Sarah Rees Brennan's Blog, page 17
December 8, 2010
Half A Christmas Present!
It is the season, and so of course I have been preparing a gift for my loyal and lovely fans. Because you, like many celebrities who use L'Oreal, are worth it.
Unfortunately such is my zeal at present-making that the present has become unacceptably long. Hence half now, half later!
With thanks to all those who have read The Demon's Lexicon and The Demon's Covenant, then, I bid you happy Christmas and present you with...
Being terrorised by one demon was bad luck: it could've happened to anyone.
Being terrorised by two meant there was something wrong with Jamie himself. He was obviously giving off some sort of signals. Like 'Easy Prey' or 'Catnip for Demons' or 'Makes Hilarious Whimpering Noises When Threatened.'
A knife whizzed through the air, two inches from his face. Jamie made a whimpering noise and hit the deck.
Nick did not look notably amused. And in the time it had taken Jamie to turn his head and look at him, he'd got out another knife. Where was he keeping all his knives? He wore quite form-fitting clothes!
Jamie felt like he wasn't helping himself, here.
"Can you please stop throwing knives?" he asked in a hollow voice.
"Can you tell me how I'm supposed to teach you how to throw knives without throwing knives?" Nick demanded.
Jamie was about to snap back that he didn't want to be taught how to throw knives, when he remembered that he'd agreed to come to Nick's house so he could be taught to throw knives.
Just like he'd agreed to be friends with Nick.
There was something wrong with Jamie, and it was the fact that he was stupid. How could anyone be friends with Nick? It was one of those ideas that was manifestly terrible, like French-kissing a barracuda.
But Jamie had said yes, because his brain was terrible. He'd said yes to being friends because he didn't have any friends. And he'd said yes to coming over to have missiles of doom thrown about in his vicinity, because his sister was dating his worst enemy and there was nowhere else he could go.
He was stupid, and worse than that, he was pathetic.
Nick stood looking down at him, messy black hair whipped around by the wind. Jamie tried to make out an expression on his face, but couldn't. He wondered why Nick spent all his time messing around with weaponry when he'd obviously be amazing at poker.
"Are you going to stay there on the ground having a conversation with yourself in your brain?" Nick asked. He didn't sound particularly interested in the answer.
"I might," Jamie said warily. "I happen to be a sparkling brain conversationalist. Are you going to be throwing any more knives?"
"Is there something you'd rather do?"
"Uh," Jamie said. "Almost anything? See what's on TV? Go to the movies like normal people?"
"If you throw a knife that hits the target, we can go to the movies," Nick said.
"Flying a kite," Jamie suggested desperately. "That might be a lark! What do you say!"
Nick threw a knife in Jamie's direction.
Jamie waited for the red flashes going on and off behind his eyes, like psychic police car lights, to fade away before he said, very carefully: "Have I offended you in some way? Do you hate kites?"
"What?" said Nick.
Jamie was still staring at the knife, blade embedded in the earth a centimeter away from his hand.
"You threw a knife at me."
"Have you been stabbed?" Nick asked. "No? Then I didn't throw a knife at you. I threw a knife to you."
"You're a demon," Jamie said reproachfully. "Surely you shouldn't be playing cruel vocabulary games with me."
That sounded a little bit racist against demons, though Jamie wasn't actually sure if it was possible to be racist against demons, since demons ran around killing humans all the time and thus humans had a right to complain about them.
He glanced up and Nick didn't seem to be offended. He was just looking at the knife, in a way that was either intense because maybe Nick loved the knife, or expectant because maybe Nick thought Jamie should pick it up.
Jamie picked up the knife, gingerly. It felt all heavy and dangerous.
"I think this is a bad idea," he said. "I could hit a squirrel. Or a King Charles spaniel. Or a tot with curly locks."
"Could you?" Nick said. "I'd be surprised."
Nick's voice was either monotone or deadpan. It was so hard to tell which.
Jamie looked at the target, which Nick had decreed was a tree. It was kind of a skinny, sad-looking tree, backed up against the fence. Nick had been throwing knives at it for ages. That couldn't be good, horticulturally speaking.
Jamie told himself to stop empathizing with a tree, closed his eyes, and threw.
"Did I hit something?" he asked, leaping up immediately afterward. "Was it a squirrel?"
Nick was already strolling over to retrieve his knife from the daisies where it lay. Daisies cut off in their prime by Jamie's murderous hand.
"You're lethal, all right," Nick said.
"I don't want to be."
Nick picked up the knife, wiped it absently and tucked it away in some sort of little pocket at the shoulder of his T-shirt. He regarded Jamie: Jamie feared there was an extra layer of emptiness behind Nick's black eyes right now.
When someone was consistently impassive, it was hard not to get the feeling he was bored of you, and contemptuous of everything about you.
"Do you want to see my car," Nick said.
"Um," Jamie said. "Sure?"
He was pretty sure Nick didn't mean in the sense of 'via being run over by it' although given Nick's knife-throwing ways, it was hard to be sure.
Nick led the way, Jamie cautiously following him, and he threw open the dented tin side of his garage. There was a sort of skeleton car inside, looking like it needed to be put out of its misery and put in the great junkyard in the sky.
"Oh," Jamie said. "Oh, cool."
"It's an Aston Martin Vanquish," Nick said.
He might as well have said 'it is a trifle made of giraffes' for all the sense that made to Jamie.
"Really? Awesome," Jamie said.
Nick said a few curt things about superficial repairs, and the engine still being sound – which Jamie thought was good – but it needed new brakes – bad, Jamie was sure brakes were important – but some other stuff about cables and obsolete carburetors and at this point Nick was basically speaking Car Esperanto as far as Jamie was concerned.
"Wow," Jamie said. "That's so interesting."
Nick's face was shadowed by the car bonnet, but Jamie was prepared to bet being able to see it wouldn't have helped him anyway.
"It still needs a lot of work," Nick said.
"I can see that," Jamie said. "But I have every faith you can totally kick that car's ass. But as you say there's a lot of work to do! So I'd better leave you to it, then."
There was a pause. Jamie wasn't sure if this was one of the regular pauses that happened when trying to hold a conversation with Nick, or if this was the pause of even Nick being able to recognise that this little get-together had gone incredibly badly.
"I can drive you back," Nick offered, in his unenthusiastic monotone. Jamie was certain it was a monotone this time.
"Oh no," said Jamie. "I don't want to be a bother."
"Okay," Nick said. "Go."
"Oh," said Jamie. "Oh, okay. Bye."
Nick and Alan lived in a seriously nasty part of Exeter. Jamie got offered drugs on a street corner in broad daylight, and was a bit scandalised. He found himself laughing nervously and saying: "I just have so many drugs right now!" before he backed away.
He wished, a bit, that he'd taken Nick up on his offer, but then he would not have been able to do what he was planning to do.
He told himself that he was just going to arrive at the door, report that Nick and Alan were in Exeter and they had a plan to take down the magicians, try to get the Obsidian Circle to leave without bloodshed. Avoiding bloodshed and conflict was a worthy goal.
Only of course, Laura opened the door of the house, and people nodded at him and smiled as he went by them in the halls, and Gerald was there, in a room filled with light, a piano open that he left immediately on seeing Jamie.
He smiled and said: "I'm glad you're here."
*
Gerald took the news that there was an all-powerful demon plus his adopted brother who made Machiavelli look disorganised after him very casually.
"So you're not planning to, um, flee Exeter?" Jamie asked.
Gerald laughed. "Don't tell me you're disappointed."
