Any Way the Wind Blows

by Rainbow Rowell

  Tomorrow.

  My wings will be gone tomorrow.

  I face the mirror and try to imagine myself without them. It’s not the same as imagining myself before I had them. Before I created them.

  I square my shoulders. My arms are tanned from the sun—all that American sunshine—but my chest is pale. Soft. I look soft. I look like someone who’s spent the last year on the sofa, which is exactly who I am.

  Or was. I don’t know who I am. Fuck, I’m nothing at the moment. I’m between Simons. I don’t even have a sofa.

  I don’t have anything. I’ve burned it all down, and tomorrow I’m going to burn some more.

  There’s a knock at my front door. That was fast.

  I head into the living room and shout at the door. “Just leave it outside, mate! Thanks!”

  They knock again.

  “Christ,” I mutter. “No one is going to steal my pad thai.” I grab my T-shirt on the way to the door, but I’m not going to hassle with putting it on over my wings unless I have to. “Just leave it!” I shout, kicking the broom handle away. “Thank you!”

  More knocking. If this is that goblin again, I’m gutting him.

  The dagger is in my back pocket. I get it out and crack the door. “Just leave—”

  It isn’t Deliveroo.

  Or a goblin.

  It’s Baz.

  13

  BAZ

  It took me an hour to find him, and most of that was just the cab ride. Simon’s living in Hackney Wick.

  He’s got the door chained. He’s standing on the other side, shirtless, his eyes cold and his jaw set. “How did you find me?” he asks. Like he doesn’t know there are a hundred spells just for this. It’s hard to hide from someone who loves you.

  “Magic,” I say.

  “I asked you not to.”

  “No, you asked Penelope not to. Me, you left a note.”

  He unchains the door but doesn’t open it. He’s looking at the floor. “I can’t do this with you,” he whispers.

  “Too fucking bad, Snow. Let me in.”

  He turns away from me, flinging the door open with his tail. I try to follow, but the threshold pushes me back.

  “You know I need an invitation,” I hiss.

  Snow glances over his shoulder, like maybe this is his reprieve. But he flicks his tail at me, motioning me in.

  It’s enough. The pressure in the doorway eases, and I storm in, slamming the door behind me. I told myself I’d be calm when I found him. Warm. Understanding. But all I am is angry—I’m livid—with him, with Bunce, with myself.

  I turned my back for five minutes, and literally everything fell apart. This is why I haven’t turned my back on him in a year! This is why I’ve been rushing home from class to sit next to him on the sofa. Because I couldn’t trust him. I could never trust him …

  The room is empty. Snow is standing at a window, looking at the closed curtains. His jeans are riding low, and his tail is tucked between his legs. His wings are hitched up around his ears. For some reason, there’s a dagger tucked in his back pocket. “All right,” he says, “so you found me. I can’t hide from you.”

  “You bloody well can’t.”

  “So what do you want me to say?”

  I come up behind him. “I want you to explain what’s going on!”

  He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t even raise his voice. “You know what’s going on, Baz. I’ve already told you.”

  “You haven’t even answered my texts, Simon!”

  “I told you, I keep telling you…” He sounds so flat, like none of this affects him—like I don’t affect him.

  No. Unacceptable. Untenable. I always affect him.

  I grab his bare shoulder. “You never tell me anything!”

  Snow whips around, nearly clipping me with his wing. “I told you I’m done!”

  “Done what?” Done with me, he means. I know that’s what he means.

  “Done!” he shouts, his wings spread wide. “I already told you. Christ I—I tried to tell you! Done … pretending!”

  “Pretending what?” I shout. Like I don’t know. Like it isn’t already killing me.

  “Pretending … this, Baz. Us. Pretending I can…”

  I’m dying.

  I’m dying, this is death.

  Simon’s in my stomach, he’s in my heart, and he’s punching.

  “Use your words, Snow. For fuck’s sake.”

  SIMON

  I can’t do this with him.

