don’t like your house.”
“I beg your pardon, there is nothing wrong with my house.”
“It’s too big,” Nick told her, frowning at it. “You can’t tell where people are in it, and you can’t hear everything that happens. There are too many places for something to hide in and leap out at you.”
Mae rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
“Did you show up here at this time of the morning just to say ‘Hi, Mae, your house is a death trap, want to take a walk?’”
“For starters,” Nick said. “Coming?”
“Let me grab my jacket,” Mae answered, shaking her head, and left Nick on the doorstep as she went to the coatrack and rifled through the heap of coats until she found her denim jacket. Anything to cover up the puppy.
They walked down from Mae’s house and ended up taking Larkbeare Road, which led down to the river. It was chilly, early morning winds ruffling the waters and their hair. Mae tried finger-combing some more, pretty sure it was doing her no good, and Nick strolled along at her side, apparently oblivious to the cold.
“For someone who wants to talk,” Mae said, “you’re being awfully quiet.”
Nick just looked at her.
“So what have you been up to since I saw you last?” she inquired, and when he kept silent she rolled her eyes at him and made sure he saw it. “It’s called a conversation, Nick. Let’s have one. Humor me.”
A particularly chilly gust of wind hit Mae in the face. She winced, and Nick half closed his eyes against the onslaught.
He said something at last, and naturally said it into the wind so she missed all but the last word, which was “vanquish.”
“Sorry, what did you vanquish?” Mae asked.
“Nothing,” said Nick. “Well, a few things. That’s not the point. I have a Vanquish.”
“Um,” Mae said. “Run that by me again.”
“An Aston Martin Vanquish.”
“Oh a
“A classic car,” Nick told her, a little sternly. “Came into the garage in London in a state, and I bought it. Alan says if I restore it without using any magic at all, I can keep it. So that’s what I’ve been doing lately.”
The list of everything Mae knew about cars wouldn’t have taken up a page and would have probably contained items like, “They take you from place to place” and “Moving vehicles that are not airplanes,” but she nodded and tried to look as if she understood the serious business of car restoration.
“How did you get it down to Exeter?”
Nick grinned. “Well, there I may have used magic. Slightly.”
“Just a pinch,” Mae suggested. “You seem to have plenty to spare.”
Nick slanted her an amused glance. “You want me to flex my magic for you, baby?”
“I guess. I wouldn’t want you to feel pressured to do something you didn’t want to do. Leave you feeling all cheap and used.”
“I’m basically okay with that,” said Nick. “Let me show you my magic knife.”
He took out the switchblade he’d been playing with down at the magicians’ alley the day before and tossed it to Mae. She fumbled the catch but managed to grab it anyway; the engraved metal was warm from being next to Nick’s skin. Close up, the markings on it were a bit rough, like sketches rather than runes. There was a jagged line snaking up the silver hilt that looked like it had been gouged in, creating a deep furrow with sharp edges that almost cut her palm.
“Did you do the carvings yourself?” Mae asked, and at Nick’s small nod she said, “Impressive. So tell me, what magic does this knife do?”
Mae believed firmly that you could be tactful without telling lies. It was a smarter and better way to do things, and if people noticed what you were doing, it encouraged you to be smarter and better next time.
“It cuts things.”
Mae blinked. “Amazing,” she told him. “Next could you display your great magic by creating a wheel that goes round and round?”
She wasn’t entirely sure of how you opened a switchblade, but she turned the knife around in her hands until she discovered a little catch. She went to touch it.
The sudden viselike grip around her wrist made her flinch and glance up at Nick. He wasn’t even looking at her; his eyes remained focused straight ahead, as if he’d simply reached out and grabbed by instinct.
Mae tried to wrench her arm away. He looked at her then.
“Don’t open that,” he said, sounding as indifferent as ever. “I told you, the blade’s enchanted. It’ll cut through anything.”
He confiscated the knife from her and flipped it open. The blade gleamed in the light, so sharp that it seemed multifaceted, catching the rays of the sun like a jewel.
“Why do you get to open it?”
“Tell me about your nine years of experience with knife work,” Nick invited her. “Then you can have it right back.”