In some ways, Jamie was very disappointed. It would solve a lot of his problems if the magicians disappeared, the dilemma of wanting to be welcome and wanting to be good, the fact that Mae was preparing to battle to save him again and this time he felt much more conflicted about being saved.
"Um," Jamie said, brilliantly. "So do you, um, play the piano?"
One part of Jamie's brain was observing wistfully that Gerald was musical as well as having a dreamy Irish accent and looking nice in blue. The other part of Jamie's brain was screaming that yes, Gerald probably killed people very attractively as well.
He wondered if he could find a mad scientist who would replace his brain in some sort of lightning-based experiment.
"No," said Gerald. "I don't have to. How are you feeling about the return of the Ryves brothers?"
He asked gently, as if he really minded how Jamie was feeling, and Jamie crossed his arms over his chest, skirting around the piano and sitting on the window seat, half-way across the room from Gerald.
"Fine," he answered. "I like them. They did help save my life this one time."
"Of course," Gerald said. "You feel like you owe them. But knowing the truth about what Nick is can't be easy. Our kind and his kind are natural enemies."
Our kind, allying himself with Jamie, on his side where few people cared to be.
"Just like all regular humans hate magicians," Jamie said coldly.
Gerald's voice remained very gentle. "How are things with your sister?"
Jamie was about to demand if Gerald was spying on him when he remembered, evil magicians on a mission, of course he was spying on him.
Added to which, of course Seb had told Gerald about Mae or about anything else Gerald wanted to know, because after two years of hating the sight of Jamie and refusing to ever mention magic Seb had now decided magic was awesome.
Because now a gang of murderers could do magic, rather than the weird gay kid. And Seb liked nothing more than being part of a gang.
And Jamie was really one to talk, since he'd come to the murderers' house for the experience of having people nod and smile at him as if they wanted him there.
Gerald did not push his point any further. He came around the piano and came to sit by Jamie, leaning against him easily and unselfconsciously, in a way guys didn't act around Jamie usually.
Jamie looked up at him, the few golden freckles on the bridge of Gerald's nose, and his breath caught.
Jamie kind of missed the unreasoning terror he'd felt at the mere thought of the Obsidian Circle a few weeks ago.
This was the dumbest crush Jamie had ever, ever had. Worse than having a thing for Mark Skinner for an entire year after he'd joined Seb's gang, worse than certain thoughts about the Ryves brothers, worse than his mum's onetime boyfriend Cliff.
"Want me to show you why I don't need to play the piano?" Gerald asked, and Jamie found himself shyly nodding.
And music exploded around them, like light at sunrise, music of all kinds and no kind at all, like the soul of music or like Gerald had a Carnegie hall level orchestra hidden behind the curtains. Music and magic rolled warm over Jamie's skin and sank into his pores and he wanted to dance, but didn't move away from the leaning warmth of Gerald's body.
He'd wanted to learn to play the guitar, once. He'd been really bad at it. He'd been even worse at the recorder. Mae had been pretty good, but she'd got bored, so they both quit.
Gerald leaned into him again. Jamie's heart took an abrupt leap into his throat and beat hard, and he blinked up at Gerald's glinting-gold eyelashes.
"Now you try," said Gerald.
"Uh," said Jamie. He wondered if he was meant to make like Christine in the Phantom of the Opera and start addressing passionate appeals to the Spirit of Music. Hopefully not in a flowing negligee.
"Just concentrate," Gerald urged. "Think about the way the world would be, if it was all sound. And be confident in your ability to make the world like that. I know what you can do. You can make the world be any way you want it to be."
Jamie doubted that very much, but he didn't want to let Gerald down. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and thought about changing the world.
When he opened his eyes, the world was changed. as if it was as easy as that, as if it always had been. His vision was hazy, light changing to liquid brimming the window, drops of water on the glass turning into diamonds, and the whole world was singing. The room washed back and forth with magic and sound.
The music died as the sun went down, and Gerald smiled at him as if Jamie was something special, important: someone he did not want to do without.
Into the silence, Gerald said: "And that's why I'm not leaving Exeter until you're ready to come with me."
"I have to go," Jamie said.
He escaped out into the cool darkness of the hallway and almost ran into the one person in the Circle house who was never pleased to see him.
Seb took a hasty step back, green eyes going wide, and caught off guard and thinking of magic Jamie vividly recalled the moment he'd first seen Seb, the overwhelming sensation that this is someone like me, this is someone who can do magic – like the Ugly Duckling must have felt, seeing his first fellow swan. And there had been a little extra jolt there too: wow, and he is really cute.
Then Seb had opened his mouth, launched two years of incessant torment, and ruined everything.
It was different now. Jamie had felt that shock of recognition with every magician in this house.
He'd felt it with Gerald, the second magician he'd ever met. When they had first met Gerald had been tied to a chair. Jamie hoped his subsequent crush didn't mean that Jamie had secret fetishes, finding a boyfriend seemed impossible enough already.
Seb looked at Jamie for a moment, then spoke.
"Come around to the idea of joining up?"
"Yep," Jamie said. "I'm totally going to be an evil magician. I hope you don't mind, they said since we're the two newest members we have to share a room? Apparently there are going to be bunk beds."
He sneered and shoved past Seb.
If he was being fair, he might have to admit that things were probably pretty bad for Seb at home, since he'd moved in with the evil magicians a week after meeting them.
Except that actually, Jamie had no interest in being fair to Seb.
It made Jamie worry that he was a terrible person. He resented Seb for being awful to him so much more than Gerald for murdering people.
He was kind of terrible, though. He remembered what Mark Skinner had said to him, two years ago, that he wasn't Jamie's friend anymore not only because of Seb and because of the whole used to secretly kiss thing, but because Jamie was always holding back.
Lying to everyone. And he was still lying, he thought as he walked down the street to home. He couldn't imagine ever telling Mum that he was a magician, not when she had just started to like him again.
He was angry with his sister for dating Seb, and yet he was lying to her too, lying to her again. He wasn't about to tell her that her new boyfriend could do magic.
He couldn't do it, any more than he could have told anyone about kissing Mark back in the day. He had spent his life feeling sick whenever he feared discovery of his magic. He couldn't tell a secret that wasn't his.
He'd never been brave enough even to tell the secret that was his.
Mae was the brave one. Jamie had always wished he was brave like her, that he could've been the one who was okay at recorder, that he'd been able to attract people – friends well as boys – to her in the same way. Everyone always liked Mae best.
All that time he couldn't ever be jealous of his sister, partly because he loved her, and he wanted her to have every good thing in the world, and she was the only person he could be certain loved him. And partly because he knew that everyone was right. Mae was better than he was. Mae was honest, and brave, and loyal and true.
The thing he'd wished most was that he was like Mae, and had nothing to hide.
When he got inside, he ran a bath, and scrubbed as if magic really had got into his pores, and he could somehow get it out. He dunked his head underwater until his ears buzzed and his lungs burned.
They used to dunk witches because they said they couldn't drown.
He didn't tap on Mae's door. Even if he didn't have a right to be angry with her, he was.
*
At school on Monday, Jamie kept glancing over at Nick, who had thrown himself into the chair beside Jamie's when they got to class.
He wasn't sure how to handle things. Nobody had ever got themselves stabbed in the liver for Jamie before.
He wasn't that surprised that Nick would kill for him, because honestly he thought Nick would probably kill for gum. But suffering for him felt different.
He'd already thanked him. He wasn't sure what else to do.
Jamie was starting to feel dumb. When Nick had said 'want to be friends' he might have meant it.
Obviously he had meant it. Nick actually never said anything he didn't mean.
The thing was, Jamie felt like he'd just accidentally taken on a lot of responsibility. He'd agreed to be friends. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. He'd offered the idea of doing homework together, but it didn't seem like much.
