“Stay out of my way,” Sin ordered. “And don’t you dare interfere with any of my audiences ever again.”
“He was a creep,” Alan mumbled. “It’s wrong to objectify women.”
He turned away toward the piles of books, as if retreating to a refuge, and sounded a little awkward when he said that, like he really believed it but knew it sounded stupid. Alan was supposed to be so smart; Sin could not understand why he didn’t see that he was insulting her by implying she hadn’t known exactly what she was doing, and exactly what that guy was.
She gave Lydie to Trish and stepped in close to Alan, whose eyes widened slightly. Sin ignored her own surprise that Alan was so tall and leaned in closer still, almost resting her chin against his shoulder, so close she could feel his body heat. She concentrated her gaze until he followed it, and saw who she was watching.
She gave him a slow, sweet smile.
“Guess what,” she said. “I’m objectifying your brother right now.”
She left without another look at him, sliding through the Market. She smiled, seeing first-time tourists arrive looking wary about the mysterious invitations they’d received from strangers, and then seeing their faces wiped clean of everything but wonder. The stalls were full of glittering marvels like treasure chests newly discovered and just opened for the first time, and even the stars shone bright as new coins under lamplight against the black velvet drape of a stall. Sin remembered being very small, walking through the Market holding her father’s hand, dazzled by everything.
Sin was part of the marvels now.
As she listened to the pipers, the music from above changed, became something intense, with a beat that rang out to the sky. Sin tipped her head back to see white cliffs painted violet and black by the falling night, the pipers at the edge with their instruments gleaming in the moonlight, and above them walls and a castle keep.
Then she lowered her gaze and saw that everyone was looking at her.
She had already positioned herself under a lantern that beamed white light in a pattern like lace: a lantern enchanted to make everything it touched radiant. Sin knew it was making her silvery dress glow like moonlight on steel, that it made the fever blossoms woven through the pale material and her dark hair kindle with crimson fire.
She sent her body rippling to the music, bringing attention to the shifting whisper-soft material over her skin, to the sway of her hips. Her movement called the other dancers to her, spilling in from every corner of the Market to join her dance.
She swayed a few more times, slow and sinuous. The whispers and gasps of the audience stroked over her like caresses.
When she pulled a fever blossom slowly out of her hair, dark locks unraveling from the flower like ribbons, the noise from the audience rose to an excited pitch.
Clearly, this crowd had been informed that whoever was thrown a fever blossom had the dancer’s favor.
Sin laughed, and threw.
The single point of red drew every eye and painted a fiery streak against the sky, like a tiny falling star.
Nick was standing alone and looking bored, his eyes hooded. He caught the fever blossom in one hand.
Sin left the dance and walked toward him. His lids lifted as she came close. There was a gleam his eyes.
“You ready to dance?” Sin asked.
“With you?”
“Don’t tell me you were considering someone else.”
Nick smirked. “Why, will it break your heart?”
“No,” said Sin. “I just won’t believe you.”
She saw the glint of appreciation touch his cold face, curving his mouth at the very edges. Nick never showed much emotion, but even the smallest hint of a reaction was like a victory. And he’d always appreciated directness.
“Well, I don’t lie,” he said, tucking away the fever blossom and offering her his hand. “And I don’t want to dance with anyone but you.”
The summoning circles were cut, the drums were beating, and Nick was in the circle overlapping hers before she spoke to him again. Even then, he didn’t speak back.
He couldn’t. They always used a speaking charm so Alan could talk to the demons for him.
“Good luck,” Sin murmured, and they both smiled because the idea he might need luck was a joke.
The music had started as a trickle and became a flood now, cascading over the sand and into the ocean, echoing off the pale cliffs, coursing like sweet electric shocks through Sin’s bones. Sin could see the tourists’ heads turning even more than usual, as she looked at them with eyes that lured them into drawing closer and Nick stared at them with eyes that said to draw closer if they dared.
The music from the new drums was better, the tiny rattle of skulls adding an edge to the melody. Lines and circles leaped into fire under Sin’s feet.
She turned to fire with them, muscles burning as she twisted and turned and pushed them to their limit, blood burning in her veins as she spun. She was never so aware of her body as she was when she danced, of her body as a weapon honed to a perfect edge and a decoration polished until it was perfectly irresistible. Every pair of eyes resting on her, every breath she took away, was a triumph.
Sin never doubted the demon would come.
And Anzu did, golden wings meeting over his head like a crown, empty glass-colored eyes fixed on Nick’s. Nick stared back without flinching: a real dancer, who would never in a thousand years stumble or fall.
Alan’s voice came out of the darkness beyond their burning circle, sure and calm. Sin had to admit, he always knew just what to say.
She’d hardly been aware of her partner as she danced, aside from the fact that she could trust Nick never to make a wrong move. But she was always most grateful for Nick when the demons came. Nothing ever frightened him.
Sin looked at him and saw the same satisfaction she felt, the same rush and thrill of daring death and doing it just right, and was absolutely certain that later tonight there would be making out.
Then a magician sent a fireball through a stall.
