Read The Demon’s Surrender Online
Authors: Sarah Rees Brennan
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.
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.”
So Gerald thought Mae had the pearl. Since Sin had come to the same conclusion herself at first, she felt she could hardly blame him.
But what did he have to bargain with, and why did he want to bargain when he could just try to take? Did he want to make a bargain with Mae, who he must presume was the new leader of the Goblin Market, in the same way he’d tried to make a bargain with Merris? Did he want them to promise they would leave the magicians to their killing and never help another tourist?
Sin’s lip curled as she watched Jessica. Mae would never go for it.
“Something I’ll be interested in?” Mae repeated inquiringly.
“How interesting!” Nick said in a savage voice. “Do you have any useful hints, or are you trying to entice me by being a woman of mystery? Mae’s not going to meet Gerald anywhere.”
“Mae’s not going to be spoken for,” Mae told him. “Mae can speak for her own damn self. What will Gerald do if I don’t go?”
Jessica shrugged. “I imagine he will come to find you.”
And if he did, he’d find Mae’s aunt or the Market. Sin could see the wheels in Mae’s brain turning.
She could see Mae was curious.
So, apparently, could Nick.
He stood from the sofa and said, his voice rolling through the room like thunder in the sky, “You’re not going.”
Mae’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare try to stop me.” She sat glaring up at him for a moment, then turned deliberately to Jessica and said in a cool voice, “Excuse me. If I’m meeting Gerald, I’m going to have to settle matters with this demon first.”
Jessica waved a hand giving permission. Mae turned with such vehemence her shoe squeaked on the floor, and made for the door. Nick followed hard on her heels.
The shouting started about an instant after the door to the hall banged shut behind him.
“Pardon me,” Sin said, and slipped out after them. “Do you two mind keeping it down? There’s a messenger in there listening to every word you say!”
“Then you take a turn getting this through his thick head,” Mae said. “I’m going. It’s the best thing for the Market, to find out what he wants right away. It’s the best thing for all of us.”
“I agree with you,” Sin said.
Mae flashed her a grateful look, and Nick glared at them both. “And it hasn’t occurred to you that Gerald won’t be pleased when he finds out you don’t have the pearl?”
“He won’t believe I don’t have it if I don’t come,” Mae said. “And then he’ll come for me. The only thing to do is talk to him, and find out what he thinks he has to offer.”
“What if he gets annoyed by the fact you don’t have the pearl and
kills you
?” Nick shouted.
“Jamie won’t let him kill me,” Mae said.
“What if he kills both of you?” Nick raged. “What am I meant to do then?”
Mae stepped in close to Nick and shoved him furiously hard. Nick did not brace himself against the blow. His back hit the wall. He did not react much at all; he just kept that dark, intent stare on Mae.
“What do you mean by that?” Mae demanded.
Nick hesitated. There was a click in his throat, as if it was dry, as if he was out of words.
They waited, and he wasn’t.
“I was fighting Anzu up on the roof yesterday,” he said at last. “I could see all of London. I’d just beaten Anzu, and it wasn’t any good, it didn’t make any difference, Alan was still gone. And I thought about setting the river on fire again. I thought about setting the whole city on fire, and watching it burn. I was angry enough to make it happen. But then I thought of you and Jamie.”
His voice was expressionless. Mae stared at him, her eyes suddenly beseeching as well as furious, and Nick looked away from her and stared at the floor.
“I want to burn the world because Alan is gone,” he said. “I want to destroy everything I see. But you mean something to me. I will not destroy the world, because it has you in it.”
Nick crossed his arms defensively over his chest. They were all silent for a moment.
Mae said, in a voice trying far too hard to sound practical, “Also, Liannan took half your power, so you probably couldn’t destroy the world if you wanted to.”
“I don’t know about that—I set the river on fire. I could set the city on fire. I could give destroying the world a good try. I was never really sure how much power my brother left me, but it seems like it was more than I thought. It seems like he gambled on me one more time. So you see,” Nick said, soft and menacing, “you and Jamie are all that is protecting the world from me. You should think about that before you throw both your lives away.”
Mae looked shaken. “You mean something to me, too. But that doesn’t mean I forgive you. And it doesn’t mean I’m not going. I am.”
“Then promise me something,” Nick said. “Promise me that if things get bad, you’ll let me handle it.”
There was another pause, during which Sin saw Mae think it over.
She finally promised, “I’ll let you have first try.”
They returned more sedately than they had left. Jessica had an air of slight amusement as they filed in.
“We’re going,” Mae announced. “All of us. Where does Gerald want to meet?”
“At the Monument, six o’clock,” Jessica replied.
Sin was startled. She carefully did not look at either of the others, lest she betray that fact.
The Monument was not part of the Bankside. It was outside the Aventurine Circle’s circle of power. Other people could use magic there.
But Gerald had control of a demon, and Mae had no magic at all. He obviously wasn’t afraid of anything the Market could do.
“We’ll be there,” Mae said, with barely a pause. “And you don’t have any hint of what this bargain he is offering might be?”
“Hey, just the messenger,” Jessica said. “Not even that for long.”
“And what do you mean by that?” Sin asked.
Jessica looked across at her. “Haven’t you heard?” she inquired. “I suppose the exile’s always the last to know. Merris Cromwell left a necromancer in charge of the House of Mezentius. And the new leader of the Goblin Market is a tourist.” Jessica’s coolly amused gaze slid to Mae, standing still as stone, and back. “I heard she says that anyone who wants to join the Goblin Market—necromancers, pied pipers, potion-makers, messengers—can join. They’ll be just as good as the Market people, they can travel with them if they want, and there will be no private deals between Market folk or keeping any particular magic for themselves.” Jessica shrugged. “Who knows if it will last? But I thought it was worth looking into. I’m getting tired of the magicians’ games.”