Carry On Read online

  “Easy come, easy go. Little high, little low.”

  I step forward quietly; I don’t want to interrupt him in the middle of a spell. Especially if he’s trying to revive someone.

  “Carry on, carry on,” the Mage sings.

  One more silent step, and I see that it’s Ebb beneath him—I cry out, I can’t help it.

  The Mage’s head turns, his lips still murmuring Queen lyrics.

  “Simon!” he says, so startled that he pulls his hands away.

  “Don’t stop,” I say, falling on my knees. “Help her.”

  “Simon,” the Mage says again.

  Blood flows out of Ebb’s chest.

  “Help her!” I say. “She’s dying!”

  “I can’t,” the Mage says. “But, Simon. You’re here. I can still help you.”

  He reaches for me, his hands wet with Ebb’s blood. And I know I have to tell him now. I stand jerkily, pulling away from him.

  The Mage picks up his blade—it’s bloody, too—and stands with me. His head is split open above his ear, bleeding down his neck and shoulder.

  “You’re hurt, sir. I can help.”

  He shakes his head, staring just past me. I think he’s freaked out by my wings, but I’m not sure I can put them away right now.

  “I’m fine, Simon,” he says.

  It’s too late, I’ve already thought about making him better: The gash above his ear heals from the outside in, mending itself.

  His hand goes to his head. His eyes widen. “Simon.”

  My chin starts to wobble, and I squeeze the hilt of my blade till the wobbling stops. I try to think about making Ebb better—I think I’ve been thinking about it all along—but she still lies there, bleeding.

  The Mage steps closer to me, like he’s stepping close to an animal. “You’ve come just in time,” he says softly. He lifts his hand and touches my face. I feel blood trickle down my cheek. “I owe you an apology,” he says. “I got so much wrong.”

  I look him in the eye. We’re the same height. “No, sir.”

  “Not the power,” he says. “You are the most powerful mage who ever lived, Simon. You’re … a miracle.” He cups my face in his wet palm. “But you’re not the Chosen One.”

  I’m not the Chosen One.

  Of course I’m not.

  I’m not the Chosen One.

  Thank magic. This is the only thing anyone has said today that makes sense. But it doesn’t make a difference—

  I still have to tell him.

  I swallow. “Sir, I have something to tell you. Baz and Penelope—”

  “They don’t matter now! None of them. The Pitches and their war. As if all of magic doesn’t hang on the precipice! As if the Great Devourer hasn’t marked our door!”

  “Sir—”

  “I thought I could salvage you,” he whispers. He’s standing so close to me. Holding my face like a baby’s. Or a dog’s. “I thought I could keep my promise to take care of you. That I’d find the right text, the missing rhyme. I thought I could fix you.… But you weren’t the right vessel.” He nods to himself. It’s like he’s still looking past me. “I got this part wrong,” he says. “I got you wrong.”

  I look down at Ebb. Then back at the Mage. “The Humdrum—,” I say.

  His face contorts. “You’ll never be strong enough to fight him! You’ll never be enough, Simon—it isn’t your fault.”

  “It is!” I shake my head, and he holds my jaw firmly. “Sir, I think my power is tied to the Humdrum. I think I might be causing him!”

  “Nonsense!” His spit hits my mouth. “The Humdrum was foretold—‘The greatest threat the World of Mages has ever known.’ Just as the Greatest Mage was foretold.”

  “But Baz says—”

  “You can’t listen to that whelp!” He drops my face and steps back, raising his arms, waving his red sword. “Cut from the same cloth as his mother. Does anyone think that Watford was better under her care? These halls were empty! Only the most prosperous, the most privileged magicians ever learned to speak. Natasha Grimm-Pitch loved her power and wealth—she loved the past—far too much to ever allow Watford to change.”

  The Mage is pacing. He’s talking to the floor. I’ve never seen him like this—he’s moving too much, he’s saying too much.

  “Should I weep over her death?” he asks, his voice too loud. “When it means a generation of magickal children have learned how to use their power? Am I supposed to be sorry? I’m not sorry! What is the greater good?”