Merris Cromwell sent the alarm bells ringing for an attack, Matthias and his pipers started playing music to work everyone into a battle frenzy, and Carl from the weapons stall threw an ax at the head of the first magician in the sweeping rush.
Sin and Nick had to stay perfectly still. If they moved, they might break through one of the lines, they might cross the circle, and that meant the demon could tear off their talismans. That meant possession: that meant worse than death.
They were left totally exposed.
“Scared, my beautiful dancer?” Anzu the demon whispered in her ear. “Sure you don’t want to run?”
“I dismiss you,” Alan said coolly, as if nothing was happening. The demon’s fury curled around Sin’s heart like a fist as his balefire started to dim.
Sin lifted her chin and ignored him. Part of dancing was knowing when to stay still.
The demon was leaving, the fire dying. Soon the circle could be broken.
She could see only three magicians, but the three were cutting through the Market people like a spearhead, their demons clearing them a path, their hands streaming lightning and darkness. They rushed down the pier, and Sin realized in a moment of cold horror that they were coming straight at Nick.
The circle would not be broken in time.
Then there was the sharp crack of a gun firing, and the head of the man in front exploded. Blood splashed hot into Sin’s face. There was another shot and the glint of a knife in the night. Sin did not let herself even tremble.
Then there was nothing but three dead men between Alan Ryves and his brother.
Alan stepped over them without a glance, a gun in one hand and a bloody knife in the other.
“Are you all right, Nick?” he demanded, and pulled the speaking charm off Nick’s neck, chain breaking in the hand that held his knife, so Nick could answer.
Nick nodded silently. He had not moved a muscle, and he did not look even slightly surprised.
>
Once reassured, Alan lowered his knife and looked over his shoulder at the trail of dead bodies he’d left behind. Apparently now he could register that he had killed three people in less than a minute and look a little startled and a little sorry.
That was why Sin didn’t like guns. Apart from the fact that they sometimes didn’t work on magicians, it was too easy to use them. There was no physical, visceral awareness of what you had done when you used one.
She did like knives. And as the last of the balefire died she stepped out of her circle and drew hers, though there was no threat left to face.
It was excellent that there hadn’t been many magicians, that they had been neutralized quickly, that the Market night could go on. But it left her with the blood racing in her veins, her heart battering her chest as if it wanted to take wing.
She had meant to stay and see Mama do her first dance.
Instead when Nick caught her eye and turned away, she followed him.
It was dark and cool down on the shore, white seashells and sand crackling beneath her feet. Sin moved toward the shoreline, where the surf was kissing the sand in a rush of exuberant foam, looked around, and saw no sign of Nick.
Sin walked along the water’s edge, the lights of the Market behind her, sea and sand stretching to either side, and waited until the moon-iced surface of the ocean broke.
Nick pushed back black hair, drenched and sleek as seal fur, and smiled at her. He might as well have beckoned. The angles of his face looked more sharply cut than ever, his shoulders white and wet, all the planes of his body given gleaming definition by moonlight.
She walked into the surf and he walked out of it toward her: the water of the English Channel was cold even in August, rushing up to meet Sin mid-thigh almost at once and hitting her at waist-height as she waded in deeper, washing the sweat off her skin and all the tiredness out of her muscles, leaving her with nothing but a sweet ache along her body.
She reached out and trailed her fingertips down the ridges of Nick’s stomach, curious, until her hand met the cool shock of water and the leather of his belt.
“I’m a little disappointed,” Sin said.
Nick smirked. “I’m a little shy.”
Sin caught hold of the wet rope securing his talisman, knotted it around her hand, and pulled his head down to hers. He caught her small delighted laugh with his mouth.
His skin was cool and his mouth hot against hers, and she stood on her tiptoes to get more. It wasn’t like Sin was short: These Ryves boys were both too tall.
Nick rescued her from the passing and disturbing moment when Alan Ryves crossed her mind by solving her problem and picking her up, hands sure on the small of her back and bending her backward so she was lying on the water like a mermaid in her bed, her hair spreading out with the waves. Then he pulled her back up to him, and she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
“Come on,” Nick murmured against her mouth. “I don’t like the sea. Why don’t we get out?”
Sin smiled. “Why don’t we?”
He carried her out of the ocean and laid her down on the shoreline, the place where the pebbles lay washed by the surf until they looked like jewels. Her soaked hair fanned out in the sand like seaweed, and Sin arched up so he could slide his hands under her back and save her from the chill. He stroked up and down her back obligingly, and slid down her body a little, nudging her talisman sharply to one side as if it irritated him, so the wet rope bit hard against her neck as his mouth opened on her throat, warm and lingering.
Sin pulled his wet hair a little as a punishment for the sting of the rope, and arched up against him again.
Then an alarm shattered the silence from cliffs to sea. Sin went rigid with fear: She levered herself up and met Nick’s gleaming black eyes.
“Alan,” he growled.
“Mama,” Sin said, and now that they’d both named what they had back at the Market, what could be in danger, the spell of a moment was broken. Sin was up and running, not caring if Nick was running too or where he was, only caring that she got back.
