Carry On Read online

“Well, yeah. I mean, she was fierce as a lion. And darker than most people were comfortable with—all the Pitches are—and she fought the reforms with her own teeth and nails. But she loved Watford. She loved magic.”

  “Ebb … how did your brother die?” I’ve never asked her that before. I’ve never wanted to upset Ebb any more than she already was.

  She immediately shifts forward in her chair and looks away from me. “Well, that’s not something we talk about. I’m not to talk about him at all—they buried his name when we couldn’t bury his body, even struck him from the Book—but he was my twin brother. Doesn’t feel right to pretend he never was.”

  “I didn’t know he was your twin.”

  “Yeah. Partner in crime.”

  “You must miss him.”

  “I do miss him.” She sniffs. “I haven’t talked to him since the day he crossed over—no matter what people say.”

  “Of course not,” I say. “He’s dead.”

  “I know what they say.”

  “Honestly, Ebb. I’ve never heard anyone talk about your brother but you.”

  She stares at me for a second, her back stiff; then she seems to remember herself and turns to the fire, slouching again. “Sorry, Simon. I just … I think people thought I was going to go with him. That I wouldn’t be able to live without him. Nicky wanted me to go.”

  “He wanted you to kill yourself, too?”

  “He wanted me to go with him to…” She looks around, anxiously, and her voice drops to a whisper. “To the vampires. Nicky said he’d be waiting for me—that he’d always be waiting for me.”

  The biscuit I’m holding snaps. “To the vampires?”

  “Does no one really talk about him? About me?”

  “No, Ebb.” To the vampires? Ebb’s brother went to the vampires?

  She looks lost. “They never mention him, even after all he done … I guess that’s what happens when they strike you from the Book. I was there for it. Mistress Pitch let me keep the words.”

  She holds up her staff—and even though it’s just Ebb, I’m spooked enough that I startle. The goat resting at my feet jumps and scutters away. Ebb doesn’t notice. She’s as melancholy as I’ve ever seen her. There are tears running in clean streaks down her filthy cheeks.

  She waves the staff over the fire, and the words spill out into the flames, but don’t burn:

  Nicodemus Petty.

  I’m so shocked, I almost reach out and grab them. Nicodemus! Nicodemus who went to the vampires!

  “Nicky,” Ebb whispers. “The only magician ever to choose death with the vampires.” She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “Sorry, Simon. I shouldn’t speak of him—but I can’t help but think of him this time of year. The holidays. Out there on his own.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  That was the wrong question, or maybe I’m being too intense: Ebb wipes away a new fall of tears.

  “He’s still out there,” she says. “I think I’d know if he were gone. I could always feel it, before, when he was in trouble.”

  “Where is he?” I ask. I feel like I must sound too urgent, too desperate to know.

  Ebb turns back to the fire. “I told you, I haven’t talked to him since the day he left. I swear it.”

  “I believe you,” I say. “I’m so sorry. You must … You must miss him.”

  “Like I’d miss my own heart,” Ebb says. She nudges her staff into the fire and takes back each letter one by one.

  “Was he with them?” I ask. “The vampires who killed Baz’s mum?”

  Ebb’s chin jerks up. “No,” she says defensively. “I asked Mistress Mary myself—before she passed. She swore to me that Nicky wasn’t there that day. He’d never do such a thing. Nicky didn’t want to kill people. He just wanted to live forever.”

  “Were you here?” I ask. “When it happened?”

  Her face falls further than I thought possible. “I was out with the goats. I couldn’t help her.”

  “What happened to the nursery?” I push, worried that in a minute Ebb’ll be crying too much to answer any more questions. “Where did it go?”

  “It hid itself away,” she says, sniffing hard. “It was warded to protect the children, and it failed. So the wards hid it. Pulled it into the walls and the floor. I found it in the basement once. Then in the heart of the Weeping Tower. And then it was gone.”

  I should probably ask Ebb more questions. Penny wouldn’t stop now. Baz would have his wand out, demanding to know everything.

