The Demon's Surrender

  “Poor Hnikarr,” Anzu murmured, his amusement plain. “You don’t have much power left for anyone, do you? Here you are, crawling and begging. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Nick said, between his teeth.

  Anzu smiled, malice written all over his face. “I love it.”

  And Gerald blasted power at Jamie like a lightning flash and a shock wave combined. Jamie went flying across the floor, hit with a bang that rattled the boards, and dug his hook into the wood as he tried to get up.

  The white light of magic had died out of Gerald’s eyes, but he stepped toward the summoning circles and away from Jamie.

  “You’re right,” Gerald said. “Power is worth everything. It’s certainly worth your life.”

  He glanced at Nick, obviously all but used up, then laughed. He reached into the circle where Anzu stood.

  “And I’m about to have everything.”

  Both of Anzu’s hands shot out across the circle, like a vulture swooping down on his prey at last. Hands growing talons at the ends bit into Gerald’s flesh, shadowy wingtips curved down savagely to envelop him.

  Gerald’s eyes went past blue into white, fierce shining white, like looking into the sun, like more power than anyone could bear. He laughed.

  Then it was like a light burning out.

  The light drained from white to blue to gray, until even the ashes of light were gone and darkness filled Gerald’s eyes, as if someone had spilled shadows inside him, staining him forever.

  There was nothing left of the balefire but smoke and darkness.

  Nick stood, a looming black shape in the smoke. Jamie stepped up to his side, his eyes icy white fire in the gloom.

  Sin and Mae both came forward and motioned to the Market to join them.

  “A demon’s mark on a magician means just the same thing as a demon’s mark on anyone else,” Jamie said. He spoke softly but clearly, his voice ringing around the room. “It means you can be killed, controlled, or possessed. Nick gave me power because he chose to. He did what I said because he wanted to. And he obeyed Gerald’s orders because it was part of Mae’s plan.”

  The magicians had already begun to recede from Gerald like the tide, as if realizing how far from human company and comfort he had suddenly gone.

  Whatever love or grief he had felt, it did not matter now. He had reached out for power above all, and got his reward.

  Laura the gray-haired magician, Gerald’s right hand, was crying, covering her face, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Sin had seen mothers cry like that for dead children.

  Anzu turned Gerald’s body slowly to look at her, face blank as a stone, and then he looked where Gerald had been looking in the last moment of his life, back at Jamie.

  The mouth that had been Gerald’s mouth twisted at the corners. Anzu moved, pulling a carved ring off his finger, and threw it at Jamie.

  Jamie caught the ring and Mae took it from him, slid it onto the finger of his remaining hand. The ring shone there, like the tears running down Jamie’s face, falling from his magic-bright eyes.

  “Which of you will surrender to me?” Jamie asked the surrounding magicians quietly. “Which of you will join the Market?”

  Laura lunged at him.

  “Never, you little monster,” she shouted, palm lifted.

  Nick caught her hand above her head and forced it down. Laura shook with horror, looking into his black eyes.

  The magicians had never seen one of their own possessed before. It must have happened once, long years ago, and they must have learned to be careful enough that horror faded out of memory, and they were even able to believe Jamie’s story that he could control a demon through his mark.

  Sin had believed it herself.

  She couldn’t blame Gerald for believing it too.

  Laura tore her hand out of Nick’s grip and ran headlong out of the room. No-one stopped her.

  Jamie looked around the room. “Will anyone surrender to me?” he asked, still quiet.

  Helen of the Aventurine Circle, sword wielder, his mother’s murderer, stepped forward with her fair head bowed.

  “I will,” she said. “If you will have me.”

  With a painful effort, Jamie smiled at her. “I will.”

  Helen came striding across the room, over the broken glass and the remains of two summoning circles, and knelt at Jamie’s feet. He laid his hand on her silvery hair.

  “Circle of my Circle,” he said. “You are mine.”

