The Demon's Lexicon

6 The Hunt Begins

AS SOON AS THE BALEFIRE DIED AND THE DEMON WENT down in smoke, Nick broke out of the circle in one stride. He was beside Alan in another step, one fist clenched in Alan’s shirt and one closing around the speaking charm. He ripped the charm violently from Alan’s neck and took a savage satisfaction in seeing the thin red line spring up on Alan’s skin when the chain broke.

He stamped on the shell and felt as if he had bitten his tongue and blood was filling his mouth, slipping down his throat. Only instead of blood, it was his voice.

Now that he could speak, he found he had nothing to say. It was done.

Nick shoved Alan away, sending him stumbling back into the ash and the broken pattern of the demon’s circle. Alan was easy to throw off balance. If Nick had thrown him back with any more force, he would have fallen, and if he’d fallen, Nick might have kicked him when he was down.

A crowd of people had gathered to watch the dance, and now they were all gaping like the idiots they were. Even those idiots were not stupid enough to get in Nick’s way. He stormed forward, and they scattered in all directions before him. He plunged into the depths of the wood, away from the noise and lights of the Goblin Market into a raging darkness. Branches caught in the night wind whipped at him, twigs raking his face.

There was a sharp burn in the corner of one eye and a trail of heat down his cheek. Of course, it was blood.

Nick wiped at his eye and saw the lurid smear of blood on his knuckles, red even in the darkness. He wanted every trace of the fever fruit burned out of his system. The fruit made even this dark wood too bright. It made the wind and shadows into whispers and lurking thorns.

He turned at every sound, wanting to lash out at something, but nobody was stupid enough to follow him. He was surprised when he heard the unmistakable sound behind him, a sound not of wind or branches but of a step, and he realized that somebody had been stupid enough to follow him, after all.

He wheeled around and it was not Alan.

It was Mae, coming toward him with her eyes wide and her whole face luminous with emotion. At first Nick thought she was just happy. She had every reason to be happy, after all, since Nick’s stupid brother had removed her stupid brother from immediate danger by risking himself.

Then he remembered the fever fruit.

Mae’s eyes were a little too wide, her pupils dilated. Nick remembered how the world was after that first taste, how everything was magnified and glowing, every color breaking in on you like light, and every thought like a revelation.

“What do you want?” Nick snapped.

Mae’s lips were slightly parted and quivering. She licked them, and with that fevered sharpness Nick saw the place on her mouth where her tongue had rubbed away the lip gloss.

She came closer, put out her hand, and pushed Nick against a tree. Her lips quivered again, and she spoke.

“I want,” said Mae, offering up her mouth. “Oh, I want…”

She lifted her free hand to pull Nick’s head down, fingers knotted in his hair. Nick remembered, with a vividness born of the fever fruit, the curve of Mae’s hips dancing. He could want her.

Alan wanted her too. This would hurt Alan, and after Alan’s little stunt Nick liked the idea of hurting him.

Nick seldom said no to a girl, and he had never done so in circumstances like these, with the lights of the Goblin Market glimpsed like far-off lightning behind her and her trembling mouth an inch from his.

Nick touched her for the first time.

He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her away. Then he leaned forward and whispered into her ear.

“You’d want anyone right now.”

He let his lips touch her ear and when he drew back, she did not look angry, only dazed and uncomprehending.

He left her. He did not want to run, because that would have looked like fear or some other ridiculous thing, so he loped through the woods, going easily, knowing that when he walked fast no girl and no crippled idiot could catch him. He held his hands clenched in fists, but he did not hit out at any thorns.

When black night was touched with the cold, unfriendly blue of coming morning, Nick went back.

The Goblin Market was in the process of being packed away. The remnants of the stalls stood forlorn as their owners stored their wares in boxes, and the few customers left lingered uneasily around the debris of magic.

