The Demon's Surrender
Page 9

Alan had lived with this for most of his life, knowing exactly what it was. The wave of sympathy that washed over Sin at the thought shocked her with its intensity.
She couldn’t work out what kind of man he was, good or evil, terrifying or terrifyingly misguided. She couldn’t imagine what it would take to bring up a demon.
All she knew was that she’d had him all wrong.
“Shut up about my brother,” Nick said at last. “I know you’ve always hated him, but I don’t need to hear about it.” His lip curled. “He doesn’t think much of you either.”
If Nick had decided to support Mae’s bid to be leader, who was likely to be behind that decision?
Sin picked up her peanut butter sandwich again and bit in.
“I got that,” she said. “Thanks.”
She was in a hurry when she left school, and she didn’t need to be distracted by the surprise appearance of Alan Ryves, at the wheel of an ancient blue car and with his head bent over a book.
It was therefore a complete mystery to her why she took a detour through the side gate, went over, and tapped on the car window.
Alan used one hand to subtly go for his gun and the other to keep his page, then actually looked at her and sent the window whirring down.
“What are you doing here?” Sin demanded, and was horrified by the words coming out of her mouth.
“Picking my baby brother up from school,” Alan told her, sounding faintly puzzled that she would ask something so obvious.
“Well, he’s in detention,” Sin said in what she hoped was a more reasonable voice. “Word is he tried to kill someone with a paintbrush.”
“Little scamp,” Alan said. “Well, boys will be boys. Can I give you a lift anywhere?”
Offended dignity said not in a million years, but Sin had a lot more practicality than pride.
“If you could drive me to my sister’s school, that’d be great,” she said, going around the car and climbing into the passenger seat.
“Happy to,” said Alan, and started the car engine.
She gave him directions, and he turned a corner through the estate by her school and toward Acton town without comment, obviously already familiar enough with the geography of this part of London. Market people always had to know where they were going, and be able to get there fast when they had to.
Sin was not planning on reaching out and being turned down again, so she turned her face away from Alan and watched the buildings go by, gray towers changing to tan-colored Victorian buildings and back again.
“I wanted to talk to you about last night,” said Alan.
Horror and embarrassment sent a burning-hot flash flood through Sin’s veins. But it would be absolutely unacceptable for Alan to know he had inspired those feelings, and since she was a performer, goddamn it, Sin laughed and said lightly, “Really? You have to know it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Yes, I know that,” Alan said, his voice very mild. “But we’re going to be working together for some time. I’d like for us to get on better than we have done in the past. God knows that wouldn’t be hard.”
He doesn’t think much of you.
“Sounds good!” Sin responded, forcing herself to sound a bit incredulous about all the fuss Alan was making instead of desperate for the conversation to be over.
“I had fun at the Market last night,” Alan continued. “A lot more fun than I usually have.”
Until Sin had thrown herself at him. Yes, she understood perfectly. What she didn’t understand was why Alan had to talk so much.
“I just wanted to let you know that I understand,” Alan told her. “And I don’t want you to be embarrassed, or to think I took anything in a different way than it was meant.”
“I wasn’t embarrassed,” Sin said. “I don’t care enough about your opinion of me to be embarrassed.”
“All right.”
There was silence for a moment, during which Sin tried to work out if Alan’s response had sounded faintly incredulous or simply indifferent. It was too hot in the car, the air-conditioning obviously not working right, autumnal sunlight flooding through the windows and filling the car with trapped heat. Sin sent a swift glance toward Alan, not under her eyelashes, because guys noticed that and she always meant them to, but sidelong and carefully casual.
He was wearing two shirts, which was ridiculous considering the sun but which he always did, and looking at the road ahead, lashes bright fringes over his dark blue eyes. She looked away almost immediately.
“Just so we’re clear,” Alan said. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“Okay, Alan, I get it,” Sin snapped.
“As long as you’re still planning to teach me how to shoot a bow and arrow,” he continued calmly. “I mean, I do feel you kind of owe me that.”
“What?” Sin asked, and was so startled she found herself laughing.
“Well, I sang at the Market and everything,” Alan reminded her. “I’m a diffident guy. I had terrible stage fright.”
“I’m not familiar with the concept of ‘stage fright.’”
“It’s pretty awful,” Alan said solemnly. “You end up having to picture the entire audience in their underwear. Phyllis was in that audience, you know.”
“Why, Alan, I had no idea your tastes ran that way.”
“Phyllis is a very nice lady,” he said. “And I do not consider her so much aged as matured, like a fine wine. But I still think you owe me an archery lesson.”
These brothers were her allies, were the Market’s allies, and Alan was right: It would be better for them all to get along. She’d had more fun with Alan than she would’ve expected last night, before being turned down flat.
She wasn’t about to ruin any chance of them reaching an understanding because of being rejected. Lots of people weren’t attracted to her. Merris, obviously. Phyllis, with any luck. If she ever went insane and assaulted Matthias in a frenzy of lust, he would probably run away, shrieking, Your singing voice is nasal! Unclean, unclean!
