Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow

Baz only remembers pieces of the day he was turned. He was five years old when vampires attacked the Watford’s faculty nursery. Baz was the only child bitten, and he remembers the blue flames his mother conjured to destroy the intruders. After he was bitten, he passed out from pain. When he awoke, his aunt and father were casting healing spells on him, and his mother was gone.

As Baz explains that vampires don’t normally attack mages, Simon wonders how Baz can talk about vampires as though he isn’t one. Simon shows his roommate an article written about the attack, which describes how Baz’s mother was bitten by a vampire and used the spell “Tyger, tyger, burning bright” (233) to immolate herself and her attacker. The news that his mother deliberately ended her own life makes Baz fall silent. When Simon tries to comfort him, Baz snaps at him, and Simon leaves, feeling as though their fledgling partnership is doomed.

The Humdrum sends a dragon to the school that looks like “a red T. rex with yellow cat eyes and big rubbery red wings” (236). Simon attacks the creature with his sword, but Baz knows that dragons only attack when they feel threatened. Baz uses a nursery rhyme, the most powerful type of spell, to make the dragon fly away, and Simon channels some of his magic into Baz to help.

Baz, Simon, and Penny regroup in the boys’ room. Penny wants to know why Simon can suddenly share his magic like “a power outlet that other magicians can just plug in to” (242). At her insistence, Simon passes a little power into her, but it hurts, and they stop immediately. Baz knows that the Mage would want to use Simon’s power if he learned of this new ability, so they decide to keep it a secret for now. Penny doesn’t agree with the Pitches’ politics, but she sees Natasha Pitch as a hero. She agrees to help Baz bring his mother’s spirit peace, giving the vampire “a soft look, the kind she usually saves for” Simon (246).

The trio looks through a book detailing all attacks against mages over a 50-year period. They find no mention of the Humdrum even though the dead spots first appeared in the 1990s. Penny wonders how the magical community learned that the Humdrum was behind the dead spots and dark creatures’ attacks, and she questions why vampires would attack Watford when there are much easier targets.

While Baz steps outside to eat, Penny explains to Simon that all of the wars in the magical world trace back to the vampires’ attack on Watford. This includes the civil war that the Mage’s reforms started with the Old Families. Simon wishes that there was only one war and that he had one clear-cut enemy that he could fight to solve everything, prompting Penny to ask how he’s coping now that Baz is no longer his nemesis. Simon answers that the truce is temporary.

When Simon’s magic poured through Baz, it felt “like being struck by benevolent lightning” (257). That night, Simon insists that they try again. He holds Baz’s hand and shares his magic with him. Baz recites the nursery rhyme “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and their room vanishes, replaced by a starry sky. The power is so intoxicating that Baz giggles. After Simon stops sharing his magic, he holds on to Baz’s hand. Baz thinks he should pull away, but he wouldn’t even if Simon set “fires in [his] palms at this point” (262). Simon tries to make Baz open up about his whereabouts at the start of the school year, his injuries, and his vampirism. Baz refuses to tell him anything, certain that the other mages will kill him if he admits the truth.

Agatha talks to Simon for the first time since they broke up. He always spends Christmas break with her family, but she asks him not to this year. He agrees, even though he’s still hoping they can get back together.

Simon hopes to spend Christmas with Penny’s family, but her mother won’t allow it because she thinks he’ll give information to the Mage. Baz invites Simon to spend Christmas break with his family so they can continue their investigation, but Simon rejects the idea. Baz tells Simon what happened that day in the Wavering Wood with Agatha: Agatha saw him drinking blood, and he asked her not to tell anyone. The hand-holding was just like all his other flirting with Agatha—an attempt to bother Simon. Hearing that Baz doesn’t care about Agatha makes Simon angry, and the two nearly come to blows.

Baz’s father wants him to pass on the Pitch name by having children, so he would be elated if Baz married Agatha. Baz imagines complying and then supplementing this loveless marriage by finding “a thousand men who look exactly like Simon bloody Snow and [breaking] each of their hearts a different way” (279). Baz was trying to do Simon a favor by telling him where he stands with Agatha, but it backfired. He’s convinced that he and Simon “will always be enemies” though he hoped that they might “get to a point where [they] didn’t want to be” (280).

