Chapter Text
Book 1: Simon Snow and the Mage's Heir
I. BAZ
Of all the things I expect my father to tell me when we convene in his study, it very much isn’t, “The Old Families want you to befriend the Chosen One.”
At first, I think I’ve misheard him. Or I’m having an auditory hallucination. The latter is highly probable, given the stress I’ve been under.
I suppose a lot of people experience anxiety or some variety of giddy dread at the start of the school year. Especially when their school is Watford School of Magicks. Watford is one of Great Britain’s most illustrious enchanted academies, where ignorant children grow to be renowned spell-casters. (Or at least they should.) (Who knows what kinds of duds the school is turning out now that the Mage is in charge?)
Unlike most students, though, it won’t be my first time stepping onto the grounds. I was reared from infancy to toddlerhood there. For five glorious years, I breathed in the smell of parchment, ink and dust that radiated from the vast library, and I basked in the warmth of the fires that lit Mother’s office. She used to be Headmistress, Watford’s most accomplished leader.
I doubt any other student will enter Watford with those memories: of a brilliant, powerful mother who raised them in the Weeping Tower; or the night of her murder, a haze of blood and fire and the bite of fangs that transformed happy, hopeful toddler me into an undead, blood-sucking monster.
In short, I feel particularly entitled to be stressed.
In fact, when I first got Father’s summons, I had the mad notion that might be what he wanted to address. My dead mother, my undead existence, and how returning to Watford would bring my numerous traumas and personal issues back to the surface.
After all, it’s not like we have a habit of chatting for pleasure or to pass the time. I’ve only had one other conversation with him since June. It was ghastly. So, what other extraordinary circumstance would compel him to speak with me now, other than the impending school year?
Apparently, a follow-up on the ghastly conversation.
“The Old Families want me to befriend the Mage’s Heir?” I choke out after a long, stunned silence. “You mean the protégé of our sworn enemy? The boy I’m supposed to kill?”
Because that’s what Father told me last time.
In a more roundabout and euphemistic way, of course:
There will be a time when you’ll have to act, Basilton, and it will hard but also the necessary thing to do. An unimaginable threat faces our family, all the Families. And someday you’ll have to meet it. To destroy it before it destroys us. So, prepare yourself.
“Our sworn enemy is the Insidious Humdrum, not the Mage,” Father backtracks this time.
Fine, I suppose I’ll give him that.
The Mage is a pest, a self-aggrandizing, self-proclaiming revolutionary bent on changing magickal society for the worst. Even though he preaches about democratizing magic for all creatures, from the most impertinent pixies to the thickest trolls, he’s really a mustachioed narcissist drunk on his own power (a power the Old Families live to curtail).
But the Humdrum doesn’t just threaten our values and traditions.
It will annihilate everything good in our world.
Just like it did Mother when it sent the vampires to the Nursery.
“So, the Old Families want me to befriend the Mage’s Heir… as a trick?” That seems to be the only logical reason. It makes my stomach turn, though. My family may be many things— rich and entitled conservatives who discriminate against all manner of Dark and non-Dark Creatures— but we’re not dishonorable. When we’re coming for our enemies, we feel it is our duty to make them painfully aware of it. “I make him believe I’m on his side, and then I use his trust to take him out?”
“Of course not,” Father replies sharply, as if the idea also sickens him. I’m relieved, but then he has to ruin it: “You are to get close to him because the Chosen One is a key part of the Mage’s campaign against the Families. Wellbelove has seen to him, and he says the boy’s magic is… immense. Like the stuff of legend. And worst, untrained and volatile. Which is why we can’t let the Mage just do whatever he pleases with him.”
I’m irked by this onslaught of praise. Father declaring something to be dangerous is a rare and glowing endorsement, one I rarely receive. My burgeoning skills as a fire mage only occasionally merit a passing mention to my stepmother at dinner, even though I’m far younger than any flame caster in Pitch family history. (Except my mother.) (But no one compares to her.) (The awful truth is that she didn’t just die— she left the world and us behind, making us the ghosts, shadows of the people we once were.)
Anyway: I won’t be beat by some random boy, especially one whose sole guarantors are Dr. Wellbelove, a mediocre magician (I’ve seen the offspring he's produced: one daydreaming, horse-obsessed, and singularly unimpressive daughter), and the Mage.
“But no one else in the Families has seen the Mage’s Heir?” I interrogate. “Seen him do magic? The Mage could have interfered. Cast something on Oliver Twist and fooled the good doctor.”
