I wait for Penny’s mum in her office. She sends the school nurse, Miss Christy, to tend the wound on my wing.

“There’s a familiar face.”

“Hello, Miss Christy.”

“The headmistress says I’m not to cast any spells on you. Let’s see that wing.”

I spread it out and try not to flinch when she touches it. I trust Miss Christy. She’s patched me up more times than I can count. And she never seemed to blame me for it.

“Ran out of bones to break, so you had to give yourself wings, is that it?”

“I reckon, miss.”

“You won’t need stitches, but this’ll sting.”

She cleans the cut and leaves me with a bottle of Ribena and two scones. “These are from yesterday, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t mind,” I say. “Thank you.”

“The headmistress says you’re to keep waiting here for her.”

I nod.

Miss Christy looks around the office. “Strange to think he’s gone, isn’t it?”

She means the Mage, but I’m afraid to acknowledge it. Is she angry with me? Were they close? Miss Christy was at Watford when I started, and she’s at least as old as the Mage. How long did they work together?

I nod, carefully.

She pats my hand. “I was sorry for your loss, son.”

Oh …

I’m still afraid to speak. I nod again. And watch her leave.

The sun shifts, and the room falls into shade.

Penny’s mum hasn’t changed everything in here … There’s still a painted Watford coat of arms hanging by the door. (I suppose those could be goats.) And a sturdy iron rack where the Mage used to hang his green woollen cape. An honest-to-Merlin cape.

I wonder where the Mage’s capes went … And his knee-high boots with the big leather cuffs. Probably to his cousins in Wales. He had a belt I always coveted. Brown leather with a silver buckle that looked like a yew tree.

Siegfried and Roy, I’m losing my mind.

I eat the scones—sour cherry, you’ll never find anything like them anywhere else—then pick up all the crumbs from the floor. I wonder what they’ve done with Smith. Am I under arrest, too? Can Normals be convicted of magickal crimes?

I take down a book about dragons and flip through it, looking for one with wings like mine. I’d call Baz—or Penny—but my phone is dead. (I need a new battery.)

When the door finally opens again, it’s Headmistress Bunce and Jamie Salisbury.

“Wait out here a for a minute, would you, Jamie?” She pulls a chair outside for him, then closes the door. “Sorry that took so long, Simon.”

She walks over to her desk and leans back against it, studying me through her thick glasses.