Any Way the Wind Blows

by Rainbow Rowell

  Simon sat up forcefully, pushing me off.

  I sat up, too, sighing. “More than one, apparently.”

  “But I was the Chosen One!” He turned to face me, his wings flared out behind him. “I mean, I was a fraud, but—”

  “Disagree.”

  “Baz…” he groaned, hiding his face.

  “Simon, you know how I feel about this. You fulfilled every prophecy.”

  “The Greatest Mage was supposed to defeat the greatest threat to the World of Mages; I was the greatest threat to the World of Mages.”

  I shrugged. “Why not both?”

  Simon shook his head, still trying to make sense of it all. “So, like, new people are calling themselves the Greatest Mage now?”

  I leaned back against my headboard, elbows up, crossing my wrists on my head. “That’s how it seems. Fiona didn’t give me many details—just that, with you and the Mage out of the picture, a few charlatans are taking advantage.”

  He still looked dumbfounded. “So your stepmother is following around a new Chosen One?”

  “I’m not sure. Aunt Fiona thinks so.”

  “Well”—Simon squared his shoulders—“we have to rescue her.”

  I could have hugged him in that moment. And then I realized that I could hug him. That nothing was stopping me. I wrapped my arms around him, under his wings, and held tight.

  “Baz?” Simon’s arms fell more gently around me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m just very glad that you’re here.”

  He held me more confidently then. “Why would anyone even want to be the Chosen One?”

  I huffed a laugh into his neck. “Power, obviously.”

  He shook his head against mine. “There’s no power,” he said, his voice low.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Simon could have ruled the World of Mages with his magic. He could have ruled the world.

  “I’ll text Penelope,” he said, pulling away from me to find his phone. “She must not know about all this. She would have mentioned it—to you, if not to me.”

  “Simon … Are you certain you want to get involved in this? It is magic.”

  He looked back at me, like I was being silly. “It’s your stepmum.”

  I smiled. I watched him send his texts. “I can make a few calls tomorrow morning,” I said. “Ask around. See if anyone knows anything.”

  “Shouldn’t we get started now?” He was sitting on the edge of the bed, ready to go.

  I held my hand out to him. “No. Nothing will change overnight. Let’s just sleep.”

  He looked surprised. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure, Snow.”

  He bit his lip for a moment, then took my hand and folded his wings. “All right. We’ll rescue Daphne tomorrow.”

  I pulled him down beside me, and laid my head on his chest again. “Tomorrow.”

  * * *

  The next morning—this morning—while Simon made toast, I sat at the kitchen table and called someone I could trust to be honest with me.

  “Hello, Dev.”

  “Well, if it isn’t Basilton Pitch. Did you take a break from getting your cock sucked and remember that you have friends and family?”

  “Took a break from sucking cock, actually.”

  Simon’s head spun around. I shrugged, apologetically, and turned away from him in my chair.

  Dev sighed. “You don’t call, you don’t write.”

  “I’ve been busy studying. Haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Uni is a ball-ache. As it turns out, pledging allegiance to the Mage twice a week and working on my diction did nothing to prepare me for higher education.”

  I snorted. “I’ve heard the new headmistress is making people do maths.”

  “Unacceptable! Cares she not for tradition?”

  “What’s next,” I said, “geography?”

  Dev’s voice dropped, confidentially. “Niall’s brother says it’s worlds better down at Wats these days. They can have mobile phones. And they brought back the admissions test. Old Bunce has some standards.”

  I decided to push on while Dev was being sincere; it only happens biannually. “Say, have you been hearing this twaddle about a new Greatest Mage?”

  “Aw. Poor Baz. Threw it all away for the Chosen One, and now you have to start over.”

  “So you have heard about it.”

  “Crowley,” Dev swore, “it’s all my grandmother talks about. She follows one of them on Facebook.”

  “On Facebook? What do they call themselves?”

  Dev sounded amused: “Baz, are you actually interested? Have you found religion?”

  “Nah. I have a friend who’s all caught up in it. I want to make sure they’re not in any trouble.”

