Baz is paying keen attention. “You’re in the former camp, I gather?”

“I’m so busy out here, I can hardly bother with the rest. My own child could end up doing magic on YouTube, and I wouldn’t have the energy to deal with it.”

I feel my mouth drop open. Baz doesn’t say a word.

Headmistress Bunce pushes up her glasses. “You’re all very lucky that no one believes their own eyes anymore.”

“Yes, Headmistress,” Baz says.

“Yes, Headmistress,” I whisper.

Penny’s mum walks us down to the library, on the other side of the White Chapel. (Here’s something that’s changed: All the stained-glass windows in the Chapel broke the night I killed the Mage. Now they’ve been replaced, but with clear glass. The Chapel looks like all the colour has drained from its face.)

The library is locked, so Penny’s mum lets us in. “Don’t take anything,” she says. “I mean it. Snap a photo if you need a copy of something.”

“Of course,” Baz says, as if he isn’t a library scofflaw.

She flips on the lights in the hallway. “And just…” She looks right at me. “Don’t make any headaches for me while you’re here. I have enough.”

“We’re just going to look at books,” I say.

She frowns at me. “Right. Well, I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

We wait for the doors to close behind her.

“Keep up, Snow,” Baz says, moving briskly down the hall. “No need to follow from a distance, hiding in shadows. As is your custom.”

“Are you going to go hunting rats in the Catacombs before we leave? As is your custom?”

“I probably should. As a public service.”

I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t want to go down into the Catacombs. It’s lousy with skulls down there.

Baz is headed towards the long room at the back of the library where The Magickal Record is kept. He steps inside and whistles.

“Holy shit,” I say, coming in behind him.

Watford’s library used to be pretty low on actual books. The Mage wanted us to focus on Normal books and modern languages. He threw out anything that seemed antiquated—or anything that he disagreed with. He’d always say that movies and television were more useful to us than books. (“Then why won’t he let us have the Internet?” Penelope would rail.)

But this room is full of books. “Was it like this when you were here?” I ask Baz.

He’s standing with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders back, taking it all in. “No. The headmistress has been busy. I’ll bet some of these are the magickal books confiscated by the Mage.”