Sarah Brennan - The Demon’s Surrender

Alan did smile then.

The smile acted on Sin like another fever blossom petal, almost pure sweetness with an edge to it, and she made up her mind and tugged Alan through one of the curtains they had set up from the branches, hiding the brightest Goblin Market lights from the world.

Behind the curtain was a dim little space between the wood at night and the Goblin Market a veil away. Everything was gray and faintly glittering. The autumn air was a little cool, so Sin stepped in close to Alan and his warmth.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he murmured, sounding slightly puzzled but glad to be there, sounding happy and a little amused. She thought that was promising.

“So,” Sin said, moving in closer. “I really am very grateful.”

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back. Her lean in was stopped by a light pressure on her face. She blinked, looking up at Alan through her eyelashes, and then realized what was touching her face. It was the fever blossom.

She let her eyelids drift closed again, the petals of the flower stroking lightly over her cheek, shiver-soft, trailing along her skin and catching at the corner of her mouth. She felt Alan lean down, his breath warm against her ear.

“You don’t have to do this,” Alan said.

Sin blinked. “I know.”

He ran musician’s fingers down her arm, her skin prickling at the light touch, until he touched her hand. For an instant she thought everything was still as she’d planned.

Then Alan whispered, “And I would never want you to.”

He stepped back through the curtain and limped away without a glance.

Sin stood alone outside the Goblin Market. She was shivering a little.

The fever blossom lay, returned unwanted, in the hollow of her hand.

She was going to be the leader of the Goblin Market, and that meant she went out and smiled, welcomed tourists and complimented Market folk, and ignored the fact that she had been utterly and humiliatingly rejected.

It did not mean that she was pleased to be reminded of this fact by running into Nick, who scowled at her. Sin let the fixed smile slide from her face and glared ferociously back, and would have moved on if she hadn’t seen that Nick looked sweaty and tired as well as more homicidal than usual.

“Did something happen to my dancers?” she demanded.

“Everyone’s alive,” Nick snapped. “No thanks to you. What were you off doing while Mae decided to risk her stupid neck dancing with that idiot Jonas?”

“Jonas is a good dancer.”

“Not good enough.”

“Not as good as you,” Sin conceded. “Did you offer to dance with her?”

“Why else would I come here ready to dance?” Nick demanded. “This is only her fourth time, and she could screw up at any moment.”

“Told her that, did you?” Sin asked. “And here you are with not a stab mark to show for it. Mae has such a nice nature.”

Sin might be having issues with Mae about the Goblin Market, but she was ready to be on Mae’s side when Mae was being patronized. She looked around for Mae, and found her pink hair.

She was standing with Alan. Sin felt sheer embarrassment seize her, an almost irresistible compulsion to look down or turn away before he saw her.

Alan did not see her. He was talking to Mae, head bent attentively down to hers, so much taller than her it looked almost silly and very sweet. They were near the silent sisters’ stall. Alan was pointing to a yellowed scroll, his smile like a fire in a hearth, warm and welcoming.

But not for her.

She looked back at Nick. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her with cold eyes. He made her think again of Merris, running through the woods with wild red hair and black eyes, but Sin crushed down the thought and tried to think of him as just Nick Ryves in a strop. She could deal with him then.

“Mae is an idiot.”

“Are you jealous of Jonas?” Sin asked. After a moment, Nick laughed, the sound sharp and unpleasant.

“No. She’s practically my brother’s girlfriend.”

“Is that so?”

“Alan’s mad about her,” Nick said. “She deserves that. They deserve each other. They’re going to be together.”

Mae had said she wasn’t going out with Alan once before, Sin recalled. She’d added that he was pretty attractive.

At the time, Sin had thought she was crazy.

It should have made her feel better, Sin thought. Alan might not have turned her down because he thought she was an idiot or she made his skin crawl, or anything like that. He just wanted someone else. It was simple enough. Sin had made a mistake.

“So it’s that you don’t like being turned down,” Sin said, and smiled deliberately up at Nick.

“Well,” Nick said, “it’s just that it doesn’t happen to me often. It’s like a whole new world. I’d ask for advice, but I imagine it doesn’t happen to you that often either.”

He didn’t smile back, but the compliment was enough to keep Sin smiling, side by side in the shadow of a tree.

“It never happens to me,” Sin told him, her eyes sliding back to Mae and Alan.

Unlike a demon, she could lie.

She’d only glanced over, in time to see Alan reach up to fetch down a scroll for Mae from a high shelf, but when she looked back Nick was gone, silently, as if direct light had hit a shadow.

She did a swift scan of the crowd, used to picking out one face in an audience, and of course saw Nick beside Alan and Mae. Mae scowled up at him, and Nick leaned against the stall and in toward Mae, whispering something in her ear.

Mae’s face turned thoughtful as he spoke. After a moment she nodded briefly and slipped out from between the stall and Nick’s body, setting off purposefully through the Market. Alan stayed behind, a book open in his hand.

He did not look after Mae and Nick, but everybody else did.

Everybody saw Nick at Mae’s back like a shadow that could not be dispersed, a dark sentinel, like the bodyguard to a queen.

Everybody saw Mae moving through the Market. With every step she took the lights nearest her flared into brilliance, the difference as great as if stars were blooming into suns above her head. The light around her hair spread and shone, as if every moment a new golden crown was being placed on her head, a succession of hundreds and hundreds of crowns.

Sin had taken the night off from dancing to make herself seem like the leader of the Market.

The demon had thrown his support behind her rival, undone all her efforts, let Mae shine, and let everyone know his power was at her command.

Sin had no idea how to match this.

The Market was winding down, Sin on the ground directing the people unwinding the wires that held up their lanterns and curtains from around the trees.

“Careful with that,” she called up to one of her dancers. “Break a beacon lamp and we’ll never hear the end of it. Coil up the wire: We’ve got to stow all this away.”

She slid her hands to the base of her spine and arched, feeling her back pop and crack a little in a way that said she would be feeling all this tomorrow. She was going to get only a couple of hours’ sleep, and then it would be time to wake the kids and bring them to school.

“Hi,” Mae’s voice said behind her, and Sin straightened her shoulders despite her back hurting. “Haven’t seen you around a lot tonight.”

“Hope your fourth Market was a good one,” Sin said, keeping her voice warm and the fact that Sin herself had been part of more than a hundred Markets implicit.

Mae’s eyebrows rose, obviously taking Sin’s meaning. She always stood a little combatively, short but filling as much space as she could. Currently her arms were crossed and her elbows sticking out.

“It was, thanks,” she said, her voice slightly stiff. Then she uncrossed her arms and reached out, putting one hand on Sin’s arm. Sin looked down at Mae’s hand, very pale on Sin’s skin, her nails painted bright turquoise. “Look, Sin. I don’t want Merris to succeed in setting us at each other’s throats.”