The Demon's Covenant

“Well,” said Sin, laughing in a slightly brittle way as she reached for a towel, as if she was trying to make the whole conversation and her own heart lighter by sheer force of will. “He’s not exactly the kind of guy who makes a girl’s heart start racing. I’d be surprised if he could urge anyone’s heart past a gentle jog.”

She laughed again, and Mae reminded herself that Sin was walking a bright, fragile bridge over the cold horror of what had happened to her mother.

Sin glanced over her shoulder at Mae, and Mae blinked. Without her makeup, especially the vivid lipstick, Sin looked quite different. She was still beautiful if you looked at her properly, but it was suddenly possible to overlook her. Her whole demeanor had changed, as if the makeup was a mask that carried a role with it.

“Maybe Alan’s a chameleon,” said Mae. “Like you.”

Sin’s arched eyebrows arched farther, like swallow’s wings in a painting.

“Oh, you’ve noticed that, have you?”

“I’m a quick study.”

“I can see,” said Sin, and spun away from her dresser, ribbons flaring.

She grabbed at the red shawl covering the table and whipped it off with easy grace, the crystal ball on the table not even moving. She flourished the shawl, and it described a red arc and landed on her hair as she leaped onto the bed beside Mae.

“Tell your fortune?”

“You’re a gypsy fortune-teller?” Mae asked.

“No,” said Sin. “But my exotic beauty does make people think so.” She smiled a flashing smile, strong brown legs hooked over Mae’s jeaned lap, as if her beauty was a joke. “Because, you know, dark-skinned girl telling fortunes, what else could I be?”

Sin’s mouth twisted, and Mae searched for something to say that definitely wouldn’t be racist.

The way Sin’s grin turned wicked indicated that she knew exactly what Mae was thinking.

“My dad’s family was from the Caribbean originally. My mother was Welsh, and she told fortunes. So,” Sin said, “let me read the secret of your heart’s desire.”

“No secret,” said Mae, twitching the shawl aside so it fell. “I want …”

To be like you, she would have said before today, but now Sin was a person and not an ideal to aspire to. She had all these problems Mae did not know if she could have dealt with; she had a life that had shaped her into something very different from Mae.

She didn’t want to be Sin, but there was still something about her that drew Mae close, something about the whole Goblin Market. She felt like a moth diving for a succession of jetting flames. She didn’t think she’d be burned if she learned how to dance around them.

“I want to belong here,” she said finally.

Sin unhooked her legs from over Mae’s, leaping to her feet, and went over to her chest of drawers. She took the crown of red flowers she’d pulled from her hair and drew two blossoms from it.

“I thought you’d say that.” She crossed the floor and looked down at Mae, dark eyes steady and serious for once. She took one of Mae’s hands and laid the blossoms in it. “Cross your palm with scarlet,” she said, and smiled. “I’ll let you know where the next Market is being held. And if anyone questions you, show them these.”

“Two flowers means an invitation?”

“Two flowers is an invitation to the Market. One flower’s an invitation to something else.” Sin smiled. “Three flowers, I tell people it means an invitation, and it means I want them killed on sight.”

Mae nodded slowly. “Thanks.”

Sin shrugged. “I love the Market. If you come ready to love the Market too, then I’m your friend.”

“Then you’re my friend,” said Mae, and rose. “I have to go meet Alan now. He’s my friend too.”

“Fine,” Sin said. “I was going to shoo you out anyway. I have a guy coming over.”

“Oh, really,” said Mae, and it was suddenly like talking to Rachel and Erica at school, laughing over lunch about who fancied who. “Someone special?”

At least somebody was getting a little fun from the effects of the fever fruit.

Sin elbowed her. “Oh, he’s something else. Come back to the Market next month, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Mae backed away, already missing the Market. Alan was waiting, though.

She put her hand on the door and looked back at Sin, who was sitting on the bed doing her makeup fresh. The new lipstick she was applying, smoothly and expertly without a mirror, was a rich, dark red. This was red for something besides attracting a glance. This was a red to linger over.

“I can’t wait to come back,” Mae told her.

Sin smiled at her, slow and deliberate, becoming yet another person.

“I’ll save you a dance.”

The only way Mae knew back to the car was to go through the Goblin Market again. She had promised herself she would not delay, but it was hard walking through all the shadows and the spotlights, hard not to obey the cries of “Come buy!”

She did not stop at any stall. She might have looked around just a little.