“Perhaps.” Father sounds like he’s seriously considering it. “Which is why we get close. Why you get close, Basilton. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. You’re both starting school in the same year, and the boy will be all alone, with no contacts in our world other than Wellbelove. You can confirm the extent of his powers first-hand. If you discover the Chosen One is a ruse, we cast the boy aside”— Father gestures as if he’s throwing a piece of kindling into the fire— “and we do what we always planned: overtake the Mage with our might. And if he does turn out to be the golden soldier, the perfect weapon… then the Mage will never win the war once he’s on our side.”
I understand Father’s logic. The Families’ logic. I really do.
But this feels wrong.
Up until this moment I thought I’d have to slay the Mage’s Heir, not become his dread companion. It wasn’t that I wanted to become a soldier at the tender age of eleven. But everyone told me that I had to. That by spilling this stranger’s blood, whose master was a virus on the respected magical community, I’d be protecting my mother’s memory; it was all I had left of her. I’d be protecting the people I cared about— Aunt Fiona, Father, my stepmother Daphne, and my baby sister Mordelia— who were all I had left of my humanity.
So, having committed to child-murder, I now find it difficult to make a non-lethal 180.
I must be doing a poor job of concealing my feelings (another undesirable first), because Father frowns and shakes his head, sensing my internal conflict. I lower mine in shame (my saving grace— or terrible curse, depending on how you look at it— is that after the bite, it’s almost impossible for me to blush with mortification.)
But instead of delivering the lecture I expect, Father rises from his armchair and stands before me. He kneels so that we’re eye-level, and then he places his hands on my shoulders, watching me closely and dare I say fondly.
I’m shocked, a little pleased, and extremely uncomfortable. Father also appears ill at ease with this up-close and personal parenting approach, but he’s determined to see it through.
“Basilton. I’m not asking you to ingratiate yourself to that heretical moron the Coven calls the Mage. But this is the best way to stop him from doing unforeseeable damage in the future. You are the only one who can do this.”
Though moved, I don’t miss how similar this speech is to the one Father gave when he told me to kill an eleven-year-old boy to save our friends and family. (He said I was the only one who could do it then, too, which struck me as neither true nor praiseworthy.)
“But…” I murmur, aware that I’m fighting a lost cause, “surely the Mage has poisoned the Chosen One against us. Against me.”
“Naturally.”
“Then how am I supposed to be his friend when he expects us to be enemies?”
Father scoffs. “You won’t fail, Basilton. You are a Pitch. There will never be a mage you can’t bend to your will.”
Then, brushing invisible dust motes from his knees, Father returns to his armchair. He resumes his reading on magickal agriculture, leafing through Rodents of Unusual Size and Other Pests in Your Fantastical Fields.
He’s calm. I’m not.
Although I exit his study projecting boredom and aloofness, his instructions ring though my mind all night as I finish packing. I’m so distracted that it’s two in the morning by the time I’ve meticulously folded my clothes and jammed as many books in my suitcase as I can carry.
Befriend the Chosen One, befriend the Chosen One, befriend…
I suspect the Chosen One crosses into my dreams, too, though I can’t remember them when I wake up. All that remain are sensations. I feel disoriented, and my heart is pounding in my chest, the way it does after a nightmare. (Other than nightmares, my heart barely beats.) (Which is one of many reasons my family has ceased taking me to magickal doctors.)
It’s utterly ridiculous. I don’t even know what the boy looks like. Is he really more flesh-and-blood than myth, something conservative parents hang over their children’s heads to make them finish their vegetables and attend their dance lessons?
I resolve to put him out of my mind when I join my family for breakfast. Although the dining room is spacious, lit by chandeliers and candles on account of my sensitivity to sunlight, I feel claustrophobic, strangled.
Across our long table, Father alternates between reading a newspaper and casting Clean as a whistle on the tablecloth. Mordelia is painting it with globs of baby food. Daphne tries to coax her into keeping down some of her mushy carrots, a venture she is no more successful at today than she was last night, last week, or last month.
Although I’m wary about Mordelia launching half-liquidized projectiles onto my outfit, I’m also glad for the diversion. Father and Daphne don’t notice when I put far too many sugar cubes in my tea (seven is a lucky number). By the time Daphne turns toward me, the sugar and caffeine have helped soothe some of my nerves.
“You look very nice, Basilton,” says Daphne.
“Thank you, Mother.” I’ve called Daphne Mother for the past several years. Neither of us minds.
“I see the tailors properly sized your blazer,” she observes with satisfaction.
