The Demon's Surrender

“I can handle Nick,” Alan told her.

“No doubt,” Sin said. “I can handle the floor.”

Alan got up and limped over to her. The limp wasn’t usually so obvious, but then, he must be even more tired than she was. Sin looked away so she wouldn’t have to see it, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the door frame.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that had been the wrong thing to do. There were faint bitter lines around Alan’s mouth.

“Some horrible things have happened to you tonight,” he said in a level voice. “I’d just like for you to have a bed.”

“And what about what happened to you?” Sin asked. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You don’t think that counts, because it’s you.”

She stopped leaning and backed away from him, through the door into the other bedroom. She crooked her finger at him and summoned up a smile. “We can share. I don’t mind.”

She moved backward without a glance behind her. She might not have the Market anymore, but she was still dancer enough to move gracefully, no matter where she was. She backed up without missing a beat until the backs of her knees hit the bed, and then she sat.

When she looked up, Alan was standing in the doorway.

“I do mind,” he said.

“Right,” Sin said, and her fragile calm broke like a rope snapping beneath her feet. “I wasn’t offering anything more than sleep, you know.”

Alan went scarlet to his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you were.”

“I wasn’t,” Sin snarled, and she leaned her head in her hands. She wanted to cry, but her eyes felt like hot hollows in her face. She hadn’t cried in a long time.

She heard Alan crossing the room, never able to be light on his feet. He sat down on the bed beside her and touched her arm, just brushing it with his fingertips, as if he didn’t want to presume.

“Cynthia,” he said. “Okay.”

“I wasn’t,” Sin insisted, and was almost sure she was telling the truth: She was so tired, and she might want comfort, but that was no way to get it. She ground the heels of her hands against her closed eyes until they hurt.

“Cynthia,” Alan repeated, putting so much effort into his beautiful voice that it cracked, the whole façade cracked, neither of them quite good enough at their roles to make them true. “It’s okay.”

“What’s okay?” Sin demanded. “Nothing’s okay. I let the Market down. I should have known that since getting to you wasn’t working, they would come after us. I should have worked it out!”

“I should have—,” Alan began, but she interrupted him fiercely.

“They’re my people,” she said. “Not yours. I was the one who knew Lydie had magic, and I should have protected her. I was meant to be a leader, I was meant to take care of her, and I failed!”

She still could not cry, but she was shaking suddenly, hard, bone-jarring shaking, her whole body betraying her. Alan took hold of her elbow carefully, always gentle, and Sin turned to him blindly and locked her arm around his neck. She buried her face in his collarbone, gritted her teeth, and shook and shook.

“Cynthia,” Alan murmured, and rocked her for a little while, stroked her hair. She could feel it going electric with static, curls rising up to wrap around his fingers. She wished she could tie him down somewhere, keep him just like this, just for her. “Cynthia.”

She let him go and leaned back, stretching onto his pillow. She kept hold of his arm, pulling him toward her. “Come here,” she said. “Lie to me.”

Alan lay down beside her, a little awkward pulling up his bad leg onto the bed. His hand in her hair wasn’t awkward, anything but, fingers slow and light as the rays of the moon on her skin, drawing a curl back from her cheek. She reached up and took off his glasses, snapping the earpieces closed with her teeth, and smiled at him as she slid them onto the bedside table.

He was gorgeous by moonlight, hair and skin turned a hazy golden color, his eyes starlit-night blue and so sweet, so deep, pools you could drop your heart into and lose it forever.

“Cynthia,” he murmured, fingers still brushing her cheek, making her shiver. “I’m not lying.”

Sin closed her eyes and tucked her cheek into the curve of his neck and against his pillow.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Just like that.”

8

Burning Wishes

SIN WOKE WARM AND SAFE, THE MORNING SO EARLY THAT THE rays of light falling across the bed just seemed like paler shadows. She had a hand curled around the front of Alan’s shirt, anchoring him close beside her. The blankets were heaped over her, Alan’s breath was slow and regular against her hair, and Sin felt no inclination to move whatsoever.

She tugged Alan a little closer. He made a drowsy inquiring sound.

Sin gave a sleepy hum in response.

Her hum wavered and died away in her throat when Alan’s fingers brushed her ribs. She hadn’t really registered before that her shirt had ridden up, but she did now.

Alan’s hand slid along her side, moving smooth and sure from cloth to skin. His gun-calloused fingers lingered at the hollow above her hip, and Sin realized that Alan had definitely woken up with a girl in his bed before.

She rolled a little toward him easy as a cat being stroked, and at that point Alan woke up all the way, yelped, and fell out of bed.

Sin would’ve laughed, except for the small stifled sound Alan made when he hit the ground.

She levered herself up on her elbows and said sharply, “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Alan bit out, white around the lips, and she hated his stupid leg for ruining something that should have been ridiculous and warm. If it hadn’t been for that, they would both have laughed; if it hadn’t been for that, she would have noticed him before, the same way the other girls who had been in this bed must have.

