Sarah Brennan: The Demon’s Surrender

And there would always be the Market. There would always be magic, and the dance.

Jonas and Chiara stopped her next, asking where Merris had gone, and Sin had to tell them she’d left already.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jonas said. “Do you think that necromancer at Mezentius House was Merris’s boyfriend? At her age! That’s nasty.”

“I don’t know,” said Sin. “I’m planning on having a boyfriend at her age myself.”

“Alan Ryves for life?” Chiara asked, making a slight face.

“That’s the plan,” Sin told her, and as if all he needed was to be called, she finally caught sight of Alan. He was talking to one of the magicians, an older man, but when he saw her looking he excused himself and limped over the grass to join them.

“Doesn’t matter if you disapprove,” she told Chiara. “Every one at school thinks he’s a catch. An older man, you know. With a car.”

She came a few steps to meet him and lifted her face to his, kissed him with her eyes half-closed under the Goblin Market lights. It didn’t matter whether the Market thought she outshone him a thousand times or her school wondered how on earth she’d snagged him: They knew each of them had a hundred masks, and every one was true.

“Hey, Bambi,” said Alan.

Sin smiled up at him. “Hey, Clive.”

“Who disapproves of me?” Alan inquired. “If it’s your dad, I can talk him around. Where is he?”

“My dad has seen Nick and is in a state of deep and profound thanksgiving at present,” Sin informed him. “My grandma doesn’t much like the idea of me and a white boy. But she’s not here.”

“So I’ll come around for tea,” Alan said. “Give me ten minutes.”

“Don’t disappoint me like this,” Sin murmured. “Make it five.”

She heard their new leader and her retinue calling out for them, so before the others reached them, Sin caught his face between her hands and kissed him one more time for luck.

“Now,” she said, and looked around inquiringly. “Who is going to dance with me? Since I haven’t convinced Alan to put our dancing lessons into practice—yet.”

She looked at Nick and at Mae, both good choices, and then she got another surprise.

“If you don’t mind,” Jamie said, “I think I’d like to try.”

Sin blinked. “Are you a good dancer?”

“I am.”

“You’re a man of many mysteries, James Crawford,” Sin told him, and Jamie looked extremely gratified.

It would look good, the darling of the Goblin Market and the leader of the magicians, dancing together. It would be a symbol of the fact that all this could really work.

“If she’s teaching you to dance,” Nick said in a low voice to his brother, “I want to teach you how to use a sword.”

“Well, if you would really like to,” Alan responded, lazy and affectionate, as if he was promising Nick a treat.

Nick raised his eyebrows at Alan, and Alan grinned.

“More than anything in two worlds,” Nick murmured. Alan leaned his shoulder toward Nick’s, not quite touching.

“Learn to duel after you sing for me and Jamie,” Sin commanded.

She wanted more people to hear him sing, wanted his voice to help bring the Market together, the voice she loved, the one that had called a demon in and made him understand.

It made Sin think for a moment of another demon, who had spared her for no reason at all, except that he might be beginning to understand too.

Liannan might be right. This might all pass, so fast, time and hope slipping through their fingers.

There were other magicians besides the Circle that was now part of the Market, and demons still watching outside this world, hungry and cold. This gathering under the Market lights might not work.

But here they were, for this night at least.

And it might work.

This was the Goblin Market, where you could find anything, even a new side of your true self.

Sin reached out and took Jamie’s hand, interlacing his fingers with hers, and stepped with him a little apart from everyone else: the demon and his brother, Seb the magician and her leader. She made them her audience and gave them her best smile.

“Come on then,” she said. “Let’s dance.”

Jamie smiled and followed her lead into the dancing circles. The lights strung along the boughs traced bright arches over them all, united for now at least. There was music starting, a fresh and beautiful tune, their new leader in her bright pink shirt presiding over them all. Alan’s head was bowed over his guitar. Nick was sitting in the grass at his feet, like a child waiting for a bedtime story, ready to listen to a song. There was a silver scythe-shaped gleam in her partner’s dark eye.

For this one night, magic was everywhere.

It might last.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Summer Past

Chapter 2: The Final Test

Chapter 3: Throwing the Fever Blossom

Chapter 4: Anchor Point

Chapter 5: Traitor in the Nest

Chapter 6: Attack

Chapter 7: Lie to Me

Chapter 8: Burning Wishes

Chapter 9: My Mother’s Daughter

Chapter 10: The Queen’s Corsair

Chapter 11: End the Party with a Bang

Chapter 12: Look on Tempests

Chapter 13: Dark My Light

Chapter 14: Pouring Away the Ocean

Chapter 15: Brothers in Arms

Chapter 16: They Have to Take You In

Chapter 17: The Knife That Would Cut Through Anything

Chapter 18: Reaching Through the Dark for You

Chapter 19: Mavis to the Rescue

Chapter 20: The Thief of the Pearl

Chapter 21: The Last Answers to the Last Questions

Chapter 22: The Leader of the Goblin Market

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Summer Past

Chapter 2: The Final Test

Chapter 3: Throwing the Fever Blossom

Chapter 4: Anchor Point

Chapter 5: Traitor in the Nest

Chapter 6: Attack

Chapter 7: Lie to Me

Chapter 8: Burning Wishes

Chapter 9: My Mother’s Daughter

Chapter 10: The Queen’s Corsair

Chapter 11: End the Party with a Bang

Chapter 12: Look on Tempests

Chapter 13: Dark My Light

Chapter 14: Pouring Away the Ocean

Chapter 15: Brothers in Arms

Chapter 16: They Have to Take You In

Chapter 17: The Knife That Would Cut Through Anything

Chapter 18: Reaching Through the Dark for You

Chapter 19: Mavis to the Rescue

Chapter 20: The Thief of the Pearl

Chapter 21: The Last Answers to the Last Questions

Chapter 22: The Leader of the Goblin Market

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Summer Past

Chapter 2: The Final Test

Chapter 3: Throwing the Fever Blossom

Chapter 4: Anchor Point

Chapter 5: Traitor in the Nest

Chapter 6: Attack

Chapter 7: Lie to Me

Chapter 8: Burning Wishes

Chapter 9: My Mother’s Daughter

Chapter 10: The Queen’s Corsair

Chapter 11: End the Party with a Bang

Chapter 12: Look on Tempests

Chapter 13: Dark My Light

Chapter 14: Pouring Away the Ocean

Chapter 15: Brothers in Arms

Chapter 16: They Have to Take You In

Chapter 17: The Knife That Would Cut Through Anything

Chapter 18: Reaching Through the Dark for You

Chapter 19: Mavis to the Rescue

Chapter 20: The Thief of the Pearl

Chapter 21: The Last Answers to the Last Questions

Chapter 22: The Leader of the Goblin Market