In any case, that was what her instincts told her to do. Always leave them wanting more.
She held her body curved beside his and kept her posture relaxed, as if she wanted to be there.
Demons seeking bodies came to windows and tempted humans. Well, Sin was the best performer the Market had. She could tempt anyone.
This demon had been cold and lonely for a long time.
Sin swayed toward him, warm and close.
She whispered, “Please.”
Sin had not known what to expect from Black Arthur’s house. This was the magician who had put a demon in his own child, the shaper of a future they had all been forced to live in, the villain of the piece who had died in the first act. She had never laid eyes on him.
The house was just a rich person’s house. It had windows vast and shining as shop windows, as if the rooms were stages to display their wealth to the audience of the world.
Sin could not see inside the windows from her position on their neighbor’s roof, though she did think if these people were all as rich as their houses suggested, they could take better care of their gutters. She was lying flat on the gray-shingled slope, listening to the cars purr by on the street, waiting for the ordinary noises of early morning to be broken by something strange.
All she could make out from her place was a sea of gray roofs spread out below them. The city seemed far away to Sin, a different and safer world.
But not her world.
The song came, soft and thrilling and lovely. The music went rippling down the street like a river. Sin had always thought that Market music was more beautiful because it was secret, but it sounded even better out in the open.
Down below, people’s heads were turning. Then they started to follow, moving to the sound of the song, pouring out of their houses in dressing gowns and business suits, dancing to the piping.
That would be enough to make the magicians come to the windows, and enough to make them afraid. They didn’t know how far the pipers’ power over these people would extend.
Nor did Sin, actually. When she had inquired, Matthias had said, “I could pipe them into the sea,” and added, “Hadn’t you heard? Pipers steal children.” When she asked for him to stop talking nonsense and children’s stories, he had laughed and walked off, piping already. She’d found her hand tapping a rhythm before she recalled that she danced to no tune she did not choose.
As far as the magicians were concerned, pipers might well be able to pipe people into the sea and steal children, and create an army to fight them.
Sin heard something else, too. She heard the rustle through the bushes in these houses’ front gardens, the sound of dragging bodies through the grass in the back, and she knew the necromancers had sent every crushed piece of roadkill, every frozen cat curled beneath a bush, every drowned dog with a bloated belly in the Knightsbridge area staggering toward the magicians’ house.
The railings running along the houses burst into blue flame that the potion-makers had assured them would burn hot and fast, and that the magicians would not be able to put out.
Sin heard the front door of the house slam open, heard the commotion in the garden, and felt fiercely proud.
Now that the Goblin Market had come out of hiding, they were more powerful than the Circle had ever dreamed.
Sin rose cautiously, still crouched, and saw Nick rise on the other side of the roof. They gave each other a nod and a flashing smile, and then Sin tucked herself into a ball and rolled easily, head over feet, until she reached the magicians’ roof.
She stood at the edge of the roof, testing it, and jumped. She caught the gutter with both hands as she fell, swinging easy, and found the windowsill with her feet. She rested her toes against the sill, and when there was no sign of it giving way, she knelt down and tested the window. It was locked.
Sin sighed at magicians and their apparent conscientiousness about home security, and stretched back up on her tiptoes to grab the gutter again. She flexed her back and locked her legs together, making herself a pendulum, gathering force and speed.
She crashed through the magicians’ window feetfirst. Her shoes and jeans caught most of the damage, though she felt the swift, hot sting of a cut opening on her cheek as she landed on a wooden floor amid broken glass.
She had as much luck with the room as with the window. Which was to say none.
There was a magician in it, a young man drawing a circle, obviously wanting more power before he joined in the fight outside.
Well, she’d brought the fight in to him.
Sin drew her knives and threw one as the magician leaped to his feet and deflected the knife with a shimmer of magic rising from his palm.
Sin did not risk throwing her other knife. She eyed him warily. He eyed her back just as warily. Throwing knives always got people’s attention, but she would have preferred to see him a little more relaxed, a little more certain he could beat her. She could’ve used that.
Instead he threw a pale fireball at her, and all she could do was dodge.
She dodged and ducked, making a bigger production of it than she had to, trying to draw his eye with unnecessary movement. She used fancy footwork in the mess of shards and gleaming splinters of glass, silver sweeping in her wake as she lunged and retreated meaninglessly, making battle a dance.
His eyes went to her feet for a second. Sin threw herself forward and slid her knife up under his ribs, a sure and swift killing blow. He doubled over against her, his blood spilling hot on her hands, and Sin pulled her knife out and stepped away so his body fell heavily onto the floor. There was a sickening crunch as if he’d broken his nose, but
