Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kindlepitch) wrote2020-06-14 04:53 pm
kindlepitch) wrote2020-06-14 04:53 pm
Info from Fangirl
The Simon Snow Series
From Encyclowikia, the people’s encyclopedia
This article is about the children’s book series. For other uses, see Simon Snow (disambiguation).
Simon Snow is a series of seven fantasy books written by English philologist Gemma T. Leslie. The books tell the story of Simon Snow, an 11-year-old orphan from Lancashire who is recruited to attend the Watford School of Magicks to become a magician. As he grows older, Simon joins a group of magicians—the Mages—who are fighting the Insidious Humdrum, an evil being trying to rid the world of magic.
Since the publication of Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir in 2001, the books have been translated into 53 languages and, as of August 2011, have sold more than 380 million copies.
Leslie has been criticized for the violence in the series and for creating a hero who is sometimes selfish and bad tempered. An exorcism scene in the fourth book, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, triggered boycotts among American Christian groups in 2008. But the books are widely considered modern classics, and in 2010, Time magazine called Simon “the greatest children’s literary character since Huckleberry Finn.”
An eighth book, the last in the series, is set to be released May 1, 2012.
Publishing history
Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, 2001
Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, 2003
Simon Snow and the Third Gate, 2004
Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, 2007
Simon Snow and the Five Blades, 2008
Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, 2009
Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, 2010
Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, scheduled to be released May 1, 2012
---
There was a boy in Simon’s room.
A boy with slick, black hair and cold, grey eyes. He was spinning around, holding a cat high in the air while a girl jumped and clutched at it. “Give it back,” the girl said. “You’ll hurt him.”
The boy laughed and held the cat higher—then noticed Simon standing in the doorway and stopped, his face sharpening.
“Hullo,” the dark-haired boy said, letting the cat drop to the floor. It landed on all four feet and ran from the room. The girl ran after it.
The boy ignored them, tugging his school jacket neatly into place and smiling with the left side of his mouth. “I know you. You’re Simon Snow … the Mage’s Heir.” He held out his hand smugly. “I’m Tyrannus Basilton Pitch. But you can call me Baz—we’re going to be roommates.”
Simon scowled and ignored the boy’s pale hand. “What did you think you were doing with her cat?”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He was so focused—and frustrated—he didn’t even see the girl with the red hair sit down at his table. She had pigtails and old-fashioned pointy spectacles, the kind you’d wear to a fancy dress party if you were going as a witch.
“You’re going to tire yourself out,” the girl said.
“I’m just trying to do this right,” Simon grunted, tapping the two-pence coin again with his wand and furrowing his brow painfully. Nothing happened.
“Here,” she said, crisply waving her hand over the coin.
She didn’t have a wand, but she wore a large purple ring. There was yarn wound round it to keep it on her finger. “Fly away home.”
With a shiver, the coin grew six legs and a thorax and started to scuttle away. The girl swept it gently off the desk into a jar.
“How did you do that?” Simon asked. She was a first year, too, just like him; he could tell by the green shield on the front of her sweater.
“You don’t do magic,” she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. “You are magic.”
Simon stared at the 2p ladybird.
“I’m Penelope Bunce,” the girl said, holding out her hand.
“I’m Simon Snow,” he said, taking it.
“I know,” Penelope said, and smiled.
—from chapter 8, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But, sir,” Simon pushed, “do I have to be his roommate every year, every year until we leave Watford?”
The Mage smiled indulgently and ruffled Simon’s caramel brown hair. “Being matched with your roommate is a sacred tradition at Watford.” His voice was gentle but firm. “The Crucible cast you together. You’re to watch out for each other, to know each other as well as brothers.”
“Yeah, but, sir…” Simon shuffled in his chair. “The Crucible must have made a mistake. My roommate’s a complete git. He might even be evil. Last week, someone spelled my laptop closed, and I know it was him. He practically cackled.”
The Mage gave his beard a few solemn strokes. It was short and pointed and just covered his chin.
“The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You’re meant to watch out for him.”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Words are very powerful,” Miss Possibelf said, stepping lightly between the rows of desks.
“And they take on more power the more that they’re spoken.…
“The more that they’re said and read and written, in specific, consistent combinations.”
She stopped in front of Simon’s desk and tapped it with a short, jeweled staff. “Up, up and away,” she said clearly.
Simon watched the floor move away from his feet. He grabbed at the edges of his desk, knocking over a pile of books and loose papers. Across the room, Basilton laughed.
Miss Possibelf nudged Simon’s trainer with her staff—“Hold your horses”—and his desk hovered three feet in the air.
“The key to casting a spell,” she said, “is tapping into that power. Not just saying the words, but summoning their meaning.…
“Now,” she said, “open your Magic Words books to page four. And Settle down there, Simon. Please.”
—from chapter 5, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha Wellbelove was the loveliest witch at Watford. Everyone knew it—every boy, every girl, all the teachers … The bats in the belfry, the snakes in the cellars …
Agatha herself knew it. Which you might think would detract from her charm and her beauty. But Agatha, at fourteen, never used this knowledge to harm or hold over others.
She knew she was lovely, and she shared it like a gift. Every smile from Agatha was like waking up to a perfect sunny day. Agatha knew it. And she smiled at everyone who crossed her path, as if it were the most generous thing she could offer.
—from chapter 15, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 Gemma T. Leslie
---
Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair …
Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.
“He’s plotting,” Simon would say.
“He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.
“He’s looming,” Simon would say.
“He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”
“No taller than me.”
“Mmm … a bit.”
It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.
Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Maybe I’m not supposed to have a wand. Maybe I’m supposed to have a ring like you. Or a … a wrist thingy like mangy old Elspeth.”
“Oh, Simon.” Penelope frowned. “You shouldn’t call her that. She can’t help her fur—her father was the Witch King of Canus.”
“No, I know, I just…”
“It’s easier for the rest of us,” she said, soothing. “Magicians’ instruments stay in families. They’re passed from generation to generation.”
“Right,” he said, “just like magic. It doesn’t make sense, Penelope—my parents must have been magicians.”
He’d tried to talk to her about this before, and that time it had made her look just as sad.
“Simon … they couldn’t have been. Magicians would never abandon their own child. Never. Magic is too precious.”
Simon looked away from her and flicked his wand again. It felt like something dead in his hands.
“I think Elspeth’s fur is pretty,” Penelope said. “She looks soft.”
He shoved the wand into his pocket and stood up. “You just want a puppy.”
—from chapter 21, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“I’m sorry, Penelope.”
“Don’t waste my time with sorries, Simon. If we stop to apologize and forgive each other every time we step on each other’s toes, we’ll never have time to be friends.”
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But I don’t understand,” Simon stammered, “what is the Insidious Humdrum? Is he a man?”
“Perhaps.” The Mage wiped the grit from his eyes and swept his wand out in front of them. “Olly olly oxen free,” he whispered. Simon braced himself, but nothing happened.
“Perhaps he’s a man,” the Mage said, recovering his wry smile. “Perhaps he’s something else, something less, I should think.”
“Is he a magician? Like us?”
“No,” the Mage said severely. “Of that we can be certain. He—if indeed he is a he—is the enemy of magic. He destroys magic; some think he eats it. He wipes the world clean of magic, wherever he can.…
“You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep it from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long
past the edge of exhaustion.
“But fight him we must. You were recruited to Watford because we believe the Humdrum has taken a special interest in you. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum wasn’t a man at all, or a monster. It was a boy.
Simon stepped closer, perhaps foolishly, wanting to see its face.… He felt the Humdrum’s power whipping around him like dry air, like hot sand, an aching fatigue in the very marrow of Simon’s bones.
The Humdrum—the boy—wore faded denims and a grotty T-shirt, and it probably took Simon far too long to recognize the child as himself. His years-ago self.
“Stop it,” Simon shouted. “Show yourself, you coward. Show yourself!”
The boy just laughed.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re the most powerful magician in a hundred ages.” The Humdrum’s face, Simon’s own boyhood face, looked dull and tired. Nothing glinted in its blue eyes.… “Do you think that much power comes without sacrifice? Did you think you could become you without leaving something, without leaving me, behind?”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Fried tomatoes at breakfast. Every lump in his bed. Being able to do magic without worrying whether anyone was watching. Agatha, of course. And Penelope. Getting to see the Mage—not often, but still. Simon’s uniform. His school tie. The football pitch, even when it was muddy. Fencing. Raisin scones every Sunday with real clotted cream … What didn’t Simon miss about Watford?
