“How do you know so much?” I hold my ring hand up again. “Are you really a Normal?”

  He lifts up both hands, letting go of the steering wheel. “Completely. I’m the most basic bitch possible.”

  That makes me laugh. Just a little, I’m not sure why. I’m very tired.

  He laughs, too. Probably relieved. Don’t get too relieved, Normal. I’d still stop your heart if I thought you were dangerous.

  “Then how do you know so much?” I repeat.

  He looks at me again, like he’s being serious—like he wants me to think he’s serious. “By being the sort of guy who follows witches and vampires off the main road.”

  “That was incredibly stupid of you,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “We could have killed you.”

  “Right, I know.”

  “We could still kill you, at any moment.”

  “Trust me,” he says. “I get it.”

  “Then, why? Do you work for someone?”

  “Dick Blick.”

  “Who’s that? Another skunk enforcer?”

  “No. It’s a shop. We sell expensive paints and pencils.”

  “This is so frustrating—you’re not telling me anything!”

  Baz hears me raise my voice and looks in from the back. I shake my head. Baz nudges Simon, and Simon looks in on me, too. I give him the thumbs-up, which is our personal code for “Everything’s fine.” (It’s a very obvious code, but you only need a sneaky code for when you’re not fine.)

  “I’m telling you everything,” the Normal says. “I’ve answered every single question.”

  “So—how do you know about witches and vampires?”

  “Everyone knows about witches and vampires!”

  “How do you know about us?”

  “I don’t know about you, Witch Girl. I want to. It is actually killing me not knowing. Three new Maybes show up, practically in my backyard, and go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer in front of half of Sarpy County—oh my God, is that what you are—slayers?”

  “No, and what did you just call us—‘babies’?”

  “Maybes. Magickal beings. It’s what people like me call people like you.”

  I’m holding my forehead to keep it from exploding. “American Normals have a name for us?” For the Grace of Slick, this is an actual catastrophe.

  “Not all Normals. Normals like me.”

  “Like you.…” I purse my lips. “Do you mean irritating or foolhardy?”

  “Normals who know about magic. I’m part of an online community—”

  “Fuuuck meee.” I droop back against the seat.

  “Hey.” He looks over at me. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  “Everything, apparently. My mum was right about America. Also the Internet.”

  “Did you think you could keep us in the dark forever?” The Normal’s getting passionate. Either this is coming from his heart, or he’s extremely cunning. “The world is full of magic! Look around you, these fields are full of pixies! You expect us to just ignore it?”

  “Yes! Our safety basically depends on it!”

  “Would you? If you were Normal?”

  “I could never be Normal.”

  “You could—”

  I sit up again. “No. I wouldn’t be me.”

  “I’m saying, just imagine—”

  “It’s unimaginable! It’s like asking me, ‘How would you feel if you were a frog?’ Well, I wouldn’t be me then, would I? I’d be a frog. Do frogs even have feelings?”

  He shakes his head. Like I’m the one being ridiculous. “Normals have feelings, I can assure you. We may not be like you, but we have eyes and ears. We notice things.”

  “In my experience? Not usually.”

  “I notice things,” he says, pointing at his chest and looking at me over the top of his glasses. He’s apparently forgotten he needs to watch the road. “Look, I don’t know anything about you, personally. Because you’ve answered exactly none of my questions. But if you didn’t know about magic, if you were born Normal or just ignorant, and then you saw some magic—if you witnessed a miracle with your own eyes—would you just leave it be? If you got a glimpse into a secret world, would you pretend it hadn’t happened? Or would you spend the rest of your life trying to find a doorway?”

  I can’t really process what he’s saying. All I can think about is the danger we’re in. “So that’s what you do, you go looking for ways into our world?”

  “Hell, yes, and I’ve found a few.”

  It’s my turn to shake my head.

  “Does that bother you?” he asks.

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “Because … it’s none of your business. It’s not your world—it’s ours. You have no right to our secrets!”

  “What makes it yours?”

  “What do you mean? It’s obvious.”

  “Not to me. What makes magic yours?”

  I laugh. “We’re magickal. And you’re not.”

  He turns his head completely to look at me. “We are made of magic. Without our magic, you’re worse than Normal. You’re useless.”

  31

  SHEPARD

  Welp. I screwed that up.

  I was supposed to charm her. Some people do find me charming, believe it or not. When I was 18, I got a creek dryad to tell me her life story. She gave me mulberry cakes and dandelion wine. It’s the first time I ever got drunk.

  How did I learn so much about magic?

  My strategy is simple: I tell the truth.

  I always use my real name (even though fairy tales tell you not to). I always say exactly what I want from a situation and exactly what I mean.

  These magical beings are always running a con.… They’ve been lying low for so long, they only know how to talk in tricks and riddles.

  If you come in with your real face and your real name, and you tell them exactly what to make of you? It throws them off their game.

  Yes, occasionally, they’ll repay your honesty with a magical ass-kicking. (I’m probably never going to have kids, because I owe at least three imps my firstborn.) But often they find it refreshing! There’s a hinkypunk in my mom’s subdivision who just likes to complain to me about her migraines.

  Who else will listen?

