The Demon's Surrender

“I don’t know either,” Nick snarled. “I didn’t know she was doing this!”

“And this is the girl who’s going to be with your brother?” Sin asked. “This is the future leader of the Market? She’s working with the magicians and you had no idea, and you’re not the slightest bit concerned she might betray us all? She might betray Alan. She might betray you.”

Nick’s hand pinioning her wrist was pressing down to the bone. Her wrist was aching in a way that meant it would bruise later. Sin set her teeth and held the knife steady against his stomach.

“She wouldn’t,” Nick snarled.

“How do you know?” Sin demanded.

“If you didn’t know about this—”

“I know her,” Nick said. “She wouldn’t.”

In the end it wasn’t the knife Nick shied away from. Sin hesitated, then slipped it back in the pocket of her skirt, and reached out and touched the place where her knife had rested with her fingertips instead.

He broke away from her with a sudden violent movement, as if she’d tried to brand him. One minute he was there and the next clear across the room, standing at the window with the afternoon light pouring in on his bowed head.

“I don’t want her to get hurt,” Sin said softly. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll talk to Merris. I just want the Market to be safe. I won’t tell anyone else, unless I have to.”

She wanted Nick to look up at her, willed her voice to reach out the way she had.

I know her. She wouldn’t. Nick trusted Mae.

If he’d trusted Mae too and was feeling bewildered and hurt, there could be comfort in that. Sin could feel better, feeling they understood each other.

“Let me make myself clear. I’m not on your side. If you do tell someone,” Nick said, his voice very calm, with no hint that he ever felt anything at all, “if they turn against Mae, if they hurt her, I’ll kill you.”

When Sin got back to Horsenden Hill that evening, Lydie dragging her feet after the long walk from the station, Merris had still not returned.

“Have you heard from her?” Trish asked.

“No, but I’m sure she’ll be back by tomorrow,” Sin said as she collected Toby from Trish’s tent, where Trish had the Market kids gather while she tried out recipes and kept an eye on them. Toby was playing with a couple of Elka’s younger kids, but he lifted his arms up readily for Sin as she approached.

She scooped him up and breathed in the smell of his hair, baby shampoo and milk and dirt, because he’d apparently been digging holes. Even the weight of him in her arms was reassuring, and Sin could use a little reassurance.

Merris had told her she’d only be gone for the weekend.

What if this was it? a voice in her head whispered, cold and terrifying. What if Liannan had taken over, and Merris was gone?

“People are looking for you,” Trish said, and Sin thanked her and quietly panicked some more.

Toby was talking in her ear, a long nonsense story about what he had done that day, small fists pulling on her hair and clothes hard enough to hurt, and Sin’s thoughts were like another child’s monologue in her mind, endless and insistent and devolving into a garbled rush.

What did these people want, how could she run the Market, would she have to condemn Mae to stop her trying to take control, what would Nick do then? She wasn’t prepared, she thought, walking across the expanse of grass to their wagon with the sun setting and newly cool air running down her neck. The future loomed before her like the moment before a fall, she felt sick and winded already.

Sin got the door of the wagon open with one hand, the arm it was attached to still holding Toby, and held it open for Lydie with her elbow.

Mae was leaning against the table that bore Sin’s crystal ball. The sight of her was a shock followed by resentment: Mae looked cool and collected, her pink hair a gleaming brushed bob and her ironed blue T-shirt emblazoned with the words WHEN I PLAY DOCTOR, I PLAY TO WIN. Sin felt rumpled and tired, and her wrist still hurt.

“Mae,” she said, and smiled brilliantly. “It’s traditional to come into people’s homes when they invite you. And when they’re actually in them.”

“I’m sorry,” Mae said. “Phyllis said I should wait in here for you.”

Sin still bet that Mae would’ve hesitated before going into someone else’s actual house. Mae looked genuinely sorry, though, and Sin wasn’t going to make an issue out of it. There were several more important issues to take up with Mae.

There was the Market to think of.

She took a tiny revenge by putting Toby into Mae’s arms. Mae and Toby sent her hilariously similar looks of distress as she did so.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Sin told Mae, pulling off her shirt and starting to undo her blouse. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah,” Mae said, jiggling Toby tentatively as if she was worried his head might fall off. “Nick—said you might.”

“Did he?” Sin asked. “Really.”

“Hi,” Lydie put in. She’d scrambled up on her bed and was sitting in a red sea of blankets decorated with pirates, staring at Mae with big eyes.

“Oh, hi,” Mae said awkwardly.

Sin didn’t ask Lydie to get lost, or give Mae any help. She shrugged off her blouse and hung it up, keeping her eyes on Mae, who looked a little more uncomfortable.

She met Sin’s gaze head-on all the same.

“I would never betray the Market,” she said. “Or you. I want you to know that.”

“I think you know I have a few reasons to doubt it,” Sin said, sliding out of her school skirt and reaching for a pair of jeans.

“I was offered the earrings,” Mae said. “I took them. I’ve got my reasons.”

“Your brother.”