—from chapter 1, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re finally going on a date with Agatha?” Penelope’s voice was soft, despite the surprise in her face. Neither of them wanted Sir Bleakly to hear—he was prone to giving ridiculous detentions; they could end up dusting the catacombs for hours or proofreading confiscated love notes.
“After dinner,” Simon whispered back. “We’re going to look for the sixth hare in the Veiled Forest.”
“Does Agatha know it’s a date? Because that just sounds like ‘Another Tuesday Night with Simon.’”
“I think so.” Simon tried not to turn and frown at Penelope, even though he wanted to.
“She said she’d wear her new dress.…”
“Another Tuesday Night with Agatha,” Penelope said.
“You don’t think she likes me?”
“Oh, Simon, I never said that. She’d have to be an idiot not to like you.”
Simon grinned.
“So I guess what I’m saying,” Penelope said, going back to her homework, “is we’ll just have to see.”
—from chapter 17, Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, copyright © 2009 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“That does it,” Simon said, charging forward, climbing right over the long dinner table.
Penelope grabbed the tail of his cape, and he nearly landed face-first on a bench. He recovered quickly—“Let go, Penny”—and ran hard at Basil, both fists raised and ready.
Basil didn’t move. “Good fences make good neighbors,” he whispered, just barely tipping his wand.
Simon’s fist slammed into a solid barrier just inches from the other boy’s unflinching jaw.
He pulled his hand back, yelping, still stumbling against the spell.
This made Dev and Niall and all the rest of Basil’s cronies cackle like drunk hyenas. But Basil himself stayed still. When he spoke, it was so softly, only Simon could hear him. “Is that how you’re going to do it, Snow? Is that how you’re going to best your Humdrum?” He dropped the spell with a twitch of his wand, just as Simon regained his balance. “Pathetic,” Basil said, and walked away.
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum bounced a small red ball in its hand.
Simon had carried that ball everywhere, for at least a year. He’d lost it when he came to Watford—he hadn’t needed it anymore.
“You’re lying,” Simon said. “You’re not me. You’re no part of me.”
“I’m what’s left of you,” the Humdrum said. And Simon would swear his own voice was never so high and so sweet.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He’d have to tell the Mage what he saw.
I’ve finally seen the Humdrum, sir. I know what we’re fighting—me.
“What’s left of you,” the monster had said.
What is left of me? Simon wondered. A ghost? A hole? An echo?
An angry little boy with nervous hands?
—from chapter 24, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha wrung her fingers in her cape miserably. (But still prettily. Even Agatha’s tear-stained face was a thing of beauty.) Simon wanted to tell her it was all right, to forget the whole scene with Baz in the forest.… Agatha standing in the moonlight, holding both of Baz’s pale
hands in her own …
“Just tell me,” Simon said, his voice shaking.
“I don’t know what to say,” she wept. “There’s you. And you’re good. And you’re right. And then there’s him.… And he’s different.”
“He’s a monster.” Simon clenched his square jaw.
Agatha just nodded. “Perhaps.”
—from chapter 18, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Do you know what the most disappointing thing is about being a magician?”
Penelope shook her head and rolled her eyes, a combination she’d gotten terribly good at over the years. “Don’t be silly, Simon. There’s nothing disappointing about magic.”
“There is,” he argued, only partly just to tease her. “I always figured we’d learn a way to fly by now.”
“Oh, pish,” Penelope said. “Anyone can fly. Anyone with a friend.”
She held her ringed hand out to him and grinned—“Up, up and away!”
Simon felt the steps drift away from him and laughed his way through a slow somersault.
When he was upright again, he leveled his wand at Penelope.
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Morgan’s grace, Simon—slow down.” Penelope held an arm out in front of his chest and glanced around the weirdly lit courtyard. “There’s more than one way through a flaming gate.”
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Simon stepped toward the Humdrum. He’d never been this close. The heat and the pull were almost too much for him; he felt like the Humdrum would suck his heart through his chest, his thoughts from his head.
“I created you with my hunger,” Simon said. “With my need for magic.”
“With your capacity,” it said.
Simon shrugged, a Herculean effort in the presence and pressure of the Humdrum.
Simon had spent his whole life, well, the last eight years of it, trying to become more powerful, trying to live up to his destiny—trying to become the sort of magician, maybe the only magician, who could defeat the Insidious Humdrum.
And all he’d ever done was stoke the Humdrum’s need.
Simon took the last step forward.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
—from chapter 27, Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, copyright © 2012 by Gemma T. Leslie
From Encyclowikia, the people’s encyclopedia
This article is about the children’s book series. For other uses, see Simon Snow (disambiguation).
Simon Snow is a series of seven fantasy books written by English philologist Gemma T. Leslie. The books tell the story of Simon Snow, an 11-year-old orphan from Lancashire who is recruited to attend the Watford School of Magicks to become a magician. As he grows older, Simon joins a group of magicians—the Mages—who are fighting the Insidious Humdrum, an evil being trying to rid the world of magic.
Since the publication of Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir in 2001, the books have been translated into 53 languages and, as of August 2011, have sold more than 380 million copies.
Leslie has been criticized for the violence in the series and for creating a hero who is sometimes selfish and bad tempered. An exorcism scene in the fourth book, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, triggered boycotts among American Christian groups in 2008. But the books are widely considered modern classics, and in 2010, Time magazine called Simon “the greatest children’s literary character since Huckleberry Finn.”
An eighth book, the last in the series, is set to be released May 1, 2012.
Publishing history
Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, 2001
Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, 2003
Simon Snow and the Third Gate, 2004
Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, 2007
Simon Snow and the Five Blades, 2008
Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, 2009
Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, 2010
Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, scheduled to be released May 1, 2012
---
There was a boy in Simon’s room.
A boy with slick, black hair and cold, grey eyes. He was spinning around, holding a cat high in the air while a girl jumped and clutched at it. “Give it back,” the girl said. “You’ll hurt him.”
The boy laughed and held the cat higher—then noticed Simon standing in the doorway and stopped, his face sharpening.
“Hullo,” the dark-haired boy said, letting the cat drop to the floor. It landed on all four feet and ran from the room. The girl ran after it.
The boy ignored them, tugging his school jacket neatly into place and smiling with the left side of his mouth. “I know you. You’re Simon Snow … the Mage’s Heir.” He held out his hand smugly. “I’m Tyrannus Basilton Pitch. But you can call me Baz—we’re going to be roommates.”
Simon scowled and ignored the boy’s pale hand. “What did you think you were doing with her cat?”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He was so focused—and frustrated—he didn’t even see the girl with the red hair sit down at his table. She had pigtails and old-fashioned pointy spectacles, the kind you’d wear to a fancy dress party if you were going as a witch.
“You’re going to tire yourself out,” the girl said.
“I’m just trying to do this right,” Simon grunted, tapping the two-pence coin again with his wand and furrowing his brow painfully. Nothing happened.
“Here,” she said, crisply waving her hand over the coin.
She didn’t have a wand, but she wore a large purple ring. There was yarn wound round it to keep it on her finger. “Fly away home.”
With a shiver, the coin grew six legs and a thorax and started to scuttle away. The girl swept it gently off the desk into a jar.
“How did you do that?” Simon asked. She was a first year, too, just like him; he could tell by the green shield on the front of her sweater.
“You don’t do magic,” she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. “You are magic.”
Simon stared at the 2p ladybird.
“I’m Penelope Bunce,” the girl said, holding out her hand.
“I’m Simon Snow,” he said, taking it.
“I know,” Penelope said, and smiled.
—from chapter 8, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But, sir,” Simon pushed, “do I have to be his roommate every year, every year until we leave Watford?”
The Mage smiled indulgently and ruffled Simon’s caramel brown hair. “Being matched with your roommate is a sacred tradition at Watford.” His voice was gentle but firm. “The Crucible cast you together. You’re to watch out for each other, to know each other as well as brothers.”
“Yeah, but, sir…” Simon shuffled in his chair. “The Crucible must have made a mistake. My roommate’s a complete git. He might even be evil. Last week, someone spelled my laptop closed, and I know it was him. He practically cackled.”
The Mage gave his beard a few solemn strokes. It was short and pointed and just covered his chin.
“The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You’re meant to watch out for him.”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Words are very powerful,” Miss Possibelf said, stepping lightly between the rows of desks.
“And they take on more power the more that they’re spoken.…
“The more that they’re said and read and written, in specific, consistent combinations.”
She stopped in front of Simon’s desk and tapped it with a short, jeweled staff. “Up, up and away,” she said clearly.
Simon watched the floor move away from his feet. He grabbed at the edges of his desk, knocking over a pile of books and loose papers. Across the room, Basilton laughed.