“Your leg,” she began. “Is it—”

“Cynthia, leave it!” Alan snapped.

There was something furious and humiliated about the tight line of his mouth. If she had been another girl, someone who hated his leg less, he wouldn’t have been this embarrassed.

He grabbed at the bedpost with unnecessary force and hauled himself gracelessly to his feet. Sin closed her eyes, imagining how it would be if she knew her body was guaranteed to fail her.

“I apologize,” Alan told her stiffly.

Sin blinked her eyes open. “What?”

Alan was staring with great interest at the wall. “I didn’t know it was you,” he said. “Well, I did know it was you, but I was half-asleep, and—”

Sin blinked again as the fact that he was being a gentleman about not quite groping her sank in. She began to smile.

“That’s all right,” she said, and rolled back on the pillows, making a space. She glanced up at him through her fallen hair and asked, amused and inviting, “Are you getting back in?”

“Ah,” Alan said. “No. I have translations to do. And you—” He reached out then, not for her but for the blanket, which he pulled up over her shoulder. “Cynthia,” he said. “Just rest.”

Rejection number one hundred and fourteen—but who was counting—should have stung more, but his voice and the way he drew up the blanket were gentle, and she could stand to get more sleep.

Sin cuddled in under the covers. She was asleep again almost immediately. She stirred automatically every now and then, her hand reaching for the kids, but as soon as she surfaced from sleep she knew things were taken care of for now. For now, she could rest.

Every time she woke she glanced over at the little desk by the window, where Alan sat with an old scroll and a sheet of notepaper, occasionally scribbling something. His face in the morning light was serious and absorbed. The sound of the pencil on paper was like a whisper, shushing her back to sleep.

The last time she woke up, her eyes snapped open to the sound of Toby fussing.

Alan was standing up, hip propped against the desk, the baby in his arms.

“Shh,” he said, commanding and coaxing at once, his voice very low. “Shh. Let your sister sleep a little longer.”

Toby stared at him, mouth working doubtfully for a moment, then decided to grab for Alan’s glasses and laugh. Alan echoed the laugh back at him, the sound turning into music and the sunlight pushing warm gold fingers through Alan’s red hair.

It was a revelation.

Alan mattered. He meant something to her, and that meant he could hurt her. Considering the evidence so far, it meant he was going to hurt her.

This was another terrible problem, on top of all the others.

She had no idea what she was going to do, but she could sleep for just a little longer.

She hadn’t slept like this in more than a year.

She woke up with the demon hanging over her, blank eyes on her face.

Sin whipped a fist around hard, aiming for his stomach. He grabbed her wrist, and she twisted and sat up in bed. “What do you want, Nick?”

“Mavis on the phone for you,” he said, and dropped his mobile phone on her pillow.

“Mavis?” Sin asked.

“Definitely not,” said Mae. “Smack Nick around a little for me, would you?”

“Anything for a friend.”

“So I was wondering what shoe size you are.”

Sin rose from the bed, unwrapping the sheets from around herself as she did so. She realized only when she saw Nick’s raised brows that she’d unwound them slowly, with a little dramatic gesture. She raised her eyebrows back at him and turned her back.

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, all your stuff got burned to ashes last night,” Mae said. “I’ve got a ton of clothes and things I’m going to bring over. Also I’m going to buy you some shoes.”

“I don’t want charity,” Sin said flatly.

“It’s practicality,” Mae volleyed back. “We’re allies, right? Allies need to be able to leave the house. For that you need shoes. So tell me your shoe size, because I’m financially irresponsible and if you don’t I’ll buy a whole bunch of different size shoes.”

“Mae—”

“I’m in the shop,” Mae said. “I’m getting ready to waste the world’s shoe resources!”

Sin told Mae her shoe size and hung up. She was going to have to work out a way to pay back Mae as well.

She turned back to Nick.

“Thank you for the phone,” she said. “And for letting us stay.”

“Alan’s letting you stay,” Nick said.

“Okay,” Sin said. “Why aren’t you at school?”

“Why aren’t you at school?” Nick echoed.

“Uh, my uniform burned up. When my home exploded into flames.”

“So did mine,” said Nick. “When I tossed a lighter into my wardrobe. Tragic, really.”

Sin rubbed the center of her forehead. “Where are Toby and Lydie?”

“Alan has the baby, and he brought the girl to school. He went by to pick up Mae and they’re coming back here to make some sort of plan.”

“What sort of plan?” Sin asked apprehensively.

“I don’t know, I’m not any good at plans,” Nick said. “Well, I’ve got a stage one: Kill some people. After that you’ve lost me.”

“Stage two, kill some more people?” Sin asked. “Stage three’s a bit of a mystery to me as well.”

There had always been Merris to think of strategies and long-term goals. There had always been things Sin had to deal with immediately: She’d never really thought about making plans. She liked to act.

But where was Merris, and what was she supposed to do now?

Mae could make plans. But Sin loved the Market more. She knew she loved it more, and that meant she should be able to do something.