Archive of Our Own

I was eleven when my soulmate Summoned me.

I was old enough to have heard about the Summons, but young enough that no one had really explained the details to me, and so when I felt a wave of nausea come over me suddenly on my way to the bathroom, I had no idea that I was about to open my eyes to an inferno.

I didn’t know where I was. One moment I’d been in my home, preparing for bed, and the next I was standing in a bunk room, blinking at the hazy lines of heat coming from the bunk in the corner where a small boy was laying.

Or rather, floating. He hung in the air just above his bed, his eyes blown wide, his whole body trembling and his mouth caught open in a silent scream as the air around him blurred and shone with sparks and energy. I hadn’t come into my magic yet (something I was extremely anxious about, since I was due to start Watford that year), but I knew what it smelled like, and the overwhelming, acrid stench of magic coming off of him almost made me hurl.

He turned his head and he looked straight at me, but there was no sign of recognition in his eyes, and I stood frozen, staring, terrified to move.

“Help me,” he whispered, and my trance broke.

I’m flammable: I’ve been told over and over again that I’m not safe around fire, and that it will only get worse as I get older, and this boy was surrounded by fire. It was coming out of his hands, licking up the bedposts,and  ringing the bed he was hovering above. But by then I’d figured out what was happening: he’d Summoned me

I moved toward him and the fire parted to let me through, the flames dancing away from me. As I got closer I could hear him crying, a combination of fear and pain, and he kept whispering “help me,” over and over.

I wanted to tell him that I didn’t know how to help him, that I didn’t know what was going on, but he was reaching for me and his blue eyes just looked so scared that I couldn’t speak. I went to his side and he looked down at me from where he was floating. His limbs were twitching and he was sweating buckets: damp bronze curls were plastered to his forehead, his ratty T-shirt soaked through.

He was my soulmate, and he’d called me, and I had no idea how to help him.

It was just like my mother all over again. There was fire, and I couldn’t do anything.

All I remember about that is how I wish I had gone to her. I wish I’d held her rough hands one more time before everything went up in flames. I wish she hadn’t died alone.

I didn’t know if that’s what was happening, if my soulmate was dying. But he looked terrified and he was all alone, so I did the only thing I could think of and I reached out and took his hand.

“I’m here,” I said, reaching for him. “I’m here, you’re okay.”

My cool hand slipped into his sweaty one and suddenly his eyes focused and landed on me and his whispered, “I’m sorry.” And then I was on fire.

Except the flames weren’t on me, they were in me. It felt like I was being carried along a torrential river, caught in a current, while my blood burnt inside of me. Was this magic? Is that what it felt like to cast? I’d felt other people’s on me before, but I’d never felt it in me, and suddenly it was filling every inch of my body, bubbling out through my pores, leaking out through my eyes. I was sobbing, I couldn’t help it, and it hurt so badly that I screamed.

The fire went out. A wind rippled through the room and doused the flames and the bronze haired boy fell back to his bed with a heavy thud, his chest rising up and down, our hands still clenched. I was shaking, my body still full of crackling energy and magic, and tears were running down my face, and the room suddenly felt ice cold.

It was the first time I noticed that the room around us was empty; all the beds looked like they’d been slept in, but were abandoned. Where were we?

I wanted to ask him. I wanted to ask him his name and where we were and what had just happened, but my time was up. The air around me was shaking and rippling and I felt that awful tug and then I was no longer standing in the room with the boy with the bronze hair but was instead collapsed on the floor of my dining room. I was shaking violently as I tried to push myself back into a standing position, and my stepmother came running into the room and yelled, “Malcolm! He’s here!” and she reached me just moments before I vomited all over my great-grandmother’s Persian rug.

There were a lot of whispered comments as my parents picked me up and put me in the tub like I was a child, their hushed voices barely breaking through. “He’s so young. He’s too young,” Daphne said. “I think he came into his magic while he was gone,” my father said. I thought he was wrong. It wasn’t my magic that was still hanging on me, thick and sticky and smelling like smoke. It was his, it was the boy’s.

