The Demon's Surrender

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  Basically, whenever Grandma Tess looked at Sin she saw her mother, the gorgeous, unreliable white woman who had snared a good man and refused to settle down with him, who had broken his heart.

  Her grandmother didn’t know about the Goblin Market, about what it meant. But her father knew, and he hadn’t been able to understand why Mama would never stop dancing.

  “Little bit of notice would be awfully nice,” said Grandma Tess, and put a chicken salad sandwich in front of Sin: Sin’s favorite, with salt and vinegar crisps on the side.

  Her grandmother would have loved to have a lot of grand-children who she could spoil rotten and understand completely. Sin thanked her.

  “Let me make us all a cup of tea,” said Dad, “and you can tell us how school is going.”

  Sin ate her sandwich and delivered her usual edited version of events, making magical references that Dad would get and Grandma wouldn’t, letting neither of them know the full story.

  Grandma Tess finished her tea and went upstairs to watch television, always careful not to show too great an interest in Sin’s company. Sin knew she felt Dad was letting down their side by being always too transparently pleased to see Sin, when as far as they knew Sin barely cared enough to come and visit them.

  “How’s work going, Dad?” Sin asked a little awkwardly, when she had run out of half-truths.

  Just as anxious for something to talk about as she was, he launched into the tale of a particularly difficult client’s account. Sin leaned her head on her arm, her free hand clasped around her teacup, and tried to listen attentively, the adventures of an accountant as strange to her as the life of a dancer was to him.

  She woke with the light coming in the window tinted darker with evening drawing close, as if someone had mixed ink in with the air. Her dad was sitting across the table from her, studying the cold tea in his cup. He was getting really grizzled, she noticed, the silver at his temples making deeper and deeper inroads in his black curls.

  “Sorry,” she said softly. “I’m really sorry. It wasn’t the company.”

  “You’re not still angry, are you?” he asked her. He sounded tired.

  She had been very angry, when she was younger: that he didn’t see the glory of the Market, the fact that Mama had been born to dance. She’d been angry because he had left her, too, because that was what happened when you had a kid and you left someone. The kid was left too, even though it was nobody’s fault, even though Dad had always tried his best.

  When Victor had left Mama, he’d never got in touch again, never showed any interest in seeing Lydie and Toby. Some guys never even tried.

  Sin wasn’t angry anymore. Dad had been right, after all: Mama had been putting herself in danger. Mama had died. It was a lot, to expect a guy to stick around and watch the woman he loved risk her life every month for something he thought of as nothing but a thrill.

  “What are you talking about?” Sin asked, and picked up what remained of her sandwich. When she bit in and chewed, it was dry, and she still felt tired and a little sick, but she tried to always eat what Grandma Tess put in front of her.

  Besides, it was free food.

  She swallowed and said, “I have to get going in a minute.”

  “You can’t stay for dinner?”

  Sin had been so angry she hadn’t seen Dad for two years after he left, hanging up every time he called.

  Mama had stayed angry until she died. Sin figured that meant Mama had always loved Dad best, which should count for something.

  When Sin had started talking to Dad on the phone, and then coming to see him, taking trains and meeting at halfway points, it had just seemed cruel to mention Victor. Dad hadn’t had anybody else, not ever. Sin had simply not mentioned it, and then her little omission of the truth had spun out of control, had made another role for her to play.

  Dad didn’t know why Sin could never stay. He didn’t know about Lydie and Toby. She couldn’t tell him: They weren’t his kids. What if he wanted to put them in foster care, or simply leave them to the Market and take Sin away so she could concentrate on school or go to college or do any of the stuff he kept talking about, a holiday by the seaside or swimming lessons or something?

  This was the only way.

  When she had told him Mama was dead, he had wanted her to live with him. He’d promised she could keep dancing, that he would take her to the Market himself, walk through it with her hand in hand as they had when she was young.

  She had told him she was going to live with Merris Cromwell, and that she didn’t need him any more than Mama had.

