Jamie swallowed and spoke, his voice equally soft. “I think I’m beginning to understand. Are you, um,” he said, and grinned suddenly, “are you hitting on me? Because I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re not really my type.”
Seb stepped away from Jamie as if he’d just been informed Jamie was radioactive. “You’re not funny,” he snapped. “You’re just pathetic.”
Jamie kept grinning. “I like to think I’m maybe a little of both.”
Seb’s face twisted and his hand moved, clenched in a fist. Mae moved too, but her wet shoe slid and she almost fell. Her heart was beating hard with surprise and rage, absolute rage, because to keep Jamie safe she had killed someone—she kept remembering the knife and all the blood and that magician’s surprised face—and now this stupid boy dared touch him. Why didn’t Jamie
That was when she felt the warm hand at the back of her neck. It was a light clasp, as if a friend or a boyfriend were passing by and wished to alert her to their presence, fingers trailing over the delicate skin. The talisman she wore tucked in her corset flared into life, pain bursting like a small star against her skin. She found she could not move, not even to shiver. She was held frozen in place, like a butterfly gently caught between two fingers and then abruptly transfixed by the cruel steel point of a pin.
Her heart was beating harder than ever, loud in her ears and in her enforced stillness. She thought and almost thrilled to the thought:
She felt a presence brush by her and heard a voice ring out in the night close to her ear, almost echoing her own thoughts.
“Jamie,” said Gerald, “why don’t you do something?”
The last time Mae had heard that voice, he’d been promising to come back for their lives.
Seb and the other boys turned their heads and stared, the tension in their bodies easing as they took in the sight of Gerald. He was hardly an awe-inspiring sight, Mae remembered, though all she could see of him was a blue shirt and sandy hair going in every direction.
She recalled the mild, freckled face under the sandy hair; the shy voice, the sweet smile, and those clever, watching eyes.
Gerald lifted a hand, and the lid of a bin rose and spun in midair like a ninja’s star, missing one of the boys by an inch and striking sparks off the wall.
“Funny how these freak winds happen,” he observed in his friendly way.
The boy who the bin lid had almost hit took several steps back. Gerald gestured easily and the lid rose again, quivering in the air.
A slow, small creak came from the darkest corner of the alley. Even the boy being menaced by the airborne bin lid turned his head to see the rusty old drainpipe peeling itself from the wall.
The bin lid was pinwheeling in the air now, a blur of silver. The drainpipe was bowing toward them, tall and thin, looming out of the night like a spindly, starving giant who had finally spotted food.
Gerald laughed indulgently, as if he was showing them all a trick, as if he’d just produced doves from his sleeve rather than killer drainpipes.
“Run,” he suggested.
Two of the boys exchanged frantic looks, their eyes swiveling from Gerald standing in the alley entrance to the drainpipe, and then back again.
“Don’t bother Jamie anymore,” Gerald advised. He stepped back, politely motioning for them to go through.
The two boys ran. They didn’t even notice Mae standing frozen and furious to one side.
Seb did not move. For a moment Mae thought he was frozen by magic as she was, his hand still lifted to deliver Jamie a blow that would never land. Then he let his hand fall.
“Did I fail to make myself clear?” Gerald said, with an edge to his voice now. “When I said run, I meant you, too.”
“I’m—” Seb began, and shook his head. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I—right.”
He bowed his head to Gerald. Mae saw him shoot a dark look under his lashes at Jamie.
Jamie gave him a little wave. “Don’t let the alley hit you in the ass on your way out.”
Seb looked like he wanted to answer, possibly with a blow, but then he cut a swift look back at Gerald and stepped slowly away. He passed Gerald, making for the alley entrance.
He did see Mae. For a moment they looked at each other, his scowling face smoothing out. He looked as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do, and in the end he did nothing, just backed uncertainly away.
She’d deal with him later.
In the alley Jamie raised a hand and the spinning of the bin lid slowed. It was held still and suspended for a second, and then it flew with extreme force at Gerald.
Gerald caught it easily and nodded thanks, as if Jamie were a squire who had just tossed his knight a shield.
“Yes, like that. Why do you allow them to hassle you when you can just do something like that?”
“Because I don’t have to,” Jamie said shortly. “They’re idiots, but that doesn’t mean I want them hurt or scared. And I don’t need you to scare them either. There was no need for all that! I have to live here, you know.”
“No, you don’t.”