  “A friend, eh? Well, it’s not me, and it’s not Niall. Has Simon Snow joined a saviour cult? That’s rich.”

  “You don’t think there’s anything to all this, do you?”

  “Do I think the Greatest Mage has been hiding out in Swansea, and my grandmother was the first to know? No, dear cousin, I do not. I think some greedy tosser wants to make sure I don’t inherit her Aston Martin.”

  “Your poor grandmother,” I said.

  “My poor car,” he replied.

  “So, it’s all a financial scam?”

  “Grandmum’s Facebook saviour? Assuredly. But better him than the Chosen wanker Máire Clark is following around.”

  “Máire Clark, is that someone I know?”

  “Year ahead of us at Watford. Dark hair. Good legs. The Mage arrested her dad for insider dealing.”

  “Oh right.” Máire. Scottish. Sat near me in Magic Words.

  “She’s obsessed with some ‘miracle worker.’ Volunteers at his compound. The guy bleeds from his palms, spits doves, the whole bit.”

  “What’s the difference between miracles,” I asked, “and good old-fashioned magic?”

  “Don’t ask Máire,” Dev groaned. “She’ll gnaw your bloody ear off—and her legs won’t even be a distraction for you.”

  “So, what’s that one called? Máire’s miracle worker?”

  “You’re actually invested in this, aren’t you?” This was a real treat for my cousin, I could tell. “Which of your friends has gone off the deep? Is it Wellbelove? Because I could find religion with Wellbelove. I could bleed from the palms, if you catch my meaning.”

  I pretended that I didn’t. Once Dev starts on Agatha, he never stops. “Will you send me the name of your grandmother’s guy?” I asked. “And Máire’s, too. Could you find out?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Will you come out to the pub with us? Before term starts? You can even bring Snow. I heard he’s slowly turning into a dragon; can he still have a drink? Can he still take it up the—”

  I cut him off. “Who told you that, the dragon thing?”

  “My grandmother. She saw it on Facebook. Is it true?”

  At the moment, Simon was sitting across from me, eating toast. There was melted butter running down his wrist. I held out a napkin.

  “He can still have a drink,” I said.

  Simon took the napkin, then licked the butter off his arm.

  “Excellent,” Dev said. “I’ll call you next week. Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” I said, hanging up.

  “Who was that?” Simon asked, sucking on his thumb.

  “One of my cousins,” I said, taking a piece of his toast. “Dev.”

  “Dev from school? Your little minion?”

  “If you like.”

  Simon hadn’t made any tea. I got up to start it.

  “So Dev is your cousin…” he asked. “Huh. He doesn’t look Egyptian.”

  “Because he’s not.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  I was standing at the sink, filling the kettle, but I glanced Snow’s way. “You understand how cousins work, right?”

  I turned off the tap, careful not to drop my toast. “I think our great-grandparents were siblings … Mine became he
admaster at Watford—Tyrannus Pitch, I’m named after him. Tyrannus grew up in Hampshire and married a woman from Egypt—Karima Pitch—famously powerful. Like, legendary.”

  I flipped on the kettle, and reached for two mugs, setting them on the counter. “They had a few kids. Two of them of them moved to Egypt. One stayed and became another Watford headmaster—you’ve seen his picture in the Weeping Tower, Balthazar. My grandmother was his second wife. She moved here from Sicily. Adolorata, another staggering witch. I can sort of remember her, she died the year before my mother was killed—”

  I stopped myself. This was probably too much information. Literally no one is as interested in Pitch family history as I am.

  But when I looked back at Simon, he was rapt.

  “Anyway,” I said, winding it up. “Dev’s line goes off in the other direction. They’re mostly from Cornwall, I think. My ancestors married for power. His were all about dosh.” I took another bite of my toast.

  Simon looked like I’d just given him huge news. “Baz … I didn’t know you were Italian.”

  I laughed. “I was so busy trying to hide my vampirism from you that I didn’t disclose my family tree. I’m only giving you the Pitch highlights, by the by, but that’s because the Grimms don’t really have highlights. They’re all middling farmers, a few of them from Scotland. My mother, it seems, married for love.”

  The kettle clicked off, and Simon hopped up to fetch it. “So you have cousins all over?”

