The Demon’s Surrender

“If I had any proof, I’d have brought it,” Matthias said. “You Market people may not think much of the pipers, and we may think you’re a little set in your ways, but neither of us wants a leader beholden to magicians, do we?”

Sin’s mouth shaped the word No, though she did not say it, simply watching Matthias. She’d trusted Mae. She didn’t know if she could trust the piper. They were all mercurial and strange, valuing singing more than speaking, music more than the faces of those they loved.

But if there was any possibility this was true, she could not afford to ignore it.

“Imagine the advantage she has, if the magicians are helping her,” Matthias said. “She could beat you. Imagine what would happen to the Market then.”

Sin licked her lips. “Any ideas on what I should do?”

“We saw the magicians down by the river near Southwark Cathedral,” Matthias said. “Maybe you should go check the place out for yourself.”

Sin nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

“One more thing?”

Matthias walked lightly as all the pipers did, noiseless and barely stirring the grass with his passage. He brushed by her on his way down the hill, and his voice hit her ear like the music of the Market, beautiful and sinister.

“Watch your back.”

4

Anchor Point

N ICK WAS CLEARLY MISERABLE.

At first Sin found it kind of amusing. He’d done what she would have predicted he would if she’d thought about it, and approached the guys who generally hung around the handyman’s shed and smoked while sitting on old buckets of paint.

That had not gone so well. Nobody was sure what had happened in the handyman’s shed at break time, but everyone was talking about it anyway. By lunchtime Sin had heard quite a few compelling theories, and she saw people leaning away from Nick as he prowled sullenly through the playground and made a couple of phone calls to someone who did not pick up.

Sin found herself chewing vengefully on a peanut butter sandwich and thinking perhaps this would teach certain people that demons did not actually belong in school, which was about the time it occurred to her that she was wishing punishment on Nick not only because he’d decided to support Mae, but because she was angry with his brother.

That made her angry enough with herself to get up, murmuring excuses to the girls from the lacrosse team, and go over to him.

“So I heard you tried to kill a guy with a paintbrush.”

“Don’t try to stifle my artistic self-expression,” Nick said. Sin laughed. She saw a few heads on the playground turn, and realized with a sinking sensation that they would remember this, when her goal was always to avoid too much attention, any questions about the Market, any focus on her or the kids.

She remembered Alan’s maddening voice in a sunlit summer kitchen, asking her to stick around and hang out with Nick. He’d offered her a translation worth a month of groceries to do it. She’d taken it, and she’d played nice with Nick.

She didn’t regret it. Those groceries had come in extremely handy.

But she did feel like she owed Nick more than a dismissal now.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m sorry about the way I acted before. I was just surprised to see you here. At school.”

Nick shrugged.

“It wouldn’t have killed your brother to have given us a heads-up,” Sin added.

Nick stared at her with even more murderous coldness than usual.

There was a sudden chill wind in the air, striking Sin’s face and sending cold fingers crawling tip by freezing tip down her back. She looked into Nick’s blank face and thought: possessed, and did not know why she hadn’t seen it years ago, why everyone didn’t see it when they looked at him. There was no human being behind that face, only a creature who owned but could not animate it.

Alan had lived with this for most of his life, knowing exactly what it was. The wave of sympathy that washed over Sin at the thought shocked her with its intensity.

She couldn’t work out what kind of man he was, good or evil, terrifying or terrifyingly misguided. She couldn’t imagine what it would take to bring up a demon.

All she knew was that she’d had him all wrong.

“Shut up about my brother,” Nick said at last. “I know you’ve always hated him, but I don’t need to hear about it.” His lip curled. “He doesn’t think much of you either.”

If Nick had decided to support Mae’s bid to be leader, who was likely to be behind that decision?

Sin picked up her peanut butter sandwich again and bit in.

“I got that,” she said. “Thanks.”

She was in a hurry when she left school, and she didn’t need to be distracted by the surprise appearance of Alan Ryves, at the wheel of an ancient blue car and with his head bent over a book.