He seriously did not want to be stabbed in the liver.
Jamie glanced over at Nick again, and saw Nick's indifferent black and white profile.
"Stop twitching," Nick drawled. "You're the one who wanted to sit in the front."
"What's wrong with sitting in the front?" Jamie asked nervously.
"Nothing," Nick said. "Just a different view for me."
It was a bit of a relief when the teacher came in, and started telling them about Pride and Prejudice.
Jamie spent the class thinking uneasily that Nick making him throw knives and showing him that car had been something like what little kids did when they were too young to know how to make friends, lining up their toys solemnly for another kid to see.
At the end of class, Jamie asked: "Did you have any toys as a child?"
Nick gave him a blank look, but all Nick's looks were blank, so it didn't disturb Jamie overmuch. "I had some," he answered, and volunteered: "I broke them. They annoyed me."
Jamie wasn't touching that one.
"So Pride and Prejudice!" he said.
Nick rolled his eyes. "We were doing Jane Eyre in London," he said. "What a pain."
"I hadn't thought about the fact moving around all the time would be hell on homework," said Jamie. "And you're, you know, you hate reading, because you're a – spy. It's pretty excellent that you've been able to keep up with the classes."
"Few teachers passed me because I creeped them out," Nick said calmly. "And one teacher passed me for something else."
Jamie blinked. "That's scandalous, that is," he said. "If you mean what I think you mean. Do you mean what I think you mean?"
Nick nodded, shoving his books back into his bag.
"Scandalous!" Jamie repeated. "Actually that should be reported. That's not right. You're a student. That means you were taken advantage of by an authority figure."
"Some day the pain and shame will pass," Nick said.
"You mustn't do it again," Jamie said. "Pride and Prejudice is a pretty good book, actually. I mean I haven't read a lot of books. I start a lot of them and then give up. But I'm going to finish this one. It's actually pretty funny. It's all about this bunch of sisters and their loopy parents. Also a load of hot soldiers that they just put in town for the girls, like, I don't know, a buffet."
"The teacher didn't say anything about a hot soldier buffet," Nick observed.
Jamie riffled through his copy.
"A-hem-hem," he said, and did a Regency voice. "'It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep.' So you see, they're taking the hot soldier buffet away, and all the girls are listening to emo music and being like 'I hate you, I hate you, nothing matters anymore' to their parents."
"I see," Nick said.
"This is literary analysis," Jamie said proudly.
"Go on," Nick said.
Jamie realised he was being slightly demonically-herded to geography class when he was in the middle of his speculations about Lydia Bennet's Goth phase.
*
Having someone to sit with in class and at lunch was really nice, but Jamie was entirely unprepared for the experience of being Nick's partner in PE.
For one thing, Mr Cathcart almost cried about Nick refusing to join the football team.
"You're wasting your God-given talents, boy."
"I don't play team sports," Nick said shortly.
"You have the physique of a Greek god," Mr Cathcart continued mournfully. "Or better: a young George Best!"
Jamie made a face after Mr Cathcart as he went. "So I think you're in there," he said. "But I urge you not to become involved in any more sordid student/teacher affairs."
"Don't be ridiculous," Nick said, and tossed Jamie a volleyball. "It's not like I'm going to fail PE."
Mr Cathcart did not at any point say that Jamie had the physique of a Greek god. In fact, the only thing he said to Jamie was after Jamie flopped backward on the trampoline, wheezing feebly.
"Bit out of condition there, lad!"
"That's all right," Nick said, dribbling a volleyball with what Jamie recognised was casual expertise, and also devilish intent to torture Mr Cathcart. "He's going to start running every day."
"No, I'm not," Jamie protested. "Why would you lie to the gym teacher like that? Now he's going to expect me to get all fit and climb his stupid ropes."
Nick gave him another especially blank look, and said: "I don't lie."
Jamie might have made up with Mae, because they could never stay mad at each other for longer than two days, and Mae might be going out with Seb, which forced Seb to try and make nice with Jamie. But that didn't mean Jamie was under any obligation to make nice back.
After all, Seb was motivated by the desire to get with Mae, which was selfish and nefarious of him.
So Jamie felt it was his brotherly duty to refuse lifts from Seb. It was also possibly his brotherly duty to make obscene gestures, but that hadn't occurred to him at the time.
He did get a certain amount of satisfaction in accepting a lift from Nick directly afterward.
"I hate that guy," Nick said, nodding in the direction of the car ahead of him.
"Aw, Nick, we have something in common!"
Nick did not look particularly pleased by this news. "He's a liar and a coward."
Jamie hesitated. "So am I."
Nick glanced at Jamie. It was odd for Nick to look at him, once he'd established he was there. Jamie thought it might be some kind of Nick version of hesitance.
"You're not like McFarlane," Nick said eventually. "You're not scared of the same kind of things at all."
Jamie wondered if Nick could tell that Seb was a magician. Probably not, he thought: Nick had been able to tell with Gerald, but he hadn't been able to tell with Jamie, not before Jamie started doing so much magic.
It wasn't like it was with magicians, with a demon and a magician. There wasn't any of that radiant recognition. But there was a feeling.
At first Jamie had just thought that it was that Nick gave Jamie the creeps.
"Wait," Jamie said. "This isn't my way home."
"We're not going to your home," Nick told him. "We're going running."
"Let me out of this car."
Nick continued driving.
"This is kidnapping," Jamie said darkly.
*
Alan looked very tired when he got home that evening, but he smiled when he saw Jamie.
"What a nice surprise," he said. "Are you staying for dinner?"
He had a great smile, and a great voice. It was lucky he treated Jamie like Jamie was twelve years old, or Jamie would've had a crush on him before he discovered Alan was a crazy liar who tortured people sometimes and did creepy blood spells.
"I think I might have to," Jamie said meekly. "I can't move. Nick made me run."
"I can make dinner," Nick said.
Alan's eyes touched on Nick, and then moved away, back to Jamie, as if it gave Alan pain to look at his brother for too long.
"That's all right."
He limped out to the kitchen, leaving an uneasy silence behind him. Jamie didn't know how to ask how things had gone wrong between the Ryves brothers.
Nick probably wouldn't be able to answer and tell Jamie if he was upset.
"Do you want to watch the football?" Jamie asked. "How do you fancy Liverpool's chances?"
Nick stared at Jamie as if Jamie had begun to speak the ancient squeaky language of the mice.
"I've never watched football," he said eventually. "We can if you like."
Jamie had always kind of thought having a guy friend would mean having someone to watch football with.
He'd used to go to matches with his dad, even after the divorce. But then he'd turned thirteen and come out, and his dad had stopped taking him. He'd told his dad, hesitantly, that he did still like football, and Dad had said 'Of course you do, of course you do!' But Dad had never asked him again, just the same.
He turned on the football anyway. Alan came in and watched with the same level of total mystification Jamie suspected Nick was secretly feeling. He got out a book, and Nick started playing with his really sharp-looking knife.
They were both a disgrace to English manhood, but Liverpool did really well, and the curry was terrific.
*
Mark Skinner, the next day, said: "Chelsea were lousy last night," and Jamie was idiot enough to respond as if two years had rolled away and they'd never met Seb.
"Chelsea's always lousy compared to Liverpool."
He turned in his chair a moment later and found Mark and his thuggish pal Tim Graves both staring at him.
Mark smiled, a bit awkwardly, and said: "Still a Liverpool nutter, then?"
"Um, record for most European Cup victories," Jamie said. "Objectively the best team in England."
"You like football?" Seb said from the door.