The others were standing in the center of the clearing, near a fortune-telling stall. Jamie was looking uneasily around and saw him at once. Mae was leaning against Alan, cheek pressed against his shoulder. As Nick came toward them, she made a determined effort to twine herself around Alan and turned her face up to his.

It seemed that, indeed, anyone would do.

Alan stooped and gave her a soft kiss, light, but enough to show her she was not being rejected.

“No, Mae, I really can’t. It would be taking advantage,” Alan was saying.

The fortune-teller picked this unfortunate moment to lean over her stall and pluck at Nick’s sleeve.

Her crystal ball, left out in forlorn hope, stared up at Nick as if the woman had a huge third eye cupped between her palms. In the crystal depths, luminous points of green spiked like a tiny forest; above the green, streams of iridescent blue were looped like ribbons.

“See the future, young sir?” the old woman croaked theatrically. Merris Cromwell would have coldly recommended a cough drop.

The tightly interwoven blues and greens darkened. The impression Nick received was that of a shadow falling over a lake, a silhouette that grew more distinct, moving from a shadow into the lines of a face.

It was just his own face, his darkly reflected eyes staring out of the crystal.

Nick picked up the crystal in one hand and hurled it with vicious force at the nearest tree. The crash made Mae and Alan jump and look around. Nick caught their movement from the corner of his eye, but mostly he was staring at the glittering shards.

“I think I’ve seen enough,” he said.

They dropped Mae and Jamie home, Alan giving strict instructions for Mae to be put to bed and kept there. Jamie made solemn promises and held Mae’s hand tight with the air of an anxious nanny.

“You don’t need to worry,” he said, leaning into Alan’s open window. “And, er, Alan?” he added. “Thanks.”

He gave Alan a quick kiss on the cheek, and then disappeared through the gate with a struggling Mae in tow. It was rather a fancy gate, loops and swirls wrought in iron creating a picture Nick couldn’t quite make out. Through the intricate pattern he glimpsed an ivy-covered house, large and white, looming in the still-dark sky like a big expensive iceberg. The windows in the upper floors cast yellow light on the big garden and the tennis court.

These two had everything. They could have left Nick’s brother alone.

Nick crossed his arms over his chest and said stonily, “Quite a night you’re having.”

Alan said, “I’m not talking to you while you still have the fever fruit in your system.”

Not talking was fine by Nick. He stared out the window as Alan drove.

Usually the journeys back from the Goblin Market were all right no matter how long they were. It was not like moving; it was just the two of them without Mum. Alan played classical or country music and talked for ages about whatever his latest craze was, from vintage comics to philosophy. It was all just insane ranting to Nick, but he didn’t mind hearing it, and he always bullied Alan into letting Nick drive most of the way home.

This time there was silence. Nick did not offer to drive at all. He measured exactly where the halfway point was and when it came, he did not speak. Let Alan tell him to drive. Let Alan take care of himself for a change. Nick glanced over at Alan and saw his jaw set. He was not going to ask Nick for help; he was too proud to ask for anything that was not offered willingly.

Nick was viciously glad. It was Alan’s own fault. Let him suffer.

They continued to drive in silence, except for the tiny hitches of breath that began to rise helplessly in Alan’s throat. Nick listened to every stifled sound of pain.

Alan would never have let Nick hurt himself, no matter how angry with Nick he might have been. Nick knew that, but that was the difference between them. Nick was a jerk, and Alan was a suicidal fool.

The car drove into a lurid yellow morning, the terrible toxic color of leaden clouds filtering pale, sickly sunlight. There was a fine, continuous rain falling. Nick stared out at the wash of water down the glass and wondered if other people got as angry as he did. He’d seen Alan angry, but he’d never discovered in Alan’s eyes any savage urge for blood. He wished he wanted to yell at Alan or slam doors, wanted to do anything but lash out with extreme violence. He sat, fists clenched, too aware of the new sword at his belt and the knife against the small of his back.

When they pulled up outside their house and the purr of the car engine stilled, Alan let his leg relax and breathed out a sigh of pure relief. For a moment there was complete quiet.

