Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow

Baz was kidnapped by troll-like creatures called numpties and kept in a coffin for six weeks. His abductors gave him blood to drink, but they didn’t seem to know that vampires also require food. His aunt Fiona rescued him and took him home, where he spent two weeks in bed recuperating. Baz’s family suspects that the Mage ordered his kidnapping, but Baz insisted on returning to Watford—it’s the last place he saw his mother.

This year is Baz’s last chance “to torment Snow” before their rivalry becomes “something more permanent and less entertaining” (160). Simon glares at Baz in Greek class, so agitated that magic is pouring off of him in dizzying waves. Baz wants to take Simon aside and help him calm down, but he’s used to subduing that impulse because he’s seen Simon’s power overflow countless times.

Simon notices that Baz looks ill, and Penny almost has to physically restrain her friend from rushing over to the vampire and picking a fight. Simon believes that he’ll probably have to kill Baz one day. At Watford, a magical crucible pairs students up as roommates, and they stay together their entire time at the school. Simon suspects that he was paired with Baz to keep an eye on him. The boys have a tense conversation in which Simon puts his cross necklace back on and tries unsuccessfully to get Baz to tell him where he’s been.

The Pitches see the Mage’s revolution as a military coup that pushes the Old Families out of their traditional places of power in the Coven. At Aunt Fiona’s insistence, Baz agreed to take something from the Mage’s office, but he’s too tired to fulfill that oath on his first night back at school. Instead, he watches Simon sleep. Baz kept himself alive during his captivity by thinking about Simon because he is “hopelessly in love with him” (176).

Baz realized he was in love with Simon during their fifth year at Watford. He likens being roommates with the person he most wants to “sharing a room with an open fire” (177). Because he’s a vampire, fire is extremely dangerous for him, which is ironic since he comes from two long lines of fire mages. Simon smells like smoke and always burns hot, so Baz has grown used to sleeping with the windows of their room open even on freezing nights like this one. Finally feeling at home, Baz falls asleep.

Simon thinks that Baz made three attempts on his life during their fifth year, but Baz only wanted to scare him with the incident with the chimera, and he didn’t mean to knock him down the stairs. However, Baz did sincerely want to hurt Simon later that year because of his pent-up, conflicted feelings. Aunt Fiona gave Baz an enchanted tape recorder. Baz tried to steal Simon’s voice with it, which would make it impossible for Simon to work magic ever again, but a girl named Philippa lost her voice instead. Baz fears that the Mage will send Simon to destroy his family some day; Baz would have to try to stop Simon even though Baz thinks he’s doomed against the Chosen One. In the morning, Simon tries to talk to Baz, but Baz blushes and hurries away.

Penny tells Simon that people who are scared a ghost will reveal their secrets during the equinox have hidden or even murdered the person who’s meant to receive the ghost’s message. This makes Simon wonder if it wasn’t the Humdrum who killed Baz’s mother after all, but he doesn’t tell anyone about the ghost yet.

Penny’s mother insists that Penny keep a cell phone on her at all times even though it’s against school rules. Penny does so as a compromise since her parents didn’t want her to come back to Watford after the Humdrum abducted her and Simon last semester. The Humdrum took them to a field in Lancashire which was a dead zone, one of “the holes in the magickal atmosphere that started appearing when the Humdrum did” (192). The Humdrum looked like an 11-year-old Simon and had the same red rubber ball Simon played with during his first year at Watford. Penny distracted the Humdrum by throwing the ball, and then she and Simon ran. Once they were out of the dead zone, Simon wished he could fly and sprouted wings, which should be impossible. Penny made Simon’s wings vanish, and they took a train back to Watford.

Agatha doesn’t have friends at Watford besides Simon and Penny. Her closest friends are Normals, and she’s not allowed to talk to them about magic. Not even her fellow mages know her true feelings about magic, which she compares to a religion that demands total devotion and takes over people’s lives. Agatha and Baz haven’t talked since the Wavering Wood. Simon was abducted by the Humdrum right after he spotted Agatha and Baz together, which for Agatha feels like a reminder that “everyone else is a supporting character in [the Chosen One’s] catastrophe” (197). Agatha approaches a limping Baz. The vampire brushes off her attempt to get closer, saying that she’ll soon be back with Simon. When Agatha objects, Baz replies, “When you figure out how to sidestep destiny, let me know” (198).

Baz has been back at school for weeks, but he still feels perpetually cold and hungry. Worse yet, the dark catacombs where he hunts rats remind him of the coffin the numpties kept him in. He decides to feed outdoors instead. Adding to Baz’s frustrations, Simon follows him around just like during their fifth year. Baz wants to either bite or kiss Simon. He suspects either action would cause Simon to kill him, reviving his “fifth-year fantasies: kisses and blood and Snow ridding the world of [him]” (201).

Baz sneaks into the Mage’s office, planning to take one of his mother’s books. He chooses a tome titled Flames and Blazes: The Art of Burning. He drops the book when Simon bursts into the office, and a photograph falls out of it. Simon’s tone goes from accusatory to apologetic when he sees that the photo shows Baz before he was attacked by vampires, his childish skin “a stark reddish gold” (204) so different from his current pallor.

Simon is surprised at himself. He could get Baz expelled for snooping in the Mage’s office, but instead he tells Baz everything Natasha’s ghost said about Nicodemus. Baz has no idea who Nicodemus is, and the thought that his mother’s killer is free agonizes him. When Simon accuses Baz of plotting rebellion while his mother’s ghost appeared, Baz attacks him, but Simon stops Baz so that the spellwork that keeps roommates from harming one another won’t banish Baz from Watford.

A mournful Penny bursts into the room, and Baz leaves. Penny’s brother, Premal, one of the Mage’s Men, came to search their parents’ house. Although Penny’s mother said that she has nothing to hide, she refused to comply on principle: “The point was civil liberties, and freedom, and not having your 20-year-old son showing up at your house like Rolf in The Sound of Music” (211). Premal threatened to return, so Penny’s mother disowned him. Simon insists that the Mage is acting for the greater good, but Penny argues that the Mage isn’t perfect and makes Simon promise not to tell anyone.

Baz could get Penny expelled for sneaking into the boys’ dormitory, but he can’t bring himself to care. As he hunts rats in the catacombs, he reflects on his family’s feelings about his vampirism. After he was turned, his relatives tried to pretend that nothing had changed. Baz’s father is “more disappointed in [his] queerness than [his] undeadness” (215), but he’s certain that his mother would have killed him if she had survived the vampires’ attack on Watford. Baz wonders why his mother wanted him to receive her ghostly message. He hopes she will be reunited with her when Simon does “the right thing” (215)—kills him. Baz cries in the catacombs and then limps back to his room, where Simon promises to help him find his mother’s killer.

Lucy feels the Veil pulling on her, but it cannot drag her back with the rest of the dead. She decides that she wants to stay in the land of the living even though the person to whom she is speaking can neither hear nor see her.