He sounded as stunned and incredulous as if Jamie had announced that he liked eating babies with strawberry jam.
Jamie turned back around in his chair, and fixed his eyes on his copybook. "It is allowed," he remarked coolly.
He kept his eyes fixed on the copybook while Seb passed his desk. Then Seb hesitated and stopped, which ruined Jamie's plan to icily ignore him.
"Do you like-"
"Talking to you?" Jamie inquired, glancing up at him and then away. "No, I really don't."
"You heard him," Nick said, monotoning for England. "Move."
"You don't own him," Seb snapped.
Right then the teacher walked in, and Jamie was extremely glad to see her. Seb was a total idiot, but Jamie didn't want Nick to kill him.
*
Nick had lunchtime detention.
"What do you have detention for?" Jamie asked, appalled. "You've only been back a couple of days."
"I don't ask what the detentions are for anymore," Nick said. "They just happen."
It was dismaying how used Jamie had got, in half a week, to having someone to sit with at lunch. Mae was at some sort of student meeting about the environment, and so he was left strolling aimlessly about the playground until he stumbled on Mae's friend Erica.
She was sitting on a doorstep plaiting her long fair hair, and she looked up and looked delighted to see him.
She patted the doorstep invitingly. "Oh, hi."
"Hi there," Jamie said. "Not at the meeting?"
Erica looked nervous, which was Erica's default state. Erica was actually one of the few people who made Jamie look bold and daring by comparison. "I don't really," she said. "Well, I do care about the environment, of course, I do, but-"
"I get it," Jamie said. "I can never be bothered to recycle either."
Erica laughed. "I thought I'd spend lunchtime with Tim, but he's hanging around with all his friends, and honestly sitting in a group of guys smoking behind the bike shed isn't for me."
Jamie always forgot that nice Erica was going out with awful Tim.
"Men, eh? Can't live with them, can't kill them and sell their organs online."
Erica stared at him. Jamie reviewed his last joke in his head.
"Too far," he decided. "Sorry. I think I'm spending a bit too much time with Nick."
"That guy is scary," Erica said, her eyes going wide.
"I know, right," Jamie said comfortably. "You get used to the serial killer stare after a while."
Erica leaned over and laid her hand on Jamie's arm. "You don't have to hang out with him," she said earnestly. "You can hang out with us."
"With Tim and Seb and that?" Jamie asked, raising his eyebrows. "Pass."
"With just us girls," Erica urged. "We all like you, Jamie. Not just because you're Mae's brother. We could all go out dancing."
"Oh, I see how it is," Jamie said. "You only want me for my moves."
He seized the hand Erica had left on his arm and pulled her to her feet. She was quite a lot taller than he was, but he made dipping her work anyway. Erica came back up flushed and giggling, and they performed a few steps together, hands sliding down arms, feet scuffling in the gravel. Erica wasn't bad when you could get her to be less self-conscious.
She did the flirty dance moves that were easiest when you weren't remotely attracted to someone, and flipped open the top button of Jamie's shirt. Jamie made a scandalized face at her, then spun her, at which point Erica almost slammed into Tim's chest.
"Whoops," Erica said, still giggling. "Sorry, baby."
Tim wrapped his arm around Erica's waist. He was frowning at Jamie. "Are you making time with my girl?"
"Er," Jamie said. "Seriously, two years of persecution, and you don't know what you're persecuting me for?"
Tim looked unsure of what the word 'persecution' meant.
"You were all over her," remarked Seb, at Tim's shoulder.
"Stop it, Seb," Erica said, curling in to her boyfriend a little, as if snapping at Seb scared her a bit.
"Are you stupid?" Jamie asked. "No, wait, let me rephrase that. Exactly how stupid are you?"
Seb took a step forward, obscuring Jamie's view of Tim and Erica. "Oh, keep pushing me, Crawford."
"Okay!" said Jamie. "How about you tell me, you enormous idiot, what it is you find so upsetting about a girl and a guy dancing-"
"She was undressing you!" Seb yelled.
"Are you actually crazy?" Jamie demanded. "Are you having actual hallucinations?"
"If you weren't so rude," Seb said. "I was just trying to talk-"
"What? When? What? Is this another hallucination?"
"You and your stupid mouth-"
"Describe what you're seeing right now, McFarlane," Jamie suggested. "Are there aliens? How about turquoise unicorns? Do you see unicorns of any colour at all?"
It was at that point that the teacher came and put them both in lunch detention.
Nick raised his eyebrows as Jamie slunk in, and said: "Missed me, I see."
"Quiet," Ms Matthews ordered without looking up from her book.
"Yeah, Nick," Jamie said, cheer returning. "God. You just never shut up."
Nick snickered. Seb spent the detention glaring over at them both.
*
"Do you know where Mavis is?" Mum asked over dinner – Thai takeout tonight, Jamie's third favourite menu.
"Probably out with her new boyfriend," Jamie said, and made a face. "He is awful!"
Mum raised her tiny, strangely perfect eyebrows. "Quelle surprise."
"You're so classy, Mum, speaking in fancy Latin phrases," said Jamie, and laughed when Mum winced. Mum and Mae were both ridiculously smart, and it was occasionally hilarious to play up being the bimbo of the house.
"How bad is this one, on a scale of one to Darren?"
"I would say her worst yet," Jamie said.
Mum made a face of distaste, as when Jamie's fish had committed suicide and Mum had had to pick it up with the tongs and flush it down the loo. Jamie still wasn't sure what he'd done to drive Flipper to taking his own life.
"I would not have thought any human being could possibly be worse than that miscreant," Mum said.
Jamie was in full agreement. Darren had up until Seb been Mae's greatest triumph of her romantic optimism over her good sense.
Like all such triumphs, he hadn't lasted long. Jamie could still vividly recall the break-up.
"You've had enough of me?" Darren had shouted, backing out of Mae's bedroom while Jamie froze on the top step of the stairs and devoutly wished he was elsewhere. "I've had enough of you, you bitch! You've been with half my mates-"
"It's none of your business who I've been with, unless I was with someone else while I was with you," Mae had shouted from within the room. "Which I wasn't."
"And you dress like a slag," Darren yelled back.
"And it was never any of your business how I dress!"
"Whatever," Darren said, storming down the stairs as if Jamie wasn't there. "All you were ever good for was-"
Jamie had just wanted him to stop hurling unacceptable filth at Mae.
But that wasn't true, was it, it was another of the lies Jamie was constantly telling. He'd heard too many people talk like that, about girls, or gay people, or weird kids, or anyone: and this was Mae, who he loved best of all. He'd wanted something bad to happen to Darren, had thought viciously about him falling down the stairs and having his head smash against the marble floor at the bottom.
And Darren had gone flying as if someone very strong had given him a violent shove.
Jamie had pulled him back the next instant, terrified and taking it back, and Darren had seized the stair rail and staggered around, staring at Jamie. Jamie had gone still and small with terror, at what had almost happened, at how he'd betrayed himself.
That was when blessed, loud, stroppy Mae, who always made people look at her rather than Jamie, diverted attention by storming out onto the landing. The hair she'd worn brown with blue streaks in before she'd gone full-on pink was flying, and she hurled her jewelry box in Darren's face.
Darren had needed three stitches.
Jamie had sat beside Mae while Mum was telling her off, holding her hand tight, and known that he deserved much worse than Mae was getting.
He shivered.
"Are you quite all right, James?" Mum asked, blinking interrogatively at him.
She was sitting down eating dinner with him, just him, and she hadn't even opened her briefcase, though she'd sent it a few longing looks. Jamie fought the urge to put his head in her lap and howl, and tell her everything.