  He rounds on me again and clamps his hand where my neck meets my chest, catching my eyes and holding them. “I’m. Not. Sorry.”

  Then he leans closer. His hair brushes against mine. “If I could go back, there’s nothing I’d change. Nothing. Except you … I can’t fix you, Simon.” He shakes his head, growling and gritting his teeth. “I can’t fix you—but I can relieve you. And I can fulfil the prophecy.”

  I don’t know what to say. So I nod.

  I’ve known all along that I was a fraud—it’s such a relief to hear the Mage finally saying it. And to hear that he has a plan. I just want him to tell me what to do.

  “Give me your magic, Simon.”

  I take a step back—in surprise, I think—but the Mage holds me by the neck. He presses his right hand over my heart. “I can take it. I finally found a way, but then I heard that you’d gotten there first. You can give it to me freely now, can’t you? Like you gave it to the Pitch brat?” I feel every one of his fingertips against my skin. “Don’t make me take it, Simon.…”

  I look down at Ebb. Her blood is pooling around her arm and shoulder. It’s just reached the tips of her blond hair.

  “Think of it,” the Mage murmurs. “I have control that you’ll never have. Wisdom … Experience … With your power, I can obliterate the Humdrum. I can settle these quarrels once and for all—I can finally finish what I started.”

  “What you started?”

  “My reforms!” he hisses. Then his head drops forward, like he’s tired. “I thought it would be enough to throw them out of power. To change the rules. But they’re like cockroaches, these people—they creep up on you as soon as you turn off the lights.

  “I can’t focus on my enemies because of the Humdrum”—he tilts his head to the right—“and I can’t focus on the Humdrum because of all this squabbling.” He tilts it to the left. “It was never supposed to be like this.” He looks back up at me. “You were supposed to be the answer.”

  “I’m not the Greatest Mage,” I say.

  “You’re just a child,” he says, disappointed.

  I close my eyes.

  The Mage pinches my neck. “Give it to me.”

  “It could hurt you, sir.”

  He takes my hands roughly. “Now, Simon.”

  I open my eyes and look down at our hands. I could give it to him. All of it. I could give it to him, and then it would be him. It would be the Mage draining the world of magic or finding a way not to.…

  I squeeze one hand and give him a bit of magic. A fistful.

  The Mage clenches my fingers, and his body seizes, but he doesn’t let go. “Simon!” His eyes light up. Literally. “I think this will work!”

  “It will work,” my voice says. But I’m not the one speaking—the Humdrum is standing beside us. Over Ebb’s body.

  The Mage goes still, his mouth dropping open. I forgot; he’s never seen the Humdrum. “Simon,” the Mage says. “It’s you.”

  “It’s the Humdrum,” I say.

  “It’s you on the day I found you.” His eyes are wide and soft. “My boy—”

  “I’m not him,” the Humdrum says. “I’m not anybody’s boy.”

  “You’re my shadow,” I say to the Humdrum. I’m not afraid of him now.

  “More like an exit wound,” he says. “Or an exhaust trail—I’ve had loads of time to think about it.”

  “The Insidious Humdrum,” the Mage whispers.

  “It’s a crap name,” the Humdrum says, boun
cing his ball. “Did you come up with it?”

  The Mage turns to me and grabs both my wrists. “Now, Simon, give it to me. He’s right here.”

  “When did you get wings?” the Humdrum asks. “I’ll never have wings. Or a sword. I’ll never even have a proper ball—I’d like a football.”

  The Mage jerks on my wrists, still staring at the Humdrum. “Now, Simon! We’ll end this once and for all!”

  “Do it,” the Humdrum says. “He’s right. End everything. All of the magic. All of it.”

  The Humdrum tosses the ball to me, and I push the Mage off me to catch it.

  “Simon!” the Mage says.

  I tuck the red rubber ball in my suit jacket—I’m not sure when I thought up this grey suit—and I look down at the Humdrum. It’s the only way.

  I take the boy by his shoulders.

  He laughs. “What’re you gonna do—hit me? Go off on me? I’m pretty sure that won’t work.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m going to end this. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?”

