I forgot about her fangs. She opens her mouth wide.

  I whip my wing open, flinging her away.

  It gives me a moment to deck the guy Baz is fighting squarely in the jaw. (It has almost no effect on him—vampires are nigh invulnerable—but it feels good to land a punch.)

  The girl’s on my back faster than I thought possible. I was wrong to turn away from her. I beat my wings, but she hangs on.

  “Simon!” Baz yells, and I want to tell him not to get distracted.

  I crash my skull back, trying to keep her fangs off me. My wings are still flapping, and I’ve lifted a few feet off the ground, but it’s not enough to take off.

  Baz staggers back from his opponent, then stands tall, making two fists at his hips. His eyes go hooded and dark. That’s a very attractive way to die, I think. But then Baz opens his palms, and he’s holding two balls of fire.

  He shoves one in the boy vampire’s face, then hurls the other at the beast on my back—she bursts into flames.

  And so do I.

  I fall to the ground, rolling—as the crowd around us erupts into applause.

  Baz reaches for my hand to help me up. I take it, snagging his wand from the ground. I hand it to him. “Penny,” I say.

  We both turn to the other end of the square, where Penny has just vaporized the last vampire. He’s there, and then he isn’t. Once he’s gone, she sees us. She gives me a hesitant thumbs-up, then steps around the vampire’s meagre remains.

  We all start walking then, almost like we agreed to do it. Slowly. Towards the exit.

  The Normals are still applauding. Baz turns and waves at the crowd. He elbows me, so I wave, too.

  Penny catches up with us and grabs our arms. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “If we run,” Baz says through his smile, “they’ll follow us.” He bows and waves with both hands.

  Penny and I try to imitate him.

  “Thank you!” Baz shouts. “We’ll be back with shows at six and nine!”

  We back slowly through the edge of the audience. People are taking our photo and grabbing at my wings.

  “Keep going,” Baz says.

  Queen Elizabeth and her court watch us go by, clapping genteelly.

  Baz takes a deep bow.

  Then we all start walking faster, as fast as we can without breaking into a run, trying to stay ahead of the dispersing crowd. As soon as we get through the exit, we do run. Down the steps. Past the queue. Past the fairies and the peasants and the vaping warlords. I can’t stop laughing. I haven’t felt this good in a year.

  BAZ

  We run through the gravel towards the Mustang, and Penny actually leaps into the back seat.

  Simon catches up with me and traps me against the car. He’s kissing me before I see it coming, bending me back over the boot. “You were amazing,” he says, taking a breath. “You didn’t even need a wand.”

  I hold on to his shoulders. “I’m a little disturbed that you find slaying vampires this exciting.”

  He kisses me so hard, my head tips.

  “Guys!” Bunce shrieks. “We are literally fleeing a crime. And also still in Middle America.”

  She’s right. I give him a push.

  “So hot,” Simon says. “Got to see you fight without picking a fight with you myself.”

  Bunce throws a plastic bottle over my shoulder, and it smacks Simon in the wing. “I swear to Stevie I’ll leave without you both!”

  I look past him. There are a dozen or so people headed our way.

  “I promise to be just as hot later,” I say. “I’ll start fires all the way across the Midwest.”

  Simon breaks away from me, still with that strange light in his eyes, and jumps into the passenger seat.

  I’m not going to be the only one who fusses with a door—I hop into the driver’s seat and start the car, and we roar out of the car park, kicking up a thundercloud of dust and rock.

  23

  PENELOPE

  My mother is going to kill me. She’s going to throw me in a witch’s hole herself; she won’t even call the Coven. We have broken every rule today. The World of Mages doesn’t have many, but we’ve shattered them all:

  Don’t pester the Normals.

  Don’t interfere with the Normals.

  Don’t steal from the Normals.

  Above all, don’t let the Normals know that magic exists.

  Above even that, don’t let the Normals know that we exist.

  Magicians have to live amongst Normals because their language is the key to our magic. But if they knew about us … If Normal people knew that magic existed, and that someone else had it …

  We’d never be free.

  My mother is going to take away my ring. She’s going to lock me in a tower.

  In the old days, magicians would magickally alter their faces if they’d been witnessed doing magic in public. You can only erase memories one at a time (and the ethics are dodgy)—you can’t mindwipe a whole crowd.

  Your only options after a big, unfixable scene are, one, to disappear or, two, commit to the sin wholeheartedly: Put on a cape and top hat and go on the road. Once you tell Normals that it’s all a trick, you can do anything in front of them. You can make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

  Baz was clever. To pretend it was all part of some show.

  I’m not that sort of clever. I can’t pretend.

  I killed those vampires in front of hundreds of Normals. Mum won’t care about the vampires; you can get a medal for slaying vampires. But I used so much magic, right out in the open.

  I can only imagine what Simon and Baz did. They have wings and fangs and superstrength between them. Baz has an actual magic wand.

  Hopefully it was all so obvious and over the top that no one will believe it was real. No real magicians would be so careless.

  Morgana the mighty, everyone’s going to see this. All our friends. Our teachers.

  Micah’s going to think I went directly off the deep end as soon as he dumped me.

