“It happened like I said,” Jamie insisted. “They came. And Celeste died.”
“And you, with the demon’s power, you couldn’t do a thing to stop it?”
Gerald almost smiled.
Jamie said, “Maybe I could have.”
That shocked Gerald, Sin noticed, sending a jolt through him that seeing Celeste dead hadn’t. Now Jamie was the only one who looked calm, standing on the deck with a ring of people around him whose murmurs were turning louder and fiercer than the dying storm.
“She let my mother die,” Jamie continued. “She wasn’t my leader. You are.”
“Is that so?” Gerald asked. “And how am I supposed to trust you, if you would stand aside and let one of our own die?”
The sky was so thickly overcast, everyone’s skin looked gray. Gerald took a step forward.
He loomed over Jamie, his shadow falling over Jamie’s face and quenching the glittering light of his eyes. The boat lurched on the river, and Sin felt cold hit her skin. She twisted around and saw trails of dark water snaking across the rail, over her own body, toward where Gerald stood.
“Where’s Celeste’s pearl?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie whispered.
“You let a fellow magician be killed. You let the symbol of the Aventurine Circle be stolen. You realize that I should execute you.”
Four glistening black lines of river water crawled their way up Gerald’s trouser leg, trailing from his shoulder to his right hand. The water wrapped around Gerald’s fingers, which he lifted to Jamie’s face.
“I could drown you in an inch of water,” Gerald said.
Threads of water touched Jamie’s face, sealing his mouth like a transparent gag. He glanced around for support, and then water crisscrossed behind his neck and held him in place.
“He isn’t lying,” Seb said. “Everything happened just like he said. He couldn’t have saved Celeste. Neither of us knows where the pearl went.”
Nick stepped up behind Jamie, and the water dissolved into silver smoke.
Gerald’s hand stayed uplifted, wreathed in the smoke.
“It was a risk, taking you into the Circle at all,” he said. “Now a magician is dead. Give me a reason to trust you.”
When Jamie spoke he was gasping for breath a little, his face wet as if he had been crying.
“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.
Despair and fear came just the same, crashing through all the fragile barriers Sin could put in their way.
She could not see Phyllis’s face, only Nick’s, and it told her nothing.
“Do it slowly,” said Gerald.
Nick lifted a hand, and Phyllis started to cry.
He did it slowly.
When it was done, Phyllis was a crumpled heap on the deck. Sin’s bones were aching from being curled up so tight on the slick wet boards, the freezing press of her knives imprinted on her palms. The magicians had gone in to celebrate further, Gerald and Jamie walking in brilliant-eyed accord, Seb close by Jamie’s side. The only things left on deck besides Sin were the demon and the dead.
Nick watched as Sin rolled out from her hiding place beneath the shelf. He did not speak to her.
She did not know what to say to him, who had been made the Aventurine Circle’s slave, who had been betrayed by his friend, who had just killed someone without pity or flinching. There was blood in Phyllis’s bedraggled gray hair, but none on Nick’s hands.
They just waited together as the boat drifted slowly to the side of the river, until they reached the steps up to the street.
As they left the Queen’s Corsair, rain was still falling, through the darkness, into Celeste Drake’s open eyes.
12
Look on Tempests
TOBY AND LYDIE WERE SLEEPING BY THE TIME NICK AND SIN got back. Sin lay down on the bed for a while with her arms wrapped tight around Lydie, just the same.
Then she got into the shower. Her wrists were sore from the weight of the chains, and the muscles in her back were screaming. Being drenched in cold water after performing acrobatics hadn’t been particularly good for them.
The shower had amazing water pressure, though, and the hot points of water drummed relief into her skin. She emerged feeling a little better, drying off and leaving her hair a damp knot at the back of her neck. She slipped into the blue robe Mae had bought her, the silk cool against her heated skin, and was grateful for that little comfort.
When she entered the living room she saw Nick must have told them already. There was a pall hanging over the whole group. Alan looked white and strained, so close to ill Sin wondered if it was bad for his leg to be out in the rain. She didn’t know, and she didn’t know how to ask.
Mae was shivering, her na**d shoulders covered in gooseflesh, in long continuous shudders, as if she had not stopped shaking since they came inside.
Nick was at the window, watching them both.
“I don’t think you quite realize what you’ve done,” Alan was saying to Mae as Sin paused on the threshold.
“I did something I had to do,” Mae told him, lifting her chin. “I’ll take the consequences.”
“Like you took the gun?” Alan inquired. “And I don’t need to ask who gave it to you. Do you remember when Gerald’s first leader was alive, someone he didn’t like any more than he liked Celeste? I came in shooting, and the magicians panicked. Gerald didn’t panic. He didn’t create light, either, didn’t try to calm anyone down or offer advice. He lay down on the floor and let things happen until Arthur was dead, just as he wanted. All the members of Gerald’s original Circle were enchanted to withstand gunfire. He knew you had a grudge, he gave you a weapon that couldn’t harm anybody who was on his side, and he did the same thing he’s done before. He let things happen until Celeste was dead, until everything was just as he wanted. You gave him just what he wanted.”
“You think I don’t know that? He gave me just what I wanted,” Mae told Alan fiercely. “He gave me a clear shot at Celeste. I took it. I’m not sorry. I wanted revenge, and I wanted to hurt the Circle. I did, even if Gerald doesn’t realize it yet. The Market can’t depend on its leader anymore; well, neither can our enemies. We’re on equal ground again.”
Alan put his hand up to his forehead, trying to press worry lines away. “And you didn’t think of mentioning any of this reasoning to us? You didn’t think that taking a gun from Gerald Lynch was worth a mention?”
“A funny thing happens when you don’t trust people with your plans, Alan,” Mae said distantly. “They don’t trust you with theirs, either. If you came to me for help, I would do anything I could to help you. If it came down to it, I would die for you. But I have absolutely no obligation to be honest with you. We both know that.”
“Yeah,” Alan said, sounding quieter suddenly, even though his voice had not been loud before. “We do. I’m sorry, Mae.”
“You just wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing,” Mae said dryly. “Well. I mostly sort of do. Trust me.”
Alan said, “I try.”