The Demon’s Surrender

for years. And she’d seen Alan kill whoever got in his way, whenever he had to.

She’d just never really thought about the contrast of how he presented himself and who he actually was. Not until he’d stepped between two armies and taken her brother and a magician’s mark.

Sin looked away as he levered himself up from the log—surely he didn’t want her to see him struggling—but she didn’t let go of his hand when he was up. She led Alan to where the dancers were talking, Nick stalking in their footsteps like a jungle cat on bodyguard detail.

“Alan’s going to sing,” she announced.

“Cool,” said Chiara, who knew a cue when she heard one.

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am,” Matthias told Alan.

Alan slid his fingers easily out from between Sin’s, watch glinting in the firelight under the frayed edge of his shirt cuff. He hesitated briefly and then curled his fingers around one of the belt loops on his jeans, as if he felt he should do something with his hand.

“Didn’t you try to throw me to the magicians last time we met?” he asked Matthias.

“Sure,” Matthias replied, flashing his skull-like grin. “But I didn’t mean anything personal by it.”

“That’s all right then,” Alan said, sounding truly amused. He smiled by degrees, like a stage curtain being opened by someone who knew how to do it, making you wait just long enough.

Most of the dancers thawed enough to smile back, and Sin was startled to realize that she had been wrong all this time when she’d assumed Alan was winning over all the old guard of the Market just by being an enormous nerd. He had charm.

He’d just never bothered to use it on Sin.

“We have the exact right guitar for you,” Matthias said, trying to usher Alan away to the other pied pipers. “Don’t ask me how I know. I always know. I’ve been watching your hands.”

“I feel very reassured,” said Alan. “Also a little violated. There is that.”

More than a few dancers laughed as he limped past on his way to the pipers, and Sin was still lost in amazement that it was all so simple: that Alan could make them laugh like he was any guy.

She’d never had a problem charming other guys. There had to be a way to reach this one too. She had to be able to thank him somehow.

Sin was still thinking this over when the drums started a new rhythm and the tourists all took notice. Sin exchanged a glance with Nick, then reached out and took his hand. It felt different, Nick’s fingers strong enough to break her hand and nothing about his still face to make her think he wouldn’t.

The fires were crackling around them both, racing in thin glittering lines on all sides. Sin could see her dancers tumbling through fire, striking poses, getting into position. The audience was waiting. Nothing was moving but the flames, the hissing of the fires like a fraught whisper in the hush.

The drumming and piping rolled together into a soft, thrilling start. The guitar riff rippled out, startling and sweet.

Alan leaned forward, serious and intent. The firelight turned his eyelashes into gold and shadows behind his glasses.

He began to sing.

He had the kind of voice you had to dance to, something that moved honey-sweet and slow through Sin’s blood until his voice rose and flowed like a river, and she found she was already in motion, carried along with the sound. Nick’s hands grasped her waist and lifted her high into the sky, and Sin planted a foot against his chest and launched herself tumbling and hurtling through the air.

Nick caught her as she came back down. Usually the dances for the tourists were so much less thrilling than those for demons, pale shadows of the real dances, the ones that demanded skill.

She wasn’t bored now. Alan was singing a Goblin Market song turned into something new and strange by guitar strings and that voice.

“Sweet to mouth and low to sigh. Come buy, come buy.”

Sin was a bit above average height and all muscle. It was a luxury to have a partner strong enough that she didn’t have to worry about him doing lifts: a partner strong enough for anything. Nick picked her up and spun with her, and she curled her fingers around the tense swell of his arms. She knew the kind of tableau they made. She slanted a glance over at Alan to see if he was paying attention, but his head was bent over his guitar.

New lines of fire were lit and raced between them, bright lines of flame splitting the earth. Their shadows were cast dark and dramatic against the ground. Sin turned away from flames and partner, swaying into the shadows, Alan’s voice following her as she went.

“I have wandered through dark woods, I have been worse than lost.”

Sin was warm from dancing, but she shivered at the sound. She danced a few more steps to the strumming of guitar strings, then dived backward onto her hands, twisting through the air and making it look easy. She was scattering fever blossoms as she went, shreds of scarlet sliding through her hair and down her arms, crushed petals marking the places her bare feet touched.

Through fire and darkness the demon came and caught her. Sin slipped away from Nick once, twice, their shadows tangling though they did not touch. She fought in a stylized mock battle, neither of them using weapons, the audience making small noises as she dived low and Nick pinned her to the grass, muscles weighing her down effortlessly. Sin shimmied out of his grasp on her wrists, thrown up over her head, and leaped to her feet to flee.

Nick grabbed her before she did and threw her, though it must have looked to the audience as if she’d flown. Sin stretched out her arms, her dress billowing around her like shadows, her legs curled under her, tumbling through the air as if it was water. She landed on the stone pillar in the center of the hill, poised as if to take flight.

“I have tasted fever fruit. It was worth the cost.”