  Who else wants to hear their stories?

  There are trolls who’ve spent the last two hundred years sitting alone under a bridge. If you can get past the bluster and the wooden clubs, if you bring them a little bone broth, they’re just grateful to have a sympathetic ear.

  If you tell them that you mean no harm, and then you never do any harm …

  They start to like you. They start to look forward to you coming around.

  I’m not saying this approach would work for everyone. I’m not saying it isn’t dangerous.…

  It’s not worth trying to charm something truly dark. And sometimes you can’t tell if they’re truly dark. Sometimes you give them your real name, and they never give it back.

  And sometimes they just ignore you.…

  Magicians are the worst.

  They call themselves “magicians.” Everybody else calls them “Speakers.”

  A jackalope broke it down for me once: “It’s like—we’re all technically magicians, right? We’ve all got magic. But they took it for their name. Imagine acting like you’re the only species who drinks water! Or breathes air! ‘Look at us! We’re the air-breathers!’”

  Magicians think they’re the only ones with magic because they’re the only ones who can control it. All the other spirits and creatures have rules they have to follow—true limitations. But the magicians can do anything they find words for.

  Most of what I know about magicians I’ve heard from other Maybes. Speakers are hard to track down. You can’t just meet one by hanging out at the neighborhood watering hole. You can’t plant some yarrow and valerian and wait for one to drop by.

  Usually you don’t even know when you’ve met one. They go out of their way to look Normal—which is such a mindfuck because they think of real Normals as livestock. Beasts of jargon.

  Even if you do find Speakers and identify them as such, they rarely feel like talking. They don’t want any of their power to trickle down. They don’t want anyone to learn their tricks.

  I thought maybe these three were different. They are different. What’s a vampire doing with a magic wand? What kind of devil is that Simon guy? (Is he a devil? Or just some kind of sphinx I’ve never seen before? There’s so much I haven’t seen.…)

  But my no-scheme scheme isn’t working on them.

  They’re going to lose me as soon as they don’t need me anymore. And then I’ll never know their story.…

  * * *

  We stop at a motel on the outskirts of Denver. I was worried about who we were going to send into the lobby—the black guy, the white devil, the Middle Eastern girl, or the pungent vampire. (Probably the white devil, right?)

  But it’s one of those dives where every room has its own external door. The witch girl picks a room, puts her hand on the doorknob, and says, “Open Sesame!” It’s that easy.

  Then she tries to magic the skunk funk off her friends. Both of them reeked of it when they got out of the truck.

  I stand back and watch. “Do you have a tomato-soup spell? That’s the only thing that works on skunk spray.”

  “Skunk…” the Simon one says. “That makes so much more sense than badger.”

  Once we get in the room, the girl and the vampire collapse onto one of the beds together. (Which I did not see coming, but all right.) And Winged Victory settles on the carpet, against the door. (Maybe his kind doesn’t need sleep.) That’s when I realize I’m their prisoner. Which … fair enough. I’ve been in this situation before. I can still talk my way out of it.

  Problem is, I still want to talk my way into it.

  I sit down on a sunken brown couch. “I can take first watch,” I say after a while, when I think the girl and the vampire are asleep. (I did not know vampires need sleep; I’ve never gotten this close before. Maybe this one is a hybrid. Can you be half vampire? Can you catch a mild case? Maybe he’s one of the Next Blood. All the High Plains Maybes are worried about the Next Blood.)

  Simon doesn’t answer me.

  “I may as well take first watch,” I try again. “I’m still too wired to sleep.”

  He sighs. “How’re you going to watch yourself?”

  “I keep telling you guys—you can trust me.”

  “Why should we?”

  “Because I’m a good guy. And I like to help.”

  “Because you’re a good guy…” he says. I can’t see his eyes in the dark. “What if we aren’t?”

  That is an extremely solid question. I’ve guessed wrong before.

  “Try again,” he says. “Tell me what you want from us.”

  “I want to know about magic,” I say.

  “You already seem to know a lot.”

  “I want to know everything.”

  “We don’t know everything.…”

  I’m sitting up now. “I want to know whatever I can. Why are you here? Are you friends? Are you a team? A family? What are you? I’ve never seen something like you before.”

  Simon laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Like I’m gonna tell all my secrets to someone who calls me a something.”

  “Jesus,” I say. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m screwing this up. I really could help you guys. I have a vehicle, I know my way around—I know about America. I helped you out of that mess at Carhenge, but I could have helped you avoid it.”

  “You chased us into it!”

  “That was an accident!”

  “So we let you tag along on our holiday, and then you what, post a documentary about us on your YouTube channel?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  He sighs again. “Go to sleep, Shepard. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  I lie down again, trying to think of another tack. They’re all going to be gone in the morning, and I’m going to have a headache.

  “We’re good guys,” Simon says.

  32

  BAZ

  Bunce spelled that kid six ways to Sunday. (Which was a little excessive; “Six ways to Sunday” almost always is. I’d be surprised if he remembers his own name when he wakes up.) Then she cleared his mobile.