“Yes, they did.” Not that my current ensemble matters. At Watford, I’ll be forced to swap out my lovely maroon suit and midnight blue jumper for their travesty of a uniform. I mean, striped shades of purple and green, topped off with a garish red tie? It’s like the staff lifted the contents of a cheap Halloween emporium.
(At least I’m good-looking enough to pull it off.)
“We should take a picture before you leave,” Daphne suggests as Mordelia exfoliates herself with handfuls of mushy peas. “To commemorate the occasion.”
“…I suppose.”
I’m not sure which occasion we’re commemorating. Me starting my quest to bring our political enemy over to our side of the war? My return to a site of long-repressed pain and familiarity?
I decide to go with celebrating being free of Mordelia’s screaming, crying, and food-flinging for a while.
Once breakfast is over, our family poses in front of the house. Vera, our Normal nanny, takes pictures, standing far, far back to get the elaborate façade of our Victorian mansion in the frame. Poised to my left is Father, who clasps my shoulder and grimaces at the camera. He looks like the crushed velvet-adorned, silver-haired villain of a young adult novel. To my right, Daphne smiles and struggles to contain the wriggling baby in her arms. I smirk into the lens and try to remain just out of arms’ reach of Mordelia’s chubby fingers. Despite my efforts, she still manages to fist a lock of my hair, yanking like an intrepid rider at the reins of her steed. The family dog drapes himself across the toes of our suede shoes.
Once the photo op is over and Father fusses over the shots, Daphne presses a palm to my cheek (she’s warm, so much warmer than I am), kisses my brow, and wishes me a happy school year. Mordelia doesn’t understand what’s happening. When Daphne tugs her away, she whines for me to hold her: “Bazzy! Bazzy! Carry!” I firmly remind myself that she’s a little demon, but it doesn’t stop my heart from aching with bruises in the shape of her little hands.
(You’d think babies would have better self-preservation instincts than to be drawn toward man-eating creatures, but no— Mordelia latched onto me the moment she was born. It astounds me that Daphne is not concerned. Then again, Daphne has always surprised me. She chooses to love and care for me even though I am another woman’s monstrous offspring.)
I’m packing the trunk of Father’s Jaguar when it hits me that soon I’ll be away from all this:
The lush grounds of the manor, fragrant with Father’s mulch and controlled blazes; the sleepy sounds of Daphne coaching Mordelia through Baby Einstein in the cushioned comfort of the living room; the shade of the yew tree where I practice violin; and the clove-and-spice odor of cigarettes that occasionally waft from Fiona’s guest room.
Speaking of which—
“MALCOLM, YOU TRAITOROUS, COWARDLY CUNT!”
Crowley. Fiona must have cast Hear ye, hear ye on herself. Her profanities ring loud and clear over the roar of her motorbike engine and the crunch of gravel.
I can’t catch Father’s expression from where I’m sitting. However, going by his carefully vacant and neutral tones, he’s furious.
“How wonderful to catch you before we leave, Fiona,” he says. “Though I’ll remind you to watch your language in spite of your excitement.”
Fiona pulls up sharply beside the passenger’s door. She presses a leather-gloved hand against my window. I’d try to lower the glass if I wasn’t convinced that Father would charm the mechanism frozen.
When Fiona takes off her helmet, she’s not her ordinarily disheveled punk self. (She’s the one who calls it punk.) (I call it getting so high and wasted that she passes out in her make-up).
Now, she’s not just a mess— she’s insane. Her hair wreathes her face like a storm cloud, dark and electric, and her eyes are wide and shining against her gunpowder-black eyeliner. She’s almost as wild with fury and pain as she appeared seven years ago at my bedside, casting healing spell after healing spell to undo the damage from the bite. (Spoiler: it didn’t work.)
“I’ll call you and the fucking Families whatever I like,” she hisses at Father. “This is about my sister. My nephew.”
“My son,” Father says stonily.
Fiona throws her head back, laughing viciously. “Who you’re sacrificing on the Mage’s altar like a fucking lamb!” Then she whips her head to me, staring with such intensity that I can imagine the glass melting between us. “Don’t you listen to them, boyo. The only reason you get close to the Chosen One is to take him out, yeah?”
“So, they didn’t consult you about the plan,” I mutter, having suspected as much.
How Fiona hears me through the glass is beyond me. I hope she hasn’t learned to read lips. She screams, “No, I was away when this item came onto the agenda! Look. You do this, and you’re falling right into the Mage’s smarmy lap. And that’s not a place a pretty thing like you wants to be in—”
“Fiona!” Father shouts.