  “I’m sorry,” Sin told him, widening her eyes. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do.”

  Her dad rose from the table, using his hands to push himself up as if his limbs felt heavy. He went around the table to stand where she sat, and slipped a little roll of money into the fingers curled around her teacup.

  “It was good to see you,” he murmured. “Buy yourself something nice from your old dad.”

  “You bet I will,” Sin said.

  A week’s worth of groceries was always nice.

  She was already catastrophically late, so she leaned her head against Dad’s arm for another few minutes, watching the light fade.

  Love always costs more than you can afford to pay, Alan had said to her, his face still drawn with pain. And it’s always worth the price.

  Some people stayed, no matter what the cost. But you couldn’t expect people to stay no matter what. Sin didn’t know any way to make someone love her that much.

  6

  Attack

  MERRIS WAS AT MEZENTIUS HOUSE SEEING TO THE POSSESSED that weekend, so Sin had to wait to tell her about Mae. She didn’t know who else she could tell.

  Being the only one who knew was nerve-racking, though. Monday morning she found herself sitting in school thinking of all the things the Market people could tell Mae that she could report back to Celeste.

  By lunchtime her nerves felt strained enough that she could not bear the idea of making small talk with people who had no idea the world she was worried about even existed. She took her lunch and marched herself over to Nick’s table, where he sat talking on the phone and glowering at anyone who tried to sit down.

  “Got to go,” he said, when Sin slid into the bench opposite him.

  “Secret girlfriend?”

  “Secret traveling circus,” Nick said. “They’re all very special to me. Particularly the Bearded Lady.”

  “I’m so thrilled you found love at last,” Sin said. “Are you eating that yogurt?”

  “Yes,” Nick said, and glared.

  “You sure about that?” asked Sin, since it was rhubarb custard. “If it helps, I can eat it in a sexy way.”

  “So can I,” said Nick. Sin gave a philosophical shrug, and he continued, “Do we know each other yet?”

  “It’s okay, I’ve given it some thought. The girls at school won’t think we know each other. They’ll just think I want to tap your demonic ass.”

  Nick peeled the top off his yogurt and looked around the room with what Sin thought was a flicker of amusement in his cold eyes.

  “It’s true women find it hard to resist all this,” he said, gesturing to his own body with a teaspoon. He slid the spoon into the yogurt and ate some, mouth curving around the metal.

  “I don’t know how I’m restraining myself,” Sin said. “And yet.”

  He did have a great mouth. Unfortunately Sin found herself turning an orange between her palms and thinking of Alan, his steadfast deep blue eyes and beautiful hands, which made her feel angry and impatient with herself, other boys’ mouths, and the whole world.

  “Alan told me you were teaching him how to shoot a bow,” Nick said, and Sin started at the name and studied Nick suspiciously in case he could read minds. He looked as blank as ever. “Can you shoot a crossbow?” he asked.

  “There’s no artistry to shooting a crossbow,” Sin said. “You just need to know how to aim it and then put a big bolt rig
ht through someone.”

  “That,” Nick said with conviction, “sounds like my idea of a good time.”

  “Well, I’m no expert, but I can teach you the basics.”

  Nick nodded. “Alan said you two were friends or something now,” he said with what seemed to be qualified approval.

  “I guess,” Sin said, desperately casual. “I mean, we’re friends too, aren’t we?” She laughed a little.

  Nick blinked. “No.”

  Sin stared at him. “What?”

  “I’ve already got one,” Nick told her.

  “You’ve already got one—friend?” Sin asked slowly.

  Nick nodded. “He’s a lot of trouble. I don’t think I can deal with any more.”

  He continued eating yogurt, apparently unaware that he was talking like a crazy person. The Ryves brothers were making a bit of a hobby of rejecting Sin.

  “Do you mean Alan?” Sin asked.

  “Alan’s my brother,” Nick told her as if she was the one being dense. “You’ve met him. He’s called Jamie.”

