His expression softening, Nick twisted the key and unlocked the door.“Remember the library? When we broke in to see the restricted section? You were wearing the same thing.”

I laughed, but Pierce was appalled. “You are a hoister, Rachel? Lifting books from a … public institution?”

My smile grew fond. “I just wanted to see them. I didn’t walk off with anything.” Nick had, though. Slowly my smile faded. That had been the night I’d met Al. He’d torn my throat out at the request of Ivy’s old master vampire. I’d survived, obviously, but that was the beginning of everything that put me here, shunned and beholden to the very demon who’d tried to kill me. “I needed a look at the spell books,” I finished softly.

“Then why didn’t you simply ask?” Pierce asked. “Surely if you had impressed upon the librarian your plight, he would have allowed you access.”

“They wouldn’t have made an exception,” I said sadly, knowing I was right. “People just aren’t that way anymore.”

Good mood thoroughly gone, I entered Nick’s apartment. As I crossed the threshold into the one large room, I rubbed at the demon mark I’d gotten that night, wondering if that one decision could be responsible for the entire rest of my life. Why Pierce was scowling, I hadn’t a clue. It couldn’t be Nick’s place. It was nice. Really nice. In-any-neighborhood nice.

It was a corner apartment with windows on two sides and a rack of plants under a skylight in the kitchen. Jax was dusting heavily among the greenery already, and the place smelled like a conservatory: green and growing. The kitchen was faded, small, and clean.

“Make yourself at home,” Nick said as he dropped the single key conspicuously on the Formica kitchen table and sat down to take off his tatty sneakers.

I came farther in as Pierce shut the door, his flat black shoes making a slow turn on the low carpet. It was all one big room, with trifold screens to loosely define areas. Shelves lined the walls between the windows, each holding stuff that I’d classify as knickknacks if I hadn’t known they were probably priceless. Some had spotlights. It reminded me of a museum, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Nick had had this place before we broke up.