He hauled Jamie up as well, and then Mae did not put on the climbing harness. She gave Nick a look that said she was still angry about last night in the garden, and began climbing up the rope herself. Nick looked away over a sea of pointed slate-gray roofs.
He didn’t see her lose her grip on the rope and fall. He heard Alan cry out, looked around sharply, and saw her suspended in midair, looking confused and terrified. He saw Jamie, braced on the edge of the roof, looking terrified as well.
Jamie pulled on the air as if it were an invisible rope, and as his hands moved, Mae was tugged upward, inch by inch, until she reached the gutter. She grabbed it in a convulsive movement and scrambled onto the roof tiles, and Jamie let out a deep breath and let his shoulders relax.
Then Jamie cast a deeply apprehensive look around at them all.
“Well, well,” Nick said. “What have we here?”
He thought of Mae when they’d first met, talking about the weird things that had happened when she was young and saying she was psychic herself. He thought about how easily Jamie had believed everything they’d told him, and about Jamie’s plate breaking when all the glasses broke. He remembered Gerald and how he’d looked at Jamie, how Jamie hadn’t been blinded by the magician’s sand in the bar in Salisbury, and he thought about the timid air Jamie always wore, deliberately receding into the background, purposely camouflaged.
He thought about his own voice back in Exeter when all of this had just begun, saying, A few people in this world are born with a certain amount of magic, but they don’t grow out of it. They either learn to control it and keep it a secret forever, or they try to do something with the magic.
He cursed himself for a fool.
“You,” Mae said in a shaking voice. “It was never me at all. It was you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I—” Jamie said, and stopped. “I didn’t want you to know,” he said softly. “I didn’t want you to — feel any differently about me. I wanted it not to be true.”
“I’m sorry,” Alan said in a quiet voice. “But we don’t have time for this. We have to move.”
Mae looked as if she was about to snap at Alan, but she controlled herself with a visible effort. She rose on trembling legs and went over to Jamie, pushing his hair back the way she did every morning at breakfast.
“All right. We’ll talk about this later, but — it’s all right.”
“Let’s go,” said Nick, and carefully, one by one, they lowered themselves to slip in through the attic windows and into the house of the magicians.
It was a very fancy attic. There was an expensive-looking carpet on the floor, royal blue and goldenrod- yellow, and the ceiling was full of curves and shadows. They all stood looking at each other, panting in the silence, all a little uncertain now that the plan was about to be put into action.
Mae grabbed Jamie in a sudden hug.
“Don’t worry,” she said, holding his thin shoulders in a death grip. “I’m not worried. It’s all going to be okay.”
Jamie patted her on the back, looking shaky but enormously relieved, and said, “Okay.”
“All this time wasting is very touching,” Nick observed. “Shall we go?”
He turned his back on Alan without a word; next time he saw him, Alan would be unmarked and free to go and live in the world he had been born into. Nick did not plan to bother him again.
Behind him, Alan said, “Nick. Don’t — if you see Black Arthur, don’t talk to him. Don’t listen to a word he says.”
“Why?” Nick asked. “Will he lie to me? Imagine that.”
Twisting the knife worked. There was a significant pause before Alan was able to say, “I’m sorry.”
“For which lie in particular?”
Alan stood silent for a moment, and then he said, “You’ll see.”
Nick made a disgusted sound and jerked his head sharply in a summons at Jamie. Jamie swallowed again and followed Nick as he made his way down the stairs.
He hadn’t said much while the others were planning, but he had insisted on leaving the attic, and access to the roof, to Alan and Mae. That would give them the best chance of getting out.
The magicians’ Circle must have owned this house for some time. There were no signs of a rushed and recent move, and now that they were inside, it was obviously a magicians’ house. The place was filled with charms that would have fetched a good price at the Goblin Market. There were protective symbols cut into the glass of some windows. There was a chandelier in the shape of a dream catcher, feathers and net carved out of crystal and catching the pale noon light. Nick walked under it and along the corridors softly as a cat, glancing occasionally backward to make sure that Jamie was close behind him and not about to cause any trouble.
Once when he turned around, Jamie was not behind him but a few paces back, studying something on a table.
“What are you doing?” he snapped, but quietly.
“What’s this?” Jamie whispered.
He picked up the little glass shape in his hands, turning it over, and the glass, which had shown a flurry of golden autumn leaves, suddenly burst into green leaves and bright sunlight.
“It’s a season tetrahedron,” Nick said. “Like a snow globe, but depending what side you look at, it shows a different season.”
“It’s beautiful,” Jamie murmured. He turned the season tetrahedron again and got drifting white snowflakes.
“Yes, it’s lovely,” Nick agreed flatly. “And completely worth being killed because you were too busy looking at toys to keep an eye out for magicians. Don’t get left behind. Don’t think I will not leave you to die.”
Jamie put down the season tetrahedon in a hurry, the glass chinking against the marble tabletop. He took a step backward, toward Nick, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I know you would.”
Nick was mildly startled by Jamie’s tone. As they walked on, he glanced over at Jamie, whose face was pale above a dark hooded sweatshirt. Nick took a moment to be annoyed by the flash of his earring. He’d never blend into the shadows if they had to hide. That little glint would catch anyone’s eye.
“I can’t work you out,” Jamie felt the need to inform him, because he was an idiot who never stopped talking. He seemed determined and was speaking low enough, so Nick didn’t even try to stop him. “You’ve been okay to me sometimes, but I can’t tell if that means you like me. I don’t know if you like anyone, I don’t know if you can like anyone. I thought at least there was Alan, but then you hit him.”
Jamie was furious with him, Nick realized. He supposed it made sense. Jamie hated violence so much.
“I’ve never thought about you enough to dislike you,” Nick said. “I just think you’re useless.”
“And I think you’re scary,” Jamie snapped. “So we’re even.”
There was not a sound, not even the creak of a floorboard, but Nick popped the knife from his wrist sheath all the same. He felt more comfortable with a knife in his hand.
“We’re not even. You’re causing me a lot of trouble, and I am saving your pointless life.”
“You wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help us if Alan hadn’t insisted. Alan’s the one who wants to help people. You don’t want to help people. I don’t think you even see most people as people. You remind me of — someone I used to know.” Jamie bit his lip. “He was terrifying as well.”
There was a moving shadow down the hall, but after a moment of observation, Nick saw it was a tapestry fixed to the wall only by the top. It was fluttering in a breeze and covered with symbols to attract wealth and power.
“You only do the right thing because Alan wants you to,” Jamie continued, still sounding furious. “Without him, I’m pretty sure you’d be a monster.”
Nick bared his teeth at Jamie. “So I’m a monster,” he murmured. “Are you scared?”
Below them came the sound of running footsteps, sudden and clear. Jamie jumped and grabbed for Nick’s arm, making a small, startled sound. Nick whirled and pushed Jamie up against the wall, a hand over his mouth.
“Shh,” he hissed. “Try to remember there are monsters here. Besides me.”
Jamie nodded. Nick could hear his own heart beating far too fast as they waited, both tense, for another sound, for a door to open or a voice to speak.
