If the last smile had been a curtain drawn back, this one was a sunrise.
“This is a trig point,” Alan said.
Sin blinked. This was not the kind of conversation guys typically directed at her after she had thrown them a fever blossom. In fact, this was not the kind of conversation guys typically directed at her at all.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him eventually.
“The pillar you ended up on there, when you were dancing,” Alan said. “It’s a trig point. Those pillars were set up all over England in the 1930s, as the points in a measurement system that covered the whole country. You can work out where roads and bridges are in relation to the trig points.”
“Oh, you can?” Sin said helplessly.
“Not really anymore,” Alan told her. “They’re a bit obsolete now we have helicopters and aerial maps and so on. A lot of them are gone. But not this one.” He’d fixed the pillar with an intent gaze, but now he turned back to Sin and smiled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just thought it was interesting.”
“It’s not that it isn’t interesting,” Sin said. “I just wasn’t expecting geography right now.”
They were walking alone together through the Market. The other dancers had peeled away after she’d thrown the fever blossom. They all knew the fever blossom meant Sin had decided to spend time with someone this Market night: whether she was just going to flirt with them a bit or draw them away and kiss them depended on how the spending time went. Occasionally a guy would presume that by tossing him a flower she’d promised something more.
She knew how to deal with those guys. Harshly.
She wasn’t sure how to deal with a guy who had seemed pleased by being thrown the flower and then seemed to have no expectations at all, or any hopes.
It was possible Alan was just glad to be getting along with a section of the Goblin Market he’d always had friction with before. It was possible that Alan earnestly talking about geography was his way of turning Sin down, in which case she wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter how good his voice was, she hadn’t decided anything about him yet.
It was possible Alan just thought it was interesting. Sin really had no idea. She was a little warmed by that thought, though: that he wasn’t talking down to her as if she couldn’t possibly understand what he was saying. A lot of guys did that, and she’d always known Alan was really smart. She’d always uneasily suspected he thought she was stupid.
She decided to smile at him. “I’m a bit puzzled by you, that’s all.”
She was expecting Alan to look a little flattered, and to start trying to find out if by puzzled she meant intrigued. She was not expecting him to laugh.
“Well, I’m very mysterious. And inscrutable.”
“You really kind of are,” Sin said, and took his arm.
Any good performer knew how to lie with his whole body as well as his mouth, and Alan could do it: fading into the background as expertly as Sin stood out. But she’d noticed the way he had seemed uncertain about his hand after she’d taken it.
He did react when she took his arm. He hesitated and almost flinched, and she thought she had made a misstep until he put his hand over hers, in an almost courtly gesture that reminded her of the oddly gentle way he had held her hand before, and they walked on.
It was a little disturbing walking like that. Sin was keenly aware of the fact that Alan could not keep in step with her, always favoring his right leg, his walk a little jerky. It made her think of falling, and she felt a little panicked, her heart beating fast.
She didn’t want to pull away.
“So are you going to play for us at the next Goblin Market?” Sin asked.
“I think I could be persuaded,” said Alan. “Cynthia. I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”
He did not say her name with his usual dismissive intonation. Sin found she didn’t mind it like this.
“Yes,” she said slowly, and became aware that her heart was not beating faster purely because of panic. It was so strange—this was Alan Ryves—but there it was. “I think I could be persuaded.”
“My brother keeps pointing out to me that guns don’t always work,” Alan said, and Sin was amazed both at the fact that Alan could think this was a good time to bring up his brother and also at the tone he used, fond and a little exasperated, so normal, when talking about the demon. “Long-range weapons work better for me, for obvious reasons. I saw you with a bow and arrow, in the square at Huntingdon.”
In the square where they had all fought and lost. Sin remembered the weight of the bow and arrow in her hands that night, and remembered too the weight of Toby in her arms when Alan had handed him to her, when she’d thought she would never hold him again.
“I wondered, if I bought a bow, would you teach me how to use it?”
It was a strange thing to ask, but Sin found she didn’t mind. It was something she knew how to do well, and it was nice to get an acknowledgment of that—like a compliment to her dancing that she could be certain had no ulterior motive, nothing but a simple recognition of skill.
“Of course,” Sin said. “We’re meant to be allies now. That means your strength is my strength. I’ll teach you the bow. But this does mean I can call on you at any time for obscure facts about geography.”
Alan laughed, and this time Sin felt it as an accomplishment and not a shock. She noticed that he still had the fever blossom in his free hand, and he was playing with it, turning it thoughtfully over and over around his fingers.
“Fair enough. I also know many obscure historical facts I’m willing to trade.”
“Like what?”
“The Scottish invented suspenders,” Alan said. “And Isaac Newton, the guy who discovered gravity? He invented the cat flap.”
“I can see you’re going to be an invaluable asset to our side,” Sin told him gravely.
She stopped at Elka’s food stall, where Elka sold truth leaves that sometimes got the tourists into a lot of trouble, and where Elka’s son was stirring a vat of mulled fever wine.
On top of the stall there was a bowl filled with the crystallized petals of fever blossoms. Sin took one and let it dissolve on her tongue, leaving behind a faint trace of sugar and a wilder sweetness.
“They’re wonderful,” she said truthfully, and pushed the bowl toward Alan.
Elka smiled at her and Alan both. “Nice to see you taking a break from the demon dances,” she told Sin. “You know you’re supposed to do them every other month.”
This was the first time in a year Sin hadn’t done them. She knew it was important to take a break, and important to be seen walking through the Market talking to people, but she still hated that Mae was dancing and she wasn’t.
Elka might have read that on her face, since she leaned forward over the stall and said in a low voice, “You’re doing a good job. We’re behind you.”
Then she pushed the bowl of petals encouragingly toward them and went to serve another customer. Sin had another petal.
“You don’t want one?”
“No,” said Alan. “I’ve never had any fever fruit. I don’t like being out of control.”
Sin tilted a smile toward him. “Who knows what you might be capable of?”
Alan didn’t smile back, something that surprised her even though they had only started smiling at each other tonight. He just looked at her, eyes wide open and very dark blue, and he really was not very much older than her at all.
“I know what I’m capable of,” said the boy who had set a demon free.
Sin felt a little scared, and that knocked her even further off balance: Somehow she still had a hard time thinking of Alan as dangerous.
She was dangerous too, though.
“I know what you’re capable of too,” Sin said. “You can’t even shoot a bow yet. It’s kind of sad.”
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.”