“You crazy bastard,” Sin said, in awe and horror so tangled up she could not tell which was which. “What if they decide you’re useless and they kill you?”
A corner of Alan’s mouth went up. “Then they really won’t have any leverage over Nick at all, will they? He’ll be safe. He won’t do anything terrible, except to them. He’ll be allied with the right people. He’ll be all right.”
“You, however, will be dead,” Sin reminded him.
Alan seemed calm, even though he still looked sick and shaky. “I admit the situation is not ideal.”
“Demons always take more than you can afford to pay,” she said in a low voice, remembering Merris and her eyes bleeding into blackness.
Alan shook his head, closing his eyes. He looked too exhausted to keep them open. Sin had a sudden urge to push back his hair herself, take care of him, as if he was Lydie or Toby. He looked so lost and so resigned to it that she thought perhaps nobody had taken care of him in years.
Her care would not be welcome, though. He’d made that pretty clear.
Even when it was worn to a thread held taut with pain, his voice was still beautiful.
“Love always costs more than you can afford to pay,” he said. “And it’s always worth the price.”
They sat together on the cool grass in the gathering evening, silent for a while. Sin had absolutely no idea what to say. She’d been right, he was crazy. Sane people did not do things like this. Sane people did not love demons.
“I don’t understand,” she admitted softly at last. “I don’t see why you’re doing all this.”
“Wouldn’t you,” Alan asked, “for your brother or sister?”
Sin was silent. After a moment, she reached out and took his hand, trying hard to make it clear it was an offer of comfort and nothing more, not shifting any closer. Alan was visibly startled, maybe even a little disturbed, but his fingers closed around hers tight all the same. Perhaps he was just so desperate for comfort he wasn’t going to be choosy about its source.
She would have liked to sit there with him longer, but night was already closing in, and she could not think about what she wanted first.
“I’ve got to go,” she started awkwardly after a pause. “The kids.”
“Of course,” said Alan. “I’m sorry to have kept you from them so long. Thank you.”
“Oh for God’s sake, don’t thank me,” Sin burst out, her voice rough. She didn’t want to cry.
She helped Alan up instead, and he let her. He refused to lean on her, though, so she walked beside him as he made his slow, wavering way down through the fields to his car.
About halfway there Alan’s phone rang, the noise stunning in the still evening. Alan fished the phone out of his pocket, and Sin was not surprised to hear his voice come out suddenly steady and strong.
“Hi, Nick,” he said, and after a pause, “Well, that’s right, I sent you a text. If you insist on killing people with paintbrushes, you have to get the Tube home. Those are my rules. I consider them harsh but fair.” Another pause. “I didn’t think that while I was gone, you’d forget how to use the stove.”
He talked on for a little while, teasing and fond, obviously keeping up about two-thirds of the conversation. He sounded absolutely normal.
If she was Nick, Sin thought, and she found out about this lie, she wasn’t sure the magicians would get the chance to kill Alan. She might do it herself.
Sin let Alan get in the car and drive away, back to the home where he would have to pretend to be tired from learning how to use a bow and nothing more. She went quietly to the wagon, thanking Trish as she went by for putting the kids to bed.
When she swung the door softly closed behind her, she found Lydie awake and sitting up in bed. There was a small radiant sphere of light held between her palms, rays dancing on the walls of their tiny home.
“Lydie,” Sin said, her voice hushed with terror. “Lydie, you know you can’t do that.”
“It was dark,” Lydie told her. She sounded guilty, though, and the light went out.
Sin crawled into her bed between theirs and curled her body around Lydie’s through the sheets. She couldn’t let her muscles be stiff with fear that Lydie could’ve been discovered while Sin was away. Lydie would notice. Lydie was seven years old. Sin couldn’t let her mind dwell on thoughts of how the Market would react to a child who was showing power this strong, this young. It was bad enough to have any magical power. Then you couldn’t really be part of the Market. You had to be a pied piper or a potion-maker or a necromancer.
But people born with too much power, they said, always wanted more. When their sixteenth birthday came, when they came into their real power and made their choices, the people born with too much power became magicians.
Which meant, as far as the Market was concerned, that people born with too much power were born evil.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s dark,” Sin whispered, her arm tight around Lydie’s body. “I’m here. I’ll keep you safe.”
5
Traitor in the Nest
THE NEXT DAY WAS SATURDAY. SIN USUALLY LET HERSELF SLEEP in until nine on the weekends, but today she had magicians to hunt down.
She slid out from between Lydie and Toby, and asked Trish to watch out for them when they woke. She hoped they would sleep late: Not dancing at the last Market had left them with very little money to get by on until next month, and Sin didn’t want to owe favors. Nobody was getting Toby or Lydie’s hair or teeth for any enchantments. That never ended well.
They knew that the Aventurine Circle had buried the stones of its circle under the earth of London, creating a safe space where no magic worked but their own. Mae had told the Market about Nick having to fight stripped of his magic on the Millennium Bridge.
That was what had led the pipers to the river, and Southwark Cathedral. And that was where Sin was going now.