  “I’m sorry that all the good stuff happened after I left you.”

  The Humdrum looks confused. I close my eyes, and then I imagine myself unlocking every door—opening every window, turning every tap—and pouring it all into him.

  He doesn’t flinch or pull away. And when I open my eyes again, he’s still looking up at me, less confused now.

  The Humdrum puts his hands over mine and gives me a small nod. His jaw is set, and his eyes are flinty. He looks like a little thug, even now.

  I nod back.

  I give it all to him.

  I let it all go.

  The Mage tries to push us apart—he’s shouting at me, cursing—but I’m rooted to the centre of the earth, and the Mage’s hands pass right through the Humdrum. The boy’s disappearing—it’s getting harder for me to keep my hands on his shoulders.

  I don’t think I’m hurting him. The Humdrum. He just looks tired.

  He’s a hole. He’s what’s left when I’m done.

  And sometimes holes want to get bigger, but Baz was wrong—sometimes they just want to be filled.

  I give him everything, and then I feel him pulling at me. Before, I was pouring the magic, but now it’s being sucked out. Spilling into a vacuum.

  My hands slip through the Humdrum’s shoulders, but my magic keeps rushing into him.

  I fall to my knees, and it rushes out faster.

  My fingertips tingle. I smell fire. Sparks chase themselves over my skin.

  This isn’t going off, I think. This is going out.

  83

  BAZ

  I can’t imagine we’re not too late.

  And on top of everything else, on top of abject failure, I’m so thirsty, I could drain a Clydesdale.

  I should drain that yappy spaniel and put it out of its misery.

  Maybe I should put Bunce out of hers.

  We come up over a hill, and we can see the school ahead of us. I’m ready to tear through the wide-open gates, but the Jag gets stuck in the snow. Bunce and I get out and start running across the Great Lawn.

  It’s a shock when we see Wellbelove running towards us like a panicked rabbit from the opposite direction.

  PENELOPE

  Agatha’s weeping and panting—and running like she’s Jessica Ennis, even through all this snow. It’s too bad Watford doesn’t have a track team.

  She doesn’t stop when she sees us, just grabs my hand and tries to pull me with her. “Run,” she says. “Penny, run—it’s the Mage!”

  “What’s the Mage?” I grab her other hand, and she runs in place around me, spinning me in a circle.

  “He’s evil!” she says. “Of course he is!”

  Baz tries to take her shoulder. “Is Simon here?”

  Agatha pulls away from him, jogging backwards, then back towards us. “He just got here,” she says. “But the Mage is evil. He’s fighting the goatherd.”

  “Ebb?” I say.

  “And he tried to hurt me. He was going to do something, take something. He wants Simon.”

  “Come on!” Baz yells.

  “Come with us,” I say to Agatha. “Come help us.”

  “I can’t,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t.”

  And then she runs away.

  BAZ

  Wellbelove runs in one direction, and Bunce runs in the other.

  There’s a noise from the school—like artificial thunder, like a hurricane on a tin roof.

  I chase after Penny across the drawbridge. As soon as we make it to the courtyard, it’s immediately clear where Simon is: All the windows have shattered in the White Chapel. There’s smoke pouring out, and the walls themselves seem to be shimmering, like heat on the horizon.

  The air is thick with Simon’s magic. That burning green smell.

  Bunce stumbles, coughing. I take her arm and lean against her, propping her up. I’d be surprised if she could cast a cliché right now. “All right, Bunce?”

  “Simon,” she says.

  “I know. Can you take it?”

  She nods, pushing away from me and shaking her ponytail resolutely.

  The miasma gets worse, the closer we get to the Chapel. Inside the building, it’s unnaturally dark, like something more than light is missing. I think I feel the Humdrum’s presence, the scratch and the suck of him, but my wand stays alive in my hand.

  Something rolls through me—like a wave in the air, in the magic—and Bunce pitches forward again. I catch her.

  “We don’t have to keep going,” I say.

  “Yes,” she says, “we do. I do.”