She launched herself up onto the cement platform and landed hard, skinning her knees bloody and not caring about that either, rolling to her feet and running.
There were magicians all around them. The first three magicians had been a decoy, something to make them feel as if they were safe from attack. This was real.
Sin saw the tourist Alan had warned away from her, magic glowing in his hand. His eyes went wide as he recognized her.
She was faster on the draw than he was. Her knife was buried in his throat before the magic ever left his hand, and she was running on.
Everywhere across the Market her people were fighting, and they beat the magicians back. Sin was shivering with triumph and exhaustion by the time she finally reached the dancers, ready to find Mama and rest, with her singing that they would be all right.
It was very quiet where the dancers were. It was so still.
Mama was lying facedown in her circle. The balefire had all gone out.
Sin stepped into the dead summoning circle, knelt down on the earth and turned her mother over, so gently. For a moment she was absolutely, blessedly relieved: Mama’s breath was coming steadily, stirring the fall of her golden-brown hair over her face, and Sin thought she was just hurt, that everything was going to be fine.
Mama opened her eyes.
All the light and joy of the Market, all the light and joy Sin knew in this world, drained away in the terrible demon darkness of those eyes.
“No,” Sin said, her voice a lonely whisper, drowned out by the sound of the sea, by the terrible sucking silence emanating from the thing that had moments ago been her mother.
“Mama!” came Lydie’s voice, and Sin looked up to see her little sister come dashing toward them, and thought, No, no, no with the force of a scream she could not let loose, with the force of a prayer.
Alan scooped Lydie up fast as she went by, turning her face toward his with his free hand, talking to her in rapid, soothing tones, comforting her, not allowing her to see.
There was nobody to comfort Sin, and she had to see.
The demon seemed to be registering its success, its body coming to terrible life in Sin’s arms, Mama’s mouth curving into a gradual, awful smile.
Mama was nothing but a shell with a demon inside her; Mama herself was caged in the back of her own mind. That was what happened whenever an ordinary person had dreams of demons and opened a window to let them in. Or whenever a dancer fell in a summoning circle.
In the distance Sin could hear Merris giving the orders to those in the know for taking a possessed person, for dragging the demon-infested body to Mezentius House, where it would be held prisoner until the body rotted away from the inside out, until the body died. The necromancers were coming and the men with chains, those who had spells to throw.
Her mother was still inside there, helpless, with the demon in command.
“Mama,” said Sin, finding her voice in extremity, the words tumbling desperately out. “Mama. I’ll come with you. Don’t be too scared. I’ll come, I’ll stay. Mama, I love you.”
Her voice rose then, in a high childish wail, but she couldn’t afford to be childish now. As the Market people came to deal with her mother, Sin surged to her feet and went to deal with Merris Cromwell.
“You certainly cannot come to Mezentius House,” Merris informed her. “You’re far too valuable to risk.”
Sin had always been awed and scared by Merris before. She’d always seen her at a remove, knowing that her mother would probably inherit the Market someday, since she was a Davies and the best dancer they had. She’d left her mother to deal with Merris.
Her mother was as good as dead. Which meant Sin was the best dancer in the Market, and she was the next in line to be leader.
“My mother’s in there,” Sin said. “I’m going to stay with her. And if you don’t let me, I’ll leave the Market.”
It was an ins
ane thing to say. What would she do if she left the Market, especially now Mama was gone, now Toby and Lydie had only her? She couldn’t do anything but dance. She would have to become one of the dancers not attached to the Market, who danced for demons alone, who usually died in less than a year.
It was an insane thing to say, but she meant it.
“You can let me go to Mezentius House, or you can find a new heir. I will not let my mother die alone!”
Merris let her go. Sin promised Trish and Carl all her tips for the next season, anything, if they would care for Lydie and Toby until she came back. Toby was asleep, but Lydie cried, and Sin was terribly grateful that Alan was still holding Lydie, his eyes wide and so sorry for them both. Sin wasn’t going to let herself cry in front of Alan Ryves.
She cried at the House of Mezentius. She stayed with her possessed mother for three nightmarish weeks, cried and bled and screamed and stayed, until her mother died. And she went back to the Market, still able to dance.
That was one mercy. There was nobody else to inherit the Market, and nobody else to take care of Lydie and Toby.
Sin did not need anyone else. She could do it, just like dancing: It didn’t matter how hard it was. What mattered was never, ever to falter.
She didn’t falter, and she did not fall once over the year and more that passed, not when they found out that Nick Ryves was a demon that had been put in a child and raised among them all this time. Not when they discovered that Alan was the greatest traitor imaginable, someone who had chosen a demon above his own kind. Not when the threat of the magicians became so great and Merris got so sick that they had to make a bargain with the demon and the traitor.
Not even when Alan Ryves, the boy Sin had never liked, gave her a gift she could never have imagined and could never repay when he put himself in the power of magicians to save her brother.
So Sin was not going to hesitate for a moment now, though a demon had strolled into her ordinary London classroom with its graying blackboards and harsh fluorescent lights. Sin’s magic world and her normal world were meant to be kept apart, but here was Nick Ryves at her school.