  Mae’s little brother. The magician who had gone off to be with his own kind.

  “That’s who you’re always on the phone with?” Sin asked. Nick didn’t answer. Since he was a demon who could not lie, Sin was going to take that as a yes.

  “I wouldn’t have thought that a demon would be overly fond of any magician.”

  Nick shrugged.

  Sin propped her chin on her fist and regarded Nick with close attention. “And what is Mae?” she inquired. “Since she’s not your friend either, apparently.”

  She hadn’t meant to talk about Mae. She’d wanted to lay out all the evidence before Merris, have her decide what to do.

  But Merris wasn’t here: Nick was, and he was one of the few people Sin knew who might not instantly condemn Mae.

  There were people in the Market who would kill Mae at the mere suggestion that she’d been seen with the magicians. Sin didn’t know how far Mae had gone, how tangled up with the magicians she had become, but Sin had a dead mother and a magician in the family as well. She could understand how Mae might have messed up.

  She just didn’t know what she could do to help her.

  Nick bared his teeth. “As far as I’m concerned, Mae’s the future leader of the Goblin Market.”

  “Yeah,” Sin said in a level voice. “I was wondering, why is that?”

  “She wants to be,” Nick said. “So I want it for her. And in my experience, Mavis doesn’t stop until she gets what she wants.”

  Sin actually felt a bit better about that, the fact that Nick had apparently chosen Mae as the leader on his own rather than on orders from Alan.

  “So if Mae’s the heir to the Market, what am I?”

  “Why should I care?” asked the demon.

  “I’ll tell you who I am,” Sin said. “I’m the only one who knows Mae’s made a deal with the Aventurine Circle.”

  Nick’s hand shot out and he grabbed her wrist, too hard. Sin reached for her knife without even thinking about it. Nick dropped his spoon and went for his.

  They sat bristling across a school lunch table, eyes locked, hands on their weapons.

  Sin barely let her lips move as she said, “We can’t do this here.”

  Nick rose without another word. The muscles in his forearm barely flexed as he pulled Sin smoothly to her feet, as if she weighed about as much as a lunch box. His other hand stayed in his pocket, where Sin had no doubt he had a knife.

  They couldn’t be noticed, or if they had to be noticed they could not be followed. Sin made sure to look embarrassed and pleased as Nick stalked out of the cafeteria, sweeping her in his wake.

  When the cafeteria doors slammed she snapped the shy, anticipatory smile off her face. He dragged her into the nearest classroom, and Sin glimpsed desks pushed out of order and windows streaming afternoon light, no escapes but the door behind them. She pulled out one of the long knives strapped to her back.

  Nick delivered a swift hard blow to her wrist. Pain shot up to her shoulder and the knife went flying. He threw her up against the blackboard, hand pinning her wrist to the chalk-stained surface, his body pressing down on hers so she could not reach the other knife at her back.

  He looked at Sin, a lock of his black hair falling in the tiny space between them as he leaned down.

  “I’ve got you,” he said softly.

  Sin smiled the sweet smile of a girl with a pocketknife already in her free hand, and let the tip of the blade trace the cotton over his tense stomach.

  “And I’ve got a knife.” She leaned into Nick’s space, and he didn’t flinch from the blade, just stood there looking down at her with his face so utterly blank and his body so tense he might as well have been made of stone. “I saw her, Nick. She was with the magicians. She was wearing a messenger’s symbol. If I told the Market, they would take her apart.”

  There was a long pause. Sin strained, testing the strength of Nick’s hold on her: His body was a solid wall of muscle. If she wanted to get away, she’d have to use the knife.

  She wasn’t quite ready to do that yet.

  “Well, you’re not going to tell the Market then, are you?” Nick demanded.

  Sin took a deep breath.

  “I don’t want to,” she said. “I don’t want her hurt. I can see how she might have gone to the magicians and got in over her head. Her own brother’s a magician.”

  Mae’s little brother. She’d met him once and found him to be the kind of guy who faded into the background, so intently inoffensive that he was barely memorable.