But my father wasn’t wrong. As I climbed into my bed after my bath, my eyes red, there was something else there. Something like the fire I had stepped through to get to the boy. Something soft, and comforting, and mine.

My father came in shortly after and sat on my bed, staring at the wall. I knew he wanted me to tell him what happened, but he was trying not to press. Being Summoned is personal. Deeply personal. And our family doesn’t have a good history of it. My mother never used hers: Even at the very end, when we were alone, she refused to call my father.

I never understood it. If she’d just Summoned him, he could have saved her. He could have saved me. But that night I understood for the first time, seeing the boy burning. If I’d been old enough to Summon the day my mother died, I wouldn’t have brought him there. I wouldn’t have put him in danger either.

Fiona never talks about her Summons. I don’t know if she’s used hers, but her soulmate did. He pulled her from the hospital while my mother was giving birth, apparently. She never says what’s happened, but we’ve never met her soulmate, so I don’t imagine it went well.

My father used his on Christmas when I was eight. I don’t know what the life or death situation was that made him decide to finally use it, or why he thought it would work, but that’s how he met Daphne, and that’s the first time I learned that soulmates can be unequal, and that people can have more than one.

I wanted to tell him about what happened, but I didn’t know how. How did I explain the magic? That the boy gave me his magic? How did I explain that it was a boy? I’d never heard of anyone having a soulmate of the same sex. But I’d never heard of someone being Summoned so young, either. What would my father say? Would he be angry?

“If you were older, I wouldn’t ask. But I need to know what happened, Basilton,” my father said. He was being gentle. Extremely gentle, far more than he ever had. “Were you Summoned?”

I nodded.

“Did you save her?”

I froze, unsure how to explain, but my father saw my hesitation and I watched his shoulders hunch in anticipation.

“I...” I said. I felt lost. “I think I did. Save him.”

My father went stiff. His shoulders didn’t unclench, and I held my breath, fearing what he was going to say. My heart was in my throat and I was ready to cry all over again. But finally his shoulders squared, he released his breath, and he turned to me.

“I’m glad you were there. I’m glad he was able to call you,” he said. Then he kissed me on my head, smoothed back my hair and said, “goodnight, Basilton,” and left.

It took me years to realise that his words weren’t some coded form of homophobia. They were relief.

He hadn’t thought my soulmate was going to be able to call me, because he thought I was dead. It turns out that the relief of finding out your son still has a soul is enough to override your concern about him being gay.

****

I met my soulmate two months later.

I was standing on the lawn of Watford, wearing my brand new school uniform, trying not to fidget. I hadn’t been to Watford since I was five but it felt like I should just instinctively know the place, like I should remember it like an old friend. But I didn’t. Nothing was familiar to me, and I was trying to shake off the feeling that this was somehow a failure on my part.

“We better be placed together,” I said to Dev. He was standing beside me, and we’d been sticking to each other all day because we didn’t know anyone else, while both trying to act like we weren’t clinging to the safety of family. I was terrified of being roomed with someone other than him; Dev knew. Dev understood my quirks, and I didn’t have to pretend around him.

He was family, but also my best friend, and the idea of being forced away from him was too much; Watford was terrifying enough.

But when the pull from the Crucible started, Dev and I were pulled in different directions. His feet carried him toward a tall boy with red hair and freckles and ears too big for his head, and I hated him. I hated Dev for leaving me and I hated the red headed boy even more for taking him, and I dug my heels in obstinately even though there was a pull in my stomach that felt so much like the Summons but also a hundred times more painful. My body was telling me to turn around and walk in the opposite direction, but I held out as long as I could, until I felt like I was almost going to vomit, until I heard a cough from behind me, and I turned to see him.

There he was. The bronze boy. The boy on fire. My soulmate.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Simon Snow.”

My world came crashing down.

I’d been hearing about Simon Snow for weeks. The Mage’s Heir. The Greatest Mage. He supposedly had some incredible, untapped power, but no one had seen proof of it. The Mage had shoved him through the application process and claimed that he was prophesied. I hated him purely because I was sick of hearing about him.

And he was my soulmate.

