Jamie reached up to take his sister’s hand that rested on his shoulder, twining her fingers around his and trying to use it to tug her away. He backed up a step and then stopped, like a boat caught short at the end of its rope. Mae stood firm, her eyes boring into Nick.
“Get lost,” Nick said, enunciating each word as if she was a bit slow. “There’s no help for you here.”
That was when Alan came outside, blinking slightly in the bright light. His quickly checked smile at the sight of Mae made Nick feel unwell.
“Hi, Alan,” Jamie said in a small voice. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes, of course. There’s no need to worry about me, I’ll be right as rain in no time,” Alan assured him, smile fading as he looked at Jamie. This was just how Alan had looked at the sick kitten he’d taken home so it could grow up big and strong and able to bite Nick.
Jamie offered him a little smile as if to call Alan’s back. “You’ll get it fixed at the—Goblin Market thing.”
Mae and Jamie’s faces suddenly changed, as if a shadow had fallen over them. Nick turned to see that shadow was actually Mum’s dark form at Alan’s shoulder, moving slowly forward until the cold light touched her face.
Mum walked past Alan, her hand lingering on his sleeve for an instant as she went by. Her black flag of hair streamed behind her as she went, as if it wanted to cling to the shadows. When she stopped in the middle of the yard, her hair fell with a weighted swish like heavy curtains around her face. Nick kept his eyes turned to her so he would not have to look at Mae and Jamie. It was always the same, the way people’s eyes moved from Mum’s face to Nick’s, while their expressions moved from recognition to silent horror.
Nick’s mother had a face that kept all secrets but one. Her broad, slanted cheekbones made her look catlike, and her wide mouth was constantly moving and always formed a shape at odds with her expression. She was tall, and her black hair made her look even paler than she was. She looked like Mae might have wanted to look, if Mum had not looked insane. The full mouth kept shifting with the spasms of a tic. Past the protection of hooded eyelids that seemed pulled down by heavy lashes, her eyes were icy blue and seemed always fixed on someone who was not there.
Except for the color of his eyes, Nick looked exactly like her. He hated it when people saw her. They could never look at Nick again without associating him with madness.
“We’re leaving again,” she said flatly. “I don’t know why we bother. He’ll find us.”
Nick wished he could look away from her. He wished that he could leave her. He wished that Alan would agree to leave her.
Mum smiled dreamily, the rest of her face frozen and expressionless. She said, “He’s not the kind of man who fails.”
Alan limped forward to stand beside her in the uncut grass of their front yard, and reached for her hand. Nick didn’t see how he could bear to touch her. “Olivia,” said Alan, voice low, “don’t. Let’s get in the car.”
She turned and pressed her fingers against the curve of his cheek, gazing at him but not quite meeting his eyes.
“You’re a sweet boy,” she whispered. “You’re my sweet boy, but you’ve got it all wrong.”
Mae cleared her throat, pulling absently at one of her necklaces. The movement almost drew Nick’s eyes to the tangle of talismans and chains around his mother’s neck, but he stopped his instinctive glance. These two knew enough about his family already. They didn’t need to see him looking at Mum’s charms.
He looked at Alan instead, expecting to find steadiness there, expecting sanity and familiarity.
He saw fear.
He saw Alan draw his gun out in the open, out in their front garden where anyone could see. Nick didn’t hesitate. He drew his sword and held that sharp, glittering barrier between his brother and the rest of the world, and then he looked around to see what was threatening them.
She was coming down the road toward them, her high heels clicking on the cement. She looked to be in her forties, with a sleek brown bob and large earrings that caught the sun, shining perfect circles with a knife in the center of each one.
The knives danced jauntily in their circles as she turned and smiled at them.
“Hello, boys. How are you today?”
Nick strode toward her, Alan a pace behind him. He wheeled behind the woman, and after a moment Alan came to stand in front of her. She swung around, briefly teetering on her heels, unable to keep them both in her range of vision and unsure who to focus on.
Nick claimed her full attention by stepping in to her as if they were about to dance. She stopped, facing him, then looked down to see that he was holding each end of his sword and pressing the length of the blade lightly against her stomach. He gazed down at her and smiled a little.
“All the better for seeing you.”
There were as many types of magic user in this world as there were colors in white light. On one end of the spectrum were the magicians, and on the other end was the Goblin Market.
There were a lot of people who wanted more power than the Market offered, and who didn’t quite have the stomach for feeding their own kind to demons. There were the necromancers and the messengers, the pied pipers and the soul tasters, and a dozen others, and Market people trusted none of them.
They trusted the messengers least of all. Every messenger wore the sign of a knife through a circle. It was a sign from the magicians. It meant that the messenger was attached to a Circle of magicians, and if you crossed the messenger, you crossed the Circle.
The knife more or less indicated how things would go from there.
Messengers were closely associated with magicians. They carried information back and forth between Circles, and between magicians and the outside world, and in return they were paid with demons’ magic. Magic bought in blood.
As far as Nick was concerned, they were magicians without the guts.
Over the messenger’s shoulder he saw Mae and Jamie, looking alarmed by the sudden appearance of weapons and a stranger. He saw Mum standing by the car, her face a complete blank.