Alan had saved her brother. She’d judged him wrongly on more occasions than she cared to count at this point, but she felt pretty confident she was right about this judgment: He was worth knowing.
And he was right. It wasn’t like getting along better than they had before would be much of a challenge.
“Drive me and Lydie back to the hill,” Sin said at last. “And you can have your lesson.” She looked at him under her eyelashes and he noticed, as he was meant to; then she grinned. “Plus, Phyllis will be there. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you.”
Lydie’s new school was in a nice part of Acton, far enough away from the Market and Sin’s school to make Sin’s life difficult, but there were trees lining the street where it stood and when Sin peeped through the classroom door before going in she saw Lydie’s fair head tipped to another girl’s, engaged in close and happy conversation.
She had not asked or particularly wanted Alan to accompany her into the school, but he had done so anyway. Sin was making an effort not to be annoyed at him for being interfering. She was sure he meant well.
“I’m Cynthia Davies, Lydia’s sister,” she told the teacher, shaking her hand firmly so there would be no comments about thinking Sin was older on the phone.
There was the usual look that meant the teacher had thought Sin was white on the phone, but people hardly ever said that.
Sin went around to Lydie’s table and tossed her braid over her shoulder, trying for a slight air of glamour. It never hurt a kid to have a cool older sister.
“Having fun?” she asked.
“Sure,” said Lydie, stowing away books and pencil case. Sin put a hand flat against her thin little back in case a hug would be going too far, and Lydie leaned into it a tiny bit. “Alan’s here,” she added in a tone of inquiry but with bright eyes. Sin was instantly very glad Alan had come in.
“Well, he was going up to the hill anyway, and when he heard I was picking you up, obviously he wanted to come along.”
Lydie went off to grab her coat from the cloakroom, and Sin went back to the teacher, who was standing with Alan, apparently deep in conversation.
“… mother and stepfather died in a car accident a while ago,” she heard him say in a confidential tone, and heard the teacher murmur sympathetically. “Their guardian’s a little elderly. It’s a challenge, of course, but Cynthia picks up a lot of the slack.”
“I do what?” Sin asked brightly, deciding that she had not heard anything else he’d said.
Alan gave her a slightly wary look, and she took his arm and squeezed it to show that she was impressed. It was a good lie: The teacher won over to Lydie’s side, the adroit mention of a stepfather meaning that there would never be a question of how she and Lydie were related, and neither parents nor guardian would ever be expected. Sin planned to remember exactly how he’d said it, but she doubted it would have quite the same effect.
“And you’re…” the teacher began inquiringly.
“Alan,” he said, and he shook her hand. “Friend of the family.”
There were not so many hillwalkers on a weekday afternoon in October, but Sin took Alan out to a field near where the Market wagons were assembled anyway, where people would be discouraged by all the don’t-notice-us charms and inclined to overlook whatever was going on without exactly knowing why.
Unfortunately, this meant that when she was setting up targets and Alan was trying out different bows the rest of the Market decided to wander by and take an interest. Jonas started to shoot in order to impress Chiara. Phyllis came and told Alan she hoped he was eating right, and Sin had to hide her smile behind her quiverful of arrows.
“Can I borrow him for a moment, Phyllis?” she asked after she was done grinning like a fool. “I promise I’ll return him. I know he’d be devastated if I didn’t.”
Alan gave her a reproachful look. Sin gave him a dazzling smile and a longbow.
She’d changed out of her school uniform into jeans and a bandanna. It was mostly for practicality but partly to see if being the daughter of the Market—someone who the older ones still sometimes called by her father’s childhood nickname of Thea—was the role Alan would warm to rather than Sin the dancer or Cynthia the schoolgirl. It was funny, which presentations of herself boys sometimes went for.
He hadn’t seemed to notice, though, so she’d decided to be all business.
“This is your most traditional kind of bow,” Sin said. “Not allowed at the Olympics. Pretty difficult to shoot. Best one if you want to kill people. I figured you’d like it.”
“I do like a challenge,” said Alan. “Though I weep for my Olympic dreams.”
He turned the longbow over in his hands as if it was a musical instrument, gentle and a little curious, the same way he touched everything. Then he laid it down on the grass, shrugged off his shirt so he was in only a T-shirt, and slid on a shooting glove. He picked the bow back up again.
“Okay,” he said. “Show me.”
“Right,” said Sin. “So—feet about a shoulder’s width apart, do what you need to do to be steady.”
She didn’t exactly know how to position someone whose balance was necessarily always off, and she was mortified to realize she was a bit flustered as well. There was obviously something to the way the Victorians had kept women all covered up so guys swooned at the sight of an ankle. Sin saw boys in T-shirts every hour of the day, but she’d never seen Alan in one. It struck her more than it really should have.
He wasn’t coiled with muscle like his brother, but he was lean when Sin had thought he was thin, shoulders strong, back a taut arch like the bow. If it hadn’t been for his leg, Sin would’ve thought he looked like a dancer.