I took his hand silently, and when we shook the pressure lifted from my stomach and small sparks crawled up our arms: our magic remembering each other. Our magic finding each other. I looked up at him, my eyes wide, a hesitant smile on my face, but he frowned at me, then at our hands, and I realised he had no idea who I was.

He didn’t remember me.

I dropped his hand.

“I know who you are, Chosen One,” I said. And then I walked away.

****

The longer I lived with Simon Snow, the more I started to understand what had happened that night. I hadn’t been able to figure it out, and I hadn’t told my father, so I’d been in a state of confusion. Where had the flames come from? Why was he levitating? What happened when we touched hands? And how had my magic been powerful enough to put out the fire?

And also, how was my soulmate a boy?

Simon Snow answered all those questions.

We hadn’t been at Watford three months before he proved to everyone that he was, indeed, the Chosen One. A dragon attacked the school while he was on the pitch for football tryouts, and while everyone was panicking and running away, Snow went into defence mode. He’d been shit at football, but he was brilliant as he went toward the dragon, and I was terrified. I’d just saved him, and here he was, about to get himself killed.

But then he went off.

It was just like that night at the orphanage—that’s what it was, I know that now—with the flames boiling out of him and his eyes glazing over and the power just radiating off of him. That’s what had happened the night of the Summons. His magic had spilled over—for the first time ever, I think—and he’d gone off. Blacked out.

Just like after the night of the Summons, Snow didn’t remember going off on the dragon. I was closest to him when he went off, and we woke up in a crater, his magic jittering across my skin, and I vomited, just like I had three months earlier. I thought Snow was dead at first, and I scrambled over to him to check that he was okay when he opened his eyes and rubbed at his face.

“Is it gone?” he asked. I nodded.

“You killed it,” I said. His mouth went into a little ‘oh’ shape, and his cheeks grow red.

“When my magic...when it does that, I go a bit fuzzy,” he said. “Is everyone okay?”

I held out my hand to him to help him up and when he took it, I nearly shouted. His magical tap was open, his power still flowing out of him, and it had flowed right up into my arm. Just like that night. He’d given me his magic that night. I hadn’t been able to tell at the time, because I was so unused to it, but I had my own power now, and I’d been using it nonstop, and I knew what it felt like. This was all him.

I used his power that night to put out the flames. We didn’t wake up in the crater of an orphanage because we short circuited his fuse. His magic spilled over and I took the excess and channeled it into a spell.

I can’t imagine what that night would have been like if he’d actually gone off. I’m not sure he would have survived it.

Every time he goes off, I worry that he won’t survive.

***

Snow will tell you that I’ve spent seven years trying to kill him, but that’s not the case. I just always seem to be around when shit goes down, and he chooses to blame me. The Chimera? Not my fault. I didn’t even summon it. Dev did, because he can be an absolute idiot sometimes, and I took the fall, because I wasn’t willing to leave Snow alone with it. And then when the thing popped up a second time, two years later, I was just as surprised as everyone else. The only reason I got involved was to try to keep Snow from going off.

Sometimes, if I get there in time, I can stop it. Sometimes I can’t.

Snow never seems to notice, though.

How he hasn’t is beyond me. When he sends his magic into me, it’s an extremely distinct feeling. I try to burn off the excess in subtle ways, but still . He has to know what he’s doing, doesn’t he? I don’t know if he’s ever accidentally done it with someone else, but I feel like I would have heard about it. Nothing about Simon Snow is private, and if my family knew his magic could be channeled, they’d absolutely try to use it.

So I think it’s just me then, who can use his magic. And I think it works because I’m his soulmate.

But he hasn’t figured that one out either.

He made it three years until he even learned what the Summons was, and I’m fairly sure he would have never learned about it if Bunce hadn’t been pulled out in the middle of breakfast one day. Snow was positive it was the Humdrum and started having a fit, waving his sword around and leaking magic until Wellbelove told him it was probably a Summons. All of breakfast had completely stopped, everyone in the room paying attention, because even though it wasn’t the Humdrum, Summons are a big deal. And no one in our age group had been Summoned before.

At least that’s what everyone thought.

