Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Covenant

Seb laughed a little nervously and took a step backward and away from her.

“And I’m not going to date anyone who behaved the way you did,” Mae went on. “But—you were nice to me when I was having a tough time, and you’ve had a much worse time of it than I have. I’ll still be your friend. And I’ll see. Sound fair?”

Seb gave her that smile, beaming like a child. He looked happy and young and terribly handsome. On an impulse Mae reached out and took his hand. He started but let her keep it.

“I’d like that,” he said. “To be friends.”

“Wise decision,” Mae told him. “My beat-down would not have been at all sexy. I was just going to pulverize you and leave you a broken, sobbing wreck of a man.”

They went toward the door, hands still linked.

Mae told herself not to feel guilty. She wasn’t lying. She did like Seb, and she did want to be there for him if his home life was horrible. He’d reached out to her when he barely knew her; she owed him that much.

He knew Jamie had a secret, and he’d seen Gerald doing something inexplicable. It was only reasonable to keep an eye on him.

She wasn’t going to feel guilty for looking out for her brother.

Mae pushed the door open, walking half a step before Seb, and the afternoon sunlight struck her full in the face, the yellow wash of rays blinding her for a second.

It was possible that she didn’t want to be totally unattached now the Ryves brothers were back, and so what? Mae should feel good about that. For the first time in her life, she was choosing to stay out of trouble.

The light in her eyes faded, dwindling into bright spots dancing in front of her eyes. Then she blinked and all she saw was Jamie, who must have seen her going into the building and waited for her to come out. He was staring at her and Seb’s linked hands.

“Hey,” Mae said as she saw the slow sweep of disbelief, with fury following, across his face, and realized what this must look like to him. “Hey, Jamie. Wait.”

Jamie didn’t wait. He didn’t even speak. He kept that stunned, betrayed gaze on her an instant longer, and then turned and ran.

When she dropped Seb’s hand and ran after her brother, she rounded the corner of the school and found that he’d vanished.

Just like that. Like magic.

Mae searched for Jamie for about an hour before she gave up, went home, and ran up the stairs to find her mother in the parlor having tea with a messenger from a magicians’ Circle.

“Uh,” said Mae, quick-thinking and brilliant as always.

Annabel was gleaming with polite determination to be a perfect hostess, pale and avid as a very polite ghoul.

The messenger for the magicians’ Circle looked far more normal. She had dark hair and a smart suit, but Mae could imagine her in jeans and a jumper, being a normal mother. Except then she tilted her head and Mae saw her earrings, circles with tiny knives inside them, real knives with needle-sharp points.

Alan had explained that circles with knives inside were a sign magicians had their messengers carry, promising death to anyone who interfered with them.

Mae had always thought that jewelry should make a statement.

For this one, though, she didn’t need the jewelry. Mae had seen her before. Nick and Alan had drawn weapons at the very sight of her, and she’d smiled, her red-lipsticked businesswoman’s mouth forming a smile that was just a little too calm, just a little too close to cruel, and said, “Black Arthur says that now’s the time. He wants it back.”

At the time, Mae had not even known who Black Arthur was or what he wanted. She did now.

She did not know the woman’s name.

Annabel blinked at her twice, a motherly Morse code for, Well done, you barged in on me and my guest like a bull longing for a new china shop.

“This is my daughter, Mavis,” she said apologetically. Whether she was apologizing for Mae’s sudden arrival or Mae’s pink hair was unclear. “This is Jessica Walker, Mavis. She’s a colleague of mine looking for planning permission from the board.”

“I have a client who wishes to expand her interests to Exeter,” said Jessica Walker, the magicians’ messenger, and smiled with a hint of teeth. “We’ve met before, haven’t we, my dear?”

That smile was an obvious challenge. Mae suddenly found calm in her sea of panic and smiled back.

“Have you?” Annabel asked.

“Certainly,” said Mae, matching Jessica’s cool, amused tone.

“I met her and a group of her friends when they were interviewing me for an extracurricular project,” Jessica said. “Do you know the Ryves brothers? Sweet boys.”

“I don’t believe so,” said Annabel slowly, a pin-scratch line appearing between her silvery brows.

“Mavis struck me as a very promising girl,” Jessica continued, twinkling at Mae. “School’s almost out,” she added. “Have you considered doing an internship? My client could use an extra pair of hands, and it would look terribly good on your CV.”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but maybe it would be interesting,” Mae said, and Annabel looked briefly startled and pleased.

Not while the messenger was looking at her, Mae was glad to see.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” said Jessica, almost absently, “could you possibly get me another plate of that delicious shortbread?”

Annabel smiled, facade as perfect as the glaze on good china, and said, “Of course.”

Her mother rose, smoothing her dove gray skirt, and left the parlor. Mae came in, scuffing the creamy carpet deliberately, making it clear that she was at home here, that she was facing down her enemy on her own turf.

Then she sank into the chair opposite the magicians’ messenger, still warm from her mother’s body, and said, “Does the Obsidian Circle have a message for me?”

“What makes you think it was the Obsidian Circle who sent me?” Jessica Walker asked smoothly.

It hadn’t occurred to her before, but of course there were other circles. And of course, they might take an interest in Jamie.

“Whichever Circle sent you,” Mae said, keeping her voice even, “I’d like to know what they want.”

Jessica crossed her legs with a rasp of silk stockings. “My, you have learned a lot, haven’t you? When I saw you in April, I don’t think you had the faintest idea what was going on.”

“Yeah, I catch on fast.”

“What do you know about messengers, Mavis?”

“It’s Mae,” Mae snapped.

“Like Mae West?” Jessica inquired, and did not wait for Mae’s nod. “Let me guess. You’ve heard we have the power to be magicians, but instead of killing people ourselves, we serve the magicians so they will dole out power to us. Like a magical weekly wage. Does that strike you as likely?”

“How d’you mean?”

“A great many messengers would be all too ready to kill for our own power,” Jessica said softly. “The fact is, we do not have enough capacity for magic to bind the demons and set them loose on chosen victims. We were born with only the barest maddening trace of magic in our veins. Not enough. Not nearly enough. You do know it’s hereditary, don’t you?”

Nick had thought he was a magician, being Arthur and Olivia’s son. Gerald had talked about having a magical ancestor.

Mae hadn’t actually considered it before, but she said, “Sure.”

“It goes underground in some families, and turns up when magic is forgotten, like stumbling on lost treasure. You didn’t find treasure. Do you never hate your brother,” Jessica murmured, “for being the one born with all that shining magic as his birthright?”

“No,” said Mae.

“He’s going to be very good,” Jessica continued as if Mae hadn’t spoken. “That’s why Gerald is being so careful with him. He’s going to stand in circles of fire and command storms one day. He’s going to wear a ring. And you can dance up a demon just a little better than the other dancers in the Goblin Market. Do you think that’s fair? Do you never want power of your own?”