Miss Possibelf nudged Simon’s trainer with her staff—“Hold your horses”—and his desk hovered three feet in the air.
“The key to casting a spell,” she said, “is tapping into that power. Not just saying the words, but summoning their meaning.…
“Now,” she said, “open your Magic Words books to page four. And Settle down there, Simon. Please.”
—from chapter 5, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha Wellbelove was the loveliest witch at Watford. Everyone knew it—every boy, every girl, all the teachers … The bats in the belfry, the snakes in the cellars …
Agatha herself knew it. Which you might think would detract from her charm and her beauty. But Agatha, at fourteen, never used this knowledge to harm or hold over others.
She knew she was lovely, and she shared it like a gift. Every smile from Agatha was like waking up to a perfect sunny day. Agatha knew it. And she smiled at everyone who crossed her path, as if it were the most generous thing she could offer.
—from chapter 15, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 Gemma T. Leslie
---
Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair …
Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.
“He’s plotting,” Simon would say.
“He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.
“He’s looming,” Simon would say.
“He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”
“No taller than me.”
“Mmm … a bit.”
It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.
Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Maybe I’m not supposed to have a wand. Maybe I’m supposed to have a ring like you. Or a … a wrist thingy like mangy old Elspeth.”
“Oh, Simon.” Penelope frowned. “You shouldn’t call her that. She can’t help her fur—her father was the Witch King of Canus.”
“No, I know, I just…”
“It’s easier for the rest of us,” she said, soothing. “Magicians’ instruments stay in families. They’re passed from generation to generation.”
“Right,” he said, “just like magic. It doesn’t make sense, Penelope—my parents must have been magicians.”
He’d tried to talk to her about this before, and that time it had made her look just as sad.
“Simon … they couldn’t have been. Magicians would never abandon their own child. Never. Magic is too precious.”
Simon looked away from her and flicked his wand again. It felt like something dead in his hands.
“I think Elspeth’s fur is pretty,” Penelope said. “She looks soft.”
He shoved the wand into his pocket and stood up. “You just want a puppy.”
—from chapter 21, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“I’m sorry, Penelope.”
“Don’t waste my time with sorries, Simon. If we stop to apologize and forgive each other every time we step on each other’s toes, we’ll never have time to be friends.”
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But I don’t understand,” Simon stammered, “what is the Insidious Humdrum? Is he a man?”
“Perhaps.” The Mage wiped the grit from his eyes and swept his wand out in front of them. “Olly olly oxen free,” he whispered. Simon braced himself, but nothing happened.
“Perhaps he’s a man,” the Mage said, recovering his wry smile. “Perhaps he’s something else, something less, I should think.”
“Is he a magician? Like us?”
“No,” the Mage said severely. “Of that we can be certain. He—if indeed he is a he—is the enemy of magic. He destroys magic; some think he eats it. He wipes the world clean of magic, wherever he can.…
“You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep it from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long
past the edge of exhaustion.
“But fight him we must. You were recruited to Watford because we believe the Humdrum has taken a special interest in you. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum wasn’t a man at all, or a monster. It was a boy.
Simon stepped closer, perhaps foolishly, wanting to see its face.… He felt the Humdrum’s power whipping around him like dry air, like hot sand, an aching fatigue in the very marrow of Simon’s bones.
The Humdrum—the boy—wore faded denims and a grotty T-shirt, and it probably took Simon far too long to recognize the child as himself. His years-ago self.
“Stop it,” Simon shouted. “Show yourself, you coward. Show yourself!”
The boy just laughed.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re the most powerful magician in a hundred ages.” The Humdrum’s face, Simon’s own boyhood face, looked dull and tired. Nothing glinted in its blue eyes.… “Do you think that much power comes without sacrifice? Did you think you could become you without leaving something, without leaving me, behind?”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Fried tomatoes at breakfast. Every lump in his bed. Being able to do magic without worrying whether anyone was watching. Agatha, of course. And Penelope. Getting to see the Mage—not often, but still. Simon’s uniform. His school tie. The football pitch, even when it was muddy. Fencing. Raisin scones every Sunday with real clotted cream … What didn’t Simon miss about Watford?
—from chapter 1, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re finally going on a date with Agatha?” Penelope’s voice was soft, despite the surprise in her face. Neither of them wanted Sir Bleakly to hear—he was prone to giving ridiculous detentions; they could end up dusting the catacombs for hours or proofreading confiscated love notes.
“After dinner,” Simon whispered back. “We’re going to look for the sixth hare in the Veiled Forest.”
“Does Agatha know it’s a date? Because that just sounds like ‘Another Tuesday Night with Simon.’”
“I think so.” Simon tried not to turn and frown at Penelope, even though he wanted to.
“She said she’d wear her new dress.…”
“Another Tuesday Night with Agatha,” Penelope said.
“You don’t think she likes me?”
“Oh, Simon, I never said that. She’d have to be an idiot not to like you.”
Simon grinned.
“So I guess what I’m saying,” Penelope said, going back to her homework, “is we’ll just have to see.”
—from chapter 17, Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, copyright © 2009 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“That does it,” Simon said, charging forward, climbing right over the long dinner table.
Penelope grabbed the tail of his cape, and he nearly landed face-first on a bench. He recovered quickly—“Let go, Penny”—and ran hard at Basil, both fists raised and ready.
Basil didn’t move. “Good fences make good neighbors,” he whispered, just barely tipping his wand.
Simon’s fist slammed into a solid barrier just inches from the other boy’s unflinching jaw.
He pulled his hand back, yelping, still stumbling against the spell.
This made Dev and Niall and all the rest of Basil’s cronies cackle like drunk hyenas. But Basil himself stayed still. When he spoke, it was so softly, only Simon could hear him. “Is that how you’re going to do it, Snow? Is that how you’re going to best your Humdrum?” He dropped the spell with a twitch of his wand, just as Simon regained his balance. “Pathetic,” Basil said, and walked away.
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum bounced a small red ball in its hand.
Simon had carried that ball everywhere, for at least a year. He’d lost it when he came to Watford—he hadn’t needed it anymore.
“You’re lying,” Simon said. “You’re not me. You’re no part of me.”
“I’m what’s left of you,” the Humdrum said. And Simon would swear his own voice was never so high and so sweet.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He’d have to tell the Mage what he saw.
I’ve finally seen the Humdrum, sir. I know what we’re fighting—me.
“What’s left of you,” the monster had said.
What is left of me? Simon wondered. A ghost? A hole? An echo?
An angry little boy with nervous hands?
—from chapter 24, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha wrung her fingers in her cape miserably. (But still prettily. Even Agatha’s tear-stained face was a thing of beauty.) Simon wanted to tell her it was all right, to forget the whole scene with Baz in the forest.… Agatha standing in the moonlight, holding both of Baz’s pale
hands in her own …
“Just tell me,” Simon said, his voice shaking.
“I don’t know what to say,” she wept. “There’s you. And you’re good. And you’re right. And then there’s him.… And he’s different.”
“He’s a monster.” Simon clenched his square jaw.
Agatha just nodded. “Perhaps.”
—from chapter 18, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Do you know what the most disappointing thing is about being a magician?”
Penelope shook her head and rolled her eyes, a combination she’d gotten terribly good at over the years. “Don’t be silly, Simon. There’s nothing disappointing about magic.”
“There is,” he argued, only partly just to tease her. “I always figured we’d learn a way to fly by now.”
“Oh, pish,” Penelope said. “Anyone can fly. Anyone with a friend.”
She held her ringed hand out to him and grinned—“Up, up and away!”
Simon felt the steps drift away from him and laughed his way through a slow somersault.
When he was upright again, he leveled his wand at Penelope.
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Morgan’s grace, Simon—slow down.” Penelope held an arm out in front of his chest and glanced around the weirdly lit courtyard. “There’s more than one way through a flaming gate.”
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Simon stepped toward the Humdrum. He’d never been this close. The heat and the pull were almost too much for him; he felt like the Humdrum would suck his heart through his chest, his thoughts from his head.
“I created you with my hunger,” Simon said. “With my need for magic.”
“With your capacity,” it said.
Simon shrugged, a Herculean effort in the presence and pressure of the Humdrum.
Simon had spent his whole life, well, the last eight years of it, trying to become more powerful, trying to live up to his destiny—trying to become the sort of magician, maybe the only magician, who could defeat the Insidious Humdrum.
And all he’d ever done was stoke the Humdrum’s need.
Simon took the last step forward.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
—from chapter 27, Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, copyright © 2012 by Gemma T. Leslie
Fanfiction
Re: Fanfiction
Simon ignored him. He was thinking about the clues he’d found so far, trying to see a
pattern … the rabbit-shaped stone in the ritual tower, the stained glass hare in the cathedral,
the sigil on the drawbridge—
“Snow!” Baz shouted. A spell book sailed past Simon’s nose.