  Helen rose and ranged herself behind her leader. Jamie’s eyes traveled over the faces of everyone in the room and stopped at Seb, a faint question in his eyes.

  Color rising in his face, Seb said, “I was yours already.”

  Some other magicians came forward. Some retreated, slipping away and out the door. Nobody stopped them, either.

  “You made the right decision,” Jamie said, when the last magician left swore to him. “I am going to take the magician’s mark Gerald gave all of us, so that we could all share power. We have two demons who will share power with us now. Nick will give it to me, and I will give it to all of you. There will be less power than before, but there will be enough. And there will be no more killing.”

  Sin memorized the faces of the magicians who did not look relieved by the thought of no more killing, who looked even briefly furious about the loss of power. It was always useful to know who thought they had got a bad bargain.

  “And for those of you who left,” Mae said.

  “Or those of you who may change your minds,” Sin chimed in sweetly, and let her eyes fall on every face she had memorized.

  “You all carry the magician’s mark Gerald gave you,” Mae said. “The channel between every magician in the Circle. And now the channel between you and the demons. Nick made a bargain with Anzu in the magicians’ circles. You all saw it. When Gerald’s body decays and dies, Nick will give Anzu another magician to possess. And another. Every magician in the Circle who keeps feeding people to demons will be fed to our demon, in time. And every magician who has already left, who will go to another Circle with Gerald’s new mark, will open a new channel for us. Every magician in England who kills will end up possessed.”

  A full circle of victimhood, using the mark Gerald had been so proud of inventing against them, bringing on the magicians the same fate they had been willing to let fall on innocent people.

  Only it meant that now the Market fed people to demons. No matter how guilty those people were, it was a terrible thing.

  Sin did not have more than a moment to think about the guilt she had to bear, because the next moment Anzu moved toward her.

  She remembered the promise she had made.

  *

  Gerald’s body was already changing, Anzu changing a human being to suit his own taste, terrible beauty sweeping his face like a forest fire, hair running with gold.

  He stood in front of Sin, silent and patient as demons had to be. It was only when he reached out and touched her arm, jerking his head toward the door, that Sin knew he wanted to go now.

  Sin stepped toward him, separating herself completely from the others. If his fury was going to be directed at anyone, she wanted it to be her alone.

  “I’m not going with you,” she told him gently. “I was never going to go with you. I was lying when I said I would. Humans do that.”

  Sin closed her eyes and bowed her head.

  He could kill her now, if he wanted. She refused to show fear and held herself braced. She knew the risks she had taken, making herself a bargaining chip in the demons’ game.

  And she’d never meant to go. She wasn’t for sale.

  She waited for a long time, and then the touch came. Light, against her stomach.

  The pain from her wound dissolved under his fingers.

  Sin lifted her head. Anzu’s face was almost completely changed now, golden and still, like a face painted on a glass window.

  He didn’t kill her.

  He nodded slowly instead and turned a
way. His hand lingered above hers, not quite touching, in what might have been a demon’s version of a good-bye.

  She wondered if he was doing what he’d said he would, doing nice things for her so she would love him, or if he’d listened to anything she had said about love, or if he had learned something from Nick.

  He could not speak. She would never know.

  He looked at Nick before he went. Nick met his eyes with a level gaze, his friend from another life, his enemy in this one.

  The demons would keep their bargain, Sin thought.

  Anzu walked out the door. The magicians and the Market people shuddered away from him as he went on his silent way, all humans together caught in a moment of horror.

  They had won. They did not need to keep up any pretense of power, when they had used it all.

  Nick lay down, in the smoky ruins of the Circle, like an exhausted child. He lay down beside the still body of his brother.

  Jamie staggered and Mae dived to catch him, both of them sinking but managing to stay up, Mae’s arm tight around Jamie’s waist. He sagged against her arm as if it was his only support, and spat something out onto the floor.