  “Indeed,” I said, getting the milk. “The Grimm-Pitch network is vast. Though I seem to be a dead end.”

  Simon frowned over our mugs as he poured. “I don’t have any cousins.”

  “Well, you might … yeah?” I sat back down at the table, watching him poke at one of the tea bags. “You could always do that thing the Normals do. Genetic testing.” Simon might find cousins. He might find parents.

  He pushed out his chin, rueful. “Best not. Who knows what they’d see in my DNA … Dragon parts, Humdrum holes.” He brought the mugs to the table and set one down in front of me. “Was Dev helpful? I always thought he was a ponce.”

  I pulled out my tea bag. “You thought that because he hung out with me.”

  Simon shrugged.

  “Well…” I reached for the sugar. “He was a ponce. And he was helpful. His grandmother’s entangled in a Greatest Mage scam on Facebook. And he’s heard of another rotter who’s out there performing miracles.”

  Simon looked personally offended. “Chosen One miracles?”

  “I gather.”

  “Is he, like, going off?”

  “Circe,” I say. I’m trying to stop saying “Crowley”—Bunce says he’s problematic. (Which seems obvious, but whatever.) Half the time, I forget. “I hope not. Maybe going off isn’t necessarily a Chosen One thing.”

  “Yeah.” Simon poked at his tea bag again. “Maybe that was just me.”

  “But Dev’s going to get some names for me, and I already have one name—my aunt told me about someone whose son may have run off with this circus. A friend of the family. We could go talk to her. I suppose it’s the closest thing we have to a lead at the moment.”

  “Yeah, may as well start somewhere. What’s her name?”

  “Lady Ruth Salisbury. She lives in Mayfair.”

  27

  SIMON

  Baz makes me borrow more of his clothes.

  “I don’t see why I have to be dressed up to talk to an old lady.”

  “We’re strangers showing up at her door out of nowhere. We need to look presentable.”

  For Baz, that means a full-on suit. Three pieces! It’s the colour of toffee sauce, and he’s got a bright blue shirt on underneath—blue like butterfly wings and unbuttoned a bit low for visiting an elderly person. (If you want to know the truth, he looks good enough to eat. He’s looked good all day. You should see Baz when he first wakes up: His eyes always look sleepy, but when he’s actually sleepy, he looks like somebody trying to seduce you in a silent movie. One of those black-and-white fellows with the heavy eyeliner. I feel like I’m following him around with my heart in my hand. It’s even more terrifying than it used to be—because before, I was telling myself that this thing with him would either fall apart before it killed me, or that I’d die before I had to deal with it. But now … What now?)

  I get off relatively easy—dark jeans and a pale-green knit, button-down shirt. Baz casts a spell to tailor it around my wings and another to magickally shorten the sleeves. “So you won’t be too hot in this coat,” he says, holding up a grey mackintosh.

  I groan.

  “Or,” he says, “you could let me spell your wings away?”

  I take the coat. And his jeans, the shirt, the whole thing. Though I refuse a giant watch—and shake him off when he tries to arrange my hair. “For fuck’s sake.”

  When we get to Lady Salisbury’s neighbourhood, I’m half glad Baz made me dress up. I should have guessed from the “Lady” that it would be posh. We stop at a red-brick terraced house with big bay windows that sort of push out from the front, almost like turrets. The windows are framed in white plaster and decorated with unicorns and mermaids and little otters with wings. (Are wealthy magicians never subtle?)

  Baz uses the door knocker. It’s shaped like a smiling cyclops.

  “Maybe we should have called first,” I say.

  “Then she could have said no.”

  “She could still say no…”

  “Who says no to the Chosen One?”

  I start to argue some more, but there’s someone in the window, pulling back the curtain. Baz steps neatly behind me. After a second, the door opens an inch, and a woman peeks out. “Is that … It is!” she says, opening the door. “Simon Snow, on my very own doorstep!”

  It’s an older woman, I’m not sure how old—I don’t know many old people. She’s heavyset with lots of blondish hair and a giant purple sweater. She’s looking at me the way no one has looked at me for a while, like I’m all that. Her eyes are wide, and her face is awed. “You are him, aren’t you?”

