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“Hey,” Mae said, after a breathless, war and pushed him backward; it didn’t really work “Stop that”
“No, sorry, I know,” Alan told her, eyes still uy It isn’t fair”
“Right” Mae took a deep breath, and then another For a ain and not sure what she would do about it when he did; then he tipped his head forward and laid his forehead against hers, quite gently
“I thought you were dead for a second there,” Alan told her, soft “And it was my fault”
Liannan’s voice caone warm and small
“You’re boring et to the point or ask me to join in”
Alan took Mae’s hands in his, palers linked as if they were about to dance, and then he dropped them instead
“Mae,” he said, “would you please go to the car?”
“Oh, you have got to be joking,” Mae exclaier I was the one who called her here!”
“And you were the one I asked to call her,” Alan said “Because I trusted you to leave me, so I could ask what I need to ask In private Please”
“I want to help you!”
“And you did,” Alan told her “But I’ic Just because I couldn’t call a derateful, but I have to do this on h for that?”
His eyes were on her, worried and terribly focused As if she was going to tell the guy who’d insisted on saving her brother that she didn’t trust hi without ic
Mae felt her mouth curve in a smile, half rueful and half just surrender “I can trust you enough for anything Doesn’t mean I like it”
She backed up a few steps away frorass and closer to the trireen vines Alan threw her his car keys, and they described a neat little silver arc against the sky before she caught them in one open hand
She walked away and left him with the demon
14
The Lesson of Fear
She lay flat in the backseat of the car for hours, staring up at the worn gray roof and trying not to think about Alan’s hands holding her too tight and the kiss that had tasted like a goodbye
If Liannan killed Alan, she was the one as going to have to carry the news back to Nick
It would be all her fault
She shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on the ainst her eyelids
“Mae, are you asleep?” Alan asked, at which point Mae opened her eyes, scrambled up on her knees, and punched him in the chest
“No, I was lying back conte to so music!”
She pulled out the earbuds and turned off her iPod, shoving it into her pocket to hide the evidence Alan looked hideously tired, gray shadows under his eyes, as if someone had rubbed their dusty thumbs over the tender places directly below his lashes, but he smiled
“What were you listening to?”
“I don’t wish to discuss it at this time,” she said loftily
What she did want to do was give Alan a hug, hold on hard to make sure he was real and alive after all the horrors she had been iht break or fall down if she touched him
She cliot into the car, nition, and Mae reached out as the car caently, on the shoulder
“What did you ask her, Alan?”
Alan did not look at her He looked over the steering wheel The sky was ashen, all the blue bled out of it as gray evening set in, and Alan’s face had a tinge of the same color
“I asked her whether I could trust Gerald to keep his part of the bargain,” he said hoarsely “And she says that I can”
Mae felt as if someone had pulled her stomach out from under her
“The bargain where you betray your brother and rip his powers away froain?”
“Mae,” he said
“Aren’t deic? They are their power; you’d be cutting him in half Less than half You’d trap hi, is that it?”
Mae was al She’d been so relieved to see hio It was ridiculous to be so relieved you felt dizzy and so angry you felt dizzy in such swift succession She looked down at her knees rather than at the fields of ho her by, or Alan’s face
“And you’d lie to trap him”
p>
“Hey,” Mae said, after a breathless, war and pushed him backward; it didn’t really work “Stop that”
“No, sorry, I know,” Alan told her, eyes still uy It isn’t fair”
“Right” Mae took a deep breath, and then another For a ain and not sure what she would do about it when he did; then he tipped his head forward and laid his forehead against hers, quite gently
“I thought you were dead for a second there,” Alan told her, soft “And it was my fault”
Liannan’s voice caone warm and small
“You’re boring et to the point or ask me to join in”
Alan took Mae’s hands in his, palers linked as if they were about to dance, and then he dropped them instead
“Mae,” he said, “would you please go to the car?”
“Oh, you have got to be joking,” Mae exclaier I was the one who called her here!”
“And you were the one I asked to call her,” Alan said “Because I trusted you to leave me, so I could ask what I need to ask In private Please”
“I want to help you!”
“And you did,” Alan told her “But I’ic Just because I couldn’t call a derateful, but I have to do this on h for that?”
His eyes were on her, worried and terribly focused As if she was going to tell the guy who’d insisted on saving her brother that she didn’t trust hi without ic
Mae felt her mouth curve in a smile, half rueful and half just surrender “I can trust you enough for anything Doesn’t mean I like it”
She backed up a few steps away frorass and closer to the trireen vines Alan threw her his car keys, and they described a neat little silver arc against the sky before she caught them in one open hand
She walked away and left him with the demon
14
The Lesson of Fear
She lay flat in the backseat of the car for hours, staring up at the worn gray roof and trying not to think about Alan’s hands holding her too tight and the kiss that had tasted like a goodbye
If Liannan killed Alan, she was the one as going to have to carry the news back to Nick