“We were friends once, weren’t we?”
A flicker crossed Gerald’s face, like the flicker of lightning behind dark clouds, not illuminating or changing anything.
“I thought so,” he said, and he sounded a little sorry.
“Doesn’t that mean anything?”
Gerald shook his head regretfully. “Not enough, Jamie.”
“Well,” Jamie said, “it means something to me. I don’t want to leave the Circle, and I don’t want to fight you. So how about I make you an offer?”
“What’s the offer?”
“What means most to you, Gerald,” Jamie murmured. “Power. What if I offer you my demon?”
Nick was suddenly the center of attention.
The storm was dying away, but there was rain falling now. Nick had his arms crossed over his chest, shoulders bunched defensively under the wet material of his shirt.
“Jamie,” he said, in a tight voice, “I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
“Nick,” Jamie said, “I really am sorry.”
Gerald, alone of the magicians, was still looking at Jamie. “You mean it?”
“Forgive me for Celeste,” Jamie said. “Trust me again. And we have a deal.”
“Jamie!” Nick snarled.
Jamie rubbed a shaking hand across his wet, pale face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you’re not like me. What is it that they say, that demons are made of fire and humans are made of earth? Magicians are made of need. We’re born human and we become something else, like earth turning into sand without rain. We become something that needs power. You can’t understand, because you’re not like me. But they are.”
His brilliantly shining gaze cut through the murk, swinging from Nick back to Gerald.
“I want you to give him your mark.”
Nick strode forward and Sin was certain, almost certain, that he was about to commit violence rather than obey anyone. Gerald glanced at Jamie and either decided to trust him or decided he could not pass up the opportunity to have the power obviously flooding through Jamie’s body.
He held firm, hand still uplifted, but making no move to halt Nick’s rush.
Nick stopped and grabbed Gerald’s arm. His teeth were bared in a snarl. Sin had seldom seen expressions marked clearly on Nick’s face, but this one was clear. He badly wanted to kill Gerald.
He wrenched up Gerald’s arm and pressed his mouth against the inside of his wrist.
Gerald convulsed, making a thin, agonized sound that made Sin think that Nick had ripped open the veins of Gerald’s wrist with his teeth. She could only see the bow of Gerald’s back, arched taut in pain, and Nick’s blank black eyes over Gerald’s wrist.
When Nick let go of Gerald, the magician fell to his knees. The other magicians were drawing back from him, a murmur of distress and unease rising. Only one moved forward: Seb, coming to stand at Jamie’s shoulder.
Jamie looked at Seb, looked at Gerald kneeling on the ship deck, and smiled.
Sin’s last moment of hope died as she saw Gerald climb to his feet and meet Jamie’s gaze with his own eyes turned fierce silver, brimming with magic.
He raised his hand and a bolt of lightning sliced through the sky, wrapping around the silver ring on his finger and shimmering with contained light.
“I think the Aventurine Circle can learn to follow this symbol instead,” he said, his voice echoing, trembling on the point of laughter.
The magicians in white all kneeled even as he spoke, and Gerald turned to Nick.
“Hnikarr,” he said. “I have a little test for you.”
“The power isn’t enough?” Nick snapped.
“Nothing’s ever enough,” Gerald told him. “Kill her.”
Sin flattened her body against the deck as if she could escape being seen, and then realized that it had not been her Gerald was speaking of at all.
He was pointing at Phyllis.
She stood there in a growing circle of space as magicians and messengers alike scattered away from her. She looked suddenly very alone, her shoulders bent more than usual under the burden of fear.
“This woman’s worthless as a spy,” Gerald said. “She might have handed us a magician, but her first loyalty is to the Goblin Market. Now she finally has a use. I want to see you kill her on my orders.”
Phyllis had handed over Lydie to the Aventurine Circle.
But she had done it to get Sin back to the Goblin Market. Sin had known Phyllis all her life.
Nick had known Phyllis since he was five years old.
Sin had thought that no magician could have so complete a dominion over a demon, had thought that some of it at least must be Nick choosing to ally himself with Jamie, had thought she didn’t know what in order to prevent herself being overcome by despair and fear.