“That sleazy bastard will use his bloodhound to get to you. Just how the Families are trying to use you to get to him. The Mage is a revolting usurper. You can only expect his star pupil to be the same.”
“Basilton knows that this is the best move,” Father says tersely, pressing on the gas.
Fiona jabs her wand at the Jaguar and yells, “Stay in your lane!”
I brace myself as the car jerks suddenly to a halt.
The knuckles of my father’s hand go bone white on the steering wheel. He releases his wand from his sleeve.
“Turn, turn, my wheel!” he cries, and the car jolts violently forward.
I’m glad I went light on breakfast as Fiona screams, “Just spinning your wheels!” and the car stops again. The wheels screech on the driveway, revolving rapidly but going nowhere.
Fiona leans toward me, so close I can see where strands of her dark hair are turning prematurely white. “You can’t play nice with him, Basil! He’s not gonna go easy on you when the day comes.”
“The Chosen One can’t hurt me, Fi,” I argue.
“We must soldier on,” Father says through gritted teeth, but the vehicle refuses to budge.
“Not if you get to him first, you cheeky brat.”
“Fi.”
“Baz. Please.” I’m properly disconcerted now. My aunt never begs. “Do you know what the Mage will do if that boy discovers what you are ? He’ll burn you to a crisp. And that’s only if the Chosen One doesn’t light you up himself—”
The force of my father’s next incantation floods the car with magic so thick and furious I could choke. “We must fight our way onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them!”
Next thing I know, we’re tearing from the driveway, powered by David Copperfield’s iconic verse.
I watch as Fiona disappears through the rearview window. She doesn’t try to follow us. Instead, she signals to me with her thumb and forefinger pressed against her ear before she dons her helmet and races away. In my back pocket, I feel the weight of the burner phone she secretly gave me (phone are prohibited on Watford’s campus— one of the Mage’s dumb new rules).
Our drive proceeds along at an illegal speed, Father partially slumped over the steering wheel. He’s expended himself with his last incantation. I should worry about his fatigue causing an accident. (Although the Jaguar is as impregnable as the Queen’s castle with protection spells.) Instead, I’m grateful his attention is occupied changing lanes.
I hadn’t considered that getting close to the Mage’s Heir could mean him learning the truth about what sort of creature I am.
But he won’t, not even if I did follow through with Father and the Families’ preposterous plan. (Which I likely will. Unfortunately.) (Pitches are nothing if not loyal.)
Firstly, the average mage has never seen a vampire, doesn’t even realize when one attends the same posh clubs or luxury resorts. It’s not like a random, prophesied orphan will be able to detect me. Secondly, my ancestors are famous vampire slayers. That Father and Fiona didn’t kill me when I was Turned still weighs on them, I think. Finally, other than my fangs (which only drop when I eat—don’t ask me from where), my pale complexion, my super-strength, and my flammability (hypothetically), I’m not a vampire in the one way that counts:
I don’t drink blood.
I never have, never wanted to, and hopefully never will. Even though I have my fears.
(Do other humans sometimes notice how enticing their brethren smell?)
Hours later, Watford’s imposing, wrought-iron gates appear from a mist of wards. I recall the ornate metal grilles and the motto inscribed on the crossbars: magic separates us from the world; let nothing separate us from each other.
I guess now’s the time to see if that’s true.
Vampires were never supposed to be able to get into Watford. A major thing that inhibits them from rampantly slaughtering everyone and everything is that they can’t enter where they’re not invited (something that’s caused me issues in many a restaurant). Still, on the night of Mother’s murder, they found a way to break in. Ever since, protection spells against Dark Creatures have multiplied to the nth degree. Even minor pests like magickal dandelions struggle to invade the Great Lawn.
I have no idea what that means for me.
The Jaguar inches closer to the gates, and even though I resolutely gaze forward, my nails dig into my palms, drawing blood. Father seems to be holding his breath, tapping on the gas pedal as lightly as an egg.
How do the gates repel threats, I wonder. Is it a basic magickal force field— relatively harmless, like an electric collar— or something more… aggressive?
And could it alert the Mage?
After an indefinite period, the gates creak open.
I go dizzy with relief.
Merlin, Morgana, and Methuselah.
(Thank you, Mother.)
As the car passes through layer upon layer of Watford’s walled town, the school comes into view. There are the steepled silhouettes of the dormitories; glowing orange windows outside the many classrooms; the green carpet of the football pitch; the lake teeming with disgusting merwolves; and the gnarled boughs and dense foliage of the Wavering Wood flanking the campus’ edges.