Then Alan said, “While you were gone, I talked to Merris. She said she wouldn’t be able to help us with Black Arthur, but — I don’t know. I’ve heard stories about the experiments she does in her house. She won’t talk about them. What we need is an excuse to get into Merris’s house.”

That was just like Nick’s stupid brother, still worrying about Mum when he was the one in danger. What Nick needed was to get both marks off Alan, and that would be almost impossible.

“We need to kill a magician,” Nick snarled.

Dad had been killed by the magicians. They had spent their whole life running from the magicians, and now they had to seek them out.

“We’ve killed magicians before,” said Alan.

“When they came for us,” Nick snapped. “They live in magicians’ Circles. If we try to deliberately find one, we’ll find a nest of them. They have demons, they have magic, and they outnumber us.”

These were the facts. Alan knew them, and it maddened Nick to have to enumerate them. He did not add the next fact, which was that Alan was probably going to die.

“It’s a chance,” Alan said. “Jamie didn’t have a chance before. Now we both do.”

“Why should he expect you to die for him?” Nick demanded. “What would I do with Mum if you were dead?”

“I didn’t realize,” Alan said slowly, looking a little pale, “that your concern was so entirely practical.”

Nick stared at the dashboard. Alan was choosing now, of all times, to talk nonsense. Nick was in no mood for it.

“You weren’t being noble,” he informed Alan after a moment. “You didn’t want to give anyone a chance. Don’t lie to me. Don’t tell me it had nothing to do with that girl!”

Before Alan could tell him anything, Nick had wrenched open the door. He leaped out and slammed it shut behind him. He ran as he hadn’t run through the wood at Tiverton, as if he were being chased, down the gray side streets of south London.

He ran to the new garage he was working at. Nick found comfort in machines that were either working or broken, and if broken could be either fixed or destroyed. He found the garage as still as a graveyard, cars in various stages of repair like sad metallic specters.

Nick kicked a box of tools and sent wrenches and spanners flying out onto the cement. He wanted to overturn a car, and he felt sure he could. He was so angry he wanted to kill.

A car, winched up as high as it would go, collapsed with a crash behind him. Nick spun and drew his sword as a loose wheel rolled into the wall, and he noticed for the first time that the lock on the garage door was broken. Somebody or something had smashed it.

Nick was suddenly happy. He hoped this was an attack, that here at last was something he knew how to deal with. He turned in a slow circle, watching for a flicker of movement, for the slightest sound. Another car fell with a thunderous crash as soon as his back was turned.

“Got you,” Nick said, turning on the sound with his sword already arcing through the air. All he saw was a lick of flame leaping under the bonnet of the car.

It was a demon. It had to be. The crash had not been enough to start a fire and besides, Nick’s talisman was a prickling, harshly humming weight against his chest. There was a demon, somewhere close, and it would not show itself so he could kill it!

He thought for a moment that he needed to go warn Alan so they could all start packing, but then he remembered. They were chasing demons now. If there were magicians here, they had to stay and hunt them.

He should really go, he realized. He didn’t need to be caught and laid off for setting fires.

“So,” he said to the dying flame and the empty room, “I’ll get you later.”

He did not feel like going home, so he took a walk, and then returned to work, where everyone was wondering who the mystery vandals were. Nick nodded to all the theories, and then popped a car bonnet and got down to work. He worked grimly and silently, two shifts, until it was dark and someone told him to get out and enjoy what was left of his night.

Nick just nodded a final time and left. He went home at last and got into bed without seeing anyone. Sleep, black and consuming, swallowed him whole.

He woke late as usual and came downstairs to find Alan playing with a piece of toast. He looked pale and worn as an old bone, after only one night with a second-tier mark. There were violet shadows under his eyes, and he did not look up from his plate as Nick approached. Nick could usually sneak up on anyone but Alan. He went over to lean his forearms on the back of Alan’s chair and frowned at the back of Alan’s neck.