"Would you like to come to a football game with me, maybe, sometime?" he asked.
"Good God, no," said Mum.
"Right," said Jamie. "Right. Never mind."
Unfortunately such is my zeal at present-making that the present has become unacceptably long. Hence half now, half later!
With thanks to all those who have read The Demon's Lexicon and The Demon's Covenant, then, I bid you happy Christmas and present you with...
Being terrorised by one demon was bad luck: it could've happened to anyone.
Being terrorised by two meant there was something wrong with Jamie himself. He was obviously giving off some sort of signals. Like 'Easy Prey' or 'Catnip for Demons' or 'Makes Hilarious Whimpering Noises When Threatened.'
A knife whizzed through the air, two inches from his face. Jamie made a whimpering noise and hit the deck.
Nick did not look notably amused. And in the time it had taken Jamie to turn his head and look at him, he'd got out another knife. Where was he keeping all his knives? He wore quite form-fitting clothes!
Jamie felt like he wasn't helping himself, here.
"Can you please stop throwing knives?" he asked in a hollow voice.
"Can you tell me how I'm supposed to teach you how to throw knives without throwing knives?" Nick demanded.
Jamie was about to snap back that he didn't want to be taught how to throw knives, when he remembered that he'd agreed to come to Nick's house so he could be taught to throw knives.
Just like he'd agreed to be friends with Nick.
There was something wrong with Jamie, and it was the fact that he was stupid. How could anyone be friends with Nick? It was one of those ideas that was manifestly terrible, like French-kissing a barracuda.
But Jamie had said yes, because his brain was terrible. He'd said yes to being friends because he didn't have any friends. And he'd said yes to coming over to have missiles of doom thrown about in his vicinity, because his sister was dating his worst enemy and there was nowhere else he could go.
He was stupid, and worse than that, he was pathetic.
Nick stood looking down at him, messy black hair whipped around by the wind. Jamie tried to make out an expression on his face, but couldn't. He wondered why Nick spent all his time messing around with weaponry when he'd obviously be amazing at poker.
"Are you going to stay there on the ground having a conversation with yourself in your brain?" Nick asked. He didn't sound particularly interested in the answer.
"I might," Jamie said warily. "I happen to be a sparkling brain conversationalist. Are you going to be throwing any more knives?"
"Is there something you'd rather do?"
"Uh," Jamie said. "Almost anything? See what's on TV? Go to the movies like normal people?"
"If you throw a knife that hits the target, we can go to the movies," Nick said.
"Flying a kite," Jamie suggested desperately. "That might be a lark! What do you say!"
Nick threw a knife in Jamie's direction.
Jamie waited for the red flashes going on and off behind his eyes, like psychic police car lights, to fade away before he said, very carefully: "Have I offended you in some way? Do you hate kites?"
"What?" said Nick.
Jamie was still staring at the knife, blade embedded in the earth a centimeter away from his hand.
"You threw a knife at me."
"Have you been stabbed?" Nick asked. "No? Then I didn't throw a knife at you. I threw a knife to you."
"You're a demon," Jamie said reproachfully. "Surely you shouldn't be playing cruel vocabulary games with me."
That sounded a little bit racist against demons, though Jamie wasn't actually sure if it was possible to be racist against demons, since demons ran around killing humans all the time and thus humans had a right to complain about them.
He glanced up and Nick didn't seem to be offended. He was just looking at the knife, in a way that was either intense because maybe Nick loved the knife, or expectant because maybe Nick thought Jamie should pick it up.
Jamie picked up the knife, gingerly. It felt all heavy and dangerous.
"I think this is a bad idea," he said. "I could hit a squirrel. Or a King Charles spaniel. Or a tot with curly locks."
"Could you?" Nick said. "I'd be surprised."
Nick's voice was either monotone or deadpan. It was so hard to tell which.
Jamie looked at the target, which Nick had decreed was a tree. It was kind of a skinny, sad-looking tree, backed up against the fence. Nick had been throwing knives at it for ages. That couldn't be good, horticulturally speaking.
Jamie told himself to stop empathizing with a tree, closed his eyes, and threw.
"Did I hit something?" he asked, leaping up immediately afterward. "Was it a squirrel?"
Nick was already strolling over to retrieve his knife from the daisies where it lay. Daisies cut off in their prime by Jamie's murderous hand.
"You're lethal, all right," Nick said.
"I don't want to be."
Nick picked up the knife, wiped it absently and tucked it away in some sort of little pocket at the shoulder of his T-shirt. He regarded Jamie: Jamie feared there was an extra layer of emptiness behind Nick's black eyes right now.
When someone was consistently impassive, it was hard not to get the feeling he was bored of you, and contemptuous of everything about you.
"Do you want to see my car," Nick said.
"Um," Jamie said. "Sure?"
He was pretty sure Nick didn't mean in the sense of 'via being run over by it' although given Nick's knife-throwing ways, it was hard to be sure.
Nick led the way, Jamie cautiously following him, and he threw open the dented tin side of his garage. There was a sort of skeleton car inside, looking like it needed to be put out of its misery and put in the great junkyard in the sky.
"Oh," Jamie said. "Oh, cool."
"It's an Aston Martin Vanquish," Nick said.
He might as well have said 'it is a trifle made of giraffes' for all the sense that made to Jamie.
"Really? Awesome," Jamie said.
Nick said a few curt things about superficial repairs, and the engine still being sound – which Jamie thought was good – but it needed new brakes – bad, Jamie was sure brakes were important – but some other stuff about cables and obsolete carburetors and at this point Nick was basically speaking Car Esperanto as far as Jamie was concerned.
"Wow," Jamie said. "That's so interesting."
Nick's face was shadowed by the car bonnet, but Jamie was prepared to bet being able to see it wouldn't have helped him anyway.
"It still needs a lot of work," Nick said.
"I can see that," Jamie said. "But I have every faith you can totally kick that car's ass. But as you say there's a lot of work to do! So I'd better leave you to it, then."
There was a pause. Jamie wasn't sure if this was one of the regular pauses that happened when trying to hold a conversation with Nick, or if this was the pause of even Nick being able to recognise that this little get-together had gone incredibly badly.
"I can drive you back," Nick offered, in his unenthusiastic monotone. Jamie was certain it was a monotone this time.
"Oh no," said Jamie. "I don't want to be a bother."
"Okay," Nick said. "Go."
"Oh," said Jamie. "Oh, okay. Bye."
Nick and Alan lived in a seriously nasty part of Exeter. Jamie got offered drugs on a street corner in broad daylight, and was a bit scandalised. He found himself laughing nervously and saying: "I just have so many drugs right now!" before he backed away.
He wished, a bit, that he'd taken Nick up on his offer, but then he would not have been able to do what he was planning to do.
He told himself that he was just going to arrive at the door, report that Nick and Alan were in Exeter and they had a plan to take down the magicians, try to get the Obsidian Circle to leave without bloodshed. Avoiding bloodshed and conflict was a worthy goal.
Only of course, Laura opened the door of the house, and people nodded at him and smiled as he went by them in the halls, and Gerald was there, in a room filled with light, a piano open that he left immediately on seeing Jamie.
He smiled and said: "I'm glad you're here."
*
Gerald took the news that there was an all-powerful demon plus his adopted brother who made Machiavelli look disorganised after him very casually.
"So you're not planning to, um, flee Exeter?" Jamie asked.
Gerald laughed. "Don't tell me you're disappointed."
In some ways, Jamie was very disappointed. It would solve a lot of his problems if the magicians disappeared, the dilemma of wanting to be welcome and wanting to be good, the fact that Mae was preparing to battle to save him again and this time he felt much more conflicted about being saved.