  I suppose I did.

  24

  BAZ

  I should be very upset right now.

  Bunce is a wreck in the back seat; you can see the waves of guilt and fear and shock rolling through her. Appropriately! Our parents are going to cut out our tongues when we get home. We’re definitely facing a trial before the Coven. Undoubtedly. The moment we’re back on British soil.

  But we’re very much not on British soil now, are we?

  And Simon Snow doesn’t have any parents.

  His euphoria is contagious. Beyond contagious—enchanting.

  I can still feel his mouth on mine, his arms around me. For the first time in so long. Maybe for the first time ever like that. So heady and carefree.

  It’s like the day we turned back the dragon on the Watford lawn—but on that day, I had to pretend I wasn’t soaring inside. That I wasn’t absolutely shimmering from his magic and attention.

  Simon’s still grinning—a half hour out of Omaha—letting the wind whip his hair into his eyes. Penny finally spelled his wings away so that he could put on his seat belt. (We got a few odd looks on the freeway.)

  He keeps reaching over to squeeze my shoulder or my arm. And it isn’t a question. There’s no hesitation. He’s just touching me because he’s happy. Because he’s high. And because I was there, I’m part of it, what’s making him happy.

  He grabs the back of my neck and squeezes, shaking me gently back and forth. When I look over, he’s laughing.

  They’re going to stone us when we get home. They’re going to strike our names from the Book.

  But not until we get home.

  If we get home.

  America is endless. We may never run out of roads.

  * * *

  We pull over eventually, at a motorway service station. To use the loo and buy more terrible sandwiches.

  Bunce and I are the first ones back to the car. “We must need petrol,” I say. “We haven’t filled up once.”

  “I’ve been charming the tank,” she replies, frowning at her dinner. “How do Americans mess up sandwiches?”

  “They’re dry and soggy,” I say, taking a bite. “At once.”

  “How much trouble do you think we’re in?” She looks up at me, closing one eye against the setting sun.

  “All of it,” I say.

  “Maybe no one will see.”

  “More people were videoing us than not videoing us.”

  “I’ve been trying to think of a spell.…”

  “To erase the Internet?” I set my sandwich on the car bonnet and start wrapping my scarf around my hair again. “You’d have to cast a holy book and sacrifice seven dragons.”

  “So it’s not impossible.…”

  “Give it up, Bunce. We are well and truly fucked.”

  “Then why aren’t you more upset?”

  Simon swaggers out of the shop, holding a bag. “I’ve found a way around the sandwich problem,” he says. “Beef jerky! This place sells at least thirty different kinds.”

  He reaches into my jeans pocket for the keys. “My turn to drive.”

  I spin away from his hand. “Is it?”

  He holds my hips against the car and digs the keys out. We’re both laughing.

  Bunce is watching us.

  Simon gets into the driver’s seat, and Penny steps closer to me. I still haven’t managed this scarf. “We’ll be home in less than a week,” she says. “We have to think of something.”

  The car starts. The radio is already blaring.

  “Where are we sleeping tonight?” Simon asks.

  I slide past Penny and get in the car. “We’ll know it when we see it.”

  * * *

  I was being poetic earlier, when I said that America was endless. But Nebraska really is endless. As big as England and as empty as the moon. I’ve never seen the sky look so black.

  Cornfields give way to scrubby grasslands and rocks. We think we see pixies just after dark—flashes of light in the tall grass. But when we pull over and get closer, they turn out to be little phosphorescent beetles. “Fireflies,” Simon says. “I think.”

  He and I wade into the grass, watching the bugs slowly blink on and off. They’re so sluggish in the air, it seems like you could almost catch one—and then Snow does catch one. He holds it out to me in his cupped palms, and I put my hands around his and look.

  “Are they magic?” I ask.

  Simon shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

  The firefly gets bored of inspecting Simon’s palms and flits up between our bowed heads—we both jump. Then we try to catch another one, chasing each other as much as the blinking lights.

  Even Bunce stops brooding long enough to join us. She squeals when she catches a beetle, dancing around like a pony. “Wolla-la-laggh! I’ve got it! I can feel its wings!”

  “Don’t crush it!” Simon says. “Let’s see!” He opens her fist, and the firefly flies out and lands in his hair. Simon freezes, a smile hanging off the edge of his lips, the light blinking slowly on and off over his ear.

  I move in to kiss him, trying not to startle the firefly. I can do it, I’m vampire-stealthy. Snow sees me coming and doesn’t move. But when my lips brush his, he pulls his face to the side. The firefly takes off.

  Back to this then. Whatever was making him bold earlier has burned away.

  “Come on,” he says. He’s still smiling, at least.

  I want to take his hand and keep him here with me, in the weeds. “Are you still mine?” I’d ask him. “Do you still want this?”

  But I don’t.

  Because I don’t want to hear him say no.

  * * *

  We do see actual pixies an hour later. Spinning in a tall field, a dozen in a circle, with clouds of fireflies in their hair. “Those are magic,” I say.

  All Simon can see are the lights.

  25

  SIMON

  I notice the silver truck about an hour before I really notice it.