  I can’t say this. It will slit my throat to say it, it will slice its way out, and then he’ll cut me down—I won’t survive it. (I was never going to survive this. Everything I am is nearly gone. Finish me off, Baz.)

  “Use your words,” he sneers. (That’s right, that’s my boy.)

  He’s wearing jeans and a navy shirt. I think that’s his favourite colour—a blue that’s almost purple. It makes his skin glow like a pearl. His top two buttons are unbuttoned, he never bothers with them anymore. His throat is bright. His throat is mine. There are scars beneath his hairline. I’ve fit my teeth over them.

  “You know,” I say again. “I’ve already told you.”

  He steps into my space. Taller than me. His hand comes up, and I think he’d grab my shirt if I was wearing one. He’s grabbed me like this before. He’s shoved me against a wall. He’s loomed over me, his breath cold on my face.

  “What have you told me?” He curls his lip. “What have you actually ever told me, Snow?”

  “That this isn’t working! I’m not a magician!”

  “And I told you, I don’t care!”

  “Well, I do—I care! Do you think I like being a charity case?”

  Baz is rolling his eyes. “No one treats you like a charity case.”

  “I can’t even leave the house without your help. Without Penny’s.”

  “We don’t mind helping!”

  I throw my hands up. “You’re not listening—you never listen!”

  “I always listen!” He jabs a finger at me. “You never talk!”

  “I’m talking now, all right? I’m telling you. I’m done with magic! I’m done with mages! I can’t—You’re both—I can’t live with you!”

  “We don’t have to live together, Simon. We don’t live together.”

  “I can’t even be with you! I hate it.”

  “You hate being with me?”

  “Yes, all right?” I’m screaming. “Are you happy? I hate being with you! I hate your fucking wand! I hate how easy it all is for you! I hate looking at you!”

  “You hate looking at me.”

  God, yes, I do. I do. I hate the sight of him.

  All I see is what I’ve lost—who I was. His match. Someone who might someday deserve him.

  My hands are in my hair, pulling. I’m shaking my head. “What are we even doing, Baz? Where did you think this was all going?”

  He steps back. “I thought…”

  BAZ

  I thought I was being patient.

  I thought he was getting better.

  I thought we were in love …

  … though he’s never said so.

  “I like you,” he said once. “I like this.” But that was before. When he still had magic.

  And then he told me I was all he had left to lose. I thought that meant that he wouldn’t let me go. But maybe Snow was trying to tell me his plans: You’re all I have left to lose, and eventually I will.

  I take another step away from him. I’d been reaching for him. His broad shoulders, his freckled chest. It isn’t fair of him to say these things with his heart so naked. It makes them seem true.

  I thought we had the sort of love that you can’t set down or walk away from. An undying fire. The love you hear about in the old stories.

  No one told Simon Snow the old stories.

  (Fuck, he’s already saved the princess and walked away from her. Maybe I’m one more unwanted prize.)

  I take another step back. And another. Snow’s
wings drop a bit. He’s looking down at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. His chest is pale—cream and gold and pink—but his arms are still sun-kissed from those days in the back of Shepard’s truck. It’s only been a week.

  No.

  I step forward. His head jerks up.

  “You can’t just decide that you’re done with me,” I say. “That’s not what we are.”

  Snow looks even more confused, even angrier, than before. “I can’t decide I’m done? I have to pretend that I’m happy like this—sitting at home waiting for you to spell my wings away?”

  “Shut up about the wings! You don’t have to keep the wings!”

  “I’m not! I’m having them off tomorrow!”

  “Wait, tomorrow?” His wings …

  Snow lurches towards me. He points at my face. “I’m done, Baz—I’m done playing dungeons and dragons with you lot. I’m done with, fucking, spells. And prophecies. Werewolves and vampires. I’m just a person. An ordinary bloke.”

