I hear it from the kitchen when the shower stops. It takes me back to Watford. To lying in my bed, knowing Snow had just finished his shower. Bracing for him to come out, all damp and surly. Telling myself that I wasn’t going to look at him. That I wasn’t going to care. And always doing both.

When I walk back to my bedroom, Simon is dressed and sitting tentatively at the edge of my mattress. Damp. Nervous. He looks like a dog who knows he isn’t supposed to be on the bed.

He’s wearing one of my old football shirts. (Have I manipulated this whole scenario just to see Snow in my Watford shirt? Perhaps. Take it up with the courts.) He must have pulled his wings in tight again, because he’s got the shirt stretched over them. They’re hanging out below the hem. It doesn’t look comfortable.

I motion at his back, walking closer. “I can fix that shirt for you—”

“I don’t want to ruin it.”

“I don’t mind.” I don’t. Then it would be his shirt, and he might wear it again. My name on his back, my number. I’ve already got my wand out and pointed at him.

Simon lifts up his hands, suddenly distressed. “Baz, no.”

“Oh,” I say, looking down at my wand. “Is this bad? Do you not want me to … magic? Around you?”

His hands drop. “No, I mean—Yeah, of course you can, you know, magic. I just—” He shakes his head, like he’s clearing it. “You know what? Go ahead. Do it. I’d like to spread my wings out a bit anyway.”

“If you’re certain.”

Simon takes my wrist and points my wand at his chest, so I cast the spell—“Like a glove!”—and the shirt refits itself around his wings. It looks very tidy. I can reverse the spell, too, but even when Penelope and I help Simon like this, he ends up cutting himself out of his clothes later; he won’t ask for our help getting undressed. (I should have just cut vents in the shirt for his wings, to make it easier for him. I could do that with magic, too.)

He arches his back and sighs. His wings unfurl behind him.

I remember thinking at first that it was too bad Simon gave himself dragon wings. He could have gone with something far more elegant. Pegasus wings—soft, white feathers tipped with sky blue. Or green fairy wings that shimmer in the moonlight.

But in the moment that he needed to fly, Simon summoned brute force and sharp edges. Red leather and bony black spikes. Now it’s ridiculous to think of him with anything else. Simon Snow with white feathers—absurd. He’d look like a cartoon angel. Or a Victoria’s Secret model …

“Is it all right that I’m sitting here?”