The pied piper smiled mockingly at her pain and moved on.
Mae came to a decision. Sin was busy with a guy, but surely she could go knock on the door and Sin could tell her what to do with the kid. Sin didn’t seem the type to be easily embarrassed, and Alan had been waiting long enough.
She marched back in the direction from which she’d come, walking a good deal more carefully with Toby in her arms. Even so, she almost stumbled four times going downhill, and clutched at the baby too tight in panic. He made small crowing sounds whenever she did that. Either she was being mocked by a two-year-old or he was going to grow up to be a fan of danger sports.
Mae put one foot in front of the other, walking blind and burdened, and reached the shadowy gathering of wagons just in time to see Gerald knock on the door of Sin’s red wagon and be let in.
11
Caveat Emptor
Mae burst into a breakneck run for the wagon even as the door swung shut, the curtain billowing gently in the night air.
She had a hand on the door and a warning on her lips before it occurred to her that they were two girls alone, and once Gerald’s cover was blown he would have no reason to play nice.
And she was holding a baby. Sin wouldn’t thank her for carrying her little brother directly into the line of fire.
Before she went, she wanted to check that Sin was all right.
She shifted Toby into the crook of her elbow and reached out with her free hand to twitch the curtain aside just a fraction.
There were lit candles floating in the bowl of rose petals and water.
Sin was standing by her bed, wrapped in red silk with black flowers and thorns stenciled on it. The silk looked fragile enough to tear at a movement, and there was plenty of potential for movement in the curves beneath.
For now she was still, dark red lips curved and dark eyes thoughtful.
All Mae could see of Gerald was his back and a sliver of his face as he tilted his head to look at Sin. His eye was lit by a gold gleam from the candles. “You said you wanted to talk.”
He took a step toward her, and she flowed toward him like a red silk river until she was pressed up against him, hand at the nape of his neck where his sandy hair curled. Gerald’s hand hesitated, wavering in midair, and then settled on her hip.
Sin laughed, her eyelids lowered as if she was sleepy, as if she’d just risen from bed and wanted to crawl right back in.
“Sure,” she murmured, throaty, and slid the red silk robe off both brown shoulders at once.
Then she grasped ivory handles and drew out long knives with the sleek sound of tearing silk. Before Gerald could take a step back, the blades were kissing behind his neck.
Sin said, “Let’s talk.”
Mae felt her lips curve into a grin. There was no need for a rescue mission after all. Apparently Sin had the situation under control.
That was when she felt the hand touch her shoulder.
She refused to let herself scream, clamping her jaw shut and whirling to face whatever was behind her. Her hand was suddenly cradling Toby’s head, her first strange impulse to shield it.
Behind her was Merris Cromwell, standing over her looking surprised and displeased, as if she’d caught Mae trespassing in her garden.
“There’s a magician in there,” Mae said, low.
“Cynthia has already notified me and lured the magician away from the Market,” Merris replied in her normal voice. “Why you feel torturing a magician might be appropriate entertainment for a toddler, I cannot imagine.”
“I did not know—”
“Well, now you do,” Merris said. “Could you perhaps remove the child from the vicinity before—”
The door to the wagon banged open, Gerald stumbling as Sin pushed him out and then followed close behind him, her knives at his back. She was striding easily until she saw Mae.
“What’s Toby doing here?”
Gerald’s eyes flashed to Mae’s face and then to the child in her arms. He had obviously absorbed something from the sudden tightness of Sin’s tone. He looked thoughtful.
“He was wandering,” said Mae. “I thought I should bring him back to you. Sorry to interrupt.”
“Yeah,” Sin said, kicking Gerald in the back of his knees so they buckled and he went down hard onto them in the dirt. “It’s a very special night.”
“Sin,” Gerald asked, “do you know who you are serving?” He jerked his head toward where Merris Cromwell stood with her face like a carving in stone. “Do you know who she is, the cold mistress of Mezentius House? Do you know what that means?”
Mae couldn’t help but remember the scream of that woman in Merris’s institute, being tortured by a demon that was living inside her husband and destroying him from the inside out. Merris made the relatives of the possessed