“What are you thinking?” Simon asked, genuinely surprised. Flying books and curses
were fair game in the hallways and classrooms and, well, everywhere else. But if Baz tried to
hurt him inside their room—“The Roommate’s Anathema,” Simon said. “You’ll be
expelled.”
“Which is why I missed. I know the rules,” Baz muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Did you
know, Snow, that if your roommate dies during the school year, they give you top marks, just
out of sympathy?”
“That’s a myth,” Simon said.
“Lucky for you I’m already getting top marks.”
Simon stopped pacing to really look at his roommate. Normally he liked to pretend that
Baz wasn’t here. Normally, Baz wasn’t here. Unless he was spying or plotting, Baz hated to
be in their room. He said it smelled like good intentions.
But Baz had hardly left the room in the last two weeks. Simon hadn’t seen him in the caf
or at football, he’d seemed drawn and distracted in class, and his school shirts—usually
pressed and bright white—were looking as manky as Simon’s.
“Is … something wrong?” Simon asked, then couldn’t believe he’d asked it. It’s not like
he really cared. If Baz said yes, Simon would likely say “Good!” Still, it seemed cruel not to
ask. Baz may have been the most despicable human being Simon had ever met … but he was
still a human being.
“I’m not the one pacing the room like a hyperactive madman,” Baz mumbled, his elbows
on his desk, his head resting in his hands.
“You seem … down or something.”
“Yes, I’m down. I’m down, Snow.” Baz raised his head and spun his chair toward Simon.
He really did look terrible. His eyes were sunken and shot with blood. “I’ve spent the last six
years living with the most self-centered, insufferable prat ever to carry a wand. And now,
instead of celebrating Christmas Eve with my beloved family, drinking mulled cider and
eating toasted cheese—instead of warming my hands at my ancestral hearth … I’m playing a
tortured extra in the bloody Simon Snow Show.”
Simon stared at him. “It’s Christmas Eve?”
“Yes…,” Baz groaned.
Simon walked around his bed glumly. He hadn’t realized it was Christmas Eve. He’d have
thought that Agatha would have called him. Or Penelope …
Maybe his friends were waiting for Simon to call them. He hadn’t even bought them gifts.
Lately, nothing had seemed as important as finding the white hares. Simon clenched his
square jaw. Nothing was as important; the whole school was in danger. There must be some
pattern he wasn’t seeing. He quickened his step. The stone in the tower, the stained glass
window, the sigil, the Mage’s book …
“I give up,” Baz whined. “I’m going to go drown myself in the moat. Tell my mother I
always knew she loved me best.”
Simon stopped pacing at Baz’s desk. “Do you know how to get down to the moat?”
“I’m not actually going to kill myself, Snow. Sorry to disappoint.”
“No. It’s just … you use the punts sometimes, don’t you?”
“Everyone does.”
“Not me,” Simon said. “I can’t swim.”
“Really…,” Baz hissed with a hint of his old vigor. “Well, you wouldn’t want to swim in
the moat anyway. The merwolves would get you.”
“Why don’t they bother the boats?”
“Silver punt poles and braces.”
“Will you take me out on one?” It was worth a try. The moat was one of the only places
left in the school that Simon hadn’t searched.
“You want to go punting with me?” Baz asked.
“Yes,” Simon said, tilting his chin up. “Will you do it?”
“Why?”
“I … want to see what it’s like. I’ve never done it—why does it matter? It’s Christmas
Eve, and you obviously don’t have anything better to do. Apparently even your parents can’t
stand to be around you.”
Baz stood suddenly, his grey eyes glinting dangerously in the shadow of his brow. “You
know nothing about my parents.”
Simon stepped back. Baz had a few inches on him (for now), and when Baz made an
effort, he could seem dangerous.
“I’m … look, I’m sorry,” Simon said. “Will you do it?”
“Fine,” Baz said. The flare of anger and energy had already faded. “Get your cloak.”
“Your madness must be catching,” Baz complained, untangling a rope.
The boats were stacked and tied off for the winter. Simon hadn’t been thinking about the
cold.… “Shut up,” he said anyway. “It’ll be fun.”
“That’s the point, Snow—since when do we have fun together? I don’t even know what
you do for fun. Teeth-whitening, I assume. Unnecessary dragon-slaying—”
“We’ve had fun before,” Simon argued. Because he didn’t know how to do anything with
Baz but argue—and because surely Baz was wrong. In six years, they must have shared some
fun. “There was that time in third year when we fought the chimaera together.”
“I was trying to lure you there,” Baz said. “I thought I’d get away from the thing before it
attacked.”
“Still, it was fun.”
“I was trying to kill you, Snow. And on that note, are you sure you want to do this? Alone
with me? On a boat? What if I shove you over? I could let the merwolves solve all my
problems.…”
Simon twisted his lips to one side. “I don’t think you will.”
“And whyever not?” Baz cast off the last of the ropes.
“If you really wanted to get rid of me,” Simon said thoughtfully, “you would have by now.
No one else has had as many opportunities. I don’t think you’d hurt me unless it played into
one of your grand plans.”
“This could be my grand plan,” Baz said, shoving one of the punts free with a grunt.
“No,” Simon said. “This one is mine.”
“Aleister Crowley, Snow, are you going to help me with this or what?”
They carried the boat down to the water, Baz swinging the punt pole lightly. Simon
noticed for the first time the silver plating at one end.
“Snowball fights,” he said, following Baz’s lead as they settled the boat in the water.
“What?”
“We’ve had lots of snowball fights. Those are fun. And food fights. That time I spelled
gravy up your nose…”
“And I put your wand in the microwave.”
“You destroyed the kitchen,” Simon laughed.
“I thought it would just swell up like a marshmallow Peep.”
“There was no reason to think that.…”
Baz shrugged. “Don’t put a wand in the microwave—lesson learned. Unless it’s Snow’s
wand. And Snow’s microwave.”
Simon was standing on the dock now, shivering. He really hadn’t considered how cold it
would be out here. Or the fact that he’d actually have to get into a boat. He glanced down at
the cold, black water of the moat and thought he saw something heavy and dark moving
below the surface.
“Come on.” Baz was already in the punt. He jabbed Simon’s shoulder with the pole. “This
is your grand plan, remember?”
Simon set his jaw and stepped in. The boat dipped beneath his weight, and he scrabbled
forward.
Baz laughed. “Maybe this will be fun,” he said, sinking the pole into the water and
shoving off. Baz looked perfectly comfortable up there—a long, dark shadow at the end of
the punt—as elegant and graceful as ever. He shifted into the moonlight, and Simon watched
him take a slow, deep breath. He looked more alive than he had in weeks.
But Simon hadn’t come out here to watch Baz—God knows he had plenty of other
opportunities. Simon turned, looking around the moat, taking in the carvings along the stone
walls and the tile at the water’s edge. “I should have brought a lantern…,” he said.
“Too bad you’re not a magician,” Baz replied, conjuring a ball of blue flame and tossing it
at Simon’s head. Simon ducked and caught it. Baz had always been better than he was at fire
magic. Show-off.
The tile glittered in the light. “Can we get closer to the wall?” Simon asked. Baz obliged
smoothly.
Up close, Simon could see there was a mosaic that stretched beneath the water. Wizard
battles. Unicorns. Symbols and glyphs. Who knew how far down it went.… Baz guided them
slowly along the wall, and Simon held the light up, gradually leaning over the side of the
boat to get a better look.
He forgot about Baz in a way he normally wouldn’t allow himself to do outside the
protection of their room. Simon didn’t even notice at first when the boat drifted to a stop.
When he looked back, Baz had stepped toward him in the punt. He was curled above Simon,
washed blue by his own conjured fire, his teeth bared and his face thick with decision and
disgust.…
Re: Fanfiction
Simon, washed blue by his own conjured fire, his teeth bared and his face thick with decision
and disgust.…
Baz held the pole just over Simon’s face, and before Simon could reach his wand or
whisper a spell, Baz was driving the pole forward over Simon’s shoulder. The boat shook,
and there was a gurgling howl—a frenzied splash—from the water. Baz raised the pole and
drove it down again, his face as cold and cruel as Simon had ever seen it. His wide lips were
shining, and he was practically growling.
Simon held himself still while the boat rocked. When Baz stepped back again, Simon
slowly sat up. “Did you kill it?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Baz said. “I should have. It should know better than to bother the boats—and you
should know better than to lean into the moat.”