  I nod. I don’t let go of her this time. We walk together towards the worst of it, to what must be the back of the Chapel, through doorways, down halls.

  My stomach roils.

  There’s no more air, just Simon.

  Bunce pushes open another door, and we both throw our arms up in front of our eyes. It’s bright as fire inside.

  “Up there!” Bunce shouts.

  I try to look where she’s pointing. The light stutters into blackness, then back again. It seems to be coming from an opening in the ceiling—twenty feet above us, at least.

  Bunce holds out a hand to cast, but clutches her stomach instead.

  I wrap my left arm around her, then point my wand at the trapdoor. “On love’s light wings!”

  It’s a hard spell and an old spell, and it works only if you understand the Great Vowel Shift of the Sixteenth Century—and if you’re stupidly in love.

  Bunce and I float to the opening, and I don’t try to shield us, because there’s nothing that could.

  We climb into a room too loud and strobing to describe, then kneel in broken glass, trying to hold ourselves together. Bunce throws up.

  In the seconds when the light isn’t too bright or gone completely, I see Simon in the middle of the room, holding on to the Humdrum like he’s about to tell him something really important.

  Simon has those red wings again, and they’re spread wide.

  The Mage is here, too, clawing at Simon uselessly—nothing can move Snow when he looks like that, his shoulders hunched forward, and his jaw pushed out.

  Bunce is on all fours, trying to lift her head. “What’s he doing?” she rasps, then heaves again.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Should we try to stop him?”

  “Do you think we could?”

  The light is getting less intense. So is the dark.

  I can hardly see the Humdrum anymore, but Simon still has something in a death grip.

  The noise is changing, too—getting higher, like it’s winding up, from a roar to a whine.

  When the sound stops, my ears pop, and Simon falls forward to the ground, lit only by moonlight through the broken windows.

  He falls, and he doesn’t get up.

  PENELOPE

  For a moment, the only sound is Baz, howling.

  Then the Mage falls on Simon’s limp body
.

  “What have you done?” He’s shaking Simon, and beating on his wings. “Give it to me!”

  Simon lifts an arm to push the Mage off, and that sign of life is all it takes to unleash Baz. He moves so fast, my eyes can’t focus on him until he’s holding the Mage by the chest, his fangs open over the man’s neck.

  “No!” Simon whispers, trying to pull himself up by grabbing their legs.

  The Mage points his silver-tipped wand at Baz, but Simon grabs it and holds it against his own heart. “No,” he says to Baz—or maybe to the Mage. “Stop!”

  The three of them twist and stumble. The Mage is covered in blood, and Baz’s mouth is full of teeth.

  “Give it to me!” the Mage shouts at Simon. Does he mean his wand?

  “It’s gone!” Simon cries, using the wand to hold himself up. “It’s all gone!”

  The Mage pushes his wand into Simon’s chest. “Give it to me!”

  Baz yanks at the Mage’s hair, pulling him back.

  “Stop!” Simon cries. “It’s gone! It’s over!”

  No one is listening to him.

  I hold out my ring hand and speak as loudly and clearly as I ever have, letting my magic rise up from the empty pit of my stomach—“Simon says!”

  Simon’s next words ring out, dense with magic—“Stop it, stop hurting me!”

  The Mage jerks away from him, then sags in Baz’s arms.

  Baz steps back, confused, and lets the Mage drop to the floor. Then Baz reaches for Simon, but Simon is kneeling over the Mage, grasping at his chest.

  “I … I think he’s dead. Penny! I think I killed him. Oh God,” Simon sobs. “Oh Merlin. Penny!”

  I’m still shaking, but I crawl across the room towards them. “It’s okay, Simon.”

  “It’s not okay—the Mage is dead. Why is he dead?”

  I don’t know why he’s dead.

  I don’t know what’s happening.

  “Maybe that’s the only way he could stop hurting you,” I say.

  “But I didn’t mean to kill him!” Simon cries, holding the Mage up, his arms around his back.

  “Technically, it was Bunce who killed him,” Baz says, but he says it gently, and there are tears in his eyes.

  “He’s dead,” Simon says. “The Mage is dead.”