushed his hand into the front of his hair and made a fist. (Maybe that’s why he was losing it prematurely. Constant handling.)
“I panicked,” he said again. “I thought that if you knew how much kissing you meant to me … it would seem even worse that I kissed another girl.”
Cath let that sink in. “That’s terrible reasoning,” she said.
“I wasn’t reasoning.” He turned back to her, a little too quickly. “I was panicking. Honestly? I’d forgotten all about that girl.”
“Because you kiss so many girls at parties?”
“No. I mean … Ahhgh.” He looked away. “Sometimes, but no. I only kissed that girl because you weren’t there. Because you didn’t return my texts. Because I was back to thinking you didn’t like me. I was confused, and a little drunk, and here was this girl who obviously did like me.… She probably left five minutes after you did. And five minutes after that, I was staring at my phone, trying to come up with an excuse to call you.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me all that at the hospital?”
“Because I felt like such an asshole. And I’m not used to being the asshole—I’m usually Dudley Do-Right, you know?”
“No.”
“I’m usually the good guy. That was the whole plan for winning you over—”
“There was a plan?”
“There was…” He thunked the back of his head against the wall, and his hands fell to his lap. “It was more of a hope. That you’d see that I was a decent guy.”
“I saw that.”
“Right. And then you saw me kissing somebody else.”
Cath wanted him to stop talking, she’d heard enough. “The thing is, Levi…” Saying his name out loud finished the destruction inside of her. Something, maybe Cath’s spleen, gave up the ghost. She leaned forward and pulled on the sleeve of his sweater, squeezing a few inches into her fist.
“I know you’re a decent guy,” she said. “And I want to forgive you; it’s not like you cheated on me—I mean, it’s only kind of like that. But even if I do forgive you�
�” She pulled on his new sweater, stretching it. “I don’t think I’m any good at this. Boy–girl. Person–person. I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.”
Levi’s face clouded over. Not grimly, she thought—thoughtfully. In thoughtful clouds.
“That’s crazy,” he said.
“I know,” Cath agreed, feeling almost relieved. “Exactly. I’m crazy.”
He reached his fingers back and hooked them inside the cuff of her sweater. “But you still want to give me a chance, right? Not just me, this? Us?”
“Yeah,” Cath said, like she was giving in.
“Good.” He tugged on her sleeve and smiled down at their not-quite-touching hands. “It’s okay if you’re crazy,” he said softly.
“You don’t even know—”
“I don’t have to know,” he said. “I’m rooting for you.”
* * *
He was going to text her the next day. They were going to go out when he got off work.
On a date.
Levi didn’t call it a date, but that’s what it would have to be, right? He liked her, and they were going out. He was coming to get her.
She wished she could call Wren. I have a date. And not with an end table. Not with someone who has anything in common with furniture. He kissed me. And I think he might do it again if I let him.
She didn’t call Wren. She studied. Then stayed up as late as she could writing Baz and Simon—“‘The Insidious Humdrum,’ Baz groused. ‘If I ever become a supervillain, help me come up with a name that doesn’t sound like an ice cream sundae.’”—and wishing that Reagan would come home.
Cath was mostly asleep when the door opened.
Reagan shuffled around in the dark. She was good at coming and going without turning on any lights. She almost never woke Cath up.
“Hey,” Cath rasped.
“Go back to sleep,” Reagan whispered.
“Hey. Tonight … Levi came over. I think we might have a date. Is that okay?”
The shuffling stopped. “Yeah,” Reagan said, practically in her normal voice. “Is it okay with you?”
“I think so,” Cath said.
“Okay.” Reagan’s closet door opened, and she kicked her boots off with two heavy thumps. A drawer opened and closed, and then she was climbing into bed. “So fucking weird…,” she murmured.
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