  He lifted his face after doing it, and Sin saw blood dark on his lips and dyeing his teeth. His face was very white. His eyes were Mae’s eyes for the first time, dark brown and human, and Sin found herself distantly shocked by them.

  Sin could hear quiet spreading in Anzu’s wake, through the house and then outside it, the battle stilling, over and won. She went to the window and saw it was raining, not a demon’s storm but just the light gray drizzle of London, rain falling in the silent street.

  A small sound made Sin turn around.

  In the mess of the summoning circle, through the lingering smoke, she saw the new gray shimmer of Alan’s hair.

  His shoulders were humped, his back an arch of pain, as he struggled onto his hands and knees. He was making a low, terrible moaning noise. Sin knew that he was moaning and not speaking because Alan the silver-tongued, her smooth, cunning liar, had given up his words to a demon, had not used words in so long that they were lost for now. Animal sounds were passing his lips, nothing human.

  “Nick,” Alan choked out at last. His voice was destroyed, as if someone had been slowly strangling him for days.

  He dragged himself up into a sitting position, and his outstretched hand almost reached Nick’s body, fingers hovering over his shoulder, as if Alan was too scared to touch him.

  Alan’s hand finally fell on Nick’s shoulder, very lightly, very gently, the same way Sin pulled the blankets over Toby when he was asleep and she did not want to wake him.

  Nick lurched upward, shuddering, black eyes staring and terrible, like a dead thing come to unnatural life.

  Alan did not flinch.

  “Don’t you ever,” Nick snarled. “Don’t you ever do anything like this to me again.”

  “Okay, Nick,” Alan soothed him. “I won’t. I promise.” “You’re just lying,” Nick said. “You said you’d never leave. You always lie.”

  “I know,” Alan murmured. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I missed you,” Nick raged, his voice cracking, and he put his head down, forehead pressed against Alan’s knee.

  Alan laughed a little, trembling and amazed, and Sin felt a rush of triumph, like the victorious adrenaline that always ran through her exhausted body after a successful performance, but multiplied by a thousand.

  Mae laughed, her laugh a victory song even as she held her brother up, and Sin looked at her, knowing that their smiles mirrored each other, joyful and fierce.

  Then Sin looked at Alan, and he looked back at her. He looked so much older, or as if he had been through an illness everyone had thought would prove fatal. There were crow’s-feet scored deep in the corners of his eyes, and his hair was thick with silver. His eyes had not changed at all, still dark steadfast blue and dear.

  “Alan,” she whispered.

  He whispered back, “Cynthia, I’m here.”

  She had him back. The Market was safe. They had lied and murdered and now they had trapped the magicians, become almost as bad as the magicians, ready to see people as food for demons.

  There was already one man possessed, walking through London in the rain. There would be more. The Market had to accept that. Sin had to accept that, what they had become in order to win.

  It had been worth the cost. But it was such a cost.

  Alan stroked Nick’s hair with hands that could not stop shaking.

  “Shh, it’s all right,” he said, lying again already, making the lie a lullaby. “Everything’s all right now.”

  Sin turned back to the window, watching through the glass as that dark shape walked away through the rain, the human lost, the demon alone.

  She had been in enough battles before to know victory was always bitter, and the bigger the fight, the worse the cost. But she hoped she would never again taste victory as bitter as this.

  22

  The Leader of the Goblin Market

  THE LIGHTS OF THE GOBLIN MARKET WERE SHINING ON THE arching branches of the trees around Kensington Gardens. They were floating on the silvery surface of the lake, like lilypads with light instead of a lily.

  Sin was dancing.

  She was covered in tiny beacon lights like the one she had used in Black Arthur’s house, shining like pearls with tiny candles set inside, and strung together across her skin with gossamer-thin threads of silver. It was a costume to brighten the old audience’s eyes and dazzle all those for whom this was their very first Market.

  The Goblin Market was spread around the lake on all sides, larger than it had ever been before, like a tiny city.

