She could understand that.
Sin rose from her place by Toby’s crib, and took a moment to let the lights of the Market and the wind from the beach wash over her.
Her mother caught her eye and winked. “Go get your partner.”
“Oh, I will, but Nick can wait,” Sin said. “First I want an audience.”
It was the night of the Goblin Market, a night for seeing someone in a new light.
She thought Nick was human at the time.
Sin spotted her mark right away. He was a guy in a suit who had the air of someone who’d been to the Market a few times before and was trying to give the impression it had been more than a few. He was also handing over a lot more money than the German book of witchcraft he was paying for was worth.
“Welcome to the Market,” Sin said.
When he spun around, she was already positioned so that the fairy lights caught the red glints in her hair and left her face wearing shadows and a slow scarlet smile.
It was a lot like placing her mother’s crystal balls on the stall so they were shown off to their best advantage. Sin wasn’t for sale, but it did no harm to let tourists believe she might be.
The man visibly hesitated, then swallowed. “It’s not my first time.”
“Oh,” said Sin. “I could tell.”
“I guess,” the guy said, his eyes traveling over Sin’s bright clothes and gleaming skin. “You’re one of the attractions?”
“I’m the star attraction,” Sin murmured. “Follow the music when it starts, and you’ll see me dance.”
The man took a step toward her and she felt a flash of triumph. She had him, like a fish on a line.
“What are you doing right now?” he asked.
“She’s busy being underage,” said the most irritating voice in the world.
They both looked around to the book stall, which Alan Ryves was leaning his bad leg against, a book in one hand and his usual expression of righteousness on his face.
“So perhaps what you should do right now is leave,” he continued in his gentle voice, the one he used as he limped around the Market charming every old biddy in the place. Such a nice boy, they all said.
Nice boys were such a pain.
“Er, so I’ll just be,” said the tourist, and then stepped backward and away, into the crowd.
Alan gave her a little smile, as if he expected her to thank him for scaring away her audience. As if he’d done something nice for her, and he was expecting her to be pleased. There were fairy lights over his head, too, making his glasses catch the light and his red hair seem to catch fire. He looked even more ridiculous than usual.
He was wearing a T-shirt that said I GET MY FUN BETWEEN THE COVERS. It had a picture of a book on it.
“Hi, Cynthia,” he said.
“What is wrong with you?” Sin demanded. “Besides the obvious.”
Alan’s smile twisted in on itself, and Sin bit her lip as she realized what he thought she’d meant. She hadn’t been thinking about—well, she had been, it was hard not to notice—but she hadn’t intended for him to assume she was talking about his leg.
She didn’t feel like losing any ground before the ever-so-saintly Ryves brother, though, so she just sneered, turning her face pointedly away to look at the rest of the Market. There were a lot of sights that deserved her attention far more than Alan.
One of them was her little sister Lydie, being carried past in Trish’s arms. Trish made fever wine during the day before the Market, but at night she often volunteered to babysit.
“Lydie,” said Sin, and brushed a kiss at the golden curls at her sister’s temple. Lydie looked past her and reached her arms out for Alan.
“Hi, sweetheart,” said Alan, his voice turning slow and sweet as honey. Lydie’s arms stretched forward, questing and imperious, and Alan leaned his weight against the stall and reached out to hold her.
Sin had to look away as he lurched.
“You’re so irresistible to women, Alan,” she remarked. “Pity your charm only works on those over fifty or under five.”
“Poor me,” Alan said. “I just missed my chance of dazzling you. You’re what, seven by now?”
He gave her the smug look of a boy a bare three years older than she was. Sin rolled her eyes.
“Same age as your brother,” she remarked. “And he’s looking pretty grown-up these days.”
Alan’s stance shifted suddenly, and Sin realized that there was one of the Ryves brothers at least who was not entirely comfortable with Nick’s transformation. Alan’s T-shirt might as well have read MY BROTHER IS JAILBAIT. IT’S MAKING ME ANXIOUS.
Sin smiled with glorious and terrible joy.
“You’ve seen Nick,” Alan said, his voice suddenly wary. “Did you talk to him?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware that he needed a signed permission slip to play with the other children. I have seen him. I had a lot of fun looking.”