“Why are there merwolves in the moat anyway?” Simon flushed. “This is a school.”
“A school run by a madman. Something I’ve been trying to explain to you for six years.”
“Don’t talk that way about the Mage.”
“Where’s your Mage now, Simon?” Baz asked softly, looking up at the old fortress. He
looked tired again, his face blue and shadowed in the moonlight, his eyes practically ringed
in black. “And what are you looking for anyway?” he asked waspishly, rubbing his eyes.
“Maybe if you told me, I could help you find it, and then we could both go inside and avoid
death by drowning, freezing, or torn jugular.”
“It’s…” Simon weighed the risks.
Usually when Simon was this far along on a quest, Baz had already sniffed out his
purpose and was setting a trap to foil him. But this time Simon hadn’t told anyone what he
was doing. Not even Agatha. Not even Penelope.
The anonymous letter had told Simon to seek out help; it said that the mission was too
dangerous to carry out on his own—and that’s exactly why Simon hadn’t wanted to involve
his friends.
But putting Baz at risk … Well, that wasn’t so distasteful.
“It’s dangerous,” Simon said sternly.
“Oh, I’m sure—danger is your middle name, etc. Simon Oliver Danger Snow.”
“How do you know my middle name?” Simon asked warily.
“Great Crimea, what part of ‘six years’ is lost on you? I know which shoe you put on first.
I know that your shampoo smells like apples. My mind is fairly bursting with worthless
Simon Snow trivia.… Don’t you know mine?”
“Your what?”
“My middle name,” Baz said.
Morgan’s tooth, he was stroppy. “It’s … it’s Basilton, right?”
“Quite right, you great thumping idiot.”
“That was a trick question.” Simon turned back to the mosaic.
“What are you looking for!” Baz demanded again, snarling through his teeth like an
animal.
This was something Simon had learned about Baz in six years: He could turn from
peevish to dangerous in half a heartbeat.
But Simon still hadn’t learned not to rise to the bait. “Rabbits!” he blurted out. “I’m
looking for rabbits.”
“Rabbits?” Baz looked confused, caught mid-snarl.
“Six white hares.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” Simon shouted. “I just am. I got a letter. There are six white hares on
school grounds, and they lead to something—”
“To what?”
“I. Don’t. Know. Something dangerous.”
“And I don’t suppose,” Baz said, leaning against the pole, resting his forehead on the
wood, “that you know who sent it.”
“No.”
“It could be a trap.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Simon wished he could stand and face Baz without
tipping the boat; he hated the way Baz was talking down to him.
“You really think that,” Baz scoffed, “don’t you? You really think that the only way to sort
out whether something is dangerous it to barrel right into it.”
“What else would you suggest?”
“You could ask your precious Mage, for starters. You could run it past your swotty friend.
Her brain is so enormous, it pushes her ears out like a monkey’s—maybe she could shed
some light.”
Simon yanked on Baz’s cloak and made him lose his balance. “Don’t talk about Penelope
like that.”
The punt wobbled, and Baz recovered his cool stance. “Have you talked to her? Have you
talked to anyone?”
“No,” Simon said.
“Six hares, is it?”
“Yes.”
“How many have you found so far?”
“Four.”
“So you’ve got the one in the cathedral and the one on the drawbridge—”
“You know about the hare on the drawbridge?” Simon sat back, startled. “That took me
three weeks to find.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Baz said. “You’re not very observant. Do you even know my
first name?” He started pushing them through the water again—pushing them toward the
dock, Simon hoped.
“It’s … it begins with a T.”
“It’s Tyrannus,” Baz said. “Honestly. So the cathedral, the drawbridge, and the nursery—”
Simon clambered to his feet, pulling himself up by Baz’s cloak. The punt bobbed. “The
nursery?”
Baz lowered an eyebrow. “Of course.”
This close, Simon could see the purple bruises under Baz’s eyes, the web of dark blood
vessels in his eyelids. “Show me.”
Baz shrugged—practically shuddered—away from Simon and out of the boat. Simon
jerked forward and grabbed a post on the dock to keep the boat from floating away.
“Come on,” Baz said.
It took longer to put the boat away than it had to get it out, and by the time it was tied up,
Simon’s hands were wet and freezing.
They hurried back into the fortress, side by side, both of them pushing their fists into their
pockets.
Baz was taller, but their strides matched exactly.
Simon wondered whether they’d ever walked like this before. In six years—six years of
always walking in the same direction—had they ever once fallen into step?
“Here,” Baz said, catching Simon’s arm and stopping at a closed door. Simon would have
walked right past this door. He must have a thousand times—it was on the main floor, near
the professors’ offices.
Baz tried the handle. It was locked. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and started
murmuring. The door came open suddenly, almost as if the knob were reaching for Baz’s
pale hand.
“How did you do that?” Simon asked.
Baz just sneered and strode forward. Simon followed. The room was dark, but he could
see that it was a place for children. There were toys and pillows, and train tracks that wound
around the room in every direction.
“What is this place?”
“It’s the nursery,” Baz said in a hushed voice. As if children might be sleeping in the room
right now.
“Why does Watford need a nursery?”
“It doesn’t,” Baz said. “Not anymore. It’s too dangerous here now for children. But this
used to be the place where the faculty brought their children while they worked. And other
magical children could come, too, if they wanted to get an early start on their development.”
“Did you come here?”
“Yes, from the time I was born.”
“Your parents must have thought you needed a lot of extra help.”
“My mother was the headmaster, you idiot.”
Simon turned to look at Baz, but he couldn’t quite see the other boy’s face in the dark. “I
didn’t know that.”
He could hear Baz roll his eyes. “Shocking.”
“But I’ve met your mother.”
“You’ve met my stepmother,” Baz said. He stood very still.
Simon matched his stillness. “The last headmaster,” he said, watching Baz’s profile.
“Before the Mage came, the one who was killed by vampires.”
Baz’s head fell forward like it was weighted with stones. “Come on. The hare is this way.”
The next room was wide and round. Cribs lined the walls on each side, with small, low
futons placed in a circle in the middle. At the far end was a huge fireplace—half as tall as the
high, curved ceiling. Baz whispered into his hand and sent a ball of fire blazing through the
grate. He whispered again, twisting his hand in the air, and the blue flames turned orange and
hot. The room came to life a bit around them.
Baz walked toward the fireplace, holding his hands up to the heat. Simon followed.
“There it is,” Baz said.
“Where?” Simon looked into the fire.
“Above you.”
Simon looked up, then turned back to face the room. On the ceiling above him was a
richly painted mural of the night sky. The sky was deep blue and dominated by the moon—a
white rabbit curled tightly in on itself, eyes pressed closed, fat and full and fast asleep.
Simon walked out into the middle of the room, his chin raised high. “The fifth hare…,” he
whispered. “The Moon Rabbit.”
“Now what?” Baz asked, just behind him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, now what?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said.
“Well, what did you do when you found the others?”
“Nothing. I just found them. The letter just said to find them.”
Baz brought his hands to his face and growled, dropping into a frustrated heap on the
floor. “Is this how you and your dream team normally operate? It’s no wonder it’s always so
easy to get in your way.”
“But not so easy to stop us, I’ve noticed.”
“Oh, shut up,” Baz said, his face hidden in his knees. “Just—no more. No more of your
drippy voice until you’ve got something worth saying. It’s like a drill you’re cranking
between my eyes.”
Simon sat down on the floor near Baz, near the fire, looking up at the sleeping rabbit.
When his neck started to cramp, he leaned back on the rug.
“I slept in a room like this,” Simon said. “In the orphanage. Nowhere near this nice. There
was no fireplace. No Moon Rabbit. But we all slept together like this, in one room.”
“Crowley, Snow, was that when you joined the cast of Annie?”
“There are still places like that. Orphanages. You wouldn’t know.”
“Quite right,” Baz said. “My mother didn’t choose to leave me.”
“If your family is so grand, why are you celebrating Christmas with me?”
“I wouldn’t call this a celebration.”
Simon focused again on the rabbit. Maybe there was something hidden in it. Maybe if he
squinted. Or if he looked at it in a mirror. Agatha had a magic mirror; it would tell you if
something was amiss. Like if you had spinach in your teeth or something hanging from your
nose. When Simon looked at it, it always asked him who he was kidding. “It’s just jealous,”
Agatha would say. “It thinks I give you too much attention.”
“It was my choice,” Baz said, breaking the silence. “I didn’t want to go home for
Christmas.” He leaned back onto the floor, an arm’s length from Simon. When Simon
glanced over, Baz was staring up at the painted stars.
