“Scheme,” he added after a moment into her ear, and kissed the place at the edge of her jaw. Sin arched up underneath him, and his fingers touched the slice of skin between her shirt and jeans.
“And kill,” he whispered against her mouth, and kissed her breathless again.
“That’s good to know,” Sin told him when she had to break away, her heart drumming in her ears. She turned her head to the side, saw Alan’s free hand still holding his book, and started to laugh softly, looking up at him. “You’re keeping your place.”
“Of course. I’m going to read to you.” Alan smiled down at her. “In a minute.”
After quite a lot longer than a minute, he did. Sin put her arm around his stomach and rested her cheek against his shoulder and listened to him. He’d chosen something he thought she would like.
She did like it. She was simply happy, in a way she hadn’t been in a year and more, in a shining, certain way. She hid her smile against his shoulder and went to sleep.
When she woke up in the early morning, she was cold because she was lying on top of the covers and she was alone.
Sin stretched and rose from the bed, straightening her wrinkled clothes and yawning as she padded out into the hall. She saw Mae in the sitting room, curled up on the sofa in a ball and fast asleep. She hadn’t left after all.
Sin was smiling as she opened the kitchen door.
Nick was sitting on one of the chairs, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging empty in front of him. Something about the way he was sitting made Sin think he had been there for a while.
But not all that long. The blood on the table and on one of the other chairs, sprayed over the floor, was not quite dry yet.
There were two knives on the table. Sin knew them, had seen Alan throwing them once at the Goblin Market. Nick must know them too.
They were Alan’s knives.
She could see very clearly what had happened. She wished she couldn’t. She wished she could just stand there in the doorway and shake and demand to know what was going on.
But she knew, as well as Nick did.
When the mark that could torture him or kill him or do anything to him that Gerald of the Aventurine Circle wanted had made Alan get up and go God knew where, Alan had forced himself into the kitchen.
To stop himself from leaving, to delay himself just a moment, he’d put a knife through his hand and held himself pinned to the table for the time he needed to leave them a message.
The words were cut deep into the surface of the table, deeper than they needed to be, as if Alan was desperate to show how much he meant what he had written.
13
Dark My Light
I’M GOING AFTER HIM,” NICK SAID.
It made Sin blink and shook her out of paralysis into movement. She wasn’t certain how long she had been standing there, shivering and staring at the blood and words.
She moved forward a step and found her body had betrayed her, making her wobble. “We don’t know where he is.”
Nick stood up, pushing his chair back violently.
“I know where Gerald is. And I’m going to gut him slowly until he tells me what he did with my brother.”
Sin looked up at his black eyes.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll go together.”
She left before he could argue with her, running back to the room and shoving on her shoes, grabbing up her knives. She got one look at the dented pillow where Alan had slept beside her that night and had to swallow down terror and panic, but she didn’t let herself falter. She ran right back out to the sofa, where she shook Mae awake.
“Wha—,” Mae said, her eyes still blurry with sleep. Sin felt a moment of envy that Mae didn’t know, and pity because she was going to tell her.
“Alan’s gone,” she said. “Nick and I are going to get him. Please will you stay with Lydie and Toby?”
Mae was awake in an instant, reality doing the job of cold water, her whole face changing. A slight crazed look about her eyes suggested she would much rather deal with a whole band of killer magicians than two kids, but she nodded at once.
“Of course,” she said, and squared her shoulders.
“Thanks,” Sin told her, and ran. In the hallway she ran right into the solid wall of Nick’s back. “I’m coming with you,” she reminded him furiously.
Nick didn’t say anything, but he let her follow in his wake as he slammed through the door along the wire-mesh corridor and down the cold stairwell. He was moving fast, but Sin could do that too.
They found themselves out in the chill of an autumn morning, shivering by the side of the road and looking at the empty space where Alan and Nick’s car had been. Sin glanced at Nick.
“Can you just—send yourself there?”
“No,” Nick snarled. “Because my stupid brother convinced me to give up the best part of my power for nothing.”
