Mae had been right.
There was a spy at the Goblin Market.
She flinched and looked at her hands when Sin looked at her. Sin looked away.
Her survey of the room complete, Sin looked back at Celeste. Celeste smiled at her, the smile sweet and quickly gone as sugar dropped in hot water.
“Welcome aboard the
“That is good news,” said Sin. “Where’s my sister?”
“And we’re going to let you go free,” Celeste continued. “Now you’ve been exiled from the Market, you’re not a threat anymore, are you?”
Sin smiled. “Unchain me and find out.”
Celeste leaned forward in her chair. “You’re not much of anything anymore. But you did protect one of our own. We don’t forget things like that.”
“My sister isn’t one of yours,” Sin snarled. “Where is she?”
“We’ll bring her to you in a moment,” Celeste said. “And when we do, I want you to tell her that she will be staying with us. That this is the best place for her, the only place for her, and you don’t want her to live with you any longer. Tell her she belongs with her own kind.”
Over Celeste’s shoulder Sin saw the boy, Seb, flinch. He didn’t look at Celeste or at Sin, though. He just kept staring at the ground.
For her part, Sin kept staring at the pearl. She did not want to meet those cold eyes.
“We do not usually take in children so young, but considering how gifted she is and how terrible her circumstances are…” Celeste shrugged. “There is absolutely nothing you can give her, is there? Except this. Make the parting easy, and be sure she will be treated well. She’s going to be a great magician. You should be proud.”
Sin’s lip curled. “Maybe she can start killing innocent people before she hits ten. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“If you gave her up to the magicians,” Phyllis said in a low, rapid voice, the voice of a woman making excuses, “then you could come back to the Market.”
“Your concern for the Market is very touching,” Sin murmured back.
“You should do as we ask for her sake,” Celeste continued gently. “But if you don’t see that, you should do it for your own. You should do it for your baby brother. What will happen to him if we kill you?”
Sin spared a moment to be deeply and terribly thankful that she had left Toby safe with Alan.
“I know what will happen to Lydie if I abandon her,” she said. “I won’t do it.”
Celeste’s hand twitched a little, a touch of pale magic glinting on the surface of her pearl. She did not lash out, though. She stood instead, straightening her skirt.
“You’re not important enough to sit around arguing with, Cynthia,” she told her, with a pitying smile. “You can have some time to think about how little this show of bravado will get you. When I come back, if you’re still being stubborn, I’ll give you to the demons. They took your mother, didn’t they? Think about that.”
She headed for the door, making a small gesture, more waving them forward than beckoning, for the others to follow her.
Phyllis was the first to leave, getting out of Sin’s sight as fast as she could.
“You two stay and watch her, okay?” Gerald said. He crossed the room toward the boy in the window seat. “Okay?” he repeated gently.
He reached out a hand to touch the boy’s shoulder; the boy drew away without looking at him.
Gerald reacted so smoothly it seemed like it hadn’t happened, nodding as if he’d received confirmation of his orders and looking at Seb.
Seb nodded almost automatically, then glared at Gerald’s back as Gerald went for the door.
Gerald didn’t catch the look, but the gray-haired woman beside him did.
“He’s not good for much else besides standing guard, is he?” she said, her voice cutting through the air. Seb’s face turned, a red mark rising on his cheek as if she’d slapped him.
“Leave him be, Laura,” Gerald advised as he and the woman—Laura—left the room.
Helen, the magician with the swords, lingered for a moment by the door. She didn’t look undecided. She looked as if she’d never been anything but absolutely decisive in her life.
“I spoke up to save you, dancer,” she said abruptly. “Don’t make a fool of me.”
Then she ducked out of the room. The boat lurched as she crossed the threshold, but she didn’t falter for an instant.
Sin was left with the two magician boys. Which was better odds than she’d had before.
“Looks like it’s you and me, Seb,” she said, and lowered her voice just in case a pretty girl in distress might appeal to him. She could use that. “And you,” she added to the boy in the window seat. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
The boy turned away from the window.
All of Sin’s breath was scythed out of her throat.