The air is potent with magic, sweet, nostalgic and wonderful.
(And the delectable odors of my blood-bag peers, which I studiously ignore.)
Father eventually parks in a throng of other (much cheaper) student family vehicles. I remove my suitcases from the trunk, and we’re left standing before each other in awkward silence. Surrounding us are families engaged in varying stages of dramatic goodbyes. Children scream, wail, or beg their caretakers not to leave them; parents tearfully tell their children they love them and will miss them.
It’s unbearable.
For my father, an appropriate send-off apparently goes, “Study hard for your classes, Basilton. I don’t want to find that your grades have dropped from too much violin practice or football.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And write your mother. She’ll want to hear from you.”
“I will.”
“Your cousin Dev is in your year. It would be in your interests to form a connection with him.”
I vaguely remember Dev Grimm. Unambitious, easily bored, and requiring a short leash. I supposed I could find a worse minion. “I’ll speak with him.”
“Most importantly, remember your duties.”
By which he means, remember the Chosen One.
I nod. “…I’ll see to it, Father.”
He nods back. “Very well.” Then he pauses, twisting his wedding ring. His gaze flickers back and forth across the school grounds, lines deepening in the corner of his eyes and his mouth.
At that moment, I realize he also hasn’t been back to Watford since Mother died: here, where they first met as classmates; here, where they grew to love each other; here, where she would be forever lost.
I don’t know what to do or say. Clearly, neither does he. In lieu of an emotionally healthy response, Father stiffly states, “I will see you during the holiday, Basilton,” and locks himself behind the walls of his vehicle.
Then he drives away without a backward glance.
I’ve spent enough time wallowing about his withdrawn nature than to presently indulge in self-pity. (I’ll do that later in my new dorm. A fine way to christen the space.)
For now, I relish being back.
Inside the castle, so much is familiar. The stone corridors, lofty ceilings, stained-glass windows, and flickering torchlight— it’s like I’m a toddler again, holding Mother’s hand as we hurry to her next class.
Except now, stationed at the corner of every hall is a soldier from the Mage’s personal army. They wear the same Robin Hood-esque tights, impractical capes, and clashing color schemes (I can’t tell which is more deplorable, the man’s politics or his sense of fashion). When these sentries catch my eye, they glare and ready themselves to pounce, wary of me as a member of the Families.
I refrain from summoning fire in my palms to show them their places.
The Mage has ruined everything. I’m where I belong, but the second home of my youth is now some creep’s prison-slash-training camp. I hate it. I hate him.
How can Father possibly expect me to play nice with his mindless puppet?
I’d prefer to befriend a numpty. (Not that I’m convinced the Mage’s Heir isn’t one.)
“Your attention, please!”
The magickal command compels me and the other first year students to turn our gazes toward a member of the faculty. She’s tall, willowy, and dressed in shimmering robes. Miss Possibelf, I think.
“Welcome to Watford School of Magicks,” she says in a low, echoing voice, one that strikes me as inhuman. (I should know— my hearing range rivals the family dog.) “Dinner starts shortly.” My peers twitter with excitement while I inwardly groan. Don’t get me wrong; I love Cook Pritchard’s cooking. The problem is that I can’t exactly dig in and enjoy it in present company. “Then, we’ll hold the Crucible ceremony, during which time you’ll meet your roommate and closest companion for your time at Watford.”
Crowley, the Crucible? I had nearly forgotten about that awful artifact.
I’m dreading what simpleton I’ll be paired up with when something… unprecedented happens.
Like an electrical storm but charged with magic.
Several students gasp, startled by the current of pure power, of magic so raw and concentrated it almost hurts. I feel it thrum through my veins, vibrate against my teeth. What is that? I’ve never experienced anything like it before. No, wait, I have; it’s like when I first called up my own fire magic: radiant, all-consuming, and invigorating.
And coming from an entirely unexpected source:
A boy in ratty jeans and a stained t-shirt. His fair hair shaved close to the scalp. His skin mottled with freckles and moles. I smell dried blood on his knuckles, dirt under his nails. His eyes are blue. Just blue. The most ordinary, non-descript type.
And magic oozes inexplicably from every pore of his body, like every atom of his short, skinny body is made of it.
I know who he is. Judging by the room’s collectively held breath, there’s not a person here who doesn’t.
Still, I can’t believe it.
This is the Chosen One?