  But instead I just sit with Ebb and stare into the fire. Sometimes I see her wipe her eyes with the end of her scarf. Like she’s wiping dirt back onto her face.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to bring up so many painful subjects. There’s so much about Watford I don’t know.…”

  “What do any of us know about Watford?” Ebb sighs. “Even the Wood nymphs can’t remember a time before the White Chapel.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Ebb leans towards me and lays her arm around my shoulders. She does that sometimes. When I was a kid, I loved it. I’d sit extra close to her, so that I’d be easier to reach.

  “Pish,” she says. “You didn’t bring it up. It’s always on my mind. In a way, it’s good to talk about it. To get some of it out of my heart, even for a minute.”

  I stand, and she follows me to the door, then pats me heartily on the back. “Happy Christmas, Simon,” she says, giving her cheeks another wipe. “If you get lonely,” she says, “you can call me. Send up a flare, yeah? I’ll feel it.”

  Saw me in half, Ebb must be as powerful as the Mage—send up a flare?

  “I’ll be fine,” I say. “Thanks, Ebb. Happy Christmas.”

  She opens the door for me, and I try not to seem like I’m in a hurry to say good-bye—but as soon as she closes it, I start running towards my house. I clomp snow all the way up to our turret—then dig out the cash I keep at the bottom of my wardrobe. It isn’t much, but it’ll get me to Hampshire, I think.

  I try to hitch to the train station, but no one picks me up. It’s fine. I keep running. I get to the station and buy my ticket and a sandwich.

  I’m on a train, an hour away from Watford and an hour from Winchester, when I realize that I probably could have just borrowed a phone from somebody and called.

  53

  BAZ

  I like to practise violin in the library. My brothers and sisters aren’t allowed in here yet, and there’s a wall of lead-paned windows that look out on the gardens.

  I like to practise violin, full stop. I’m good at it. And it distracts all the parts of my brain that just get in my way. I can think more cleanly when I’m playing.

  My grandfather played, too. He could cast spells with his bow.

  I forgot my violin here when I left for school—I wasn’t in my right mind—and I’m a bit stiff now from the lack of practice. I’m working on a Kishi Bashi song that my stepmother, Daphne, calls “needlessly morose.”

  “Basilton … Mr. Pitch.”

  I let the instrument drop from my chin and turn. Vera is standing at the door. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But your friend is here to see you.”

  “I’m not expecting anyone.”

  “It’s a friend from school,” she says. “He’s wearing your uniform.”

  I set the violin down and straighten my shirt.

  I guess it could be Niall. He comes over sometimes. Though usually he’d text first … Not usually—always. And he wouldn’t be in uniform. Nobody would; we’re on break.

  I pick up the pace, practically trotting through the parlour and dining room, wand in hand. Daphne’s at the table with her laptop. She looks up curiously. I slow down.

  When I get to the foyer, Simon Snow is standing there like a lost dog.

  Or an amnesia victim.

  He’s wearing his Watford coat and heavy leather boots, and he’s covered in snow and muck. Vera must have told him to stay on the rug, because he’s standing right in the middl
e of it.

  His hair is a mess, and his face is flushed, and he looks like he might go off right there, without any provocation.

  I stop at the arched entrance to the foyer, tuck my wand in my sleeve, and slip my hands into my pockets. “Snow.”

  He jerks his head up. “Baz.”

  “I’m trying to imagine what you’re doing at my door.… Did you roll down a very steep hill and land here?”

  “Baz…,” he says again. And I wait for him to get it out. “You’re—you’re wearing jeans.”

  I tilt my head. “I am. And you’re wearing half the countryside.”

  “I had to walk from the road.”

  “Did you?”

  “The taxi driver was afraid to come down your drive. He thinks your house is haunted.”

  “It is.”

  He swallows. Snow has the longest neck and the showiest swallow I’ve ever seen. His chin juts out and his Adam’s apple catches—it’s a whole scene.