“Don’t,” he said, and saw Alan jump at the unexpected word, so close, and then relax. “Don’t do anything like this again,” he said. “All right?”

Alan reached behind him and grasped Nick’s upper arm. His thin fingers only half closed around the swell of muscle, but he held on.

“I promise I won’t put any demon marks on myself for the sake of any fetching pink-haired girls or their brothers ever again.”

Nick hung over Alan’s chair, uneasy but not exactly wanting to break away, and said in a rough voice, “You’d better not.”

Alan offered to run him to school, but Nick said he’d take the Tube. He knew Alan must really be tired when he agreed. Nick had no intention of going to school. He knew what he had to do.

Anzu had given him the name of a Circle. The Obsidian Circle: Black Arthur’s Circle. He knew that much, but he did not know how much power they had or where to find them. He did not have time to wait for the next Goblin Market. He could draw a basic circle of summoning. He would dance again and alone.

He needed answers. He needed his other demon.

He needed Liannan.

On one of the bleakest roads in Camden, there was a small gray lot behind the American Methodist Church. It was filled with builder’s dust and rubble years old, and there was a large metal Dumpster in it that was heaped with an assortment of rubbish.

On a Monday morning Nick didn’t think he would be disturbed here.

He drew the circle of summoning and confinement carefully with a white piece of chalk he had stolen from an art shop on the way. He’d taken a few protective charms from Alan’s bedroom, and he laid them carefully at intervals around the circle. The circle had to be secure. He was taking risks, but he would not take that risk. If a demon ever got out into the world, free of a magician’s control, it could mean the end of the world.

Nick was planning to take risks only with himself. He had no fever fruit, he had no dance partner, and he had never spoken directly to a demon before. If he slipped up, the demon would have him. If he could not manage to offer something she wanted, Liannan might not even come.

He was betting that she would come. She had always seemed like she wanted to come to him.

She was not a woman, of course. That was only a shape she chose to trick humans, but Nick thought it would be easier if he could pretend she was a woman. He had called girls to him before. There was nothing so easy whether you were walking into a classroom, a club, or down the street. All you had to do was send out the right signals, give her the right look, turn your body the right way, and never for a moment let it cross your mind that she might not be interested.

Nick was not carrying his sword, so he laid down his knives before he entered the circle. It was a gesture. He was surrendering and inviting the demon in.

He could not let himself worry about scuffing the chalk marks that showed the lines of communication, or the lines that meant the boundaries between the worlds. If he got distracted from the dance, she would never come.

Pushing away the reality of a gray sky in London, he thought about night, the taste of fever fruit, and the taste of a girl’s mouth. He thought about being in a nightclub and catching a girl’s eyes gleaming under the colored, moving lights. He thought about Mae’s skin under the lanterns of the Goblin Market.

The right words were, as ever, the hardest part. He swallowed and heard his voice come out rough, commanding a girl rather than coaxing her. That worked, sometimes.

“I call on the one who gave me the name Liannan! I call on she who loves water and lives in ice, she who follows men invisible and drives them mad. I call on the face men follow through a winter storm to their deaths. I call on Liannan.”

He thought about practicing the sword in darkness, his whole mind narrowed into nothing but the movement of steel in the night. He danced and remembered fighting, training his aching body until he knew only the desire for perfection, the perfect kill, the perfect kiss. He threw back his head, arched his back, and called Liannan to his side.

When he opened his eyes, there was nothing but the tarmac, the worn building, and the chalk outlines of what looked like a child’s game. Nick waited for a heartbeat, despaired for a breath, and then saw pale fire building from one chalked-in line.

It was a very pale fire, almost colorless, as if water had learned how to burn. Liannan rose from a high flame the color of a fountain with her head bowed, like a goddess rising from the sea. The fire settled over the circle, lapping gently as the sea at low tide around them, and she stood before Nick and lifted her face to his.

