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“Did you do the carvings yourself?” Mae asked, and at Nick’s sic does this knife do?”
Mae believed fir lies It was a ss, and if people noticed what you were doing, it encouraged you to be smarter and better next time
“It cuts things”
Mae blinked “Aic by creating a wheel that goes round and round?”
She wasn’t entirely sure of how you opened a switchblade, but she turned the knife around in her hands until she discovered a little catch She went to touch it
The sudden viselike grip around her wristat her; his eyes reht ahead, as if he’d sirabbed by instinct
Mae tried to wrench her arm away He looked at her then
“Don’t open that,” he said, sounding as indifferent as ever “I told you, the blade’s enchanted It’ll cut through anything”
He confiscated the knife froht, so sharp that it see the rays of the sun like a jewel
“Why do you get to open it?”
“Tell me about your nine years of experience with knife work,” Nick invited her “Then you can have it right back”
“Nine years—oh, that’s ridiculous, you would have been eight years old!”
“Seven,” said Nick
The as si a stone into deep water Nick threw his knife up and caught it: Itthe very air into pieces
She always forgot he was er than Jamie Of course, demons lived forever He was impossibly old as well
He’d been huh If you could call him human at all
“What—” Mae heard her voice shake and forced it steady “So this miracle knife, could it cut a diamond?”
“To the heart,” Nick said, taking a certain slow, cold delight in the words “It can cut through bones like butter”
“And that’s better than being able to change the weather”
Nick frowned “That sort of thing cos like fire Water Blood This was a spell, and it wasn’t easy” He gave that glinting deadly blade what Mae was disturbed to realizelook, and then flicked it closed “I have power,” he said softly “I don’t have control”
“You can learn,” Mae told hi low so she wouldn’t attract Fate’s attention She didn’t want to think of ould happen if Nick couldn’t learn control
“You owe ht?” Nick demanded
Mae stared “What?”
“I h voice, “Alan and ain now I’ll help Jamie So you owe—”
“Yes, I owe you!” Mae interrupted, stung for reasons she wasn’t sure she should examine all that closely “What do you want, Nick?”
“I want your help,” he said
For a tall guy, Nick was very good at keeping pace with her, used tohis steps for so her to stop dead, though, and when she did he took several long strides and then wheeled back around to face her Mae had seen hi for a weakness, waiting for his chance to attack
“How on earth,” Mae said, too shocked to even try and be tactful, “can I possibly help you?”
Nick looked annoyed, as if she wasunderstandably confused about the fact that he had gone insane and was talking nonsense He looked out over the river, jaw set tight, and said, “I want you to teach me how to act human”
“Oh,” Mae breathed, stunned and softer than thewind She wasn’t even sure if he heard her She sed painfully, feeling as if the breath were a bit of broken glass placed on her tongue, and asked in a scraped-raw voice, “Why?”
He glanced away from the river and back at her “For Alan”
His tone supplied the of course
“He risked a lot for me,” Nick continued slowly “I owe him I don’t knohy he did what he did, but I don’t want hiret it”
“It’s about owing hi weak and al wind
Nick shrugged “What else would it be about?”
He viehat Alan had done for hi more He saw no other reason to be human
“Why ask o to Alan?”
“You’re good at that sort of thing,” Nick said “Alan isn’t, not when he’s telling the truth He greith me and Mum, and he never learned how to be like the other humans He just learned to lie to them”
Mae recalled Alan talking blithely about dead bodies in the trees
“All right,” she said “I can understand that But I’m sure he’d like to help Why sneak over to ot started on the tambourines? Why do you want it to be a secret?”
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“Did you do the carvings yourself?” Mae asked, and at Nick’s sic does this knife do?”
Mae believed fir lies It was a ss, and if people noticed what you were doing, it encouraged you to be smarter and better next time
“It cuts things”
Mae blinked “Aic by creating a wheel that goes round and round?”
She wasn’t entirely sure of how you opened a switchblade, but she turned the knife around in her hands until she discovered a little catch She went to touch it
The sudden viselike grip around her wristat her; his eyes reht ahead, as if he’d sirabbed by instinct
Mae tried to wrench her arm away He looked at her then
“Don’t open that,” he said, sounding as indifferent as ever “I told you, the blade’s enchanted It’ll cut through anything”
He confiscated the knife froht, so sharp that it see the rays of the sun like a jewel
“Why do you get to open it?”
“Tell me about your nine years of experience with knife work,” Nick invited her “Then you can have it right back”
“Nine years—oh, that’s ridiculous, you would have been eight years old!”
“Seven,” said Nick
The as si a stone into deep water Nick threw his knife up and caught it: Itthe very air into pieces
She always forgot he was er than Jamie Of course, demons lived forever He was impossibly old as well
He’d been huh If you could call him human at all
“What—” Mae heard her voice shake and forced it steady “So this miracle knife, could it cut a diamond?”
“To the heart,” Nick said, taking a certain slow, cold delight in the words “It can cut through bones like butter”
“And that’s better than being able to change the weather”
Nick frowned “That sort of thing cos like fire Water Blood This was a spell, and it wasn’t easy” He gave that glinting deadly blade what Mae was disturbed to realizelook, and then flicked it closed “I have power,” he said softly “I don’t have control”
“You can learn,” Mae told hi low so she wouldn’t attract Fate’s attention She didn’t want to think of ould happen if Nick couldn’t learn control