Fangirl

oxen free,” he whispered. Simon braced himself, but nothing happened.
    “Perhaps he’s a man,” the Mage said, recovering his wry smile. “Perhaps he’s something else, something less, I should think.”
    “Is he a magician? Like us?”
    “No,” the Mage said severely. “Of that we can be certain. He—if indeed he is a he —is the enemy of magic. He destroys magic; some think he eats it. He wipes the world clean of magic, wherever he can.…
    “You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep it from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long past the edge of exhaustion.
    “But fight him we must. You were recruited to Watford because we believe the Humdrum has taken a special interest in you. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.”

    —from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie

 
    SEVENTEEN
    They didn’t talk in the car. And Cath didn’t cry. She was grateful for that. She already felt like such a fool.…
    Because she was one.
    What had she been thinking—that Levi really liked her? How could she have believed that, especially after she’d spent the last two days explaining to herself all the reasons he never would.
    Maybe she’d thought it was possible because Reagan thought it was possible, and Reagan wasn’t anybody’s fool.…
    When they got back to the dorms, Reagan stopped Cath from getting out of the car. “Wait.”
    Cath sat, holding the passenger door open.
    “I’m sorry,” Reagan said. “I really didn’t expect that to happen.”
    “I just want to pretend that it didn’t,” Cath said, feeling tears burning again in her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this—and, I mean, I know he’s your best friend, but I really don’t want you to talk to him about tonight.… Or about me. Ever. I already feel like such an ass.”
    “Sure,” Reagan said, “whatever you want.”
    “I want to pretend this didn’t happen.”
    “Okay.”
    *   *   *
    Reagan was good at not talking about things.
    She didn’t mention Levi for the rest of the weekend. He called Cath Saturday morning, but she didn’t pick up. A few seconds later, Reagan’s phone rang.
    “Don’t ignore him on my account,” Cath said. “It never happened.”
    “Hey…,” Reagan said into the phone. “Yeah … All right … Just call me when you’re downstairs. Cath is trying to study.”
    A half hour later, Reagan’s phone rang again, and she got up to leave. “See ya,” she said.
    Cath nodded. “Later.”
    Levi tried calling Cath again that weekend. Twice. And once he sent her a text that said, “so they found the 5th hare, now what? will trade gingerbread lattes and pumkin bread for this information.”
    The fact that he misspelled “pumpkin” made Cath wince.
    If she hadn’t gone to the party—if she hadn’t seen Levi in action—she would have thought this text was him asking her out on a date.
    She knew she’d have to see him again. He was still Reagan’s best friend, the two of them still studied together.…
    Reagan would probably keep him away completely if Cath wanted that, but Cath didn’t want Levi to ask questions. So Cath stayed away instead. She started going to the library after dinner and hanging out in Nick’s stacks. Nick generally wasn’t there; nobody was. Cath brought her laptop and tried to work on her final project, her ten-thousand-word short story, for Fiction-Writing. She’d started it—she’d started it half a dozen times—but she still didn’t have anything she wanted to finish.
    Usually she ended up working on Carry On, Simon. Cath was on a streak, posting long chapters almost every night. Switching from her Fiction-Writing homework to Simon and Baz was like realizing she’d been driving in the wrong gear. She could actually feel the muscles in her forearms loosen. Her typing got faster; her breathing got easier. She’d catch herself nodding her head as she wrote, almost like she was keeping time with the words as they rushed out of her.
    When the library closed, Cath would dial 911 on her phone, then run back to the dorm as fast as she could with her finger on Call.
    It was more than a week before she saw Levi again. She came