Bunce popped back in a few minutes later, landing hard on the floor next to my table, her hair slightly out of place and mud on her cheek, and she blinked up at me for a long moment before she started bawling. Snow and Wellbelove had to practically carry her out of the hall. I never found out what happened, but at the start of spring term Bunce’s soulmate turned up as an American exchange student and they practically threw themselves at each other, so I suppose it all worked out.

I only slightly hated her for it.

But after that, Snow became fixated on soulmates. I heard him talking to Bunce about it in the library and at breakfast and on the grounds. He questioned her about what it felt like and how Summons worked and why Normals didn’t have Summons. By that point Bunce and Niall were the only ones who had experienced it, and a handful of upperclassmen, and Snow interrogated them all. I started to worry that Niall would tell Snow I had been Summoned (because I’d told Dev when I was eleven and Dev can’t keep anything from Niall) but he kept his mouth shut. He’s a good man.

But Snow didn’t talk to me about it directly until fifth year, when the chimera attacked again and we were alone in the woods and neither of us had our wands. He was panicking, about to go off, and I was trying to get close enough to him to put my hands on him and all of a sudden he yelled, “why isn’t it working?”

I thought he meant his magic, and I was about to retort, when he kick at a branch and then ducked back down behind a boulder.

“I call and I call and I do everything I can to Summon her and she never comes. I’ve almost died like sixty times and she never shows up!” he shouted, then turned on me. “You. Use your Summons! We need a wand!”

It’s painfully obvious, but somehow in all that time it had never occurred to me that Snow still thought he had his Summons. And that he’d been calling for a female soulmate that was never going to come.

“No,” I sneered back. “I’m not wasting my Summons on this.”

And then I let him go off. It was the only way we were getting out of there without wands.

***

After that, it was like Snow had permission to talk to me about it.

“Have you ever been Summoned?” he asked one night while I was sitting at my desk, studying.

“Why would you care?” I answered, my voice monotone.

“Just curious, I guess. Seems like it’s kind of rare? I just don’t get why mine won’t work.”

“Because you’re defective,” I said, and turned back to my work. Around that time I’d started to worry that maybe I was actually starting to fall for him a little bit.

I hadn’t loved him when I first met him—on the contrary, I’d been terrified, and angry, and hurt. But I’d felt overwhelmingly protective of him since the moment I saw him floating above his cot. I’d thought that was all it was; a feeling of protectiveness. But as I got older I knew that there was more to it, that the feeling came from somewhere else, and that he would never feel that way about me. So I’d started being cold to him and cutting him off. We’d never been friendly, but fifth year I went completely cold on him. It didn’t help that I was also dealing with the awful aspects of vampirism kicking in, and he was everywhere .

And always obsessing about his soulmate.

***

Once in seventh year, I caught him in the room, sitting on his bed, his eyes clenched tight, a vein in his forehead almost throbbing with exertion, and he looked close to an aneurysm.

“What are you doing?” I snapped.

“Trying to Summon, shut up,” he’d said back, and I actually snorted. One of his eyes opened.

“You’re going to waste your Summons on this?” I said, ignoring the fact that I knew his Summons was gone. “Call up your soulmate, have a chat? That’s not how it works. You need to need them. You need to want them.”

“I do want them!” he sniped back, and I rolled my eyes.

“Maybe you can’t use your Summons because you’re a Normal,” I said, and I watched as his face crumpled and he hurried out of the room, a trail of smoke lingering behind him. I didn’t know why I was goading him. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t have his Summons anymore. And it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t remember using it. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. The night he Summoned me had entirely changed my life. I found my magic that night. I found out I had a soul that night. And I met the person that made life worth living.

I was thoroughly in love with him by then. I’d spent the summer trying to shake it, but it was no good. I consoled myself that there was some kind of universal mumbo jumbo at play, and that I couldn’t help loving him, and then I cheered myself by deciding that I didn’t have to give in to it. Just because we were fated together didn’t mean I had to play along.

My mother never used her Summons. And I’d decided I won’t either.

***

I was serious about that. I won’t Summon him. Even if I need him, I won’t Summon him.

