The Demon’s Surrender

Jamie’s forehead was creased with concentration, his hands moving in short, careful gestures as if he was embroidering some priceless silk.

The boat edged forward, and forward, and then finally reached the steps. There was a small crunching sound as the boat rocked against them.

“I’ll hold it,” Jamie said. “You can go.”

Sin ran forward to the rail of the deck, Lydie’s feet pounding beside hers. She heard Alan limping after them.

She heard Celeste Drake’s voice from the doorway Alan had just left.

“Leaving so soon?”

Sin spun and threw her knife. Or she meant to. It did not even leave her hand, staying rigidly in place as if she had stuck it in a block of ice rather than throwing it through the air.

There were three men behind Celeste, Sin saw, and then recounted. There was one man she didn’t know, and there was Seb, who might or might not be on Celeste’s side, and shoving viciously past them both was Nick.

“Come here,” Jamie commanded, beckoning.

“I am trying,” Nick snarled, and the magician Sin didn’t know went for Nick with his hands full of black light.

“Hey!” said Jamie, and made a gesture that sent the man reeling back a step. Nick closed in on him hungrily.

Celeste snapped a look over at Seb, who shrank back, then at Sin with her knives and Alan with his gun out. She had both her hands raised, palm up. On anyone but a magician, the gesture would have looked like surrender.

On a magician, it was a threat.

“Go ahead,” Celeste said. “Shoot me. Stab me. If you’re both quite sure I won’t have time to hit that child before you do.”

Sin did not look away from Celeste’s hands. She could not afford to.

Now they had turned, Lydie was in front of her, pressing with the urgency of terror against her legs. Sin saw Celeste’s eyes narrow, measuring the distance between them.

In a far-off way, she noted the sounds of Jamie and Nick fighting the magician. There was the sound of a sky turning savage above them, a grumble rising too fast into a snarl.

Nobody could use magic in the Aventurine Circle’s territory but them. Except that Jamie was part of the Circle, and Nick was Jamie’s.

Despite this, Sin knew that Celeste, and the man fighting Nick and Jamie, were both wearing the magician’s mark Gerald had invented, the one that let magicians channel the power of all the magicians in their Circle who wore the mark. And Celeste would have been formidable on her own.

Sin felt Alan tense beside her. They both knew a shot was their best chance, but if Celeste was enchanted to withstand a shot, there would not be any other chances.

There was a short, sharp crack.

Celeste staggered forward. Sin seized the moment to grab Lydie and shove her over the side, onto the steps. Lydie’s hand closed on the chain round Sin’s wrist for a moment, clinging.

“Lydie, go!” Sin yelled, and twisted back around.

In the doorway stood Mae, holding a gun in both hands. She was wavering slightly in her high, high heels.

Celeste Drake had not been enchanted to withstand gunshots.

She lay sprawled on the deck. The gauze of her long dress fluttered in the rising wind, a pure white shroud with a dark red stain marring it at the center.

The storm rose so fast it was like an eclipse. For a moment Sin could not see, but she stumbled forward anyway, fumbling in the dark. She went down on her hands and knees on the deck where she guessed Celeste’s body lay.

Lightning flashed. Mae was looking down at Sin, her face all shadows and pallor, as if she instead of Celeste had died and become a ghost.

Sin’s gaze dropped to Celeste, to the hollow of her throat where the falling rain had already begun to pool. Her throat was bare. The pearl was gone.

Mae had won, then.

“C’mon,” Nick said, his own opponent dead behind him. He gave Mae a solid push, and she almost stumbled and fell onto Celeste’s body. Nick dragged her past Sin and Celeste to the side of the boat, then let go of her so he could help Alan over.

Mae tried to climb over after him by herself and started cursing.

“Stupid dress, stupid shoes—”

“You’re stupid,” said Nick, and scooped her up bodily in his arms. He held her over the rail and Alan grabbed her hands and pulled her onto the steps to safety. “Now you,” Nick said.

Jamie leaned against the ship rail. “No.”

“Oh my God, you’re both stupid,” Nick snarled. “Do you want to die? Because if you stay, you will.”

Alan limped to the top of the steps as fast as he could and Sin saw Lydie, a tiny figure against the dark-torn