Nick did not have time to scream. He pulled the choke chain closed, a band of iron around the wolf’s neck. A howl was choked off in the wolf’s throat and the fierce thrashing of its body started to seem less like an attack and more like desperation. It kept trying to breathe. Pain lanced through Nick’s arms with the effort of keeping the chain tight and ever tighter, the wolf’s eyes were bulging in its head, and suddenly it collapsed forward against Nick’s chest.
Instead of a wolf, a woman fell against Nick, her long hair tumbling into his face. He pushed the body off him and sat up with difficulty, his arms suddenly feeling weak, and let the chain slip out of his hands.
It occurred to him when it was too late that if he’d only had his sword, if he’d been able to make her bleed before he killed her, he could have used her blood to paint over Alan’s mark. Alan would have been safe.
He climbed wearily to his feet, unsurprised to see Jamie and Mae staring at him with shocked faces. They weren’t used to death yet. Mum turned her eyes away when he glanced at her. She looked sick.
Alan grabbed his shoulder and spun him around with one hand. He looked furious.
“Where is it?” he demanded, his eyes blazing. “What have you done with it?”
“What?” said Nick. “What are you talking about?”
“Your talisman!” Alan shouted. He was shaking. “Do you know what could have happened? How long have you had it off? Tell me you just took it off now, Nick. Tell me that much.”
Of course. His talisman. Now that Alan said it, Nick was completely aware that it was gone. In some corner of his mind he’d known for some time that the small, constant burden had been lifted. Its irritating presence had been an absence ever since — ever since—
“I took it off to call Liannan,” he said slowly. “I left it in a building site.”
Color drained from Alan’s face, his veins standing out like blue lines struck across white paper. “You haven’t worn your talisman for a week.”
“You gave your talisman away.”
“I—” Alan lowered his voice. “I didn’t throw it away! I meant it to be for a couple of hours. A week, Nick! Anything could have happened. God.”
Now that Nick had killed something, he felt better. He’d done something at last, something useful, and even though his arms ached and his wounds stung he felt calmer; some of his simmering rage had burned away in the fight. Alan was worried about him, and that wasn’t bad either.
“Sorry,” he offered at length. “I’ll get one later.”
Alan was hanging on to his shoulder as if Nick had almost walked out into traffic and Alan had only just been able to catch him in time. As Nick spoke he breathed out deeply, once, and shut his eyes. He slipped out of Alan’s grasp as gently as he could and stood watching him uncertainly, wondering what he’d done wrong now.
“You’re lucky your big brother learns from his mistakes,” Alan said at length. “Come on upstairs. I got some spares at the Goblin Market.”
He limped toward the door and Nick followed him for a few steps, then stopped. Alan threw a glance over his shoulder that was more silent command than look; Nick took another step forward without even thinking.
“Wait,” he said. “There could be more magicians around. We shouldn’t leave this one alone with two tourists and her.”
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Alan looked mildly amused. “We’re just going upstairs.”
“Yeah, we can handle this,” Mae said, her voice calmer than she looked, and Nick felt like admiration was being dragged out of him against his will. “Olivia will stay with us.”
She smiled at Nick, and he kept his face chill and expressionless so she would transfer her smile to Alan. She did transfer her smile to Alan, that was the thing: If there had been no hope for Alan at all, it would have been less of a dilemma.
Nick let them smile at each other and leaned back against the wall, examining the claw marks of the wolf. The deepest were on his stomach, on one side of his belly button. Nick looked at the red grooves and was distantly pleased that the wolf had been too busy trying to bite him to claw him open. Intestines belonged on the inside.
The room was a mess. Chains were scattered about the place, the rug was twisted like bedsheets after his fight with the wolf, and their prisoner seemed on the point of hysterics. The other magician lay crumpled at Gerald’s feet.
“We could just kill him now,” Nick said, and watched the slow shudder work its way through Gerald’s body, from shaking shoulders to trembling lips.
Alan looked impatient. “We can kill him for Jamie.”
“No,” Nick snarled.
Alan looked at him for a long moment, as if by making Nick his single focus he could somehow keep him safe, and then his strained face smoothed out. “We can talk about that later,” he said softly. “First let’s just go upstairs and get that talisman. We’ll only be gone a minute, and — I want you to have it. I don’t want you in any danger.”
“Good luck with that one. I just strangled a wolf to death five minutes ago,” Nick said gruffly. Alan smiled, and they both understood that Nick had given in.
Just on this one thing. He’d come and get a talisman if it made Alan feel better, but he wasn’t going to put up with any of this nonsense about Jamie going first. Alan had sacrificed enough for Jamie already.
“C’mon,” said Alan, and Nick moved to follow him.
“This is just a thought,” Jamie called after them. “But while you’re up there, you might see if you can find a shirt.”
When they went into Alan’s room, Nick could not help casting an uneasy eye over Alan’s bookshelves. He hadn’t had a chance to put Alan’s precious photo back in its hiding place yet, and he had a sudden moment of foreboding. If Alan tried to sneak a look at the stupid picture he liked gazing at so much, he’d find out what Nick had done.
It didn’t matter if he did find out. Nick had a right to discover the truth, but somehow he didn’t like the idea of how Alan would look at him if he knew.
He turned deliberately away from the bookcase and occupied himself shrugging into one of Alan’s baggy old T-shirts, lying slung over a chair. He went to lean against the wall, looking out of the window where the sun was going down, the sky brimming dark blue over the gray roofs of London.
Alan knelt down by his wardrobe and took out the box where he kept his protective charms, beginning to sift through them slowly and thoughtfully as if he was telling rosary beads. Or as if he was afraid to look up.
“I’m serious about taking Jamie’s mark off,” he said slowly.
“You’re being stupid.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Yeah, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you’re being stupid!”
Nick’s voice rose in a shout, a harsh, flat sound like a whip cracking or a door slamming. If he’d been shouting at anyone but Alan he knew he would have seen the effect of the shout: seen the sound seep into their bones and make them shudder, make them give in.
It was different with Alan. Threatening him wouldn’t work; he didn’t seem to care about saving himself. He would have to find some other way to make Alan do what he wanted. Nick looked at his brother and suddenly felt icy calm.
He knew what threat to use.
“Here it is,” Alan said in a quiet, pleased voice, as if Nick hadn’t shouted at him a moment ago. He got to his feet with his usual care, a flash of pain drawing a deep line between his brows, then smiled and limped over to Nick.
The talisman was dangling from Alan’s left wrist like a bracelet. There was a crawling sensation of dread in Nick’s stomach just looking at it, but when Alan beckoned, he bowed his head and let his brother slip the talisman around his neck. He felt like an animal going back into harness.
The talisman burned where it touched his skin. Nick set his teeth at the return of the dull, constant pain and looked into Alan’s face, which showed uncomplicated relief.
“Do you know what I’ll do if you don’t take that mark off?” he asked. He did not shout this time. He lowered