Fiona will find me, or I’ll manage to get out of here myself. I’m stronger than the average Mage, even without my wand. And my family would never let me disappear. I’ll get out of here with Simon Snow. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.

It’s hard to tell how long I’ve been in here, but I think it’s only been a few days. They open the lid and throw in a ziplock of blood every so often, and I can tell by the gravelly voices and brackish smell that it’s numpties who have me. I try not to think about that though. It’s humiliating.

I would attack when they open the lid of the coffin, but they keep catching me off guard, and there’s something wrong with my leg. When I move a blinding pain shoots through me, so by the time I think about sinking my teeth into the hand that’s feeding me, it’s too late, and the pain immobilises me.

But if it’s only been a few days, there’s no need to worry. Someone will find me soon. Fiona is like a fucking bloodhound. Nothing gets past her. It would be an overreaction to Summon him at this point anyway. I’m a Pitch. Pitches don’t overreact.

***

Even if I don’t Summon him, I can still think about him.

I think about blue eyes and bronze curls when I start to slip away, and it brings me back. I think about the flames that surrounded him the night we first met when the chill sets in and I can’t stop shaking, and it warms me a bit. I think about his magic the most, though. How it fills me up until I’m no longer cold or hungry, how it bursts out of me when I cast, how it leaves the taste of him on my tongue and the aftershocks of his magic sparking up my fingers. How sometimes, late at night, I can feel the tiny reserve that he always leaves me with, nestled in my chest.

I’ve never used it. I never use his magic unless I’m keeping him from going off. I don’t know why or how he leaves a bit behind, and I’ve always wanted to use it, but I never do. It feels too intimate, somehow. And I’m scared that he would notice. Or that it would activate the Summons.

But would that really be so bad?

***

They seem to give me blood every three days. I’ve lost track a few times. But I think I’ve been here for a month. Maybe a month and a half.

That’s too fucking long.

So I use his magic.

It’s still there, burning slightly in my chest, and I reach for it, even though I’m exhausted and rusty. I’m not sure what to use it for though. Blow the lid off the coffin? But then I’m too tired to fight off the numpties. Heal my leg? Then I could maybe think straight long enough to fight back when they give me blood.

Or maybe I’ll warm myself up.

That’s a good idea, actually. It’s gotten colder and colder and this coffin is freezing and I hate being cold. I would give everything to be warm again, even for a moment. So I’ll do it. I’ll warm myself up.

I reach for his magic and it greets me immediately like an old friend, and I let it prepare itself, settling into position, ready to be directed, and I—

I don’t have a wand. I have his magic, but I don’t have a wand, so I can’t fucking do anything with it. I can’t do anything. I can’t make myself warm.

Tears leak out and a strangled sob follows and I use the last of my energy to pound on the roof of the coffin and scream myself hoarse because how the fuck did I get into this position?

I have his magic but I can’t use it. And he’s not here, and he’s not coming to save me, and I’m going to die here. I know that now. I’m not getting out. And I’m not going to see him before I go.

I wish I could see him before I could go. I wish I could kiss him, then leave.

I wish he were here.

***

I feel his magic before I hear him.

It’s not like the small residual magic he left me. That magic is old; it’s a memory, a leftover. This magic is fresh. This magic is here.

The ground underneath me shakes and I smell smoke, and then I feel the heat. There are flames outside of the coffin, I’m positive of it, and panic streaks through me. I’m flammable. I’m going to burn alive in this coffin. They can bury me in it. I’ll never need to leave.

There are muffled shouts from around me and I can’t place who they’re coming from. The numpties? Or is it him?

But then it’s silent, and the fire is gone, and his magic fades. Is he gone? Was he ever here? I didn’t mean to Summon him, but it’s possible I did. Everything is difficult for me right now, I’m barely in control of my sanity, no less my will.

I’m kind of hoping I did Summon him. But it’s silent and cold again and I’m terrified that he came and killed the numpties and then left again, and I didn’t get to see him. I can’t get out of this coffin, I don’t think. So it would have been for nothing. I’ll just die next to their corpses.