  She’d seen him again protecting the Goblin Market in battle, palm raised and his very eyes alight with magic fire.

  She’d seen his power, and how he had chosen to use it, and her heart had leaped as she thought of what that could mean for Lydie.

  Only then Mae’s brother had disappeared, and Mae said he had left to join a Circle of magicians.

  That was a bond between Mae and Sin that Mae didn’t even know about, something Sin hoped Mae would never find out. Sin had nightmares about what could happen if Lydie came into that kind of power at sixteen, if her sister went off to join the magicians.

  “I don’t think Mae meant to betray anyone,” Sin said. “But I can’t let the Market fall into the magicians’ hands. And I don’t know what she’s going to do.”

  “I don’t know either,” Nick snarled. “I didn’t know she was doing this!”

  “And this is the girl who’s going to be with your brother?” Sin asked. “This is the future leader of the Market? She’s working with the magicians and you had no idea, and you’re not the slightest bit concerned she might betray us all? She might betray Alan. She might betray you.”

  Nick’s hand pinioning her wrist was pressing down to the bone. Her wrist was aching in a way that meant it would bruise later. Sin set her teeth and held the knife steady against his stomach.

  “She wouldn’t,” Nick snarled.

  “How do you know?” Sin demanded.

  “If you didn’t know about this—”

  “I know her,” Nick said. “She wouldn’t.”

  In the end it wasn’t the knife Nick shied away from. Sin hesitated, then slipped it back in the pocket of her skirt, and reached out and touched the place where her knife had rested with her fingertips instead.

  He broke away from her with a sudden violent movement, as if she’d tried to brand him. One minute he was there and the next clear across the room, standing at the window with the afternoon light pouring in on his bowed head.

  “I don’t want her to get hurt,” Sin said softly. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll talk to Merris. I just want the Market to be safe. I won’t tell anyone else, unless I have to.”

  She wanted Nick to look up at her, willed her voice to reach out the way she had.

  I know her. She wouldn’t. Nick trusted Mae.

  If he’d trusted Mae too and was feeling bewildered and hurt, there could be comfort in that. Sin could feel b
etter, feeling they understood each other.

  “Let me make myself clear. I’m not on your side. If you do tell someone,” Nick said, his voice very calm, with no hint that he ever felt anything at all, “if they turn against Mae, if they hurt her, I’ll kill you.”

  When Sin got back to Horsenden Hill that evening, Lydie dragging her feet after the long walk from the station, Merris had still not returned.

  “Have you heard from her?” Trish asked.

  “No, but I’m sure she’ll be back by tomorrow,” Sin said as she collected Toby from Trish’s tent, where Trish had the Market kids gather while she tried out recipes and kept an eye on them. Toby was playing with a couple of Elka’s younger kids, but he lifted his arms up readily for Sin as she approached.

  She scooped him up and breathed in the smell of his hair, baby shampoo and milk and dirt, because he’d apparently been digging holes. Even the weight of him in her arms was reassuring, and Sin could use a little reassurance.

  Merris had told her she’d only be gone for the weekend.

  What if this was it? a voice in her head whispered, cold and terrifying. What if Liannan had taken over, and Merris was gone?

  “People are looking for you,” Trish said, and Sin thanked her and quietly panicked some more.

  Toby was talking in her ear, a long nonsense story about what he had done that day, small fists pulling on her hair and clothes hard enough to hurt, and Sin’s thoughts were like another child’s monologue in her mind, endless and insistent and devolving into a garbled rush.

  What did these people want, how could she run the Market, would she have to condemn Mae to stop her trying to take control, what would Nick do then? She wasn’t prepared, she thought, walking across the expanse of grass to their wagon with the sun setting and newly cool air running down her neck. The future loomed before her like the moment before a fall, she felt sick and winded already.

  Sin got the door of the wagon open with one hand, the arm it was attached to still holding Toby, and held it open for Lydie with her elbow.