“Were you here?” Simon asked, watching the light from the fire play across Baz’s strong
features. His nose was all wrong, Simon had always thought. It started too high, with a soft
bump between Baz’s eyebrows. If Simon looked at Baz’s face for too long, he always wanted
to reach up and tug his nose down. Not that that would work. It was just a feeling.
“Was I here when?” Baz asked.
“When they attacked your mother.”
“They attacked the nursery,” Baz said, as if he were explaining it to the moon. “Vampires
can’t have children, you know—they have to turn them. They thought if they turned magical
children, they’d be twice as dangerous.”
They would be, Simon thought, his stomach flopping fearfully. Vampires were already
nearly invulnerable; a vampire who could do magic …
“My mother came to protect us.”
“To protect you,” Simon said.
“She threw fire at the vampires,” Baz said. “They went up like flash paper.”
“How did she die?”
“There were just too many of them.” He was still talking to the sky, but his eyes were
closed.
“Did the vampires turn any of the children?”
“Yes.” It was like a puff of smoke escaping from Baz’s lips.
Simon didn’t know what to say. He thought it might be worse, in a way, to have had a
mother, a powerful, loving mother, and then to lose her—than to grow up like Simon had.
With nothing.
He knew what happened next in Baz’s story: After the headmaster, Baz’s mother, was
killed, the Mage took over. The school changed; it had to. They weren’t just students now.
They were warriors. Of course the nursery had closed. When you came to Watford, you left
your childhood behind.
All right for Simon. He had nothing to lose.
But for Baz …
He lost his mother, Simon thought, and he got me instead. In a hiccup of tenderness or
perhaps pity, Simon reached for Baz’s hand, fully expecting Baz to yank his arm from its
socket.
But Baz’s hand was cold and limp. When Simon looked closer, he realized that the other
boy was asleep.
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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.
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.
Re: Fanfiction
He picked up the sword and wiped it clean on his cloak. “You all right?”
Baz licked his bloody lips—like they were dry, Simon thought—and nodded his head.
“Good,” Simon said, and realized that he meant it.
Then a plume of flame shot up behind Baz, throwing his face into shadow.
He whipped around and backed away from the rabbit. Its paw was well and truly on fire
now, and the flames were already crawling up the beast’s chest.
“My wand…,” Baz said, looking around him on the floor. “Quick, cast an extinguishing
spell, Snow.”
“I … I don’t know any,” Simon said.
Baz reached for Simon’s wand hand, and wrapped his own bloody fingers around
Simon’s. “Make a wish!” he shouted, flicking the wand in a half circle.
The fire sputtered out, and the nursery fell dark.
Baz let go of Simon’s hand and started hunting around on the floor for his wand. Simon
stepped closer to the gruesome corpse. “Now what?” he asked it.
As if in answer, the rabbit began to shimmer, then fade—and then it was gone, leaving
nothing behind but the smell of pennies and burnt hair.
And something else …
Baz conjured one of his blue balls of light. “Ah,” he said, picking up his wand. “Filthy
bugger was lying on it.”
“Look,” Simon said, pointing to another shadow on the floor. “I think it’s a key.” He
stooped to pick it up—an old-fashioned key with fanged white rabbit’s teeth on its blade.
Baz stepped closer to look. He was dripping with blood; the smell of gore was
overwhelming.
“Do you think this is what I was meant to find?” Simon asked.
“Well,” Baz said thoughtfully, “keys do seem more useful than giant, murderous rabbits.
… How many more of these do you have to fight?”
“Five. But I can’t do it alone. This one would have murdered me if—”
“We have to clean up this mess,” Baz said, looking down at the stains on the thick-piled
rug.
“We’ll have to tell the Mage when he comes back,” Simon said. “There’s too much
damage here to handle ourselves.”
Baz was silent.
“Come on,” Simon said, “we can at least get ourselves cleaned up now.”
The boys’ showers were as empty as the rest of the school. They chose stalls at opposite
ends.…
Simon finished first and put on fresh jeans. When he looked back at Baz’s stall, the water
was still running pink at the other boy’s ankles.
Vampire, Simon thought, allowing himself to think the word for the first time, watching
the water run.
It should have filled him with hate and revulsion—the thought of Baz usually filled him
with those things. But all Simon could feel right now was relief. Baz had helped him find the
rabbit, helped him fight it, had kept both of them alive.
Simon was relieved. And grateful.
He shoved his singed and stained clothes into the trash, then went back to their room. It
was a long time before Baz joined him. When he did, he looked better than Simon had seen
him look all year. Baz’s cheeks and lips were flushed dark pink, and his grey eyes had come
out of their shadows.
“Hungry?” Simon asked.
Baz started laughing.
The sun hadn’t quite broken the horizon yet, and no one was about in the kitchens. Simon
found bread and cheese and apples, and tossed them onto a platter. It seemed strange to sit
alone in the empty dining hall, so he and Baz sat on the kitchen flagstones instead, leaning
back against a wall of cabinets.
“Let’s get this over with,” Baz said, biting into a green apple, obviously trying to seem
casual. “Are you going to tell the Mage about me?”
“He already thinks you’re a nasty git,” Simon said.
“Yes,” Baz said quietly, “but this is worse, and you know it. You know what he’ll have to
do.”
Turn Baz over to the Coven.
It would mean certain imprisonment, perhaps death. Simon had been trying for six years
to get Baz expelled, but he’d never wanted to see him staked.
Still … Baz was a vampire—a vampire, damn it. A monster. And he was already Simon’s
enemy.
Simon looked at Baz and tried again to summon the proper amount of horror. All he could
manage was some weary dismay. “When did it happen?” he asked.
“I already told you,” Baz said. “We’ve just left the scene of the crime.”
“You were bitten in the nursery? As a child? Why didn’t anyone notice?”
“My mother was dead. My father swooped in and swept me back to the estate. I think he
might have suspected.… We’ve never talked about it.”
“Didn’t he notice when you started drinking people’s blood?”
“I don’t,” Baz snapped imperiously. “And besides, the … thirst doesn’t manifest itself
right away. It comes on during adolescence.”
“Like acne?”
“Speak for yourself, Snow.”
“When did it come on for you?”
“This summer,” Baz said, looking down.
“And you haven’t—”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Baz turned on him. “Are you kidding me? Vampires murdered my mother. And if I’m
found out, I’ll lose everything.… My wand. My family. Possibly my life. I’m a magician.
I’m not—” He gestured toward his throat and his face. “—this.”
Simon wondered if he and Baz had ever been so close, had ever allowed each other to sit
this close, in all their years of living together. Baz’s shoulder was nearly touching his own,
and Simon could see every tiny bump and shadow on Baz’s admittedly very clear skin. Every
line of his lips, every flare of blue in his grey eyes.
“How are you staying alive?” Simon asked.
“I manage, thanks.”
“Not well,” Simon said. “You look like hell.”
Baz smirked. “Again, thank you, Snow. You’re a comfort.”
“I don’t mean now,” Simon said. “You look great now.” Baz raised one eyebrow and
lowered the other. “But lately…,” Simon pressed on, “you just seem like you’re fading away.
Have you been … drinking … anything?”
“I do what I can,” Baz said, dropping his apple core onto the plate. “You don’t want to
know the details.”
“I do,” Simon argued. “Look, as your roommate, I have a vested interest in you not
wandering around in a bloodlust.”
“I’d never bite you,” Baz said, locking on to Simon’s eyes.
“That’s good,” Simon said. “I’m glad you still plan to kill me the old-fashioned way—but
you have to admit that this is hard on you.”
“Of course it’s hard on me.” He threw a hand in the air in what Simon recognized as a
very Baz-like gesture. “I’ve got the thirst of the ancients, and I’m surrounded by useless bags
of blood all day.”
“And all night,” Simon said softly.
Baz shook his head and looked away again. “I said I’d never hurt you,” he muttered.
“Then let me help.” Simon moved just an inch, so their shoulders were touching. Even
through his T-shirt and through Baz’s cotton button-down, he could feel that Baz wasn’t
freezing anymore. He was warm. He seemed healthy again.
“Why do you want to help?” Baz asked, turning back to Simon, who was close enough
now to feel the soft heat of Baz’s breath on his chin. “You’d keep a secret from your mentor
to help your enemy?”
“You’re not my enemy,” Simon said. “You’re just … a really bad roommate.”
Baz laughed, and Simon felt it on his eyelashes.
“You hate me,” Baz argued. “You’ve hated me from the moment we met.”
“I don’t hate this,” Simon said. “What you’re doing—denying your most powerful urges,
just to protect other people. It’s more heroic than anything I’ve ever done.”
