Alan put one hand up to his shirt collar and flicked open a couple of buttons, then drew out his talisman, crystals catching magic light in a brief moment of beauty. He reached into the circle and placed his talisman in Mae’s outstretched hand, the knotted leather the talisman hung from coiled neatly under it, Alan’s only protection gone.
He closed her fingers over the talisman with his own. Its warning glow was hidden from sight.
Alan stepped into the demon’s place where the circles overlapped and two worlds collided, where Liannan stood waiting for him.
He stood looking down at her. He wasn’t trembling as Mae had been. He looked across his breakfast table at a demon every morning, Mae thought. It made a strange kind of sense that he wasn’t afraid.
Liannan reached out and ran her icicle fingers down Alan’s cheek, light but still drawing blood at the first touch. A bead of blood welled up and then ran down his face to follow her hand, tracing down Alan’s throat to the exposed hollow where his talisman should have rested.
“I have a memory of you,” Liannan said slowly.
“Yes?” Alan asked. “Well, have another.”
Alan reached out and touched the demon creature, beautiful hands gentle on her jaw, tilting her head up a little. He kissed her, light as a shiver in a sudden cold breeze, and then not so lightly.
Liannan’s red hair curled around Alan’s shoulders like bloody tendrils, seeking, trying to wrap around him and bring him closer even as she sighed and melted against the hard line of his body. The air was electric and crackling with magic, the whispers of the demon world too close. Alan curled his fingers around the demon’s neck and pulled her closer.
Then he let her go. They stood in the electric air with eyes locked instead of mouths.
“What price would I have to pay,” Liannan whispered, “for you to let me out?”
“If I loved you,” Alan said, “I’d do it for free.”
“And what does it take to make you love someone?”
Alan smiled then, a small, rueful smile. “I don’t know,” he said. “Nobody’s ever tried.”
Liannan’s hunger reached out with cold tendrils and went all the way through Mae, as if the demon had touched her and pierced her skin, as if it was Mae’s blood on the ice of Liannan’s hands.
“So here’s my question,” Mae said in a calm, clear voice. “Gerald of the Obsidian Circle has invented a new mark for magicians. Tell me about it.”
That didn’t just get Liannan’s attention. The crowd that had been staring, hostile, at Alan and the demon shifted suddenly. A ripple of unease went through them as they absorbed the words “Obsidian Circle,” and remembered who the real enemies were.
That was just a bonus. What Mae really wanted she got as well. Liannan turned away from Alan and fixed her eyes on Mae.
“You want answers about the mark?”
“That’s what I said.”
Liannan smiled at Mae. It was the kind of smile that said,
Mae stared for a moment, outraged. “That’s not an answer!”
“Oh, it’s an answer,” Liannan said. “And it’s true. Nothing else is required. How useful the answer is to you is your problem. After all, what I took was not all that useful to me.”
“I think I’m slightly insulted,” said Alan, sounding amused.
Liannan laughed. “I was right about you,” she said to Mae.
“What about me?”
Liannan reached out with both hands, as if she wanted to touch Mae’s face, icicles coming right at Mae’s eyes. She felt a rush of sheer horror—Liannan could stab them right out in less than a second, blotting out sight in pain and blood—and flinched back.
“I knew you couldn’t be useful,” the demon told her. “But I thought you might be entertaining.”
She slid those ice-colored eyes from Mae to Alan, and then surveyed the whole Goblin Market at her leisure, like an adult surveying children and their array of silly toys.
“We have no more need of your services, Liannan,” said Sin. “And no need of the mischief you cause, ever.”
The balefire Liannan was enveloped in started to shrink, magic diminishing at Sin’s dismissal. Mae felt Liannan’s hatred pressing down on her chest, heavy and deadly.
Liannan just smiled, beautiful and serene. She put her bloodstained icy knives to her mouth and blew Alan a kiss from their razor-sharp tips. Alan mimed catching it, mouth quirking, and he had to be aware of how this looked to the Market people. Liannan certainly was, going down in flames with that smile on her face.
The circles were dim and still. Alan’s hair turned from gold to blood as the lights went out.
“Are you dancers or what?” Sin asked the bright girls and boys in black clustered around them. She clapped her hands and they ran to their own circles, and the tourists trailed after them, eager for a new show. A few other tourists wandered away to the stalls, and that meant a few Market people had to leave to serve their customers.
Mae let out a held breath in a deep and thankful sigh. She wanted to call it back when Sin followed up her words by coming at Alan like a bolt of lightning in her white dress.