The messenger smiled, a small, wary smile like a concerned parent watching her child. She looked far more like a mother than Mum. Possibly Nick should hire her for his next parent-teacher meeting.
“You’re looking very grown-up, Nick.”
“It’s true, I’m entering on manhood,” Nick said. “You’re a stylish, sophisticated, ever so slightly evil woman of the world. Do you think we could make it work?”
She looked much less like a mother when her smile went sharp like that. “Probably not.”
Nick adjusted his grip on the sword, held it at the precise point where her ribs ended. “Pity.”
Alan interrupted, his face grave and his gun at the small of her back. “What’s your message?”
“Oh yes,” said the messenger. “That.”
She twisted lightly around, ending up with Nick’s sword against her spine and Alan’s gun against her stomach. Nick met Alan’s eyes over her shoulder and watched for any signal.
The messenger’s voice was calm. “Black Arthur says that now’s the time. He wants it back.”
In the silence there was a small, sharp sound. Alan had released the safety catch.
Nick could only see the back of her head, but the messenger sounded like she was smiling. “You can give it to me now, or Black Arthur can come and take it.”
There was very little in Nick’s life that stayed around long enough to be familiar. There had been a statue in one place, a building in another, but taking his whole life into account, Alan’s face was the only reliable landmark he had.
He had never seen Alan look like this before.
“Let me ask you this,” Alan said, his voice dangerous and shaky at once, like a knife held in a trembling hand. “What d’you think would be the best message to send Black Arthur? Maybe I should let you go back and tell him that he can come and try? He’s been chasing us for years. What makes him think he can catch us now?”<
br />
The woman tilted her face toward Alan’s, as if they were going to kiss.
“He’s serious now,” she murmured, sounding as if she was about to laugh. “Hadn’t you noticed, Alan? We did send you a sign.”
Alan went perfectly, terribly white.
The demon’s mark. Nick heard his own voice saying, They can track you once that first mark is made.
“Sweet Alan, so devoted, so much trouble. We won’t be chasing after you blind now, will we? Wherever your little family goes, you’ll lead us right to them.”
Nick could see the gun shaking in Alan’s hand now, in tight, terrified spasms. “Last night we put a magician in the river,” Alan said, his voice low and intense as if he was making a promise. “Maybe we should send you to join him.”
“You know the rules,” the woman whispered. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Nick interrupted, leaning down to speak in her ear. “Do they say, ‘Don’t cut the messenger in half with your great big sword’?”
Alan’s eyes narrowed. He stepped back and said, “Let her go, Nick.”
Nick stepped back too, but he did not sheathe his sword. He held it ready, just in case, and the sun danced along the steel and turned it into a dazzling line of light. He could barely see the messenger’s small, polite smile.
“What shall I tell Black Arthur?” she asked.
Even Alan’s lips were white. “Tell Black Arthur that no matter what I have to do, I’ll make him regret sending that message,” he said. “Now go.”
The messenger looked from Alan’s white face to Nick’s dark smile, and went. She turned sharply on her heels, balance perfect again, and walked away. Her step was measured and unhurried, her head held high, as if she were walking away from a successful board meeting.
Alan looked as if he was going to collapse or kill somebody.
The two strangers in their world were staring at his pale face and the gun still in his hand. Nick looked at Alan’s eyes, sheathed his sword, and strode toward the intruders. Jamie flinched as he came.
“If you’ll excuse us,” he said, his voice on the edge of a snarl. “We’ve just had some bad news.”
Mae did not back down a step. Under other circumstances that might have impressed him, but just now all he wanted to do was get his brother away from the curious stares of strangers and take that look off his face, and her stubbornness simply infuriated him.
“Who’s Black Arthur?” she asked.
“None of your business,” Nick barked.
“It is my business,” Mae snapped. “It sounds like he’s the person you’re running from, and once you’re gone, who will be left to help Jamie?”
Her voice trembled on Jamie’s name, and of course that made Alan look up, soft touch that he was. His face was still a nasty gray-white color, but he looked a little more like himself.
“Mae,” he said, and his voice was kind again, “I told you. There’s nothing any of us can do to help Jamie. I’m sorry.”
Mae surprised Nick again. Instead of bursting into loud fury, her mouth worked for a trembling terrible moment, and he thought she was going to cry. “I’d take his place,” she said, her voice rough. “Can I do that? Is there a way?”
The second surprise was Jamie, speaking in a tone of command. “I wouldn’t let you!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nick told them. “There’s no way.”
He wanted fiercely to be on the road, to leave Exeter and everyone in it behind them.
“If I could help you, I would,” Alan said helplessly, as he had last night. “I swear I would.”
Mae’s eyes narrowed, reminding Nick of a woman at a stall, trying to make a shrewd bargain. “You’re going to the Goblin Market to get help. Can’t we go there too?”
“No,” said Nick.
Alan hesitated. “I don’t think anyone there can help you.”
Mae pushed her advantage. “There might be someone, though. There might be some way you don’t know about. It’s a chance, isn’t it? Please, Alan. Please let us come.”
There was a long moment where Mae stared at Alan, and Nick stared at his clenched fists.
