Grandma Tess beckoned, Dad stood aside, and Sin came in. She had to bump against Lydie as she came, Lydie orbiting her like a small anxious moon around a planet until they both stopped at the foot of the stairs.
“Your name’s Lydia?” Sin’s grandmother asked.
“Lydie,” Lydie said firmly.
“Your face is a sight. Who’s been looking after you?”
“Sin looks after us,” Lydie answered, chin up. “Sin looks after us
Which was not at all the speech Sin had trained her to give if anyone ever came asking. That speech included vague references to Merris as their guardian; it shamed Sin that a sister of hers had such a bad memory for her part.
“Well,” Grandma Tess said, and held out her hand. “Let’s get your face washed. I still have some of Thea’s clothes from when she was your size. Would you like to find a pretty dress?”
She descended the stairs, and after a moment’s thought Lydie accepted her hand.
Grandma Tess had liked Sin best when Sin was Lydie’s size, when Sin’s parents were still together and she could fuss over her and fix family meals and expect more grandchildren.
“Thea, give me that child, I don’t know what way you think you’re holding him,” said Grandma Tess, and took Toby in her arms. Toby looked uncertain for a moment, then made a grab for her glasses.
Sin had not expected Grandma Tess’s desire for more grandchildren might outweigh everything else.
Behind her, Dad asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Relief washed away, and there was nothing left but this moment she did not know how to escape. There were no demons watching. Lydie and Toby were upstairs and did not need to be reassured.
“I’m sorry,” Sin said, staring at the shadowy stairs, not wanting to look around and see his face. “I thought—I thought you never had to know. I thought it would be best for you, and I know I hurt you all those times I wouldn’t even stay for dinner—but I had to be with them, I was all they had, I was responsible. I didn’t have anything more fun to do. I did care about you. I did. I’m sorry.”
She felt him touch her shoulders, gently, and turn her around. He touched her face with soft hands, accountant’s hands that had never held a knife or a gun, and she realized she was crying.
“My brave girl,” he said. “You should have told me, so I could have helped you.”
“Could you keep them?” Sin asked. “I’ll come back, I promise. I’m going to get a flat. I can take care of them. It’s just I don’t know how to keep them safe, and I don’t know what else to do, but I’ll make them safe. Can you keep them for just a little while?”
“Of course,” Dad said. “But you’re not getting a flat. Cynthia, you’re sixteen years old! They can stay with us. We’ll all live together. You’re safe now.”
She inched forward. He was the same height as she was, but she could stoop down and put her head on his shoulder, his shirt warm and woolen against her cheek, and suddenly he was the father of her childhood again, the still center she and Mama had whirled around, the anchor without whom Mama had drifted and been lost.
It was that easy, then. She would never have believed it. Dad had left and Victor had left and now Merris had left too, and Sin had not known how to count on anyone but herself. If she had come to Dad after that time in Mezentius House, they could all have been safe in this house for a year.
It would all have been so easy. But she wouldn’t have known all she could do, if she had done that. She was her father’s daughter as well as her mother’s. She could be her own anchor.
And it was too late to accept help for herself now. There was a demon waiting.
“I can’t stay with you, Dad,” she whispered into his shoulder. “The kids wouldn’t be safe. There’s a demon and—and he’s out, he has a body. There was this guy I loved and now this demon has him and I don’t know what the demon wants with me. I have to go.”
“I can’t let you,” Dad said. “I’m your father. It will be all right.”
Sin put her arm around his neck and held on for a moment. Then she drew back, and she drew her knives.
“You’re a tourist. You can’t defend yourself. And think of Grandma Tess, and the kids. I can get myself out of danger, but I can’t put you in it.”
He was a tourist, but he’d loved a Market girl. He did not start or back away from the knives. He just stood staring at her at the foot of the stairs in his lovely house, where she was so glad, so painfully glad that he would be keeping the kids. He looked miserable.
“Thank you,” she told him. “Thank you so much. I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Dad said. “Nothing at all.”
The kids would have gone crazy if she had left without telling them, so they had to say a last good-bye on the doorstep. Sin was desperate to be gone by then. She didn’t know how patient Anzu was going to be, and she dreaded leading him to them, and dreaded almost as much leaving them and thinking about what the demon would do next.
But at least she would be with Alan, for all the good that would do. At least she could be with him at the last, the same way she’d been with Mama. He would not be lonely or scared when he died, not if she could help it.
“Nick will take care of you,” Lydie offered at the door, wanting comfort for Sin and to be comforted as well.
“I’m sure Nick will do his best,” Sin lied, holding her tight. “But I can take care of myself.”
On her way back alone, she thought that she could return to the Market now. Merris was not going to stay, Lydie was safe, and they wouldn’t want a young tourist in charge at a time like this. She might be able to win the Market right now.