“They’re not my most powerful urges,” Baz said under his breath.
“Do you know,” Simon said, “that half the time we’re together, you’re talking to
yourself?”
“Ah, Snow, I didn’t think you noticed.”
“I notice,” Simon said, feeling six years of irritation and anger—and twelve hours of
exhaustion—coming to a dizzy peak between his ears. He shook his head, and he must have
leaned forward because it was enough to bump his nose and chin against Baz’s.… “Let me
help you,” Simon said.
Baz held his head perfectly still. Then he nodded, gently thudding his forehead against
Simon’s.
“I notice,” Simon said, letting his mouth drift forward. He thought of everything that had
passed over the other boy’s lips. Blood and bile and curses.
But Baz’s mouth was soft now, and he tasted of apples.
And Simon didn’t care for the moment that he was changing everything.
Re: Fanfiction
fur. Steely grey lines appeared in the beast’s yellow eyes, and it went limp, sloshing to the
ground.
Simon caught his breath and looked around the lawn. All the merwolves had collapsed,
and Penelope was herding the younger kids back into the relative safety of the fortress.
Basil strode across the lawn toward Simon, brushing the silver from his black cloak. He
wasn’t even bothering to hide his fangs; Simon could see them from here.
Simon adjusted his grip on the Sword of Mages and held it up in warning.
Baz stopped in front of him and sighed. “Give it a rest, Snow.”
Simon held the sword higher.
“Do you really think I want to fight you?” Baz asked. “Now?”
“Why should today be any different from every other day of our lives?”
“Because today we’re at war. And we’re losing. You’re losing … for once. And it isn’t
nearly as satisfying as I always thought it would be.”
Simon wanted to argue—to say that he wasn’t losing, that he couldn’t afford to lose this
fight—but he didn’t have the heart for it. He was afraid, terrified, that Baz was right. “What
do you want, Baz?” he asked wearily, letting the sword fall to his side.
“I want to help you.”
Simon laughed and wiped his face on his sleeve. It left streaks of blood and silver.
“Really? You’ll excuse me, I hope, if I don’t take you at your word, given the last eight years
of you trying to kill me, et cetera.”
“Don’t you think I would have killed you by now if I really wanted to?” Baz raised a dark
eyebrow. “I’m not that ineffectual, you know. I mostly just wanted to make you miserable …
and to steal your girlfriend.”
Simon’s fingers tensed on the hilt of his sword. Baz took a step closer.
“Snow, if you lose this, we all lose. I may want a world without you—and a world without
your tyrant of a father. But I don’t want a world without magic. If the Humdrum wins…”
Simon studied Baz’s pale, grave face and his smoldering grey eyes. There were times
when Simon thought he knew those eyes better than his own—times when he thought he could read his enemy’s face better than anyone else’s. Better
even than Agatha’s.
“Let me help you,” Baz said. There was something Simon didn’t recognize in his voice.
Sincerity, maybe. Vulnerability.
Simon made up his mind quickly. (The only way he ever did.) He nodded once and
sheathed the Sword of Mages. Then he wiped his hand on his jeans and held it out before
him.
Baz locked on to Simon’s gaze as ferociously as ever, and Simon wondered whether there
was too much animosity—too much history—between them ever to breach. Too much to set
aside or get over.
All the curses.
All the spells.
All the times they’d fallen to the ground, fists and wands swinging, grabbing at each
other’s throats …
And then Baz took his hand.
The two magicians, young men now, shook hands and shared a moment that held nothing
more—for what could be more?—than understanding.
“What about Agatha?” Simon asked when the moment had passed, when their hands
dropped again to their sides.
Baz grinned and started walking up the steep hill to the castle.
“Don’t be a fool, Snow. I’m never giving up on Agatha.”
The problem with playing hide-and-seek with your sister is that sometimes she gets bored
and stops looking for you.
And there you are—under the couch, in the closet, wedged behind the lilac tree—and you
don’t want to give up, because maybe she’s just biding her time. But maybe she’s wandered
off.…
Maybe she’s downstairs watching TV and eating the rest of the Pringles.
You wait. You wait until you forget that you’re waiting, until you forget that there’s
anything to you beyond stillness and quiet; an ant crawls over your knee, and you don’t
flinch. And it doesn’t matter now whether she’s coming for you—the hiding is enough. (You
win when no one finds you, even if they’re not looking.)
When you break from behind the tree, it’s because you want to. It’s the first breath after a
long dive. Branches snap under your feet, and the world is hotter and brighter. Ready or not,
here I come.
Here I come, ready or not.
—from “Left” by Cather Avery, winner of the Underclassmen Prize, Prairie Schooner,
Fall 2012
Re: Fanfiction
“Are you okay?” Basil asked. You could tell he didn’t want to ask. You could tell he found it quite distasteful to speak to his longtime enemy.
“Leave me alone,” Simon spat, choking on his tears and hating Basil even more than usual. “She was my mother.”
Basil frowned. He narrowed his smoky grey eyes and folded his arms, like he was forcing himself to keep standing there. Like what he really wanted to do was throw another sneezing spell at Simon.
“I know,” Basil said almost angrily. “I know what you’re going through. I lost my mother, too.”
Simon wiped his snotty nose on the sleeve of his jacket and slowly sat up, his eyes as wide and blue as the Eighth Sea. Was Basil lying? That would be just like him, the prat.
—from “Friends for Life—and After,” posted August 2006 by FanFixx.net authors Magicath and Wrenegade
---
It had been two hours since they watched the drawbridge lock into the fortress.
Two hours of squabbling about whose fault it had been.
Baz would pout and say, “We wouldn’t have missed curfew if you hadn’t gotten in my way.”
And Simon would growl and say, “I wouldn’t have to get in your way if you weren’t wandering the grounds nefariously.”
But the truth, Simon knew, was that they’d just gotten so caught up in their arguing that they’d lost track of time, and now they’d have to spend the night out here. There was no getting around the curfew—no matter how many times Baz clicked his heels and said, “There’s no place like home.” (That was a seventh-year spell anyway; there was no way Baz could pull it off.)
Simon sighed and dropped down onto the grass. Baz was still muttering and staring up at the fortress like he might yet spot a way in.
“Oi,” Simon said, thumping Baz’s knee.
“Ow. What.”
“I’ve got an Aero bar,” Simon said. “Want half?”
Baz peered down, his long face as grey as his eyes in the gloaming. He flicked his black hair back and frowned, settling down next to Simon on the hill. “What kind?”
“Mint.” Simon dug the candy out from the pocket in his cape.
“That’s my favorite,” Baz admitted, grudgingly.
Simon flashed him a wide, white grin. “Mine, too.”
—from “Secrets, Stars, and Aero Bars,” posted January 2009 by FanFixx.net authors Magicath and Wrenegade
---
Nothing was going right.
They’d been attacked by a venomous crested woodfoul.
And then they’d hidden in the cave with the spiders and the whatever-that-thing-was that had bitten Simon’s tennis shoe, possibly a rat.
And then Baz had taken Simon’s hand. Or maybe Simon had taken Baz’s hand.…
Anyway, it was totally forgivable because woodfoul and spiders and rats.
And sometimes you held somebody’s hand just to prove that you were still alive, and that another human being was there to testify to that fact.
They’d walked back to the fortress like that, hand in hand. And it would have been okay—it would have been mostly okay—if one of them had just let go.
If they hadn’t stood there on the edge of the Great Lawn, holding this little bit of each other, long after the danger had passed.
—from “The Wrong Idea,” posted January 2010 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
---
“We’re already roommates,” Baz argued. “I shouldn’t have to be his lab partner, as well.
You’re asking me to bear far more than my fair share of apple-cheeked protagonism.”
Every girl in the laboratory sat on the edge of her stool, ready to take Baz’s place.
“That’s enough about my cheeks,” Snow muttered, blushing heroically.
“Honestly, Professor,” Baz said, waving his wand toward Snow in a just look at him gesture. Snow caught the end of the wand and pointed it at the floor.
Professor Chilblains was unmoved. “Sit down, Mr. Pitch. You’re wasting precious lab time.”
Baz slammed his books down at Snow’s station. Snow put his safety goggles on and adjusted them; it did nothing to dim his blue eyes or blunt his glare.
“For the record,” Snow grumbled. “I don’t want to spend any more time with you either.”
Stupid boy … Baz sighed to himself, taking in Snow’s tense shoulders, the flush of anger in his neck, and the thick fall of bronze hair partially trapped in his goggles.… What do you know about want?
