“A pleasure,” said Sin, and shook both their hands.
One of the women gestured at Sin after she was done shaking hands.
“She says she’s heard a lot about you,” said Matthias. “She’s probably thinking about someone else. If you’ll excuse me, there are a lot of gullible tourists to rook once I’m done showing my parents around.…”
He laughed, dark eyes sparkling in his thin face. The other woman took his arm, her face much amused: She clearly thought her horrible little boy was hilarious.
Sin blamed it on the parents, really.
She just felt lucky she’d had good ones. Her father was walking through the Market for the first time in years, with Lydie and Toby in tow. He’d promised they would all come and watch her dance.
Later they would all go home together. There would be food on the table, the children would be looked after, and Mae would be in charge of the Market for now, making reckless, brave decisions, even though she would obviously need a little help.
There was time now to rest, to do the right thing by Lydie and Toby, to work out exactly what kind of leader Sin wanted to be, and if she wanted to be a leader at all.
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.