  “Well,” I say, pointedly lifting my eyebrows. “It was good of you to stop by—”

  Snow lets out a stymied growl and steps forward, off the rug, then steps back. “I came to talk to you.”

  I nod. “All right.”

  “It’s…”

  “All right,” I say again, this time cutting him some slack. I don’t actually want him to get so frustrated that he leaves. (I never want Snow to leave.) “But you can’t come in the house like that. How did you even get like that?”

  “I told you. I walked from the main road.”

  “You could have cast a spell to stay clean.”

  He frowns at me. Snow never casts spells on himself—or anyone else—if he can help it. I slip my wand out my cuff and point it at him. He flinches but doesn’t tell me to stop. I “Clean as a whistle!” his boots. The mud whirls off, and I open the front door, sweeping the mess outside with my wand.

  When I close the door, Snow is taking off his sodden coat. He’s wearing his school trousers and red jumper, and his legs and hair are still wet. I lift my wand again. “I’m fine,” he says, stopping me.

  “You’ll have to take off your boots,” I say. “They’re still dripping.”

  He crouches to unlace them, wet wool trousers straining ridiculously over his thighs.…

  And then Simon Snow is standing in my foyer in his red-stockinged feet.

  All the blood I’ve got in me rises to my ears and cheeks.

  “Come on, Snow. Let’s … talk.”

  54

  SIMON

  I follow Baz from one giant room to the other. His house isn’t a castle, I don’t think, but near enough.

  We walk through a dining room that looks like something off Downton Abbey, and there’s a woman at the table, working on a flash silver laptop.

  She clears her throat, and Baz stops to introduce me. “Mother, you remember my roommate, Simon Snow.”

  She must have already recognized me, but she still looks shocked, which reminds me to ask myself what the bleeding hell I think I’m doing here. In the House of fucking Pitch.

  Which I should have thought through on the train, or in the taxi, or even walking the five miles from the main road to Baz’s front door.

  I never think.

  “Snow,” Baz says. “You’ve met my stepmother, Daphne Grimm.”

  “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Grimm,” I say.

  She’s still looking shocked. “And you, Mr. Snow. Are you here on official business?”

  I don’t know what she means; I never have official business.

  Baz is shaking his head, trying to cut off whatever that look is on her face. “He’s just here to visit, Mother. We have a project we’re working on together—a school project. And you don’t have to call him that. You can just call him Simon.”

  “You don’t call me Simon,” I mumble.

  “We’ll be up in my room,” Baz says, ignoring me.

  His stepmum clears her throat. “I’ll send for you when dinner’s ready.”

  “Thank you,” Baz says, and he’s on the move again, leading me up a staircase so grand, there are statues built into it—naked women holding circles of light. I can’t tell if they’re electric light or magickal, but it makes sense to have lights built into your stairs when everything in your house is either dark wood or dark red, and the windows are so far away that the middle of the house feels like the bottom of the ocean.

  I try to keep up with him. I still can’t believe he’s wearing jeans. I guess he wouldn’t wear his uniform when he’s not at school, but I’d always imagined Baz lounging around in suits and waistcoats—with, like, silk scarves hanging around his neck.

  I mean … they do look like really expensive jeans. Dark. And snug from his waist to his ankles without looking tight.

  I wonder for a moment if he’s leading me into a trap. He didn’t know I was coming, but don’t houses like this just come with built-in traps? He’s probably going to pull a black-tasselled cord and drop me into the dungeon—as soon as I finish telling him what I know.

  We get to a long hallway, and Baz opens a tall arched door into a bedroom. His bedroom.

  It’s another vampire joke: The walls have red fabric panels, and his bed is monstrous and decorated with gargoyles. (There are gargoyles. On his bed.)

  He shuts the door behind me and sits on a chest at the foot of the bed. There are gargoyles on that, too.

  “All right, Snow,” he says, “what the hell are you doing here?”

  “You invited me,” I say. So lame. So eternally lame.

  “Is that why you’re here? For Christmas?”

  “No. I’m here because I have something to tell you—but you did invite me.”

