Smith-Richards turns to Simon again, looking a bit dazed and overawed himself. (Fair. Simon is incredibly attractive. Especially when he’s being all dogged and earnest like this. With his cheeks pink and his eyebrows drawn low and his throat bobbing every time he fortifies himself to ask a question.)

“I…” Smith-Richards says. “Did you want something to drink? I didn’t offer. There’s cake, too. There might even be dinner.”

“No,” Simon says, “we’re fine. Thanks.”

Smith-Richards leans forward. It’s like he’s giving in. He rests an elbow on one knee and ruffles the back of his golden hair. He wears it long enough to curl, to cover his ears but not his collar. “To be honest,” he says, “I didn’t think that I might be the Greatest Mage until I heard that you had been…”

“Exposed?” Simon says.

Smith-Richards shrugs, like he doesn’t want to hurt Simon’s feelings. “Explained.”

“And then?” Simon pushes.

Smith-Richards is at the back of his hair again. “And then I started thinking about a lot of things…”

Simon swallows, waiting.

“About signs.”

“Signs,” Simon repeats, leaning forward.

Smith-Richard nods. “My mother had a dream about me, before she even knew she was pregnant. Then I was born during an eclipse. And after my parents died—”

“Your parents died?”

“When I was very young.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. After they died, my godfather raised me, and he always told me I was special.”

I roll my eyes. Every parent says that.

Smith-Richards goes on: “I thought he was just saying it because he loved me, but there was some truth to it. I’ve always had a way with other magicians … even when I was a baby.”

Everyone loves babies.

“Their magic was stronger when I was around,” he says. “My godfather said he could cast a sonnet with me in the room.”

Simon smiles—ruefully. “That’s the opposite of me,” he says. “I was taking everyone else’s magic.”

“Not intentionally,” Smith-Richards says. “Simon, everyone knows that the Mage used you.”

Simon’s face is red. I don’t think the fact that everyone knows he was duped is much of a comfort to him. Especially when there’s so much he doesn’t know himself. Where did Simon’s ability come from? And how did the Mage find him? What would have happened if the Mage had been able to take Simon’s power on that final, fateful day?

“So you put the pieces together…” Simon says. “About yourself.”

“I started to think, perhaps…” Smith-Richards’s cheeks are red, too. His eyes are more blue than ever. “Perhaps I was meant to help people.”

For fuck’s sake—imagine thinking that makes you special. Something that’s literally true of all of us. I hold back a derisive “pfft.”

Simon is sitting on the very edge of the sofa. “So no one around you—”