Free The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan

above,’ that’s all! You saw what happened when Laura cast that spell. You know Gerald’s trying to protect me.”
    â€œAnd now he has a hold over you,” Alan said. “You’re grateful to him. You don’t think he wasn’t counting on that?”
    Jamie hesitated. “It was a lot of trouble to go to, just so I’d be grateful.”
    â€œYes,” Alan agreed simply. “A lot of trouble. He must have killed several people to get that kind of power. And he could break it any time.”
    â€œI could break it now,” Nick offered. Jamie turned and stared at him, and the corner of Nick’s mouth turned up slightly. “But I won’t.”
    Jamie smiled back, a little hesitantly.
    Nick crossed the distance between him and Jamie before Mae could move, and pulled a knife on him.
    â€œWhy bother?” he asked Jamie lazily. He touched the skin of Jamie’s throat lightly with the blade. “The spell will only protect you from magic. Gerald’s not protecting you, he’s protecting his recruit. Any other Circle tries to recruit you by magic, they won’t be able to. Anyone needs to kill you …” He tossed the knife up into the air and caught it, playful and casual as a man flipping a coin. “It would be
so
easy.”
    Mae grabbed Nick’s arm and he whirled on her, then caught himself and stood looking down at her with his pulse thudding against her palm and the knife still in his hand.
    She lifted her chin. “Oh, put that away.”
    Nick put it away. “Just making a point.”
    â€œYes, I took your point,” Jamie muttered. “Right up against my throat.”
    Mae looked away from Nick and walked quickly toward the wall, scrambling over it and trying so hard to make the climb look easy that she skinned her elbow as she did so. She pretended it didn’t sting.
    Nick did not try to help Alan over the wall this time around. He stood with his hands clenched into fists in hispockets as they all waited for Alan to get over on his own.
    â€œI wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he told Jamie suddenly.
    Mae reached out and touched Nick’s shoulder. Her hand brushed muscle, braced and tense under her palm, for a moment. Then he shied away from her and glared.
    She smiled as if this reaction was perfectly normal. “Sometimes when you pull knives on people, they get this impression that you’re going to hurt them, and then they’re completely terrified. Crazy, I know!”
    â€œOkay,” said Nick. He turned to Jamie and popped his left wrist sheath again. “Look.”
    Jamie backed up. “Which part of ‘completely terrified’ did you translate as ‘show us your knives, Nick’? Don’t show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives.”
    Nick rolled his eyes. “This is a quillon dagger. That’s a knife with a sword handle. I like it because it has a good grip for stabbing.”
    â€œWhy do you say these things?” Jamie inquired piteously. “Is it to make me sad?”
    â€œI didn’t have you cornered,” Nick went on. “You could’ve run. And this dagger doesn’t have an even weight distribution; it’s absolute rubbish for throwing. If I had any intention of hurting you, I’d have used a knife I could throw.”
    Jamie blinked. “I will remember those words always. I may try to forget them, but I sense that I won’t be able to.”
    â€œGood,” said Nick. “Like I said, that spell won’t protect you, and you have a habit of getting into trouble. You need to know things.”
    There was a long pause, during which Nick eyed Jamie in what seemed to be a critical manner. Jamie eyed Nick in what seemed to be mortal fear.
    â€œDo you want to learn how to use a gun or a knife?” Nick asked abruptly at last.
    â€œAhaha,” Jamie said. “No?”
    Nick raked a cold glance up and