"Um," Jamie said, brilliantly. "So do you, um, play the piano?"
One part of Jamie's brain was observing wistfully that Gerald was musical as well as having a dreamy Irish accent and looking nice in blue. The other part of Jamie's brain was screaming that yes, Gerald probably killed people very attractively as well.
He wondered if he could find a mad scientist who would replace his brain in some sort of lightning-based experiment.
"No," said Gerald. "I don't have to. How are you feeling about the return of the Ryves brothers?"
He asked gently, as if he really minded how Jamie was feeling, and Jamie crossed his arms over his chest, skirting around the piano and sitting on the window seat, half-way across the room from Gerald.
"Fine," he answered. "I like them. They did help save my life this one time."
"Of course," Gerald said. "You feel like you owe them. But knowing the truth about what Nick is can't be easy. Our kind and his kind are natural enemies."
Our kind, allying himself with Jamie, on his side where few people cared to be.
"Just like all regular humans hate magicians," Jamie said coldly.
Gerald's voice remained very gentle. "How are things with your sister?"
Jamie was about to demand if Gerald was spying on him when he remembered, evil magicians on a mission, of course he was spying on him.
Added to which, of course Seb had told Gerald about Mae or about anything else Gerald wanted to know, because after two years of hating the sight of Jamie and refusing to ever mention magic Seb had now decided magic was awesome.
Because now a gang of murderers could do magic, rather than the weird gay kid. And Seb liked nothing more than being part of a gang.
And Jamie was really one to talk, since he'd come to the murderers' house for the experience of having people nod and smile at him as if they wanted him there.
Gerald did not push his point any further. He came around the piano and came to sit by Jamie, leaning against him easily and unselfconsciously, in a way guys didn't act around Jamie usually.
Jamie looked up at him, the few golden freckles on the bridge of Gerald's nose, and his breath caught.
Jamie kind of missed the unreasoning terror he'd felt at the mere thought of the Obsidian Circle a few weeks ago.
This was the dumbest crush Jamie had ever, ever had. Worse than having a thing for Mark Skinner for an entire year after he'd joined Seb's gang, worse than certain thoughts about the Ryves brothers, worse than his mum's onetime boyfriend Cliff.
"Want me to show you why I don't need to play the piano?" Gerald asked, and Jamie found himself shyly nodding.
And music exploded around them, like light at sunrise, music of all kinds and no kind at all, like the soul of music or like Gerald had a Carnegie hall level orchestra hidden behind the curtains. Music and magic rolled warm over Jamie's skin and sank into his pores and he wanted to dance, but didn't move away from the leaning warmth of Gerald's body.
He'd wanted to learn to play the guitar, once. He'd been really bad at it. He'd been even worse at the recorder. Mae had been pretty good, but she'd got bored, so they both quit.
Gerald leaned into him again. Jamie's heart took an abrupt leap into his throat and beat hard, and he blinked up at Gerald's glinting-gold eyelashes.
"Now you try," said Gerald.
"Uh," said Jamie. He wondered if he was meant to make like Christine in the Phantom of the Opera and start addressing passionate appeals to the Spirit of Music. Hopefully not in a flowing negligee.
"Just concentrate," Gerald urged. "Think about the way the world would be, if it was all sound. And be confident in your ability to make the world like that. I know what you can do. You can make the world be any way you want it to be."
Jamie doubted that very much, but he didn't want to let Gerald down. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and thought about changing the world.
When he opened his eyes, the world was changed. as if it was as easy as that, as if it always had been. His vision was hazy, light changing to liquid brimming the window, drops of water on the glass turning into diamonds, and the whole world was singing. The room washed back and forth with magic and sound.
The music died as the sun went down, and Gerald smiled at him as if Jamie was something special, important: someone he did not want to do without.
Into the silence, Gerald said: "And that's why I'm not leaving Exeter until you're ready to come with me."
"I have to go," Jamie said.
He escaped out into the cool darkness of the hallway and almost ran into the one person in the Circle house who was never pleased to see him.
Seb took a hasty step back, green eyes going wide, and caught off guard and thinking of magic Jamie vividly recalled the moment he'd first seen Seb, the overwhelming sensation that this is someone like me, this is someone who can do magic – like the Ugly Duckling must have felt, seeing his first fellow swan. And there had been a little extra jolt there too: wow, and he is really cute.
Then Seb had opened his mouth, launched two years of incessant torment, and ruined everything.
It was different now. Jamie had felt that shock of recognition with every magician in this house.
He'd felt it with Gerald, the second magician he'd ever met. When they had first met Gerald had been tied to a chair. Jamie hoped his subsequent crush didn't mean that Jamie had secret fetishes, finding a boyfriend seemed impossible enough already.
Seb looked at Jamie for a moment, then spoke.
"Come around to the idea of joining up?"
"Yep," Jamie said. "I'm totally going to be an evil magician. I hope you don't mind, they said since we're the two newest members we have to share a room? Apparently there are going to be bunk beds."
He sneered and shoved past Seb.
If he was being fair, he might have to admit that things were probably pretty bad for Seb at home, since he'd moved in with the evil magicians a week after meeting them.
Except that actually, Jamie had no interest in being fair to Seb.
It made Jamie worry that he was a terrible person. He resented Seb for being awful to him so much more than Gerald for murdering people.
He was kind of terrible, though. He remembered what Mark Skinner had said to him, two years ago, that he wasn't Jamie's friend anymore not only because of Seb and because of the whole used to secretly kiss thing, but because Jamie was always holding back.
Lying to everyone. And he was still lying, he thought as he walked down the street to home. He couldn't imagine ever telling Mum that he was a magician, not when she had just started to like him again.
He was angry with his sister for dating Seb, and yet he was lying to her too, lying to her again. He wasn't about to tell her that her new boyfriend could do magic.
He couldn't do it, any more than he could have told anyone about kissing Mark back in the day. He had spent his life feeling sick whenever he feared discovery of his magic. He couldn't tell a secret that wasn't his.
He'd never been brave enough even to tell the secret that was his.
Mae was the brave one. Jamie had always wished he was brave like her, that he could've been the one who was okay at recorder, that he'd been able to attract people – friends well as boys – to her in the same way. Everyone always liked Mae best.
All that time he couldn't ever be jealous of his sister, partly because he loved her, and he wanted her to have every good thing in the world, and she was the only person he could be certain loved him. And partly because he knew that everyone was right. Mae was better than he was. Mae was honest, and brave, and loyal and true.
The thing he'd wished most was that he was like Mae, and had nothing to hide.
When he got inside, he ran a bath, and scrubbed as if magic really had got into his pores, and he could somehow get it out. He dunked his head underwater until his ears buzzed and his lungs burned.
They used to dunk witches because they said they couldn't drown.
He didn't tap on Mae's door. Even if he didn't have a right to be angry with her, he was.
*
At school on Monday, Jamie kept glancing over at Nick, who had thrown himself into the chair beside Jamie's when they got to class.
He wasn't sure how to handle things. Nobody had ever got themselves stabbed in the liver for Jamie before.
He wasn't that surprised that Nick would kill for him, because honestly he thought Nick would probably kill for gum. But suffering for him felt different.
He'd already thanked him. He wasn't sure what else to do.
Jamie was starting to feel dumb. When Nick had said 'want to be friends' he might have meant it.
Obviously he had meant it. Nick actually never said anything he didn't mean.
The thing was, Jamie felt like he'd just accidentally taken on a lot of responsibility. He'd agreed to be friends. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. He'd offered the idea of doing homework together, but it didn't seem like much.
He seriously did not want to be stabbed in the liver.