Just as quickly as it came, his magic washes over me again and the lid of the coffin opens. It’s nighttime, so the darkness doesn’t exactly lift, but there is someone above me, a shape silhouetted against the moonlight, and then there are hands reaching in for me. His magic unleashes the moment we touch, snaking its way through my veins and burning me from inside, and I’m so relieved to feel him again. I’m so glad I Summoned him.

Somehow I’ve been pulled to my feet, and his hands are grasping my arms, and his eyes are drilling into me.

“Did you bring me, or did I get here myself?”

I just blink at him. I don’t know if I can speak.

“Baz, did you Summon me?”

I’m still silent, and he growls in frustration, and then his eyes go wide. I know from experience what he’s feeling; that tug in his navel, the nausea. He’s about to go. He digs in his pocket and shoves his wand at me.

“Stay here. I’ll send someone to—”

The air ripples and he’s gone, and I’m left alone.

I sit down quickly on the ground. He was here. I used my Summons.

I don’t really regret it. I’m alive, and his magic is still singing through me.

***

Fiona finds me two hours later. I’ve used Snow’s wand and his reservoir of magic to tidy up and to keep myself warm, and I’m sitting against a wall. I didn’t think his wand would work for me—it doesn’t even work for him—but it does. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this. That soulmates could use each others instruments. I just didn’t know he knew it. He didn’t even blink, just handed it over without a thought, a gut instinct.

He also said he was going to tell my family. Or rather, I think that where that sentence was going, but it’s what keeps me in one spot instead of staggering off to try to find my way home. I want to be where he tells them to go.

I guess I’m under a bridge, and I’m leaning against the farthest wall possible. I feel ridiculous, but I needed to get away from that coffin. Just looking at it sends me into a wave of panic.

I caught a rat that skittered by and drained it to steady myself, and I drank messily, the fresh blood tasting amazing after having been given stale blood of unknown origin for so long. But I made the mistake of looking up while I did it. When my gaze landed on the coffin, my stomach turned. I vomited all the blood up.

Fiona arrived shortly after that. She takes one look at me, shakes her head, then grabs me around the shoulders and pulls me in for a hug.

“You should have Summoned him the first day, you little shit,” she hisses. I don’t respond. She’s right.

She bundles me into her car and makes me sit in the back, which is honestly for the best, because I have more room when I vomit up the fast food she buys me. I fade in and out of consciousness, and when I finally come back, I’m in my own bed, in my home.

My father is sitting on my couch, his head resting on one hand, his eyes closed. I think he’s asleep.

I clear my throat and his head snaps up instantly, and our eyes lock from across the room.

“Basilton,” he says, and there’s silence. “I’m glad you’re back.”

I nod. I have no idea what to say. Part of me is still angry he didn’t find me, that I had to use my Summons. Part of me is furious that this happened, that someone did it to me. And a larger part of me is terrified that this is all a dream, and I’m going to wake back up in the dark. There’s also the fear that it isn’t a dream, that it all happened, and that I’ll have to face Snow at some point, knowing that he knows.

“He called me,” my father says suddenly. “From the Watford line. Told me where to find you and hung up.”

More silence.

“The way I see it, there are two possibilities. Either he knew where you were because he was involved in putting you there,” he says, and I look away. “Or he’s the one who found you.”

I swallow and try to find my words. Is this how Snow feels all the time? Perpetually incapable of speech?

“I Summoned him,” I say finally, and my father nods. A long sigh escapes him, and he looks down at the rug, and I feel a twinge of pity for him. He knew that one day there was going to be a boy in my life, and he took it in stride. But finding out that boy is the Mage’s Heir—that the boy is our greatest enemy—that’s a harder pill to swallow. I’m not sure if he can ever accept that.

Finally he stands up from the couch and speaks again.

“I’m glad he was able to be there for you,” he says. And then he leaves.

***

It’s unnecessarily grandiose to use an Open Sesame on the doors, but I do it anyway because I know everyone will be in the dining hall, and I might as well make an entrance.

I do it using Simon Snow’s wand, and I keep it out and by my side as I walk in.

The proverbial cat is out of the bag, as they say. It turns out that I Summoned Snow in the middle of dinner. When he came back, he was still talking. The entire dining hall heard him say, “—find you, Baz. We’ll find you.”