  “How can you say that? You were the most powerful magi—”

  His wings flare out. “Was! I was all that. Not anymore. It’s like I’ve been living in a museum—‘Here’s Simon Snow. We thought he was the Chosen One for a few years. Gave himself a tail. Look at the state of him.’ I’ve got to let all that go, I have to figure out what comes next!”

  “That’s what we’ve been doing! We’re figuring it out together.”

  He rolls his eyes and shrugs his wings. It’s all one gesture. “I know what’s next for you and Penny—magic! It’s always more magic.”

  “You keep talking about magic,” I say. “I’m talking about us.”

  “It’s all the same thing!”

  “I don’t care about magic!” I do care, I care passionately. But I’d give my magic to the Humdrum to fix this.

  “That’s a lie,” Simon says.

  I pull my wand out of my sleeve and hold both ends. “I’ll break it, Snow. I don’t care. I don’t need it. Not like I—”

  “You’re not breaking your wand.” He tries to yank the thing out of my hands, but he ends up pulling me closer.

  My face hangs over his. I’ve been yelling. I’ve been angry. But now I’m just … “Please,” I say, so quietly. “Please, Simon. Don’t do this.”

  SIMON

  His hair is brushing against my forehead. We’re both holding on to his ivory wand. The fight’s gone out of him, and that’s no good, because fighting is all I can manage right now.

  “Baz…” I whisper.

  He presses his forehead to mine. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this to me, love.”

  “I have to.”

  His head is rocking against mine, from side to side. “No, Simon. No. We can’t come apart like this. We’re not made of pieces that come apart.”

  “Baz—”

  “You can’t just give up on this. On me. Don’t you know what we have? It’s the sort of thing people dream about. They make potions to steal it.” He pulls his wand against his chest. He pulls me with it.

  “I know,” I say.

  And I do. I know.

  I know I’ll never love anyone like I love Baz. I know he’s the love of my life. Of all my lives. The Mage believed in reincarnation. Of a thousand lives stacked on top of each other. “Some lives we squander,” he said. “And some we seize.”

  This was my life to find love. The truest love. The biggest.

  But it isn’t my life to have it.

  I’m too … broken. I don’t know how to be close to people. I don’t know how to be quiet. When Baz gets like this with me … When he hands me his heart, I don’t know how to hold it. I want to scream. I want to run. Maybe it’s part of what the Mage did to me. He said he got me wrong, that I was a cracked vessel. I can’t hold on to anything good.

  “Baz…” I’m still whispering. “I can’t be with you.”

  “Because of magic?” His voice breaks on the last word.

  “Because of me. I was never going to make this work.”

  “Fuck.” He shudders. “You’re killing me, Snow.”

  I’m killing me, too. There won’t be anything left of me after they take off the wings. “I’m sorry.”

  BAZ

  “I’m sorry,” Snow says. Like that’s a thing … Like that’s a thing that matters.

  I push him away with my wand, then pull it back, out of his hand. He lets go.

  His cheeks are red, and his chest is flushed and blotchy. The arrow end of his tail is lying on the ground. His wings have fallen.

  There’s nothing left for me to say. How can I convince him that we’re a good thing if he doesn’t believe in good things?

  It makes me so angry. I’m. So. Angry. I’ve never hated him more. I want to break my knuckles on his chin, I want to cast off his tongue, I want to shove him down a thousand flights of stairs—and then I want to catch him.

  “I love you,” I say. (And I know it’s a not a thing. I know it doesn’t matter.)

  I turn away from him then, and tuck my wand in my pocket. It’s only anger making my legs move. I can’t believe he’s doing this, I can’t believe I’m leaving. I can’t believe this is it—that this is how we’re ending.

  It wasn’t the Mage. It wasn’t the War. It wasn’t the Humdrum.

  I stop at the door. I look back at Simon one more time.

  “I never thought I’d be the first thing you ever gave up on.”

  14

  AGATHA

  For the first few days I was home, my parents let me hole up in my room without bothering me.