  I couldn’t help her with the spells. I’m still not … right from the gunshots. My skin has closed and mostly healed—I look like I was shot twenty years ago, not twenty hours—but my chest aches. And I feel listless. Like my undead body had to make some steep sacrifice to hold on to its “un.”

  We only slept for a few hours. Simon didn’t sleep at all.

  Bunce uses another spell to steal a car. Simon wants a convertible, but Penny insists on something low-profile this time—which, in America, means a giant white monstrosity called a Silverado. (Silverado, Tahoe, Tundra. Everyone gets it, America, you’re very American.)

  The Silverado makes the Normal’s truck look like it hasn’t hit puberty yet. This one’s so high off the ground, it’s got its own steps. There’s a full-sized back seat and more places to set a drink down than in my sitting room back home.

  (We literally have three “pickup trucks” in all of England, but here they’re everywhere. What is it that Americans have to pick up that the rest of the world doesn’t?)

  I drive, just in case things get dicey, and Bunce tries to navigate using a map she’s found in the glove compartment. Her mobile’s still in the Mustang. Mine is still offline.

  Our main goal is to get away. That Normal was too clever. He might be tracking us. He might even have a magickal way of tracking us. Snow has switched into full-on battle mode; I haven’t seen him like this since the Mage died.

  I envy what he has with Bunce. They act like this is their tenth tour of duty together. It makes me realize that Simon had a whole life I didn’t know about back in school. The Mage used him to fight whatever needed fighting—even when Simon was just a kid. (Simon was always just a kid.) And even though his power’s gone, Simon is still perfectly comfortable playing the boy soldier.

  I suppose he isn’t a boy anymore.…

  I suppose neither of us are.

  We intentionally lose ourselves in the mountains. Bunce says there are towns everywhere, so we won’t have to worry about our magic dropping out—what we have left of it. We’ve both been casting ourselves dry. You might wonder how magicians could ever lose a battle against other magickal creatures; our advantage seems so steep. This is how. Exhaustion.

  The sun is bright in the Rockies. I’m happy to have a roof over my head, after escaping Nebraska as cargo. But I’m tired, and I swear I can feel that we’re climbing closer to the sun.

  SIMON

  I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere prettier than this.

  The mountains are every colour—grey and blue and almost purple, with slashes of dark green trees, and orange and red rocks.

  We pull off the road near a stream, and Baz goes to rinse some blood out of his shirt and hair. (He must have torn the heart out of that skunk.) We left the motel before any of us could shower.

  “We should summon our luggage,” Baz says. He’s facing away from us. His shirt is off, and his back is pale and bright, his hair wet and black, dripping down his neck.

  “What if that leads them right to us?” Penny wants to know.

  “I don’t much care,” he says. “I want my clothes. And my sunglasses. And my mother’s scarf.”

  “I suppose I’d like my phone back,” she says.

  I’d like them to summon the entire classic convertible, but I don’t think they’d be into the idea.

  Penelope and I are sitting on the ground, eating some turkey jerky we found in the Silverado. (I quite like jerky.) Baz walks over to us, buttoning his wet and mangled shirt.

  “What are you thinking?” Penny asks, holding out some jerky for him. “‘Lost and found’?”

  “How would that even work?” I ask. “Is your stuff going to fly from Nebraska?”

  “Maybe,” she says. “I’ve only used ‘Lost and found’ for things that were close at hand, like when I’ve set my keys in the wrong place.”

  “Baz,” I say, “what if your flying suitcase kills someone?”

  “I don’t think we could summon something that far anyway,” Penny sighs. “Especially not right now. I’m clapped out.”

  Baz settles between us on the ground. “I’ve got a better idea.” He holds his wand out to Penny. (He must have rinsed that off, too. Last time I saw it, it was covered in goat blood.) “Give me a hand.”

  Penny raises an eyebrow, but she wraps her ring hand around his wrist.

  “Follow my lead, Bunce.” Baz closes his eyes. His eyelids are dark grey. He takes a deep breath and then he … starts to sing? “A-ma-zing grace—”

  Penny yanks her hand away. “A hymn, Basil?”

  Baz sighs.

  “We can’t cast a hymn!” she says.

  “Not with that attitude…”

  “It’s sacrilege!”

  “Superstition, Penelope.”

  She shakes her head. “And it’s too general. That song’s more of a vibe than a spell.”

  “It’s old,” he says. “It’s powerful. The Americans know it.”

  I bang my shoulder against his. “Are you guys trying to summon Jesus?”

  Penny points at him. “You know I’m tone-deaf.”

  “Fortunately,” Baz says, catching her forearm, “the goal isn’t to sing well, just to sing together. Our ancestors cast in choirs.”

  He’s got her attention now; Penny’s a fiend for magickal history. “But we’re both spent, Baz.…”

  “Harmony is power,” he says.

  Penny sighs and wraps her hand back around his wrist. “If this works, my mother will be so impressed, she might grant me a last meal.”

  “Lean into it,” he says. “And hit ‘found’ hard. You know intention counts.”

  Baz closes his eyes again. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!” His voice sounds lush when he sings. Deeper and heavier than when he talks. The last time I saw someone cast a song—the only time I’ve seen someone cast a song—it was the Mage. That day. Over Ebb.