I guess that answers my question of what Snow was going to say.

Dev called to tell me about it while I was still in bed, per Daphne’s orders, an unspoken question in his voice. I didn’t acknowledge it. But I’m glad he prepared me. Now that I know it’s common knowledge, I want to be the one to control how this goes. If Snow’s going to be a dick about it, I want the ability to use this as leverage. To use it against him.

Just so he can’t use it against me.

That’s why I used his wand. I feel a little bad for keeping it for the past two weeks—I could have easily had it sent back to Watford—but I liked having it with me. It feels like his magic. And I’m a sentimental asshole who still can’t properly get over the fact that he just gave it to me. But I want everyone to know that. I want everyone to look at me and see his wand and know that I can wield his magic. Just in case.

All heads turn to me and a whisper goes up through the dining hall as Snow bursts into a standing position, his chair going flying and his fork falling to the floor. We stare at each other across the hall, and I prepare to sneer at him, or to use his wand again, but suddenly he takes off, striding across the cobblestone floor toward me. He reaches me in seconds, grabs me by the arms, and shoves me.

This was not what I was expecting.

“No one told me if they found you,” he growls. “Why didn’t you contact me? I called your family but no one called me back, and I kept calling but no one was answering.”

His voice is raised, and he pushes me again.

“I tried to Summon you but you wouldn’t come—by the way, why the fuck don’t you ever come?” He shoves me again, and I take a step back as I absorb the shock. “And I tried to talk to Dev but he told me to get fucked.”

“They didn’t tell you?” I ask dumbly. Snow shakes his head. That’s just like my family. They haven’t said anything to me about Summoning Snow, aside from that one conversation with my father. I think they’re coming around to it, but old habits die hard. Of course they left him on ice.

“I didn’t know if they found you or if you were still there, and I tried to get out of school to go check but The Mage wouldn’t let me and Penny said—” he stops ranting and then glares at me, going eerily still. I prepare myself for another shove. “Why the fuck don’t you ever come when I try to Summon you?”

Everyone is listening to us. Everyone is hanging on our words, except for Dev and Niall, who are deliberately inspecting the teapot. I have good friends.

I turn around and leave. I know he’ll follow.

He does; I can hear his huffing breaths as he tries to keep up with me as I stride across the lawn. I don’t go to our room; the idea of being trapped in an enclosed space with him is too much. I’m still not great at being indoors, honestly, or in small spaces. When I get anxious I need to be outside. So I head to the football pitch. It’s morning, and no one will be there.

“Would you just stop and answer me?” he huffs, and I remember that despite his broad shoulders, Snow is chronically out of shape. Even after being in a coffin for a month-and-a-half I have more stamina. “Why don’t you ever come when I try to Summon you? Do you know how many times I’ve almost died? It would have been useful to have you around.”

“I did,” I say quietly, putting my hands in my pocket and squinting in the morning sun.

“Half of those times you were the one trying to kill me, but still, why didn’t you ever respond?” He’s ranting now. He looks like Wellbelove when she works herself up into a proper strop, her eyes wide, her hands gesticulating. I wince when I remember her. I wonder how she felt about Snow coming back from his Summons with my name on his lips?

“I did,” I say again. “You used your Summons years ago, and I did come.”

Snow falls silent.

“No I didn’t,” he says. “I would have remembered.”

I hum and look past him. I never wanted to have this conversation.

“You used it when you were eleven. The night you came into your magic and almost went off. You pulled me out on my way to brush my teeth.”

The silence between us is heavy, and he’s glaring at me like he doesn’t believe me, like he thinks I’m lying, and then—

“I thought that was a dream,” he says. His voice is soft. Confused. “The boy who took my magic. I thought I dreamt or hallucinated it. I didn’t...I never thought that was a Summons.”

He looks up at me and I smile grimly.

“It was me,” I say. “Surprise.”

He stares at me for a moment and then sits down hard on the ground.

“Fuck,” he says, and I nod again.

“Yes, that about sums it up.”

