I’m sitting on his empty living room floor. Simon is pacing in front of me, wings spread, tail whipping around. Every time he stomps past me, he nearly smacks me with it.

“I could just spell your face back to normal when I’m done,” I say, also for the tenth time.

“No,” he says. “No more spells on my wings, no more spells”—he waves his hands from his head to his stomach—“anywhere on my body.”

“Then I’ll go to the Smith-Richards meeting by myself.”

“You’re not going by yourself!” He marches past me again, tail snapping like an angry cat’s.

“I’ll be fine, Snow. You can listen in on my cellphone.”

He throws his hands in the air. “Oh, because that worked so well last time!”

“It really did, if you’ll remember. I’m not the one who blew our cover.” It was Simon himself who blew our cover in Las Vegas, by breaking the plan, and then by breaking one of the Vampire King’s chairs.

“Yeah, well,” Snow says, “I’m not sitting here and listening while you get yourself killed—or end up going on another date.”

“For Chomsky’s sake,” I say. “It wasn’t a date.” It wasn’t.

“You went out for ice cream.”

“So what? Lamb wasn’t even interested in me in that way.” He really wasn’t.

Simon stops pacing to roll his eyes at me. His tail is still lashing from side to side.

“He was trying to mentor me,” I say. “He could see I was clueless.”

Simon huffs. “He could see that you’re hot.”

I huff, too. “Well, I was actually there, and I didn’t get that vibe from him.”

“You didn’t get that vibe from me either, Baz. You’ve got no vibe … check.”

Simon starts pacing again. His tail swings towards my face, and I snatch it.

He spins around, grabbing his tail at the base. “Hey!”

I don’t let go. In fact, I give it a deliberate tug.

“Fuck,” he spits out. “You know that’s attached to my spinal cord.”

“Then you better come here,” I say, coiling his tail once around my wrist and tugging again.

He narrows his blue eyes and steps towards me slowly, like he’s doing it on his own time. I draw my fist back to my shoulder, steadily pulling him closer, until he’s kneeling between my legs, resting back on his heels.

He’s taller than me like this. I hook my free arm around his waist and sit up straight, so I can knock my forehead against his. “Do you want me to take you out for ice cream? Is that what this is about?”

He cuts his eyes away. “I don’t need ice cream.”