  I didn’t tell them what happened with Braden and the NowNext. I’m not telling anyone. Penelope can fill out the proper paperwork if she wants; her mother is practically running the World of Mages these days.

  I keep expecting a summons. Or for someone to show up and take my official testimony about the incident. The American Incident. I don’t think I’ll be arrested. I didn’t intentionally break any rule—it’s legal to kill vampires—and Penelope’s the one who counterfeited our plane tickets. If anyone deserves to be arrested, it’s her. As per usual.

  My parents are starting to worry about me now … My father keeps stopping by my room to talk about his day or to see if I’d like to come down for dinner. My mother keeps asking if I’d like to go shopping.

  I would not.

  I’m doing exactly what I’d like to do: I’m lying in bed, watching cat videos and ignoring Ginger’s text messages, while I twirl my wand first in one hand and then the other.

  I dug it out of my top drawer as soon as I got home, and I haven’t set it down since. It’s teak with a red Bakelite handle. It belonged to my grandfather, my mother’s father. He died before I was born, which is why his wand was available. He wasn’t much of a magician. Neither am I.

  That’s all right. I don’t need to be. I just need to keep this wand on me, and I need one spell at the tip of my tongue.

  I’m not letting it happen again.

  By “it,” I mean “kidnapped by megalomaniacal vampires.” And I also mean “hidden at the bottom of a well because someone was mad at my boyfriend.” And: “chased by werewolves.” As well as: “treed by a direhog.”

  Never. Not again. Not one more time.

  The next person who touches me is ash. The next thing to look at me funny …

  There’s a stuffed bear sitting on my dresser. One of its eyes is hanging by a thread. Simon gave it to me. He won it for me at a funfair.

  I point my wand at it—“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!”

  The bear dissolves in a satisfying puff, coating my dresser in soot. Good. Now it matches my duvet and the rug. I may have to leave my room soon; I’m running out of things to point my wand at.

  “Agga, darling…” My dad has opened my door and is standing there with his arms folded. I don’t snap at him. He probably knocked. “Why don’t you get dressed,” he says cheerfully.

  “I am dressed.”

  “Why don’t you get changed, then. I
need your help with something.”

  * * *

  Well.

  This is a dreary scenario. My parents apparently have limits. They’ve taken charge.

  I have a job now.

  I’m to go to work every morning with my father, and then hang about his surgery, taking orders from literally everyone. So far today, I’ve hoovered the waiting area, kept an eye on two toddlers whose mother might have shingles, and learned how to empty the bins. Now I’m answering the phone while the receptionist monitors me to make sure I’m doing it correctly. I’ve hardly seen my father at all. His waiting room has been full all day.

  My dad’s the only magickal doctor in this part of England. He went to Normal medical school, too, so magicians come to see him for every sort of ailment.

  There isn’t a magickal veterinarian in the World of Mages (the only one died a few years ago), so Dad also sees a lot of farm animals and pets. He’s got an intern now who’s studying to be a magickal vet. A hulking Irish girl with a face like a battleship. She made me clean Exam Four three times before she was satisfied.

  “Miss Wellbelove.” Crowley, there she is again—Niamh—looming in the doorway to summon me for some grim new task.

  “I can’t right now,” I say. “I’m covering the phones.”

  “She’s covering the phones,” the receptionist agrees, as if she’s my new supervisor.

  Niamh frowns at me. “Quickly, Miss Wellbelove. Now.”

  I reluctantly get up to follow her. She’s three inches taller than me, and twice as broad, and she wears her hair in a large, dark knot at the back of her head. She’s headed for an exam room. The light over the door means a patient is inside.

  “I don’t have any medical training,” I say.

  “I’m well aware.” She opens the door.

  Simon Snow is standing there. Shirtless. Shaking. His devil wings clenched against his back. He’s holding a scalpel.

  “Simon?”

  “Agatha?” There are more knives on the floor. And broken glass. Cotton swabs. The exam room looks like it’s been ransacked. Simon’s eyes are wild. “I’m sorry!”