  He shakes his head like I’m an idiot. “Just tell me. Is it about my mother?”

  “I found out who Nicodemus is.”

  That gets his attention. He stands up again. “Who?”

  “He’s Ebb’s brother.”

  “Ebb your girlfriend?”

  “Ebb the goatherd.”

  “She doesn’t have a brother.”

  “She does,” I say. “A twin. He was stricken from the Book when he became a vampire.”

  I swear Baz’s face gets even whiter.

  “Ebb’s brother was Turned? They struck him from the Book for that?”

  “No, he joined up with the vampires himself. Voluntarily.”

  “What?” Baz sneers. “That isn’t actually how it works, Snow.”

  I step into his space. “How does it work, Baz?”

  “You don’t fucking join up.”

  “This Nicodemus did. He tried to get Ebb to go with him.”

  “Ebb. The goatherd. Has a brother named Nicodemus that nobody’s ever heard of—”

  “I told you—we haven’t heard about him, because he’s stricken. That’s why Ebb lives at Watford. Your mum gave her a job, so she wouldn’t join her brother. They’re both bloody superheroes, I guess, and everybody was afraid they’d team up and be supervampires.”

  “Ebb knew my mother?”

  “Yeah. Your mum gave Ebb her job.”

  Baz is just standing there like he wants to punch something—or suck it dry.

  “Well, where is he now?” he asks. “This Nicodemus?”

  “Ebb doesn’t know. She’s not supposed to talk to him. She’s not supposed to talk about him, even.”

  Baz sneers again, then reminds me that he actually is a supervampire—a supervillain: “Doesn’t know, does she? Well,” he says, “we’ll see about that.”

  I put my hand on his chest. I don’t have to step any closer to reach him. “No,” I say firmly. “Ebb doesn’t know where Nicodemus is. We’re not talking to her again.”

  Baz swallows and licks his grey-pink lower lip. “I’ll talk to the goatherd if I want to, Snow.”

  “Not if you want my help.” I keep my hand on his chest because I feel like he still needs to be held back, but I can’t believe he’s letting me do it.

  His hand flies up a
nd closes over my wrist. (As if he’s read my mind.) (Is that a vampire thing?) “Fine,” he says, shoving my wrist down. “Then how do we find Nicodemus?”

  “I haven’t thought it through that far. I came here as soon as I left Ebb’s.”

  “Well, what does Penelope think?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know—I told you, I haven’t talked to her. I came straight here.”

  Baz seems confused. “You came straight here?”

  “Would you rather I waited to tell you after Christmas break?”

  He narrows his eyes and licks his lips again. I put my hands on my hips, just to have something to do with them. “What about you?” I ask. “Have you made any progress?”

  He looks away. “No. I mean, I’ve been reading a lot of books about vampires.”

  I stop myself from saying, “Self-help?” “What have you found out?” I ask instead.

  “That they’re dead and evil and like to kill babies.”

  “Huh,” I say. “Did it say anything about salt and vinegar crisps?” Baz eats them on his bed when he thinks I’m asleep, then brushes the crumbs between our beds.

  He glares at me, then moves away, walking towards his desk. “No one knows anything about the vampires,” he says, fiddling with a pen. “Not really. Maybe I should just go talk to them.”

  There’s a knock at his door, and it swings open.

  “You’re supposed to knock!” Baz snaps before the girl even steps inside. It’s his sister, I think. She’s too young for Watford yet. She looks like his stepmother, dark-haired and pretty, but not like Baz and his mother—they’re drawn in bolder lines than this.

  “I did knock,” she says.

  “Well, you’re supposed to wait for me to say ‘come in.’”

  “Mum says you have to come down for dinner.”

  “Fine,” he says.

  She stands there.

  “We’ll be down soon,” he says. “Go away.”

  The girl rolls her eyes and lets the door close. Baz goes back to thinking and fiddling with the pen.

  “Well,” I say, “I’d better head back. Send a message if you hear more. You can try to call, but I don’t think there’s anyone answering the school phone over break.”