His talisman sent a pang of sheer agony through his body, and he gave a quick gasp. She smiled.

She was smiling; she who was a legend in lands where men would follow her into ice and shadow for a smile. She was dazzling, and she would have been even more beautiful if she had not been so pale. Pallor lay over her like a veil, making the color of her eyes impossible to distinguish and cooling the fire of her red hair, as if the vivid color was seen under frost.

“It’s been a long time,” she said, her voice ringing like the chimes at the Goblin Market.

Nick crossed his arms and stared at her. The less he spoke, the less chance there was she could trick him.

Liannan tilted her head. “Do you like this?” she asked. “I remember you always had a fancy for red hair.”

Nick actually preferred blondes, but that hardly mattered. She thought he was a different man, centuries dead, and probably dead by her hand. Demons found it hard to tell humans apart.

“It’s all right,” Nick said grudgingly. “I have two questions for you. I know I didn’t dance with a partner or take the fruit. Tell me your price for answering them.”

“My price.” Liannan’s voice changed to a whisper that sounded like a waterfall. “I will answer one question — if you take off your talisman.”

Every dancer always wore a talisman, because a demon could mark you if you were in a circle, as easily as they could take a mark off you, if you did not wear some protection.

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If he refused, though, she would go. She had chosen her shape, and it was a shape to seduce rather than to force. He could stop her if she tried to mark him.

Nick nodded, and for the first time in eight years, he took off his talisman and cast it to one side.

Losing the talisman should have made him feel vulnerable, but he felt nothing but relief. He always carried the talisman and thought of what had happened to Alan without one. He carried it and bore with the endless prickling discomfort, the pain doubled whenever a demon was near or spells were performed in his presence. He was free of pain at last, and he felt wonderful.

This new freedom made him feel more confident rather than less. He didn’t need any warning. He could deal with demons on his own.

He looked at Liannan and smiled. A smile spread over her face in return, a sad, beautiful smile, with just the faintest gleam of sharp teeth.

She reached out for him, her fingers shining like knives. They were icicles.

“I can touch you now,” she said.

If he tried to fight her, Nick might accidentally step out of the circle. He let her touch him. It wasn’t so bad, since she looked like a girl. She might have been any girl, with her slim body pressed against his, her eyes fixed beseechingly on his face. One hand was curled around his neck, her fingers sharp and cold.

“Ask me your question.”

“Where are the Obsidian Circle?”

She didn’t answer him. That would have been too easy.

Nick could see the demon’s breath, as if she were a child puffing out warm clouds into the cold air, but her breath against his cheek was icy.

“The Obsidian Circle,” she repeated thoughtfully. “That was the Circle that hunted you first. That was the Circle that wanted you most.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Nick snapped.

“All right,” Liannan said, and laughed. “Did you know that was the Circle that killed a man called Daniel Ryves?”

Nick thought of being eight years old and watching his father fall to ash.

“This Circle has something to pay for, then,” he said. “I’m glad you told me. I’ll be glad to kill them. Now, where are they?”

“Exeter,” said Liannan. “But you won’t find them there. They’re leaving soon.”

How like a demon to give an answer that was completely true and utterly useless. Liannan must have seen some of Nick’s fury in his face. It made her laugh.

She had two rows of pointed teeth like a shark. They all flashed when she laughed, and she swayed closer to him. Her mouth was the color of frozen cherries.

“What is it like, being human?” she asked. “I cannot imagine what it must be like, to feel the blood warm in your veins and the sun warm on your face. Will you tell me that you love me?”

“I don’t love you,” said Nick. “I don’t even know you, demon.”

“You did know me once.”

“Did I?” Nick asked. “When was that, exactly? A hundred years ago? More?”

“Something like that,” Liannan murmured.

“How do you think humans work?”

She had no eyelashes, like any reptile or underwater thing. She only looked like a human at first glance, before you noticed that small details were wrong.

“I have no idea,” she answered, and lifted her free hand to touch his face.