Alone on Christmas, Simon has imaginary conversations with Penny and Baz and tries to find the nursery, which hid itself after the vampires’ attack. Simon visits Ebb the goatherd and asks her about Baz’s mother. When Ebb was a student, Natasha Pitch recognized Ebb’s tremendous magical strength and told her that power “doesn’t have to be a burden” or a destiny (284). Ebb tells Simon about her twin brother, Nicodemus Petty, the only mage known to have voluntarily become a vampire. Simon takes a train to Hampshire so he can tell Baz what he learned.

As Baz practices the violin, a member of the household staff informs him that a friend from school has come to see him. He finds a muddy Simon Snow standing in the foyer “like a lost dog. Or an amnesia victim” (290). Baz uses magic to help Simon clean up and blushes at the fact that Simon is in his home.

Simon tells Baz about Nicodemus. Ebb doesn’t know where her brother is, and the books in the Pitch library only say that vampires are “dead and evil and like to kill babies” (296), so Baz thinks he may have to go directly to the vampires to acquire more information. With his message delivered, Simon plans to head back to Watford, but Baz insists that he stay for dinner.

Baz lets his father think that he has tricked the Chosen One into coming to their home as part of a scheme. Baz hasn’t told his father about his mother’s ghost. In the library, the boys look in vain for any mention of Nicodemus. Simon wonders why more people don’t choose to become vampires to gain enhanced strength and senses. When Simon posits that vampires still have living souls, Baz argues that vampires are dead because living people “seem really far away. […] And they’re full of something you don’t have” (301).

Baz snoops around Aunt Fiona’s room and finds photos of her with Nicodemus in her old yearbook. Baz shows Simon to a guest room, but it’s haunted, so Simon spends the night in Baz’s room. Simon realizes that Baz no longer creeps him out—instead, the sound of the vampire’s breathing helps him fall asleep.

Baz goes to Fiona’s flat in London and asks her about Nicodemus, but she insists that Nicodemus is washed up and won’t have any answers for her nephew. Fiona knows her sister would have had Baz killed after he was turned, but Fiona is proud of the way he’s grown up and taken after his mother: “[H]e may be dead, but he isn’t lost. He’s dark as pitch and sharp as a blade, and he’s full of [her] magic” (307). Noting his expensive suit, Fiona asks Baz if he’s “met a bloke” (309). He smiles like pure trouble and confirms that the situation is something of that nature.

Penny invites Agatha over to her house during Christmas break. Penny only has three friends, counting Agatha, and she’d rather not lose one. Agatha looks forward to attending university with her Normal friends, but she doesn’t have a major picked out yet because she’s “not destined for anything” (313). Penny’s mother shows Agatha a picture from her Watford days. The photo shows the Mage, who was just Davy then, and his girlfriend, Lucy. Lucy and Penny’s mother were best friends, but they lost touch after Lucy allegedly broke up with Davy and moved to America.

During his time at Watford, Davy brought his grievances about the status quo to the Coven, but they didn’t take him seriously. After that, he became obsessed with prophecies heralding the Chosen One, including one that described him “as ‘a vessel’—large and strong enough to hold all of magic itself” (321).

Penny’s father studies the dead zones in the magical atmosphere, which began appearing 17 years ago and only affect the United Kingdom. In 2008, the magical community started seeing the Humdrum as an entity with volition rather than a natural disaster because of its attacks on Simon. When Penny asks her father about the vampires’ attack on Watford, he lies that he doesn’t know Nicodemus.

Simon insists that Baz start calling him by his first name rather than his surname since they’re allies. Following a tip from Fiona, Baz leads the way to a bar in Covent Garden, where the boys find Nicodemus. As part of his punishment for choosing to become a vampire, the mages removed Nicodemus’s fangs and broke his wand. Nicodemus refuses to tell Simon and Baz anything except that a mage hired the vampires who attacked Watford. Feeling as though he’s failed his mother, Baz cries. In the woods near his home, Baz sets the trees on fire because he’s convinced he deserves to die by suicide. Through tears, Simon tells Baz that he’s “not a monster” and refuses to leave him (339).

Baz thinks that he’ll have to use a spell on Simon so he doesn’t burn up, too. He considers kissing Simon before he forces him to leave, but then Simon kisses him first.

Simon wants to be back in his dorm room with Baz, knowing “that he isn’t hurting anyone, and no one is hurting him” (342). He decides that Baz isn’t a monster or a villain but “just a boy” (343). Baz doesn’t want Simon to die in the fire, so he shoves Simon back and puts out the fire with some help from Simon’s magic. Then Baz yanks off Simon’s cross necklace and throws it away.

