“You don’t think Alan likes for people to be close? He obviously likes Sin to be close. And Alan likes new people just fine,” she told Nick. “He liked me and Jamie from the first minute, and he’d known us a few days when he let us move in. He wants people to be close. The minute you found out he had other family, he dragged you off to Durham and tried to bond with people he barely knew.”
Nick stood up. His face was not quite as expressionless as usual; there was a hard edge to his mouth, of anger or just possibly distress.
“What are you saying about Alan?” he demanded. “That he wants people to be close too much? Is Sin going to hurt him?”
“I trust Sin. And I’m not saying anything about Alan. I’m talking about you, and this thing you do.”
Nick took a step toward the sofa, not as if he wanted to be closer to Mae but as if he was advancing on her.
“What do you mean?”
“I remember reading your father’s diary,” Mae said. “I remember how you said that Alan didn’t like being left alone, when what you meant was that you didn’t want to leave him. It’s okay if new people upset you, if you’re wary about them getting close to you or your brother. Don’t shove what makes you uncomfortable onto Alan. They’re your feelings, and once you admit that, you can deal with them.”
Nick was still for a moment, considering.
Then he said, “All right.”
Sin could not see Mae blink, but she knew body language. The way Mae’s head was suddenly held, frozen for a fraction of a second, meant that Sin would have bet a week’s rent that a blink had happened.
Apparently the demon was not always this amenable during his lessons about emotions. Color Sin shocked.
“I remember things too,” Nick said. “I remember when you and Jamie were living with us, when Alan had a demon’s mark, and I wasn’t talking to him.”
“You were so unhappy.” Mae did not sound as if she was reminiscing, but as if she was giving Nick information.
Nick came a few steps closer, no longer advancing like an enemy, but prowling forward just the same.
“Once I woke up and Alan was screaming from the dreams demons were sending him. I went to him, but you were already there. Do you remember that?”
“Not really,” Mae answered. “I tried to do whatever I could.”
“You were comforting him, and I thought—I thought that after his mark was taken off, he wouldn’t want to go to Durham. I thought he would want to stay with you. But he didn’t want to. He went back to the people he thought could be his family, the people he was surer of.”
Nick reached the sofa, going on one knee in the sofa cushions, one hand on the sofa back where Mae’s arm lay. He was arched over her, his back a curve, hair in his eyes and his eyes utterly intent.
“So tell me, Mavis,” he murmured. “Who wanted to be with you?”
He reached out and touched her face, turning it toward his. Mae turned her face up to his, the ceiling lights touching her profile with gold. For a moment Sin thought,
Before their lips met, Mae turned her face away.
“Nick,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t.”
Nick went tense all over. The bow of his back, with his face bent toward Mae, suddenly looked a great deal more sinister. “Why not?”
Mae tilted her face up again, this time defiantly. She did not move out of Nick’s shadow. “Leaving aside the fact that I actually do have more pride than to let you say, ‘Oh well, I might as well have her’ the moment it seems like Alan doesn’t want me after all, as if I have no choice in the matter, as if I’d put up with being passed around like a parcel—”
“That isn’t how it is,” Nick snarled. “Just because I was trying not to stand in the way—”
“Leaving that aside,” Mae said, powering on determinedly over Nick’s voice until he shut up, “there’s the mark. And that makes the idea that I have no choice in the matter far too close to the truth.”
Nick glared down at her. “You asked me to put that mark on you!”
“I know I did,” Mae said, her tone level.
“Don’t lie to me.” Nick’s voice was suddenly loud, suddenly so angry that it struck Sin it went right through being an order and crashed into becoming a plea. “You wanted me before the mark. I know you did.”
“I know I did too,” Mae said again, in just the same way, and then her voice went softer. “But feelings change.”
Nick stared down at her, eyes boring into her face. “No,” he murmured, his voice low and sure. “You still want me.”
“What does it matter?” Mae asked bleakly. “I don’t know how my feelings would have changed without the mark. I trust you not to use the mark against me deliberately, but we don’t know how much the mark affects me without either of us knowing it. We do know it makes me want to please you, to do what you want. I can’t risk becoming some sort of satellite to you. I don’t want to lose bits of myself. I want you, but I don’t want to be yours. I want to be mine. And what about you? What do you want?”
Nick drew his hand away from her face as if her skin had burned him. “I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do,” Mae said. “You can’t just reach out and snag the parcel as it goes by. This is the human world,
