his voice so it was a very private and personal threat, a soft promise of pain.
Alan recognized it. “Nick,” he said, startled and a little pleading.
Nick had to make him understand.
“You care so much about Mum? She was an Obsidian Circle magician. She still has the sigil. Her lifeblood would save you.”
Alan took a quick, unsteady breath, his thin chest rising and falling sharply. He was trembling.
“I’d do it,” Nick swore to him. “I’d trade her for you. I’d do it in a heartbeat. I won’t let you die!”
Alan’s mouth twisted viciously. “Why not? More useful to you than Olivia, am I?”
He was watching Nick in the same hurt, horror-struck way he had when he’d seen Nick with the magician. Nick looked away and out of the window again, to where the sun was sinking, shadow closing its claws over the houses one by one. He fought with black incomprehension: Alan wanted a particular response from him, and he didn’t know what it was.
“Well — well, you are more useful than she is,” he said haltingly.
“How can you—,” Alan began in a furious voice.
He was interrupted by the sound of Mae screaming. It wasn’t a scream for help. It was the scream of someone in pain.
Alan palmed the knife from his wrist sheath and held it out before Nick could say a word. Nick closed his fingers around the hilt and ran, taking the stairs three at a time, and bolted into the sitting room, throwing open the door and running almost directly into Mum.
She flung up an arm as if Nick was the threat.
“Don’t touch me!”
“I don’t want to touch you!” Nick snarled. “What happened?”
Mum didn’t bother replying. It was pretty obvious what had happened. Their sitting room was torn apart. Someone had broken the window and shredded the rug. Mae was lying at an awkward angle on the floor with blood all over her face, struggling to get up as Jamie tried to push her down. The chair that had contained Gerald the magician was on its side, the chains that had bound him were a gleaming silver path that pointed to the shattered window.
Outside the window and utterly beyond reach was a huge bird, the curving shape of amber wings outlined in the setting sun, flaring gold as he flew. Nick imagined that its talons were fairly impressive as well, judging by what the creature had done to the rug and Mae’s face.
“Mae,” Nick said. “Are you—”
Alan stumbled down the last step on the stairs and was almost instantly at Mae’s side. Nick fell silent and went for the first-aid kit, passing it to Alan without a word. Alan accepted it with a nod, murmuring comforting nonsense to Mae as he taped the cut across her cheek carefully closed. Mae stopped fighting to get up and bore the taping without a sound, and Nick watched her whisper reassurance back to Alan, watched their shared smiles.
“I’m really okay. Thanks,” Mae murmured, low and grateful, Alan’s musician’s fingers held lightly against the curve of her jaw. “He turned into a freaking bird. I couldn’t believe it!” Her voice turned frustrated. “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t do a thing.”
“It’s not your fault,” Alan assured her.
He was right. There was nothing she could have done. If Gerald could transform into an animal, he had a whole lot more power than Nick had thought. He had so much power that it must mean he’d wanted to be captured.
He’d wanted to be brought here.
They’d been played for fools. And that wasn’t even the worst part.
Nick gazed with building fury at his brother, bent solicitously over Mae and acting so very concerned.
He said, “You did this.”
Alan stood up at once. “Come outside,” he said, in that calm, reasonable voice of his. Nick strode forward and grabbed Alan’s elbow, dragging him to the front door and only stopping when his brother almost fell on the threshold.
He steadied Alan with his free hand and then stepped back. For a moment his throat was too tight to find words.
“You did this,” he repeated at last.
He remembered Alan’s face, smoothing into a bland mask when Nick refused to let him take Jamie’s mark off. We’ll only be gone a minute. I don’t want you in any danger. He’d been worried, and he’d used that to make Nick do exactly what he wanted. Once he’d brought Nick upstairs, he’d kept him upstairs with that little line about Jamie. He’d known Nick would argue with him.
He’d deliberately let the magician go, and now he was facing Nick with that careful look on his face, trying to calm Nick down without actually giving anything away, waiting to see what lie would work this time.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you got the only two people capable of restraining that magician out of the room! You did it, and you did it on purpose, because you wanted to keep the demon’s mark that is going to kill you. I know all that. I just don’t know why. And I want to know why, Alan. I’m going to know why.”
Alan looked at Nick’s face and obviously saw that denials weren’t going to do him any good.
“Because of what that messenger said,” he answered quietly. “Because I have a plan. Would you rather I didn’t have one?”
Nick grabbed the collar of Alan’s shirt and pushed him up against the door frame with one hand.
“I’d rather you didn’t get yourself killed!”
Alan looked up at him, pale and silent, and Nick realized how this would look to anyone watching. A crippled boy, stumbling and obviously upset, being menaced by a vicious thug. He felt vicious; he would’ve hit Alan if that would have made him stop.
Only he knew his brother. Pain didn’t scare him, and nothing could make him stop.
“Mum’s not worth this,” he snarled. “Nothing’s worth this.”
“Some things are.”
Nick did not shake him, no matter how much he was tempted. He let go of his brother’s shirt and stepped back. He thought Alan looked a little relieved.
“It won’t take long for Gerald to report back to the Obsidian Circle,” Nick said. “They’ll be coming soon. We can’t be here. Do you have a plan for that?”
He glared at his brother, and Alan looked back, pained but still calm, still plotting something.
“I do,” said Alan. “I told you I needed to see what Merris was experimenting with. She lives on the Isle of Wight. We can go there. We can escape the magicians that way.”
Nick looked away from him then, leaning his cheek against the steel door frame and looking out onto the narrow gray street, just another street among the hundreds of streets he had lived on and would never see again. Alan was still thinking about the best way to help Mum, and then it would be the best way to help Jamie, and all Nick wanted to do was take Alan and run. If they kept moving, maybe the magicians wouldn’t get a chance to put the last mark on Alan and finish him off. Nick didn’t care about anything else.
He opened his mouth and could not find words.
Alan held him in that moment of silence with a look.
“Nick,” he said quietly. “I’m going. You can’t stop me. If you raise a hand to me I’ll shoot you in the leg. I’m going to Merris’s because I need her help and nothing you can say will change my mind. You don’t have to come with me.”
“Yes, I do,” Nick snapped.
What a stupid thing for Alan to say. They had never been separated for longer than those few days last Christmas; Nick always knew where Alan was and usually knew that he was close. That was how things were and how they were going to stay. Alan was his brother, and if he was set on carrying out his little plan, risking himself to save Mum, then Nick had to be with him to make sure he was safe.
Alan looked almost too worn out to smile but he did anyway, a faint, sweet smile that lingered in his eyes. “All right.”
He nodded slightly, as if they were businessmen who had come to an understanding. Then he turned and went back into the hall, limping a little more than usual, as if he was carrying something heavy. Nick followed him.