  Sin knew there was nothing more important than opening a show with a bang.

  She was dancing in silence by the lake, an illuminated apparition, her reflection a white shadow on the waters, her feet moving through the dark grass. People had started to gather, murmuring to one another, a hushed spoken start to applause.

  Two tall torches were burning on either side of the lake.

  The torches carved a warm orange cave in the evening. There was a cold wind blowing, making the flames of the torches form strange shapes, as if they were dancers themselves.

  The music started, lifting the scene to a whole new level. The drums of the Market started first, setting everyone’s hearts to a new rhythm, and then Matthias led the twisting, turning, and enchanting music of the pipes. Sin spun with them, brightness flowing around her as if the music had become a shimmering ghost and was turning her in its arms.

  Low and sweet and simple came the sound of Alan singing, his voice changed but still beautiful, a song about love and trust in darkness.

  Sin twisted her body as if moving like this was easy, as if she was made of water and light. Her hair lifted in the wind, streaming curls with more light trapped in them, and she moved as if caught by the current of the night wind, arms swaying above her head and then moving gently down, palms resting against her body.

  She danced from the lake surrounded by trees gone sunset orange in autumn and night, through the Market, cutting a path to where the pagoda stood.

  She held her face just so, looking at nobody directly and so looking at everyone, welcoming her audience.

  Then she pulled the long knife from her bodice and threw it straight and true, and at the cue Chiara flung up the curtain hanging in front of the pagoda. The knife thudded into a wooden pillar, and the curtain was caught.

  Behind the curtain, in the center of the pagoda, stood Merris Cromwell and Mae. Over their heads, among distant trees, a golden spire shone like a crown, the memorial of a queen’s beloved.

  Merris was all in black, her hair streaming black too. It was dark enough that nobody could see the traces of red.

  Mae was wearing tiny beacon lamps as well. Sin had designed both their costumes, as Mae did not really have the eye for showmanship yet; she tended to go overboard. Mae’s dress was longer and lower, though, a so
ftly glowing evening gown that cooled the brightness of her hair. Her eyes were shining.

  “Mae of the Market,” Merris said, her voice echoing in the night. “Will you take my people as your own, guard them and care for them, protect them with all your mind and all your body and all your strength?”

  “I will,” said Mae. “If they will have me. And if I do badly, they will be able to make a change. In seven years, I will call a meeting like this one, and I will call on Cynthia Davies. I will listen to the Goblin Market if they wish to take her as leader or keep me: I will lead the best way I know how, and in seven years if the Market wishes, I will follow her with all my heart.”

  Merris turned her black eyes to the Market. She had not wanted to come back, but Sin had contacted her through the necromancer now running Mezentius House. She had not pleaded or begged, but she had argued that it was the only way to transfer the Market, safe and entire. She had been sure that some part of Merris would still care.

  And here she was.

  “What do you say, Market people?” Merris asked. “Will you have her?”

  Sin stepped forward before anyone else could, and said into the anticipatory hush, “We will!”

  They got applause for the moment, applause for the dance and the whole show, applause that went ringing on and on as Merris put her hands to Mae’s throat and fastened Celeste Drake’s pearl there for all to see.

  “I’ve done my part, I think,” said Merris, standing in the shadows with Sin and watching her with Liannan’s eyes.

  Nick was hovering at Sin’s back. Sin was not entirely sure if he was there as a silent threat, if he thought she needed protection from Liannan, or if he simply wanted to say good-bye.

  “Yes,” Sin said. “Thank you.” She thought of Liannan and of Anzu, who had said he was betrayed. “And I’m sorry if you feel we took anything from you.”

  “Anything from me?” Liannan asked, a subtle change in intonation the only way to differentiate between Merris and the demon now. Her eyes slid to Nick. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my dear. He’s just strayed a little. You humans don’t live very long at all. A human lifetime to us, it’s only the duration of a game. You forget every game, after a while.”