The cold burned and numbed him to the pain. He did not even feel a sting when the icicles cut him, only blood trickling down his cheek. She put her mouth to his face, her lips cold but very soft. When she leaned back, her mouth looked warmer, and she trailed her hand down Nick’s chest. His shirt tore under her sharp fingers.

Her clasp around his neck, more palm than icicle fingers, was firm. It was as if she thought he might try to get away.

“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” Nick asked.

“I hope not,” she said. “There is something else I think you should know. Anzu is working for the Obsidian Circle.”

“Oh, so I shouldn’t trust him,” Nick said. “In future, I should only summon you.”

Liannan nodded.

Nick laughed. “Demons work for anyone who can call them,” he said. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t know better than to trust any demon? Don’t try to play your tricks on me. I have another question. Name your price.”

Liannan sighed like a tired child and rested her head on his shoulder. He felt her chilly breath running down the back of his neck, making him shiver every time she spoke.

“My dear,” she said. “My darling, my beloved. What do these words mean? I suppose you know now.”

“I know.”

Nick meant his tone to be brutal, meant it to turn the words into an offense, but the demon lifted a face to him that was as radiant as sunlight on miles of snow.

“I want some warmth to take back with me,” she whispered, her voice an icy breeze. “Surely you remember — a time when you were warm.”

“That’s your price?” Nick asked, to seal the bargain.

“That’s my price,” said Liannan. “A moment of your life.”

If he failed to pay the price, she could take anything she wanted.

“Tell me where the Obsidian Circle are going,” Nick said. “And you can take it.”

The demon nodded and stood on tiptoe to press her soft, cold mouth to Nick’s. Nick shut his eyes and tried, as her kiss chilled him and her icicle fingers scrabbled against his skin, to think of a time when he had been warm.

He shivered, struggled against panic, and remembered being cold.

Liannan had mentioned his father. Perhaps it was that which reminded Nick of the time right after they had lost him. They were living in Scotland then, in the smallest, cheapest flat Alan had been able to find. Alan, injured and unable to walk, was not sure how to make Mum go out to work, and their heat had been cut off in the middle of winter.

Through the thin walls, Nick heard Alan crying every night. Nick had not been sure if he was supposed to cry too. He had never cried in his life, and he did not particularly want to do it now. He just lay curled in bed, his mind ticking bleakly over all these new facts. He was eight years old, his father was dead, his brother was crippled, and he was so cold.

He was huddled under the blankets, thinking about it all, when his brother limped in and carefully heaped his own blankets over Nick’s bed. Nick stared silently up at Alan’s face, pale and tired, marked with new lines of pain. His glasses were too big for him and kept tilting off. Alan had smiled at him determinedly and crawled in under the covers, sliding his arm around Nick. Alan had been bigger than Nick back then, big enough so that Nick felt a little shielded from a world that had turned unfriendly, and Alan’s body and the new blankets made him start to feel warm.

Alan had reached out and smoothed Nick’s rumpled hair. “You’re mine,” he said, in a trembling young voice that already had a ring of Dad’s about it. “And I’m going to take care of you.”

It was a memory of warmth, after all.

Liannan leaned back, her lips parted. Her eyes were shining like ice under moonlight. “Thank you,” she said.

Then she put her winter-cold mouth to his ear and whispered, “No need to go looking for them. They’ll be in London in nine days. Didn’t you guess? The whole Circle is coming for you.”

Nick came home afterward feeling like a gutted fish, limp and neatly filleted. His mouth felt bruised from the cold, and he did not want to tell Alan what he had learned.

Alan took one look at him and shut his eyes.

“Missing school again,” he said, putting aside his book. “How am I supposed to bring you up right if you won’t cooperate?”

“Dunno,” Nick said, and stretched himself out on the couch with his head near Alan’s good leg. Alan looked worriedly down at his face and torn clothes.

“So you’ve obviously had a fight — with some of the hyenas that have been menacing the streets of London. And you got roughed up.”