Jamie glanced over at Nick again, and saw Nick's indifferent black and white profile.
"Stop twitching," Nick drawled. "You're the one who wanted to sit in the front."
"What's wrong with sitting in the front?" Jamie asked nervously.
"Nothing," Nick said. "Just a different view for me."
It was a bit of a relief when the teacher came in, and started telling them about Pride and Prejudice.
Jamie spent the class thinking uneasily that Nick making him throw knives and showing him that car had been something like what little kids did when they were too young to know how to make friends, lining up their toys solemnly for another kid to see.
At the end of class, Jamie asked: "Did you have any toys as a child?"
Nick gave him a blank look, but all Nick's looks were blank, so it didn't disturb Jamie overmuch. "I had some," he answered, and volunteered: "I broke them. They annoyed me."
Jamie wasn't touching that one.
"So Pride and Prejudice!" he said.
Nick rolled his eyes. "We were doing Jane Eyre in London," he said. "What a pain."
"I hadn't thought about the fact moving around all the time would be hell on homework," said Jamie. "And you're, you know, you hate reading, because you're a – spy. It's pretty excellent that you've been able to keep up with the classes."
"Few teachers passed me because I creeped them out," Nick said calmly. "And one teacher passed me for something else."
Jamie blinked. "That's scandalous, that is," he said. "If you mean what I think you mean. Do you mean what I think you mean?"
Nick nodded, shoving his books back into his bag.
"Scandalous!" Jamie repeated. "Actually that should be reported. That's not right. You're a student. That means you were taken advantage of by an authority figure."
"Some day the pain and shame will pass," Nick said.
"You mustn't do it again," Jamie said. "Pride and Prejudice is a pretty good book, actually. I mean I haven't read a lot of books. I start a lot of them and then give up. But I'm going to finish this one. It's actually pretty funny. It's all about this bunch of sisters and their loopy parents. Also a load of hot soldiers that they just put in town for the girls, like, I don't know, a buffet."
"The teacher didn't say anything about a hot soldier buffet," Nick observed.
Jamie riffled through his copy.
"A-hem-hem," he said, and did a Regency voice. "'It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep.' So you see, they're taking the hot soldier buffet away, and all the girls are listening to emo music and being like 'I hate you, I hate you, nothing matters anymore' to their parents."
"I see," Nick said.
"This is literary analysis," Jamie said proudly.
"Go on," Nick said.
Jamie realised he was being slightly demonically-herded to geography class when he was in the middle of his speculations about Lydia Bennet's Goth phase.
*
Having someone to sit with in class and at lunch was really nice, but Jamie was entirely unprepared for the experience of being Nick's partner in PE.
For one thing, Mr Cathcart almost cried about Nick refusing to join the football team.
"You're wasting your God-given talents, boy."
"I don't play team sports," Nick said shortly.
"You have the physique of a Greek god," Mr Cathcart continued mournfully. "Or better: a young George Best!"
Jamie made a face after Mr Cathcart as he went. "So I think you're in there," he said. "But I urge you not to become involved in any more sordid student/teacher affairs."
"Don't be ridiculous," Nick said, and tossed Jamie a volleyball. "It's not like I'm going to fail PE."
Mr Cathcart did not at any point say that Jamie had the physique of a Greek god. In fact, the only thing he said to Jamie was after Jamie flopped backward on the trampoline, wheezing feebly.
"Bit out of condition there, lad!"
"That's all right," Nick said, dribbling a volleyball with what Jamie recognised was casual expertise, and also devilish intent to torture Mr Cathcart. "He's going to start running every day."
"No, I'm not," Jamie protested. "Why would you lie to the gym teacher like that? Now he's going to expect me to get all fit and climb his stupid ropes."
Nick gave him another especially blank look, and said: "I don't lie."
Jamie might have made up with Mae, because they could never stay mad at each other for longer than two days, and Mae might be going out with Seb, which forced Seb to try and make nice with Jamie. But that didn't mean Jamie was under any obligation to make nice back.
After all, Seb was motivated by the desire to get with Mae, which was selfish and nefarious of him.
So Jamie felt it was his brotherly duty to refuse lifts from Seb. It was also possibly his brotherly duty to make obscene gestures, but that hadn't occurred to him at the time.
He did get a certain amount of satisfaction in accepting a lift from Nick directly afterward.
"I hate that guy," Nick said, nodding in the direction of the car ahead of him.
"Aw, Nick, we have something in common!"
Nick did not look particularly pleased by this news. "He's a liar and a coward."
Jamie hesitated. "So am I."
Nick glanced at Jamie. It was odd for Nick to look at him, once he'd established he was there. Jamie thought it might be some kind of Nick version of hesitance.
"You're not like McFarlane," Nick said eventually. "You're not scared of the same kind of things at all."
Jamie wondered if Nick could tell that Seb was a magician. Probably not, he thought: Nick had been able to tell with Gerald, but he hadn't been able to tell with Jamie, not before Jamie started doing so much magic.
It wasn't like it was with magicians, with a demon and a magician. There wasn't any of that radiant recognition. But there was a feeling.
At first Jamie had just thought that it was that Nick gave Jamie the creeps.
"Wait," Jamie said. "This isn't my way home."
"We're not going to your home," Nick told him. "We're going running."
"Let me out of this car."
Nick continued driving.
"This is kidnapping," Jamie said darkly.
*
Alan looked very tired when he got home that evening, but he smiled when he saw Jamie.
"What a nice surprise," he said. "Are you staying for dinner?"
He had a great smile, and a great voice. It was lucky he treated Jamie like Jamie was twelve years old, or Jamie would've had a crush on him before he discovered Alan was a crazy liar who tortured people sometimes and did creepy blood spells.
"I think I might have to," Jamie said meekly. "I can't move. Nick made me run."
"I can make dinner," Nick said.
Alan's eyes touched on Nick, and then moved away, back to Jamie, as if it gave Alan pain to look at his brother for too long.
"That's all right."
He limped out to the kitchen, leaving an uneasy silence behind him. Jamie didn't know how to ask how things had gone wrong between the Ryves brothers.
Nick probably wouldn't be able to answer and tell Jamie if he was upset.
"Do you want to watch the football?" Jamie asked. "How do you fancy Liverpool's chances?"
Nick stared at Jamie as if Jamie had begun to speak the ancient squeaky language of the mice.
"I've never watched football," he said eventually. "We can if you like."
Jamie had always kind of thought having a guy friend would mean having someone to watch football with.
He'd used to go to matches with his dad, even after the divorce. But then he'd turned thirteen and come out, and his dad had stopped taking him. He'd told his dad, hesitantly, that he did still like football, and Dad had said 'Of course you do, of course you do!' But Dad had never asked him again, just the same.
He turned on the football anyway. Alan came in and watched with the same level of total mystification Jamie suspected Nick was secretly feeling. He got out a book, and Nick started playing with his really sharp-looking knife.
They were both a disgrace to English manhood, but Liverpool did really well, and the curry was terrific.
*
Mark Skinner, the next day, said: "Chelsea were lousy last night," and Jamie was idiot enough to respond as if two years had rolled away and they'd never met Seb.
"Chelsea's always lousy compared to Liverpool."
He turned in his chair a moment later and found Mark and his thuggish pal Tim Graves both staring at him.
Mark smiled, a bit awkwardly, and said: "Still a Liverpool nutter, then?"
"Um, record for most European Cup victories," Jamie said. "Objectively the best team in England."
"You like football?" Seb said from the door.
He sounded as stunned and incredulous as if Jamie had announced that he liked eating babies with strawberry jam.