  The same pair of headlights lingering in the rearview mirror. The same smiling silver grille. Never passing us, never getting off the motorway. I suppose there’s not much to get off for out here, is there?

  The truck should have passed us when we stopped to catch fireflies. Or when we stopped to watch the pixie circle. (I couldn’t quite see the pixies. Because I’m Normal again, obviously, though no one will just say so.)

  But it’s still behind us.

  I suppose it could be a different silver truck. Or maybe it’s the same truck, and they made a stop, too, and they’re just now, coincidentally, catching up with us.

  Maybe.

  I get off at the next exit. Baz raises an eyebrow at me, but doesn’t say anything.

  “We’re not stopping for any more pixies!” Penny shouts. “Unless they’re running a hotel. I’m tired, and my bladder is bursting!”

  I watch the mirror. After a minute, I see the same pair of wide-set lights. I turn down the radio. “We’re being followed.”

  “What?” Penny shouts back. “By who?!”

  “Don’t look!” I say.

  She turns to look. Baz looks at the mirror instead. “For how long?” he asks.

  “At least an hour, closer to two. Before the fireflies.”

  He pulls out his wand.

  I’ve been followed before. Ambushed. By goblins. By werewolves. By down-on-their-luck magicians with a grudge against the Mage. But I was armed then. I had a legendary sword and a belly full of magic. I was never good with a wand, but my magic would annihilate anything that came too close to killing me.

  I’ve got nothing now.

  But two very powerful friends.

  Penny unbuckles and leans between us. “I’ll spell them!”

  Baz puts his hand on her ring arm. “Don’t hurt anyone!”

  “I’m more worried about them hurting us!” I shout. We’re all shouting over the wind.

  Baz is still holding Penny’s arm. “We can’t spell every Normal who looks at us wrong!”

  She shrugs him off. “It’s not like we can get into any more trouble!”

  “That isn’t the point, Bonnie and Clyde!”

  Penny has already turned away from us. She’s kneeling against the back seat, her short skirt flying up in the wind. She holds her right hand out and shouts, “Get lost!”

  The headlights don’t waver.

  “Give it a moment to set in,” Baz says.

  We wait for the truck to stop or turn. We pass two crossroads, then three. At the fourth, I abruptly turn from a two-lane motorway onto a gravel road. The tyres grind on the gravel, and we can feel rocks battering the undercarriage.

  Baz and Penny watch the darkness behind us. I stare at the mirror.

  The headlights appear again.

  “Fuck,” Baz says.

  Penny spits out another spell—“Freeze!” Nothing happens. She spreads her fingers—

  “No!” Baz says. “You’ll wear yourself out.”

  “It could be vampires!” she says.

  “It could be anything!” I say. A wraith, a leach, a ghoul. Something specifically American: a gun demon, a prairie mog, one of those sirens who live in wells. Can coyotes drive cars? I know they can play poker, the Mage told me.

  “Know your enemy before he knows you” was one of the Mage’s favourite lessons. He drilled me on every potential threat, no matter how improbable. He told me to avoid America at all costs: “Every kind of magician and magickal creature has made its way there. There’s old magic and new. Hybrids and twists you can’t anticipate. It’s the most dangerous place in the world.” I was 13 and thought America mostly sounded really cool. Every kind of magic, every kind of spell, all in one place.

  “Stop at the next town,” Baz says. “We’re safer with an audience.”

  But there is no next town.

  I turn from one gravel road to another. The headlights follow.

  Baz never sets down his wand. Penny watches the headlights for a while, then sinks down below the seat, so that whatever she’s been watching can’t watch her back. The gravel bangs against all the car’s metal parts.

  Thirty minutes pass like this.

  I shout over my shoulder to Penny: “Do you still have to pee?”

  “Yes!” she says.

  “Should I stop?”

  “No!”

  There’s no next town. There are no lights. I can only see the road a few feet ahead of us and a few feet behind us. Baz and Penny are shadows.

  The truck tailing us slips in and out of view.

  I tell Penny to find a town on her phone. But she doesn’t have any bars.

  The lights in the rearview mirror flash off, then on again.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!” Penny shouts.

  “Pull over,” I say.

  Baz turns to me. “Don’t you dare!”

  The lights flash on, then off. It’s slow. Deliberate.

  “Is it Morse code?” Penny asks, huddled between our seats.

  “I think it’s basic code for ‘Pull over,’” I say.

  “Don’t!” Baz says again.

  “I won’t, all right?”

  “We need a plan,” Penny says.

  “We have a plan!” Baz is firm. “We wait for a town.”

  “There are no towns!” I say.

  Penny: “We need a battle plan!”

  Me: “Agreed!”

  “Listen to yourselves!” Baz shouts almost soundlessly. (We can hardly hear our own voices.) “We can’t afford to fight!”

  “There are three of us,” Penny argues.

  “There might be three of them!” he says. “And even if we’ve got more power, we can’t afford another scene!”

  “Look around—” She waves her arm at the dark nothingness around us. “There are no witnesses!”

  “They could be recording us right now, Bunce!”

  “Well, we can’t just go on like this,” I say. I’m going mad, waiting for something to happen. I’ve never waited this long for a fight.