“You should see the hyenas,” Nick said, and shut his eyes.

There were sounds upstairs. Mum must be feeling particularly lively today; Nick hoped this would not be one of the times she started to scream and would not stop.

“Er,” Alan said, and Nick heard the note of unease in his voice. “Before I bring you antiseptic—”

“And a sandwich.”

“There’s something you should know.”

Before Alan could tell him what he should know, Nick knew. There were footsteps coming down the stairs, and the door to the sitting room swung open to reveal Mae, with Jamie peeping nervously over her shoulder.

Nick rose in one movement, barely checking a snarl. He hated to be caught at a disadvantage at any time, let alone at a time when two people, who had caused him enough trouble already, decided to invade his home.

“They arrived about half an hour ago,” Alan explained. “Jamie has to be there for the kill. It does make sense….”

Nick did not think having strangers in his home made sense at all, and he was about to say so when Mae stepped forward, lifting her velvety brown eyes to his face.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Since you ask,” Nick snapped, “I was gathering some information. The Obsidian Circle is coming for us.”

Alan looked troubled. The Obsidian Circle had been in Exeter, had been hunting them, and had come close enough to send ravens and snakes.

Part of the reasons that magicians’ summoning circles were so powerful was that every group of magicians had a summoning circle built of huge, powerful stones. Every circle they made was a reflection of that one, and if the whole Obsidian Circle was really coming to London, they would have to bring their chunks of obsidian with them. Nick couldn’t imagine how any charm of Mum’s could have enough power to justify risking the circle the magicians were named after.

The Obsidian Circle was more committed to hunting them than he had dreamed.

“They’re coming in full force,” Nick continued. “They’re hunting us. How are we supposed to hunt them?”

Alan was as pale as he’d been when the messenger came, but he looked calm, and when he answered his voice was thoughtful.

“If Black Arthur is hunting us, his magicians should be easy to find.”

“And what’s to stop him getting to Mum while we go after his people?”

Nick would have sacrificed Mum to save Alan, every time. That wasn’t what was bothering him.

This was…all wrong. Less than a fortnight ago, Alan had said that no matter what he had to do, he would make Black Arthur pay, and now it looked as though he wanted to play right into Black Arthur’s hands. He should have suggested sending Mum away. He should be telling Nick his plans. He should stop hiding things from Nick!

“I have a plan,” said Alan, and did not say what it was.

Nick did not ask. He started to and then stopped, as it occurred to him that his brother might actually lie.

It had always been a comfort to him that Alan could lie so well. Nick could not do it; the world was complicated enough without making up another world of words that weren’t even true. He had always assumed that Alan never lied to him, and now the idea that Alan might lie, might already be lying, was like being asked to read in school. He felt panicked, not knowing what to say. He had a picture of words stacked up around him, caging him in, and not one of them could he trust.

He stood silent, feeling like an animal held at bay. Mae and Jamie were staring at him, their eyes traveling over his ripped and bloodstained clothes.

His brother looked sad and kind, but then, Alan never looked kinder than when he was lying to someone. “Will you just do what I ask you to for now, Nick?”

Nick remembered that hidden photograph, those hidden letters, and now this secret plan. He thought of Christmas in the dark, and Alan coming back, opening the door with the light behind him.

“Do I have any other choice?” he growled.

Alan nodded at him, and then let his gaze drop. The shallow gashes Liannan’s icicles had left in Nick’s shoulders stung, and his mouth ached with cold. He suddenly felt very tired. He’d done what he could, and he had no idea what Alan was doing.

He’d carry out Alan’s little plan, even if he was in the dark. This was his brother. He had no one else.

“So — can we stay?” asked Jamie tentatively, as if this was a visit instead of an invasion.

“Stay if you like,” Nick snarled, too tired to argue. He strode past them to the stairs, pulling off his bloody shirt as he went, and threw a warning over his shoulder. “Just make sure you keep away from me.”