seat with a look of serious attention on his face. A lock of hair had fallen into his eyes, a slash of curving black that made Mae’s fingers lift to touch it, even though he was across the room.
“He used to carry me when we were moving,” he said. “Dad. So I wouldn’t—wouldn’t wake up.”
It came out cool, just a statement of fact. Nick looked away afterward, though, the angle of his jaw tight, and Mae thought it might be time to change the subject.
“What do you know about marks?” she asked.
Nick started and stared at her, eyes suddenly wide.
“What do you mean?”
Mae raised her eyebrows. “I was thinking about this mark that’s giving Gerald all his power, about the magician’s sigils and the three different demon’s marks.”
“There’s only one demon’s mark,” Nick interrupted.
He was looking at her again and leaning back against the window glass, arms crossed over his chest. Mae would’ve thought that Nick might look less out of place in the music room, which she and Jamie had messed around in and danced through and used as their playroom for years, but he didn’t. His eyes glittered a little too coldly in the lights of the chandelier, his clothes were worn and dark in the bright white room, and whichever way she looked at him, he was either a boy who didn’t fit into her home or a demon who didn’t fit into her world.
She wanted to reach out and brush back that lock of hair, all the same.
“No, you know, first there’s the first-tier mark, the doorway, and then there’s the second-tier mark, the triangle, and then the third-tier mark, the eye. That’s what I mean.”
“They’re all part of one mark,” Nick told her. “Just one. The magicians don’t let us into this world with enough power to make our mark, so we have to work up to possession by stages. But I could do it. That’s why Anzu and Liannan are so angry with me. I could put the full mark on anyone I wanted, and let a demon slide in.”
“So demons have only one mark,” Mae said. “But now magicians have two. It seems a bit much for Gerald to have invented a whole new one. I think it makes more sense for him to have modified one of the existing marks. What does the magician’s sigil do?”
“Lets you drain power from your Circle’s circle of stones.”
“And the demon’s mark lets you possess someone.”
“Doesn’t just do that,” Nick said. “Anzu marked Alan and Jamie, didn’t he? Couldn’t possess them both.”
It had never occurred to Mae before that of course Anzu, the Obsidian Circle’s pet demon, would have been the one to mark Jamie. She made a face at the thought.
“So what was his plan?”
“Possess one,” said Nick. “Save the other for later. The full demon’s mark, it forms a channel between humans and demons, so you can possess them, or just control them. That way you can have slaves as well as bodies to possess once the one you’re possessing breaks down. Anzu and me, we once had bodies in this desert kingdom. We had an agreement: We marked an army of slaves for the king so long as we got bodies for seven years.”
“Really,” Mae said. “Slaves. What happened next?”
“He didn’t keep his part of the bargain,” said Nick. “So we called up a storm and buried the kingdom under the sand. It’s probably still there now. We buried it deep.”
“I meant what happened to the slaves,” Mae clarified. She thought she did a good job of keeping her voice even.
“Oh, they died too,” Nick said. He sounded as indifferent as ever, but he kept his eyes on her and watched for her response. She thought he might be feeling a bit wary.
“You could have let them go.”
“No,” Nick answered. “What I mark is mine. It’s the same way for magicians. A magician takes a sigil to show he belongs to his Circle. When we’re going through magicians, the magicians’ blood can ransom a mark. A mark can be transferred. But there’s no way to make a mark cost nothing. A mark always costs someone everything.”
“So if Gerald had invented a mark to make humans obey him …” Mae said.
“Wouldn’t give him any more power, would it?” Nick asked. “Most humans don’t have magic.”
Mae nodded. It was the magician’s sigil Gerald had modified, then, it had to be. But exactly how he’d changed it, there was no way to know. Until they knew, how could they fight him?
Gerald had been able to knock Nick flat, and he was after Jamie. She didn’t know what to do.
“Do you think you can beat Gerald?” she asked quietly.
Nick’s face did not change, but the chandeliers above them rang out like wind chimes with the breeze picking up.
“I know I can,” he said. Mae looked into his eyes and tried to find something reassuring there, something she could rely on, but they were full of sliding shadows. “Don’t,” Nick added abruptly. “Don’t be scared about Jamie. They can’t have him. He’s my friend.”
Mae took a deep breath, feeling lighter in the chest area. She did believe that, even though it hadn’t occurred to her when Nick offered to be friends. She wondered why she hadn’t realized that Nick meant it, as he meant everything he said. Jamie was under his protection forever. Jamie was safe, if Nick could make him so.
“I know that,” she told him, and smiled.
“When you talked about demons’ marks, I thought you knew something else,” Nick said, and looked away.
She didn’t even realize she’d risen until she was halfway across the floor, and by then she wasn’t stopping until she reached the window seat. He had to tilt his head backward against the glass to look up at her.