“All right,” Alan agreed at last. “If”—and a note of bashfulness crept into his businesslike voice—“if you’ll give me your number, I can—I’ll call you. Once I find out where the Market is being held next month.”
Compared to the demon mark and the early move, compared to the magician’s message, seeing Alan embarrassing himself over yet another girl should not have mattered.
It did, though. It was so pointless, they were leaving, but Alan could still stand with their crazy mother in the yard and their crazy life packed up in their car, all of it in plain sight, and hope.
“So you’re getting your way,” Nick said, hearing his voice slice through the silence, like the sword he’d wanted to use on that woman. He was furious and he wanted someone to pay, he wanted to hurt someone, and Mae was there. It wasn’t fair, but what was? “I’d hate to disappoint you,” he went on. “What else did you want to know? Oh yes, Black Arthur.”
He threw the name like a missile at his mother, standing in the middle of the garden with her black hair blowing around her face. She had not moved since the messenger appeared, and her expression had not changed. She had simply watched the whole thing, watched Alan, like a ghost watching something that could not possibly concern her.
As he bore down on her, her expression did change. Her lip curled.
“It’s a romantic story, really,” he said harshly, staring down at her. “He was the man our mother loved. She was one of his magicians, and she fed people to the demons on his orders. He drove her mad, and drove her into Dad’s arms. She ran from Black Arthur bearing a powerful charm, and since then every magician in England has been hunting us for it.”
He grabbed a fistful of the chains around her neck, and she turned her face away. They had been like this for as long as Nick could remember. He could not forgive her for the lives they had led, for Dad’s death. He could not forget the look on Alan’s face, and that was her fault as well.
He leaned toward his mother and whispered, “And now it seems that he wants it back.”
Which wouldn’t have been a problem, except that if someone took away the charm, Mum would die.
Nick’d had his moments of thinking even that wouldn’t be so terrible. She had been a magician, after all. If she was gone, he and Alan could have normal lives. If anyone at the Goblin Market had known the truth about her, they would have said she deserved death.
This was not one of those moments. If the thought of her dying made Alan look like that, she had to live.
Nick stood with his mother’s chains, heavy and cold, in his hands. They were both breathing hard.
When Alan spoke, he sounded tired. “The Goblin Market will be held on the first of May. Will I give you two a call?”
They made muted noises of agreement. Even Mae seemed cowed at this point, though it was Jamie who gave Alan his number. Alan looked a bit crestfallen but accepted it, and at least after that they were finally rid of the interlopers.
Nick left to get the last boxes while Jamie was still writing down his number, and by the time he emerged from the house they were gone. Nick went around the car so he and Mum would not have to come within a yard of each other.
He looked at Alan, who was standing gazing into the open boot of their car, at something in one of the boxes. When he noticed Nick looking, he smiled a small, strained smile.
“I think that’s it,” Alan said. “Come on. Looking forward to London?”
They swung into the car. Nick let Alan have first shift. He was the better driver, but he was only sixteen and it would be a year before it was actually legal for him to drive. It was better to get out of Exeter, where some people knew that, before Nick had his turn.
“Well,” Nick said as Alan gave him a stern look over the top of his glasses and Nick rolled his eyes and buckled his seat belt. “Let’s examine the
events of the past twenty-four hours in Exeter. Ravens in the kitchen, snakes in the living room, demon marks on you, magicians sending us stupid messages, and at the end of it all you got the boy’s telephone number.”
Alan tilted his head as he considered this and then laughed. Nick leaned his forehead against the car window, and the engine purred soothingly to him.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Alan suggested.
After an hour on the M5, Alan’s leg started to ache, and they switched places. There was never much conversation while driving because of Mum, so Nick looked straight ahead and Alan stared out at the rolling green ground, going for miles on both sides of the road. Nick glanced over at him a few times, wondering if that message was bothering him or if the demon mark was hurting him.
“You all right?” he said eventually.
Alan took a moment to answer. When he turned, Nick saw that half his wavy hair was sticking up from being pressed against the damp window.
“Yeah,” he said. Nick’s amusement was cut short when Alan went on, “I was thinking about Mae and Jamie. It’s just—they both seem so great, and we know what’s going to happen to them. It’s terrible, that’s all. I hate it.”
Nick frowned out at the road. “Why do you care? You barely know them.”
“I know them well enough to feel sorry for them,” Alan said. “Anyone would. I mean, don’t you feel bad for them? A little?”
He looked at Nick with a testing, expectant air. Nick didn’t know what to say.
He felt angry with them. If it hadn’t been for them, Alan would not be marked. Nick did not think that expressing this would go over well, though.
“I don’t feel anything for them.”
That answer made Alan look so unhappy that Nick almost wished he had told him about the anger. Alan said nothing, though; he only turned back to the window, biting his lip.
Nick glanced in the rearview mirror to check on the distance between them and the car behind, and caught his mother’s reflected eyes. In the mirror they looked even colder than usual, as if she was staring at him from under ice. Her lips were drawn tight over her teeth, giving her beautiful face the appearance of a skull that still had eyes to stare. She looked at him as if she hated him, but she always did that.