I sit down next to him carefully, minding my leg. Something is still wrong with it; I’m not limping anymore, but it doesn’t agree with sudden movements. I bend my knees and lean forward, my arms slung over my legs as I pick at a blade of grass.

“So all this time,” he says, slowly, not looking at me. “You knew it was me?”

I nod.

He scowls at the ground and tears up a handful of grass.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Is it because I’m a bloke? And why were you always trying to kill me? Do you hate me so much that you’d kill your soulmate?”

I close my eyes and sigh, and then lie back on the grass. I can’t look at him, so instead I look up into the sky. If I can’t see him, it will be easier to get this out.

“I don’t care that you’re a bloke. I...prefer it, honestly,” I say, my teeth gritted. That’s the easy one out of the way. “And I’ve never tried to kill you. The opposite, actually. I’m always around when shit goes south because I’ve been…trying to help. I guess.”

“Help?”

I close my eyes. It’s easier to tell him that I hate him than to tell him that I don’t.

“Keep you from going off. If I touch you, I can take your excess magic, take on some of the overflow.” I sigh. “But sometimes the easiest way to touch you is to punch you.”

“You broke my nose in the fourth year.”

“You were about to go off.”

“And you set a Chimera after me. Twice.”

“Actually, that was Dev. And it was an accident. And the second time surprised me as much as anyone.”

“You threw me down the stairs.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and open my eyes to stare up at the sky again. He’s in the corner of my vision, leaning slightly over me.

“I was trying to grab you. You flinched back and threw yourself. Don’t you remember you were almost having a panic attack?”

Snow scowls at me, and I try not to flush. I’m not used to having him so close when we’re not trying to beat each other.

“So you’ve really been trying to help me? You can channel my magic?”

“Unfortunately.”

His disappears from view and then he’s flopped back on the ground next to me, our arms barely touching. He’s warm. He’s so warm.

“I could always feel it. But I just thought…” he shrugs. “I just thought it was another aspect of going off. I never really questioned why it only happened around you. I wonder why it happens?”

I snort.

“I think it’s fairly obvious, Snow.” I don’t say the word though. I don’t say, because we’re soulmates , because it seems too surreal and too real all at the same time.

“This is weird,” he mutters, and I huff in agreement. There’s motion out of the corner of my eye and I see that he’s rolled over to his side, his head propped up on his elbow, and he’s staring at me.

“Can we do it again?”

“Why? You’re not going off. And you did it when you….when you found me,” I say. I’m slightly uncomfortable with the idea of getting access to his magic when it’s not life and death. It seems indulgent. And I feel like he shouldn’t trust me with it.

As if he can read my mind, he shrugs.

“I trust you,” he says. “And I want to see what it’s like. Now that I know what’s going on.”

I sigh dramatically and nod, and suddenly I feel the warm, light pressure of his tentative hand in mine. I don’t look at him.

Usually when I take his magic it’s already flowing out of him, and I just act as some kind of conductor. But the tap is turned off. I can’t pull it from him, and I’m not sure if this works if he’s not already going off and—

Suddenly he pushes into me. It feels different, somehow, when the magic is given instead of just accidentally taken. It spreads through me and down my leg and it’s not painful like it usually is. It’s soft, and nice, and warm.

I pull his wand and mutter a spell, and the wind around us picks up. It rustles through the trees and sends leaves curling up into small dancing columns and it ruffles at our hair. It’s a gentle wind, but it’s strong, and it revolves around us, making the trees at the edge of the Wavering Wood sing before it quiets down.

When the wind stops, Snow still hasn’t let go of my hand.

“That’s what you did that night,” he whispers. “You put out the fire with wind.”

I didn’t think he would remember that. I just nod; I’m not sure what to say. He’s still staring at me though, his face close to mine.

“I don’t mind that you’re a bloke either,” he says quietly, and my heart thunders in my chest. “And I’m glad you Summoned me.”

His free hand has reached out to trace along my cheek lightly, and I exhale loudly, then turn to face him.

“Thank you for being there for me,” I say, and he blinks, one long, slow, exaggerated motion that shows off his ridiculous eyelashes.

And then I kiss him.