As Simon and Baz continue to kiss, Simon wonders how long they’ve both wanted this. Baz stops the kiss and tells Simon to put his cross necklace back on because his hunger is distracting him. Simon channels his magic through Baz again, helping him cast a hunting spell. Impressed and a bit terrified, Baz tells Simon that he needs to lay off the “Godlike displays of magic” (348). After Baz drains a doe of its blood, he drives them back to his family’s home. Simon is surprisingly unbothered to have witnessed Baz’s vampirism firsthand since he’s “the world’s most reluctant, least blood-sucking vampire” (351). If anything, Simon is put out that Baz has reverted to calling him by his last name again. Baz still expects Simon to report him to the Mage after the truce ends, but Simon believes that everything’s different now. The boys fall asleep on the floor near Baz’s fireplace. When they wake up, they discuss destiny. Both of them have been expecting Simon to kill Baz one day. Simon confesses that he tries not to think about what he wants, since he just does whatever is expected of him.

Penny wakes Agatha up on Christmas Eve and asks her to drive them to the countryside so they can help Simon.

Simon suggests that he and Baz don’t have to fight anymore, but Baz points out that the Old Families still plan to use him against Simon and the Mage some day. Simon offers a hopeful, albeit vague, alternate future in which they find Natasha Pitch’s killer and then stop the Humdrum together.

Baz invites Penny to his home so they can strategize, and she brings Agatha. The boys tell the girls about Nicodemus but leave out the part where Baz tried to immolate himself and Simon stopped him by kissing him. Agatha, who is just finding out now that the ghost of Baz’s mother visited Simon, is bewildered that Simon is working with the vampire. When Baz finally admits to everyone that he was kidnapped, Penny theorizes that the person who hired the numpties is not the Mage—as Baz suspected—but rather the person who murdered Baz’s mother.

Agatha thinks that they should tell the Mage everything, but Baz and Penny remain adamant that they can’t involve him. Agatha invites Simon to spend Christmas Eve with her family. Much to Baz’s ire, Simon accepts.

Baz tries to hide his disappointment that Simon chose to leave with Agatha, “the one person [Simon] always wanted, as long as [Baz has] known him” (380). Baz’s father mentions that the Old Families have a plan for Baz after he graduates Watford, and he and Baz’s stepmother want him to consider talking to a psychologist. As Baz dresses for dinner, his stepsister informs him that the Chosen One is back. Baz asks Simon if he returned so they “can tumble around and kiss and pretend to be happy boyfriends” (382). Simon rolls his eyes and says they should do just that.

In the car, Agatha goes on a rant about how Penny and Simon are conspiring against the Mage. Penny points out that the Chosen One is meant to help the whole world of mages, not just follow the Mage’s orders. As the girls argue, Simon imagines how appalled Agatha would be if she knew he’d kissed Baz. He asks her to pull over, tells his friends he’s worried about Baz, and then runs back to the Pitch mansion.

Baz doesn’t like to eat in front of other people because his fangs come out, so he barely touches his dinner. Afterward, the boys go to Baz’s room, where Simon tells him that he wants to be Baz’s boyfriend even though Simon’s track record with Agatha suggests he’ll be terrible at it. Baz shares a plate of leftovers with Simon, who enthuses over how wicked his fangs look. Baz agrees to be Simon’s boyfriend.

Penny and Agatha’s fight continues after Simon leaves the car. Agatha wants to just be friends with Penny and Simon, not “comrades-in-arms” (393) or collateral damage in Simon’s story. Back home, Agatha asks her parents about the Mage’s former girlfriend. Her mother says that her name was Lucy Salisbury, that she ran away to America with a Normal man, and that she may have had a child. Agatha, who secretly had a Normal boyfriend before she started dating Simon, thinks that Lucy had the right idea by running from the world of mages.

After they graduated from Watford, Lucy and Davy moved into a cottage together. On one of the rare occasions Davy could be persuaded to see friends, they visited Penny’s parents, Martin and Mitali Bunce. Davy and Mitali got into an argument because she planned to run for a seat on the Coven and Davy was convinced that “the only answer is revolution” (401). Davy’s isolation only intensified after that. Eventually, Davy decided that it wasn’t enough to wait for the Chosen One’s birth and that he was meant to help fulfill the prophecies by having a baby with Lucy. It is clear that what everyone believes about Lucy—that she left the Mage, had a baby with a Normal man, and ran off to America—is a lie the Mage invented to hide the truth that Simon is his and Lucy’s son.