Then she remembered Anzu’s air when she left, the way he had looked like a hunting bird. She could not let him come hurtling down from the sky to attack the Market. If she was his target, she had to be alone.
And she didn’t even know if she had the energy to win the Market back. She was so tired.
Her shoulders slumped, but as the train rattled through a space of open air, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She dug it out.
“Sin,” Mae said. “A messenger just called me. She says she wants to meet, and she has an important message for me.”
There was no point asking Mae if she might refuse to see the woman. Sin knew Mae well enough by now to know that.
“I’ll see her with you,” Sin said.
Mae sighed. “Thanks. I don’t want to meet her at my aunt’s house. Aunt Edith might come back unexpectedly. Do you think maybe a hotel—”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sin said. “Tell her to meet you at Nick’s place.”
There was a brief, taut pause.
“I don’t much feel like seeing Nick,” Mae told her in a brittle voice.
“I don’t care,” Sin said. “You don’t know what this messenger has to say to you, but one thing we both know: It’s always best to seem strong. You want backup, and what’s better backup than a demon on your side? Personal stuff doesn’t matter. What matters is this: Do you want to lead?”
“You know I do,” Mae snapped.
“Do you want to lead well?”
“Of course I do!”
“Do you want it more than your pride?” Sin demanded.
The train went back into the underground even as she asked the question, and whatever reply Mae would have made was lost.
Sin knew Mae well enough by now. She was pretty confident that continuing on her way back to Nick’s was the right way to go.
There would be no time to rest. She hadn’t really expected it.
A boy sat on the seat across from her, eyeing her with something between hope and speculation. Sin bared her teeth at him.
“Don’t even think about it,” she advised, and closed her eyes and felt the train thunder beneath her, carrying her inexorably to her destination.
As Sin opened the door to Nick and Alan’s flat, she heard a strange woman’s voice. Sin tried to push the door open quietly, but the door to the sitting room was open. She found Nick, Mae, and the messenger all staring at her as she came into the hall.
The woman was not quite a stranger after all. Sin recognized her from a few Market nights, when she had bought expensive trinkets.
The only trinkets the woman was wearing now, though, were her earrings. The silver knives in silver circles, the token of a messenger.
Sin supposed it was a sign she was here on business.
“Sin Davies,” the woman murmured, as if she had the advantage over her.
Sin raised her eyebrows.
“Jessica, isn’t it?”
She gave her a dazzling cursory smile, which the woman returned. Jessica had dark hair and an expensive suit, and she looked like a businesswoman who helped with charities in her spare time.
In what was left of her spare time after she was done carrying messages for the magicians.
Mae was sitting in the armchair, which she must have moved so it was as distant from both sofas as it could be while still being in the same room. She was regarding the messenger with a remote air, like a queen.
Nick was sitting in the other sofa, scowling across at the messenger. Anzu was not there.
Nick said, “You’re just in time.”
“For what?”
“To hear me finish delivering my message,” Jessica replied. “Which Nick seems to find so amusing.”
“It’s the way you tell it,” Nick assured her.
“Apparently Gerald wants me to meet with him,” Mae said in a colorless voice. “He says he wants to make a bargain with me.”
“Anything to oblige Gerald, of course,” Nick said. “What can I do for him? Does he want to borrow a cup of sugar? I’m afraid I’m all out of brothers. He took my last one.”
Nick’s voice had grown colder and harder as he kept speaking, every word like a stone being hurled.
“He doesn’t want anything from you at all,” Jessica said, smiling sweetly at him. “If he did, he’d just order you to give it to him. And you’d have to do it, wouldn’t you?”
Nick glared at her. Jessica was looking at Mae and did not even seem to notice.
“He wants Celeste’s pearl,” Jessica told Mae. “He has something to offer you in return. Something he thinks you’ll be very interested in. He wants to meet you this evening to discuss it.”
