deliberately offensive and his everyday personality.
She did think there was something tense about the line of his shoulders that wasn’t usual.
“I don’t want to win because you just hand the prize to me,” Mae said, outraged.
“Fine,” Nick said. “Then I see only one fair way for you to settle this. You girls will have to wrestle.”
Mae and Sin glanced at each other. Sin grinned. “Fine by me. I’d win.”
“I don’t know,” Nick drawled. “She’s tiny, but she’s bad-tempered. Plus, she comes up with strategies. I suggest one that involves oil.”
“Thank you, Nick. If you insist on being no help at all you can do it quietly,” Mae told him.
“I think you’re very helpful, Nick,” Lydie put in worshipfully.
Mae smirked and turned back to the map of the boat she’d sketched out with a little input from all of them, and which she had accidentally got a bit of ketchup on.
Sin had caught Mae’s look of doubt at Alan when the leadership of the Market came up. She’d also noticed that Alan didn’t say anything.
There was no way to tell from the map where someone might choose to hide a pearl, and no way for Nick to go back right now. Gerald had told Jamie to get rid of him. The Aventurine Circle was in upheaval, and the last thing they needed around was a demon.
Until they had another use for him. Until they had someone else to kill.
That didn’t stop everyone from talking about it until Toby was passed out with his head on the table, and Sin had to get up and put him and Lydie to bed. It took a few stories to get Lydie down, and when she came out into the hall she saw through the open door Mae sitting on the sofa watching TV and Nick sharpening knives at the window. The was no Alan in sight.
Which meant Alan was probably alone in his room. Sin figured he might want some company.
“So, Alan and Sin,” Nick said.
On the other hand, Alan probably had a book. He could wait for just a little while. Sin drew closer to the door.
Mae lifted the remote and clicked off the television, easing backward with one arm along the sofa back and her head tilted to look at Nick from a new angle.
“What about them? How are you feeling?”
“You know I don’t like it when you ask me such personal questions, Mavis,” Nick said. “Be a lady.”
Mae made an unladylike gesture. Nick had his head bent over the whetstone and knife in his hands, his hair falling in his eyes, but he must have caught the gesture reflected in the glass of the window. He gave a half smile.
“Does it bother you?” Mae asked.
“Bother me?” Nick repeated slowly, as if he was speaking in a foreign language. Sin supposed he always was. “I didn’t expect it,” he said finally. “And I usually do expect that kind of thing. It’s strange. If she’s using my brother, I’ll make her sorry.”
“Sin wouldn’t do something like that,” Mae said.
“Is Sin really your big concern?” Nick inquired. “What about Alan? I always thought you two would—I thought he liked you.”
“Not enough,” Mae answered softly. “And I didn’t like him enough either. We’ve both known that for a while. The only one who kept insisting that it was going to happen was you.”
Nick did not look up from sharpening his knife, and this time he didn’t smile, either.
“Because you wanted to give me to Alan as a reward or something equally horrible,” Mae said.
“Maybe I thought you’d be a good reward.”
There was a long pause.
“This is me staring at you in disbelief,” Mae said eventually. “Just so you know.”
“Don’t talk to me about what I know. You know about how humans feel about each other. Alan knows better than I do, anyway. I get that I don’t know. I
“Well, you got it wrong,” Mae said, her voice growing more gentle. “But that’s pretty normal for humans, too.”
“Everyone in this world does seem to spend all their time getting it wrong.” Nick stopped and tested the sharpness of the knife with his thumb. “Everyone in my world too.”
“We get things right in this world,” Mae said. “Every now and then. You get things right.”
“Every now and then,” Nick responded, almost under his breath. He laid the whetstone down on the windowsill. “Why would Alan go for Sin?” he asked, and outrage spiked hot in Sin’s chest. She wanted to fly into the room and hit Nick until he was bloody, until she realized exactly how furious and bewildered Nick sounded. “Alan doesn’t even like new people.”
Sin couldn’t see Mae’s face, but she saw her hand clench on the sofa cushions, in a movement that looked partly like frustration and partly like prayer, as if she was imploring the sofa gods for patience.
“Sin’s hardly a new person.”
“It’s new for her to be this