—from “Five Times Baz Went to Chemistry and One Time He Didn’t,” posted August 2009 by FanFixx.net authors Magicath and Wrenegade
---
Baz. “Have you ever done this before?”
Simon. “Yes. No.”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes. Not like this.”
Baz. “Not with a boy?”
Simon. “Not when I really wanted it.”
—from “Shall We?” posted April 2010 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
---
Simon ran as fast as he could. Faster. Casting spells on his feet and legs, casting spells on the branches and stones in his path.
He could already be too late—at first he thought he was, when he saw Agatha lying in a heap on the forest floor.… But it was a trembling heap. Agatha may be frightened, but she was still whole.
Baz was kneeling over her and trembling just as hard. His hair hung forward in a way he normally wouldn’t allow, and his pale skin glowed oddly in the moonlight, like the inside of a shell. Simon wondered for a moment why Agatha wasn’t trying to escape. She must be dazed, he thought. Vampires could do that, couldn’t they?
“Go. Away,” Baz hissed.
“Baz…,” Simon said, holding his hand out.
“Don’t look at me.”
Simon avoided Baz’s eyes, but he didn’t look away. “I’m not afraid of you,” Simon said.
“You should be. I could kill you both. Her first, then you, before you’d even realized I was doing it. I’m so fast, Simon.…” His voice broke on the last two words.
“I know.…”
“And so strong…”
“I know.”
“And so thirsty.”
Simon’s voice was almost a whisper. “I know.”
Baz’s shoulders shook. Agatha started to sit up—she must be recovering. Simon looked at her gravely and shook his head. He took another step toward them. He was close now. In Baz’s reach.
“I’m not afraid of you, Baz.”
“Why not?” Baz whined. It was an animal whine. Wounded.
“Because I know you. And I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” Simon held out his hand and gently pushed back the errant lock of black hair. Baz’s head tilted up with the touch, his fangs popped and gleaming. “You’re so strong, Baz.”
Baz reached for him then, clutching Simon around the waist and pressing his face into his stomach.
Agatha slid out from between them and ran toward the fortress. Simon held Baz by the back of his neck and curved his body over him. “I know,” Simon said. “I know everything.”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted February 2011 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
---
There was no way Snow would see him here, up on the balcony. Snow was too busy trying to learn his steps for the ball. Too busy stamping all over Agatha’s silk boots. She looked lovely today—all golden white hair and creamy pink skin. That girl is opaque, Baz thought. Like milk. Like white glass.
Simon took a bad step forward, and she lost her balance. He caught her with a strong arm around her waist.
Don’t they just shine together? Weren’t they every shade of white and gold?
“He’ll never give her up, you know.”
Baz wanted to whip around at the voice, but he caught himself. Didn’t even turn his head.
“Hello, Penelope.”
“You’re wasting your time,” she said, and damned if she didn’t sound tired. “He thinks she’s his destiny—he can’t help himself.”
“I know,” Baz said, turning into the shadows. “Neither can I.”
—from “Tyrannus Basilton, Son of Pitch,” posted December 2009 by FanFixx.net authors Magicath and Wrenegade
---
“I just don’t want to,” Simon said.
“Don’t want to what?” Baz asked. He was sitting on his desk, eating an apple. He left the apple in his teeth and started tying his green and purple school tie. Simon still had to use a mirror for that. Even after seven years.
“Anything,” Simon said, pressing his head back into his pillow. “I don’t want to do anything. I don’t even want to start this day because then I’ll just be expected to finish it.”
Baz finished his half-Windsor and took a bite out of the apple. “Now, now, Snow, that doesn’t sound like ‘the most powerful magician in a hundred ages’ talking.”
“That’s such crap,” Simon said. “Who even started calling me that?”
“Probably the Mage. He won’t shut up about you. ‘The one who was prophesied,’ ‘the hero we’ve been waiting for,’ et cetera.”
“I don’t want to be a hero.”
“Liar.” Baz’s eyes were cool grey and serious.
“Today,” Simon said, chastened. “I don’t want to be a hero today.”
Baz looked at his apple core, then tossed it onto Simon’s desk. “Are you trying to talk me into skipping Politickal Science?”
“Yes.”
“Done,” Baz said. “Now, get up.”
Simon grinned and leapt out of bed.
—from Carry On, Simon, posted January 2012 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
---
“I don’t trust you,” Simon said, grasping Basil’s forearm.
“Well, I don’t trust you,” Basil spat at him. Actually spat at him, bits of wet landing on Simon’s cheeks.
“Why do you need to trust me?” Simon asked. “I’m the one hanging off a cliff!”
Basil looked down at him distastefully, his arm shaking from Simon’s weight. He swung his other arm down and Simon grabbed at it.
“Douglas J. Henning,” Basil cursed breathlessly, his body inching forward. “Knowing you, you’ll bring the both of us down just to spite me.”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted November 2010 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
---
“You can’t shave your head. You’ll look mental.”
“I look worse than mental with this hair. I look evil.”
“There’s no such thing as evil hair,” Simon giggled. They were lying on the floor of the library between two rows of shelves. Baz on his back. Simon propped up on one shoulder.
“Look at me,” Baz said, pushing his chin-length hair back from his forehead. “Every famous vampire has a widow’s peak like this. I’m a cliché. It’s like I went to the barber and asked for ‘a Dracula.’”
Simon was laughing so hard, he nearly fell forward onto Baz. Baz shoved him up with his free hand.
“I mean, honestly,” Baz said, still holding back his hair, trying to keep a straight face. “It’s like an arrow on my face. This way to the vampire.”
Simon swatted Baz’s hand away and kissed the point of his hairline as gently as he could.
“I like your hair,” Simon said against Baz’s forehead. “Really, really.”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted March 2012 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
---
“We can’t be friends,” Baz said, passing Simon the ball.
“Why not?” Simon asked, kicking the ball up and bouncing it on his knee.
“Because we’re already enemies.”
“It’s not like we have to stay that way. There isn’t a rule.”
“There is a rule,” Baz said. “I made it myself. Don’t be friends with Snow. He already has too many.” He shouldered Simon out of the way and caught the ball on his own knee.
“You’re infuriating,” Simon said.
“Good. I’m fulfilling my role as your nemesis.”
“You’re not my nemesis. The Humdrum is.”
“Hmmm,” Baz said, letting the ball drop and kicking it back to Simon. “We’ll see. The story’s not over yet.”
—from “Baz, You Like It,” posted September 2008 by FanFixx.net authors Magicath and Wrenegade
---
“I’m starting to feel like you don’t want me around.”
“I’ve never wanted you around,” Simon said, trying to push past his roommate.
“Point.” Baz moved to block the door. “That was true. Until you decided that you always wanted me around—that life is just a hollow shell of itself unless you know my heart is beating somewhere in the very local vicinity.”
“Have I decided that?”
“Maybe it was me who decided. Never mind. Same difference.”
Simon took a deep, obviously unnerved, breath.
“Snow. Are you unnerved?”
“Slightly.”
“Aleister almighty, I never thought I’d see the day.”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted February 2012 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
---
“You knew all along?”
“Not all along,” Penelope said. “But a long. At least since fifth year, when you insisted we follow Baz around the castle every other day. You made me go to all of his football games.”
“To make sure he wasn’t cheating,” Simon said, out of habit.
“Right,” Penelope said. “I was starting to wonder whether you’d ever figure it out. You have figured it out, haven’t you?”
Simon felt himself smiling and blushing, not for first time this week. Not for the fiftieth.
“Yeah…”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted March 2011 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
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“Shhh.”
“I just—”
“Hush.”
“I worry—”
“Don’t.”
“But—”
“Simon.”
“Baz?”
“Here.”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted September 2011 by FanFixx.net author Magicath
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“Maybe fighting him isn’t the answer,” Simon said.
“What?” Baz was leaning against a tree, trying to catch his breath. His hair was hanging in slimy tendrils, and his face was smeared with muck and blood. Simon probably looked even worse. “You’re not giving up now,” Baz said, reaching for Simon’s chest and pulling him forward, fiercely, by the buckled straps of his cape. “I won’t let you.”
“I’m not giving up,” Simon said. “I just … Maybe fighting isn’t the answer. It wasn’t the answer with you.”
Baz arched an elegant brow. “Are you going to snog the Humdrum—is that your plan? Because he’s eleven. And he looks just like you. That’s both vain and deviant, Snow, even for you.”
Simon managed a laugh and raised a hand to the back of Baz’s neck, holding him firmly.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’m done fighting, Baz. If we go on like this, there won’t be anything left to fight for.”
—from Carry On, Simon, posted April 2012 by FanFixx.net author Magicath