Nick looked up—I hadn’t hit him that hard—and smiling, as if I’d just given him the upper hand, he pointed to his pants on the chair. Wary, I checked the pockets before throwing them at him. “Right,” he said as he shoved one foot, then the other, in. “Why would I help you?”

Behind me, I heard Al sigh dramatically. “I told you, itchy witch. Let me. Violence works so-o-o much faster.”

My eye twitched at the sound of Nick’s zipper. “Oh, he’ll do it,” I said, tension winding tighter. “He won’t be able to resist.”

Eyebrows raised, as if asking for permission, Nick clicked on the small bedside lamp sitting on a milk crate. His scars became visible, reminders of our beginnings. “I’m not doing a job for you,” he said as he roughly pulled a white T-shirt on to hide them. “I don’t care that you have your demon on a leash.”

Al growled, and I hoped he’d keep playing the good cop. Maybe I needed to get rougher.

“Al leashed? Right,” I said, standing with my hip cocked. “The only reason you’re not on the auction block buying me a set of rooms in the ever-after is because I don’t want you.”

Nick hesitated, eying me as he shoved his arms into the sleeves of a plaid shirt. Long fingers moving dexterously, he stood before me in the low-ceilinged room and did up the lowest four buttons. “You admit you’re a demon,” he said bitingly.

My face burned, and I stayed silent.

“What do you want?” Nick yanked a pair of white socks from a pile and sat on his bed.

Al was rummaging again, and ignoring his muttered prediction of doom, I said, “I want you to help me steal something.”

Nick, true to form, sucked on his teeth and eyed me. “What?”

He didn’t mean “what” as in “excuse me.” He meant what did I want him to steal, and a quiver rose and fell. I almost had him.

Nick waited for me to answer, and when I didn’t, he pointed to his boots, out of his reach. “Fair enough,” he said. “What’s in it for me?”

Smiling, I felt his laces, sensing the charmed silver in them. Nice. “Nothing,” I said as I yanked the laces free and tossed him the first boot. “You get nothing. Not a damn thing.”

His second boot landed next to the first, untouched. Sitting on the low cot, Nick put his elbows on his knees and looked up at me from around his shaggy hair. An almost-hidden disappointment was in him for my having found his means of possible escape, and I could nearly see him reassessing the situation. “Remove my mark, and I’ll think about it,” he grumbled.

Al came forward, and as I handed him the laces, he intoned, “It’s my mark, not hers.”