Sin sat on her bed squashed up against Lydie’s, using one hand to draw Lydie against her side and her other to roll her socks off. Lydie snuggled into Sin’s side, her head butting her sister’s collarbone hard, and Sin tried not to think of losing her, of how that might be.

“My mother.”

Sin looked up, startled, and saw Mae’s face, cold and set as it had never been before her mother fell at a magician onto bloodstained cobblestones.

“The Aventurine Circle killed her,” Mae said. “I’m going to make them sorry.”

Sin thought about her own mother falling, about the world going dark as the creature inside her smiled. If there had been anyone to blame but the demon, if there had been any way to take revenge, she might have wanted it too.

“You want the magician who killed her?”

“No,” Mae said. “I know who brought the Circle into the square. I know who gave the orders. It was the leader’s responsibility. I want Celeste Drake.”

“We all want Celeste Drake,” Sin told her, with great patience. “That’s why we’re here.”

“We don’t all have access to the magicians,” Mae argued. “I do. I know that the reason the Circle hasn’t attacked yet is because Gerald has been—”

“Going after Alan,” Sin finished for her.

Mae stood briefly stunned. Sin could practically see her thoughts regrouping like tiny soldiers behind her eyes, and spoke before Mae found another route of attack.

“Which, I might add, we’d all already know if Alan Ryves hadn’t decided to withhold the information in case it makes his demon brother start helping out the side of evil.”

There was a wry twist to Mae’s mouth that said she might agree on the topic of Alan withholding, but she said loyally, “He’s going through a lot. And it was brave of him to go through it alone.”

Sin closed her eyes for a moment. “I know it was brave.”

“And you don’t understand,” Mae said. “I meant, I want Celeste Drake personally. I want to kill her myself. I’ve got a gun,” she continued, the words tumbling out in a rush, as if she’d been dying to tell someone else her plan. “I’ve carried it every time I went to see the magicians. One day I’ll get the chance to use it and get away afterward.”

Sin stood up and stretched; she couldn’t help a soft, incredulous laugh. “Well. That should be easy.”

Mae certainly didn’t think small. Sin thought about Nick saying Mavis doesn’t stop until she gets what she wants.

The corners of Mae’s mouth turned up a little, tentatively moving toward a smile. “So you believe me.”

Sin rolled her eyes. She reached out and laid a palm for an instant against the curve of Mae’s cheek. “Oh, honey,” she said. “What you’re saying is so completely insane, I have to believe you.”

Mae did smile then, dimple flashing, looking about five years old, and Sin withdrew her hand and tucked away her relief that Mae didn’t mean to betray the Market, that she was still something like a friend.

It didn’t matter what she felt. She had to lead.

“If this puts the Market in any more danger than it’s in already,” Sin said, “you should know, I’ll tell everyone you’re working for the Aventurine Circle. And if I do that, one of us will kill you. The pipers could make you dance out into traffic. I could knife you at thirty paces. There will be nothing you can do to save yourself.”

Mae looked down at the floor and took a deep breath.

“You should know,” she said, “I’m not just doing this for my mother. I’m going to kill Celeste Drake, and I’m going to take the necklace. I’m going to take the Market. There will be nothing you can do to keep it.”

Sin leaned against their tiny stove, standing directly across the room from where Mae was leaning against the little table. There was barely a foot of space between them. When Mae looked up and met her eyes, Sin felt as if they should be standing ten paces away from each other, ready to duel.

There was a knock on the wagon door.

“Cynthia?” Alan said. “It’s—”

“The only person at the Market who calls me Cynthia?” Sin called out. “Come in, Alan. Oh, I’m only half-dressed, but I don’t mind.”

“Um,” Alan said. “I’m bashful. I’d be sure to blush, and I have red hair. It’s not a pretty sight.”

“Since Sin apparently has her kit off, I doubt anyone will be looking at you,” said Nick, and he pulled open the door before Sin recovered from the shock of hearing his voice at all.

When he entered the wagon, Lydie scrambled backward on the bed until she had her back to the wall. Nick’s black eyes followed the movement.

“I didn’t say you could come in,” Sin told him, brushing by him to snag a shirt to put on over her bra.

Alan pushed gently past Nick, as if Nick was a child rather than six feet of well-armed bad temper, and went directly over to Mae, standing close and putting out his arms for Toby.

Of course Alan’s first instinct was to help, and of course Mae responded with a smile of gratitude, dimpled and sweet. She leaned into him and murmured a few words, their bodies curving in toward each other. Sin shrugged on her shirt and did up the buttons, concentrating on the simple task.

If Nick wanted Mae to lead the Goblin Market, Alan probably did too.

When she looked up, though, Alan was closer to her than to Mae. Surprise and a jolt of ridiculous happiness coursed through her: He was holding Toby; he’d probably come to hand over the baby.

He didn’t, though. He shifted Toby comfortably in the circle of his arm, Toby making an approving sound at him and burrowing his face into the curve of Alan’s neck. Alan looked down at her, then leaned in a little.

“You hurt your wrist?” he said, low and inquiring.

Sin glanced down at her shirt cuffs, which covered her wrists completely, and then raised her eyebrows.