If she could get a glimpse of the magicians, if she could follow them back and find where the Aventurine Circle lived and thus presumably where Celeste Drake kept her pearl, she could work out how to get it.
The Tube was crowded on the way with people going to the Borough Market, which was good: A crowd would be good cover for a girl combing the streets.
Sin was wearing jeans and a light green shirt, more Thea of the Market with two kids to run around after and no time than a schoolgirl trying to blend in or a dancer trying to stand out. A couple of boys on the Tube tried to catch her eye and she gave them the polite smile, no teeth, which discouraged without offending. Then she looked out of the window at the fascinating dark tunnel until they rattled into London Bridge station.
She went right for Borough Market, as if she was just seeking stalls full of delicious organic food. She strolled casually down a cobbled street full of bars and flower shops, around the curve of a Victorian tavern, and across the road from the steel-like wedge of an office building, through the Stoney Street entrance into the market.
This was only a pale shadow of the market Sin was used to, but there was a familiar bustle to the place that made her relax. There were green-painted fences hemming in some stalls, with other stalls set in the stone walls. Cobbled streets radiated out from the market in every direction, as if the market was the hub of a wheel and every street was a spoke. Above it all arched the stone curves of London Bridge.
Along the stalls full of bright fruit and warm bread were throngs of people. Sin watched them go by. She’d seen the magicians of the Aventurine Circle, just once.
That was enough. She’d been trained to remember people’s faces since she could walk. It made people feel good to be remembered, and people who felt good paid well.
She knew Celeste Drake when she saw her.
People were clearing a space for Celeste because she was tiny and beautifully blond in a way that meant she probably got a lot of things, including people not taking her seriously. She sailed past Sin, her white linen dress fluttering in the warm autumn breeze, without a second glance.
There was someone else with her, a short blond guy in a white shirt with a wicker basket on his arm. He was in front of Celeste, so Sin couldn’t see his face, but as she walked and studied them out of the corner of her eye she saw Celeste’s lips move. He turned slightly to catch what she said, and Sin caught the flash of an earring and the sound of his easy laugh.
They looked happy and carefree, out shopping in London on a beautiful morning. Sin was prepared to bet the boy was also a magician, and had sold people’s bodies to demons as readily as the stall owners were selling oranges.
The pipers had guessed right. They must live close by.
Sin ran her fingertips along the rough wood of a stall, making sure she did not keep the same pace at all times but went slower and faster as if she was really browsing. She made herself stop in front of one stall and look interested.
“Gorgeous English strawberries,” the stall owner said encouragingly.
Sin gave him a smile and he smiled back, a spark of interest in his eye. She did not want to be noticed or remembered, so she turned off the smile, quickly bought an apple, and turned away.
The two magicians were no longer in sight.
Sin set her teeth into the flesh of the apple and let herself hurry just a bit, not too much: brisk steps, girl eating an apple, nothing to see here. She came out the other side of the market and saw two blond heads disappearing down the curving stone steps that led to a space signposted Green Dragon Court.
Sin counted to five and then crossed the road after them, starting down the steps as they walked by Southwark Cathedral, the building standing like a castle against the sky with a pennant flying from the top turret and windows glowing orange, blue and evergreen.
Sin followed them, still at a distance, joggers rushing past her as if their destination was far more important than hers. Her teeth were still locked in her apple: She knew she wouldn’t be able to make herself swallow a bite.
The magicians went down into the shadow of London Bridge, across the path by the Thames to a huge white boat, all silver lines and curving surfaces that reflected the gleaming of a clear sky.
A boat that had been there, but that Sin had not really noticed before.
An enchanted boat.
A demon might be after them, so the magicians were living on the river.
The two magicians came onboard, and Sin tossed the apple and finally began to run, down to the path because it was downhill. She reached the boat as its engines purred to life.
She stood close to the deck, one hand on the shining white surface. This was a piece of luck that would be unlikely to come her way again. This might be the only time she had a chance to get close to the magicians. If she climbed aboard and could get her hands on the necklace, she would have won.
If the magicians found her, she would be killed.
Sin looked at the slick white deck and tried to screw up her resolve.
“What are you doing?”
Sin turned and was aware even as she turned that she’d started, and betrayed guilt. The woman standing in front of her had puffy ginger hair and a mouth wearing plum-colored lipstick and disapproval. Sin didn’t recognize her as a magician or see one of the messenger’s tokens on her.
A civilian, then, she thought, and let go of the knife in her pocket.
But if she alerted the magicians to Sin’s presence, Sin was dead just the same.
“I know the guy who owns this boat,” Sin said quickly. “Just wondering whether I should hop onboard and surprise him.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed like doors being closed in front of her.
“I have to agree with this lady,” said Alan.
Sin started again and cursed herself.
Alan was coming down the pathway from the direction of the cathedral. He looked subtly different than usual, the set of his shoulders making his shirt look more starched somehow, his mouth very thin.
“You know you’re not welcome down here anymore, Bambi,” he said.