  Baz pokes me in the back.

  “Y-yes,” I say. “I am.”

  The woman stands tall. She’s only a couple inches shorter than me. Her hands are in fists at her side. “Is it true you killed the Mage?”

  “I—” I haven’t had to talk about this since the inquiry. And I’ve never really had to face anyone outside of the Coven. I mean, of course everyone in the World of Mages knows I killed the Mage. Of course they’d be angry. The woman’s jaw is clenched. Her lips are pursed. I look down at my feet. “Yes. I did.”

  And then, suddenly—she’s hugging me.

  Like, really tight.

  “Thank you,” she says, and it sounds like she might be crying. She’s sort of rocking me back and forth. “You’re a hero, Simon Snow. Thank you.”

  I’m too stunned to hug her back. Should I hug her back? I’m glad she’s not angry, but I’m a little worried that she’s so happy. Did all rich people hate the Mage as much as Baz’s family did?

  She’s pulling away now, wiping her eyes. She sniffs. “Come in, come in. Get out of the—Well, it’s lovely out, isn’t it? Come in, anyway. Your friend, too. And tell me what brings Simon Snow to my door on a Tuesday afternoon?”

  Baz has stepped up beside me, smooth as silk. “Lady Salisbury?”

  “Yes?” she says, looking a bit concerned again.

  “My name is Basilton Grimm-Pitch.”

  “Grimm-Pitch … Natasha’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh!” She holds her hand over her heart. “Well, you’re a grown man, aren’t you! When did that happen? And so handsome! Snakes alive. Natasha Pitch’s son.” She takes his arm and squeezes it. “I knew your mother. She was a dear friend once. And your grandmother! Basilton Grimm-Pitch. Tyrannus, isn’t it? As I live and breathe. You know, your aunt was just here—Oh.” Her face falls. She clutches both hands to her chest. “You’re here about my Jamie, aren’t you? Do you have news
of him?”

  “No,” Baz says. “No, we don’t have any news, I’m sorry. But we were hoping you could tell us more about his disappearance.”

  Lady Salisbury looks confused, maybe a little wary. “You were?”

  “My stepmother is missing, too.”

  BAZ

  Lady Salisbury shows us into her drawing room—a big, airy room, crowded with antique coffee tables and richly upholstered furniture. “Here,” she says, still sounding rattled. “Sit. I’ll get some cake. Would you like some cake? It’s homemade.”

  “Oh, no, we couldn’t,” I say.

  “Sure, we could,” Simon says.

  She laughs. “Good answer. I was going to make you have some anyway. Should we have tea? I prefer milk with cake, myself.”

  “Milk is great,” Simon says.

  “You boys sit. I’ll be right back.”

  We look around the room. There are plenty of seats to choose from. I sit down in an antique bergère chair, embroidered with peacocks. It wobbles, but holds. Simon sits on a rose-coloured sofa and sinks to the springs. I stifle a laugh. His blue eyes meet mine, and it’s good. For just a moment. It’s unexpectedly good. He looks too handsome in my clothes. He looks too handsome in his own terrible clothes; he’s bloody unbearable in mine.

  Lady Salisbury is back soon enough with a tray. She still seems tearful. “I hope you like chocolate,” she says, serving Simon a mountainous wedge of cake.

  “Who doesn’t like chocolate,” he replies, earning another smile.

  She hands me a slightly smaller slice—fair enough, I didn’t kill the Mage—and sits down next to Simon to pour the milk.

  Lady Salisbury is a large woman. Tall and sturdy looking, even at her age. She must be about 70—a full generation older than my mother. I wonder how they became friends … She’s wearing a long mauve sweater, loose grey yoga pants, and patent leather Dansko clogs. Her hair is a yellow grey, and she wears it in a large, loose bun, with bluntly cut bangs that make her look like a Scandinavian tourist. I don’t know if she’s a “Lady” in the British sense or the magickal sense—I suppose she could be both. I think her husband may have been active in the magickal community before he died … Perhaps that’s how she knew my mum.