on over her bra.
Alan pushed gently past Nick, as if Nick was a child rather than six feet of well-armed bad temper, and went directly over to Mae, standing close and putting out his arms for Toby.
Of course Alan’s first instinct was to help, and of course Mae responded with a smile of gratitude, dimpled and sweet. She leaned into him and murmured a few words, their bodies curving in toward each other. Sin shrugged on her shirt and did up the buttons, concentrating on the simple task.
If Nick wanted Mae to lead the Goblin Market, Alan probably did too.
When she looked up, though, Alan was closer to her than to Mae. Surprise and a jolt of ridiculous happiness coursed through her: He was holding Toby; he’d probably come to hand over the baby.
He didn’t, though. He shifted Toby comfortably in the circle of his arm, Toby making an approving sound at him and burrowing his face into the curve of Alan’s neck. Alan looked down at her, then leaned in a little.
“You hurt your wrist?” he said, low and inquiring.
Sin glanced down at her shirt cuffs, which covered her wrists completely, and then raised her eyebrows.
“You were looking at my wrists?”
The beginnings of a smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I’m a lightning-fast observer. I notice all kinds of things.”
Sin had a response and the move following it ready when Alan’s eyes left her and turned to his brother.
“Are you going to stay in the doorway?”
Nick jerked his head toward Lydie sitting at the top of her bed, her knees drawn up. “Yeah. The kid’s scared of me.”
He said it blankly, as if he was talking about a chair rather than someone’s feelings, and Sin wanted to hit him. Lydie might be shy, but she hated anyone thinking of her like that. She wanted to be a daring adventurer, and Sin was not about to let anyone take that away from her.
Lydie didn’t let anyone take it from her either; Sin had brought her up better than that. She lifted her chin.
“I’m not scared of anything.”
“Oh?” said Nick, and drew the door of the wagon shut behind him.
Lydie took up the challenge and crept down to the foot of her bed, where she sat solemnly regarding Nick. Nick stared back at her, arms folded and eyes bottomless.
Sin stood tense. She could feel Alan standing warm beside her, the baby happy in his arms. She wanted to look at him, but she had other responsibilities: The kids came first, always.
She couldn’t let them down.
If Lydie was scared looking at a demon, if she felt unsafe even for a moment, she had to be able to look around and see that Sin’s eyes were on her, that Sin was there for her.
“Did you guys come here for any particular reason?” Mae asked.
Sin saw the flash of light and movement in Lydie’s eyes. She caught Alan’s shoulder and shoved him down as she dived for Lydie, an instant before the sound of a crash rang out through the Market.
Sin grabbed Lydie and shoved her under the bed.
“Stay down there,” she hissed. “You hear me? Stay down!”
She rose to her feet, drawing both her knives. She glanced toward Alan and saw he’d gone down, Toby cradled against his chest and his gun in his hand. Nick had drawn his sword and opened the door.
Sin looked over at Mae. She had a pocketknife in her hand.
“Let me give you something with reach.”
“No,” Mae told her. “I wouldn’t know how to use a long knife. I have to be able to surprise them.”
“Remind me to teach you how to use a long knife later.”
Sin slipped in front of Mae and followed Nick out the door, the evening-chilled beads hanging in the doorway sliding across her face like frozen teardrops. She waited at the threshold; it was dark, the shapes of wagons gray and all the spaces in between them black. If she knew her people, they were moving quietly through the shadows.
Back in the wagon, she heard Mae speaking in a hushed voice on the phone. Sin felt a flash of exasperation with herself that she hadn’t thought to call the necromancers or the pipers, then stepped off the threshold and did not stop moving. That was crucial when you were moving in the dark: You had to keep moving, like shadows, like light, always watching where you were going but never hesitating.
There was another crash, like a localized windstorm. Sin suspected that it was Ivy and Iris’s wagon. She hoped the sisters had got out.
A man came toward them with his hand raised, palm up, and Nick launched himself at him, magic streaking out before his sword like his sword’s shadow made of light.
Sin stalked the perimeter of the Market, circling the clusters of wagons and pathways in between. If one magician had been wandering alone, there would be others.
There were trees on one side that protected the wagons from wind. Sin used their shadows to hide herself as she moved a little faster.
A twig ran along her face in a slow, deliberate movement, like a skeletal finger tracing a line along her skin.
