“But we were going to bring my old guitar over to Alan so we could see him play it and stuff,” Jamie said with deep cunning. “We need the car for that.”
“Didn’t bring the car,” Nick told him.
“You should go fetch it,” Jamie urged. “I’ll wait here. I won’t move. Why would I move? My head might fall off.”
“Seb and I can bring the guitar over later,” Mae offered.
“Good,” said Nick abruptly, and reached out for Jamie’s arm. Jamie was too busy giving Mae a betrayed look to be vigilant, so Nick grabbed him without much difficulty and pulled him out the door.
Nick had his hand on the door, no doubt to slam it, when Annabel came downstairs.
Mae was aware that her mother owned pajamas. She’d seen them neatly folded in her wardrobe, but Annabel never emerged from her room unless she was fully dressed and fully made up.
Today was no exception. Annabel was in crisp tennis whites, swinging her racket, with her hair in a shimmering ponytail that made the very idea of wisps seem like a horrible dream.
“Mum, help me,” Jamie said beseechingly. “I don’t want to go for a run.”
“Good morning, Mavis, James,” Annabel caroled out. “Lovely to see you again, Nick.”
Nick inclined his head and almost smiled. Annabel looked at Seb, a faint curl of her lips indicating vast polite distaste.
“One of Mavis’s young men, I presume.”
Seb looked overwhelmed by the unfairness of the world.
Annabel visibly dismissed the painful thought of Seb’s existence from her mind. “Enjoy your run, boys.”
“Mum!” Jamie wailed.
“Exercise is good for you,” she said serenely. She sailed past Mae on her search for coffee, and Nick shut the door.
Seb was left standing in the hall. “I think,” he said, “I kind of hate Nick Ryves.”
“Coffee?” Mae asked.
Mae amused herself by watching her mother’s dismay until she felt mean about tormenting Seb, so she finished her coffee and ran upstairs to get dressed and get the guitar. She did it in less than five minutes, but Seb’s pale face when she returned suggested that the moment Mae’d gone up, her mother had whipped out the thumbscrews.
“Sorry about her,” said Mae, going out with Seb into the sunshine, which was a warm yellow splash on their high walls. “She’s kind of like a high-powered modern White Witch. It’s always office hours, and never casual Friday.”
She thought of Annabel going up the stairs quick as a cat in her teetering high heels and grinned slightly. Seb caught her smile and reflected it back to her.
“It’s fine,” he said. “She’s just worried about you. She thinks I’m like all the other boys you’ve dated.”
“But you know you’re something special,” Mae teased.
Seb’s smile twisted a little, rueful and something else besides. “I know I’m different.”
Mae thought of Nick wielding a sword by night and Alan throwing knives on the cliffs with Goblin Market music behind him. Seb had no idea how different some of the boys she knew were.
Not that she was dating either of them.
Mae felt disloyal having had that thought, itchy and uncomfortable about it in a way that started at the tingling spot just below her collarbone. She reached up and touched it lightly, fingers slipping under the high-necked blouse she’d dug up from the bottom of her wardrobe.
She drew her hand away and grabbed Seb’s, a lifeline into a world where choices were easier. He took a breath as if he was startled, and she laced their fingers together, deciding to ignore his hesitance for now.
“So what do you want to do?” she asked.
Seb’s hand was warm in hers. The sun made the pale gravel in her driveway a blinding white path full of promise.
“We should drop off the guitar to Ryves’s place,” Seb suggested, and the dazzle in Mae’s eyes seemed to dim slightly.
She wanted to yell at Seb. Didn’t he know that she had to be away from Nick for a while, because apparently whenever she saw him her brain turned off and she did stupid and insane things? And she couldn’t be stupid and insane when she had to save him.
She didn’t yell at Seb. There was a mark burning on her skin that felt as if a channel had been opened between her and the demon who had marked her, as if there was something connecting them that was almost like a dry river bed, burning and aching for a rush of magic or the thrill of contact.
She didn’t say anything. She wanted to see Nick badly.
Mae had shoved that thought into a box in her mind and slammed the lid on it by the time they were there. Seb seemed relaxed, happy, and at ease with her once they were in the car. The trapped heat made the car luxurious and not oppressive, warmth from the car door seeping through Mae’s thin blouse and an air conditioner blowing light on her knees. She was glad she’d chosen a skirt for once, glad the next week of school would be the last, and glad Seb was there. He was living proof that she could be normal and not seduced by magic, that she could have both worlds.
The garden gate on the side of Alan and Nick’s house was open. When Seb and Mae walked in, they saw that
