The Demon's Covenant

Jamie did not answer for a long moment, and when he did it was in a hushed whisper, like a child scared he was going to get into trouble.

“Because Seb’s—Seb was just another kid at school who could do the same weird things I could. Then the magicians came and they were so—so in control, and the magic is so amazing, and he just said yes and yes and yes, and now he’s a murderer. And I can see how it happened. I don’t want to be like that.”

“You won’t be. You never could be.”

She slid her arm around Jamie’s shoulders, holding on tight, and felt him shaking.

“Also because Gerald is really nice to me, and Seb is a jerk,” said Jamie. His voice kept trying to be light, and falling. “That shouldn’t even matter, but I had a crush on Mark Skinner for years because he let me share his felt-tip pens, so my priorities are clearly very strange. And speaking of crushes, do I have sunstroke or did Seb just—”

“Yeah,” Mae said.

Jamie paused, then asked thoughtfully, “Do you think he might have sunstroke?”

“Yes, a common effect of sunstroke,” Mae said. “Headaches, hyperventilation, and kissing urges like crazy.”

Jamie shut his eyes and sighed. “Well, that’s just my luck.”

“Lots of people would like to have someone tall, dark, and handsome around to love them sullenly and passionately,” Mae said. “I read it in a book.”

Jamie looked ill.

“Not me. I would like someone to express their feelings by being very, very nice to me all the time. And making me laugh. And then I would make them laugh too. And—and nobody would kill anybody.”

“Oh, Jamie,” Mae said.

She gathered him closer, his earring scraping her cheek, and he cuddled into her as if they were little again.

“Gerald says people would hate us if they knew about us,” he whispered. “His family hated him.”

“Gerald’s an idiot,” said Mae fiercely. “I love you. I do.”

“The thing is,” Jamie continued, low and miserable, “how can they help hating us, if we do things like this? We all seem to do it, and I love magic too. I don’t want to be like that. But I don’t want to be alone, either.”

“You’re not alone,” Mae said into his hair.

“If,” Jamie said, and hesitated. “If I told Mum, do you think she would hate me?”

“Don’t tell Mum!” Mae burst out, her hold on him going tighter, horrified and protective. She felt as if she’d just snatched him back from stepping out in front of a bus.

Jamie went still against her, and then sagged.

They sat there together for a while in silence, Jamie’s weight warm against her in the cold hall. Mae tried not to think of the fact that her army would be aiming to kill Seb, too. And he would deserve it.

Maybe she could get him out alive. Maybe Nick would forgive Alan. Maybe Jamie could even tell Annabel, someday.

“Not today,” Mae amended at last.

Jamie gave a small nod and pulled away, no doubt to go and call Gerald, to talk to someone who really understood about magic and who would be very, very nice to him. Mae stayed sitting at the foot of the stairs, hugging her knees.

She’d kept telling herself that: Not today, when she thought about telling Nick what Alan had planned for him.

But the Goblin Market was tomorrow.

It had to be today.

At first she thought the house was empty. The door opened at the touch of her hand and she walked in, calling out, “Nick? Alan?” and praying that Alan wouldn’t be there.

No voice answered her. She went into every room and found them all deserted.

It seemed strange that they would go out and leave the door unlocked, so Mae checked the garden in case Nick was there practicing the sword.

Once she stepped outside, she saw the sky. Tendrils of cloud were spread across the blue dome, every cloud centered on this little house as if someone was playing cat’s cradle with the whole sky.

Mae went back inside and headed for the attic. Once she was there she picked up the green copybook on the floor, dragged over the ladder in the corner, and climbed her way up to the roof.

Nick was sitting on the slant of the pebble-smooth gray roof tiles with clouds wrapped around his wrists like pale ropes. He looked over his shoulder and registered her with no apparent surprise.

Mae stood there looking down at the garden, where the sky was casting strange shadows, until Nick asked, “What do you want?”

She took the folded copybook, her excuse, out of her pocket. “I thought I might read to you.”

Nick just shrugged, which she took as Yes, Mae, what an excellent idea, go right ahead. She smoothed out the copybook between her hands and opened it, seeing how few pages were actually left and not knowing when that had happened. She cleared her throat, told the Daniel Ryves in her