Jamie turned back around in his chair, and fixed his eyes on his copybook. "It is allowed," he remarked coolly.
He kept his eyes fixed on the copybook while Seb passed his desk. Then Seb hesitated and stopped, which ruined Jamie's plan to icily ignore him.
"Do you like-"
"Talking to you?" Jamie inquired, glancing up at him and then away. "No, I really don't."
"You heard him," Nick said, monotoning for England. "Move."
"You don't own him," Seb snapped.
Right then the teacher walked in, and Jamie was extremely glad to see her. Seb was a total idiot, but Jamie didn't want Nick to kill him.
*
Nick had lunchtime detention.
"What do you have detention for?" Jamie asked, appalled. "You've only been back a couple of days."
"I don't ask what the detentions are for anymore," Nick said. "They just happen."
It was dismaying how used Jamie had got, in half a week, to having someone to sit with at lunch. Mae was at some sort of student meeting about the environment, and so he was left strolling aimlessly about the playground until he stumbled on Mae's friend Erica.
She was sitting on a doorstep plaiting her long fair hair, and she looked up and looked delighted to see him.
She patted the doorstep invitingly. "Oh, hi."
"Hi there," Jamie said. "Not at the meeting?"
Erica looked nervous, which was Erica's default state. Erica was actually one of the few people who made Jamie look bold and daring by comparison. "I don't really," she said. "Well, I do care about the environment, of course, I do, but-"
"I get it," Jamie said. "I can never be bothered to recycle either."
Erica laughed. "I thought I'd spend lunchtime with Tim, but he's hanging around with all his friends, and honestly sitting in a group of guys smoking behind the bike shed isn't for me."
Jamie always forgot that nice Erica was going out with awful Tim.
"Men, eh? Can't live with them, can't kill them and sell their organs online."
Erica stared at him. Jamie reviewed his last joke in his head.
"Too far," he decided. "Sorry. I think I'm spending a bit too much time with Nick."
"That guy is scary," Erica said, her eyes going wide.
"I know, right," Jamie said comfortably. "You get used to the serial killer stare after a while."
Erica leaned over and laid her hand on Jamie's arm. "You don't have to hang out with him," she said earnestly. "You can hang out with us."
"With Tim and Seb and that?" Jamie asked, raising his eyebrows. "Pass."
"With just us girls," Erica urged. "We all like you, Jamie. Not just because you're Mae's brother. We could all go out dancing."
"Oh, I see how it is," Jamie said. "You only want me for my moves."
He seized the hand Erica had left on his arm and pulled her to her feet. She was quite a lot taller than he was, but he made dipping her work anyway. Erica came back up flushed and giggling, and they performed a few steps together, hands sliding down arms, feet scuffling in the gravel. Erica wasn't bad when you could get her to be less self-conscious.
She did the flirty dance moves that were easiest when you weren't remotely attracted to someone, and flipped open the top button of Jamie's shirt. Jamie made a scandalized face at her, then spun her, at which point Erica almost slammed into Tim's chest.
"Whoops," Erica said, still giggling. "Sorry, baby."
Tim wrapped his arm around Erica's waist. He was frowning at Jamie. "Are you making time with my girl?"
"Er," Jamie said. "Seriously, two years of persecution, and you don't know what you're persecuting me for?"
Tim looked unsure of what the word 'persecution' meant.
"You were all over her," remarked Seb, at Tim's shoulder.
"Stop it, Seb," Erica said, curling in to her boyfriend a little, as if snapping at Seb scared her a bit.
"Are you stupid?" Jamie asked. "No, wait, let me rephrase that. Exactly how stupid are you?"
Seb took a step forward, obscuring Jamie's view of Tim and Erica. "Oh, keep pushing me, Crawford."
"Okay!" said Jamie. "How about you tell me, you enormous idiot, what it is you find so upsetting about a girl and a guy dancing-"
"She was undressing you!" Seb yelled.
"Are you actually crazy?" Jamie demanded. "Are you having actual hallucinations?"
"If you weren't so rude," Seb said. "I was just trying to talk-"
"What? When? What? Is this another hallucination?"
"You and your stupid mouth-"
"Describe what you're seeing right now, McFarlane," Jamie suggested. "Are there aliens? How about turquoise unicorns? Do you see unicorns of any colour at all?"
It was at that point that the teacher came and put them both in lunch detention.
Nick raised his eyebrows as Jamie slunk in, and said: "Missed me, I see."
"Quiet," Ms Matthews ordered without looking up from her book.
"Yeah, Nick," Jamie said, cheer returning. "God. You just never shut up."
Nick snickered. Seb spent the detention glaring over at them both.
*
"Do you know where Mavis is?" Mum asked over dinner – Thai takeout tonight, Jamie's third favourite menu.
"Probably out with her new boyfriend," Jamie said, and made a face. "He is awful!"
Mum raised her tiny, strangely perfect eyebrows. "Quelle surprise."
"You're so classy, Mum, speaking in fancy Latin phrases," said Jamie, and laughed when Mum winced. Mum and Mae were both ridiculously smart, and it was occasionally hilarious to play up being the bimbo of the house.
"How bad is this one, on a scale of one to Darren?"
"I would say her worst yet," Jamie said.
Mum made a face of distaste, as when Jamie's fish had committed suicide and Mum had had to pick it up with the tongs and flush it down the loo. Jamie still wasn't sure what he'd done to drive Flipper to taking his own life.
"I would not have thought any human being could possibly be worse than that miscreant," Mum said.
Jamie was in full agreement. Darren had up until Seb been Mae's greatest triumph of her romantic optimism over her good sense.
Like all such triumphs, he hadn't lasted long. Jamie could still vividly recall the break-up.
"You've had enough of me?" Darren had shouted, backing out of Mae's bedroom while Jamie froze on the top step of the stairs and devoutly wished he was elsewhere. "I've had enough of you, you bitch! You've been with half my mates-"
"It's none of your business who I've been with, unless I was with someone else while I was with you," Mae had shouted from within the room. "Which I wasn't."
"And you dress like a slag," Darren yelled back.
"And it was never any of your business how I dress!"
"Whatever," Darren said, storming down the stairs as if Jamie wasn't there. "All you were ever good for was-"
Jamie had just wanted him to stop hurling unacceptable filth at Mae.
But that wasn't true, was it, it was another of the lies Jamie was constantly telling. He'd heard too many people talk like that, about girls, or gay people, or weird kids, or anyone: and this was Mae, who he loved best of all. He'd wanted something bad to happen to Darren, had thought viciously about him falling down the stairs and having his head smash against the marble floor at the bottom.
And Darren had gone flying as if someone very strong had given him a violent shove.
Jamie had pulled him back the next instant, terrified and taking it back, and Darren had seized the stair rail and staggered around, staring at Jamie. Jamie had gone still and small with terror, at what had almost happened, at how he'd betrayed himself.
That was when blessed, loud, stroppy Mae, who always made people look at her rather than Jamie, diverted attention by storming out onto the landing. The hair she'd worn brown with blue streaks in before she'd gone full-on pink was flying, and she hurled her jewelry box in Darren's face.
Darren had needed three stitches.
Jamie had sat beside Mae while Mum was telling her off, holding her hand tight, and known that he deserved much worse than Mae was getting.
He shivered.
"Are you quite all right, James?" Mum asked, blinking interrogatively at him.
She was sitting down eating dinner with him, just him, and she hadn't even opened her briefcase, though she'd sent it a few longing looks. Jamie fought the urge to put his head in her lap and howl, and tell her everything.
"Would you like to come to a football game with me, maybe, sometime?" he asked.
"Good God, no," said Mum.
"Right," said Jamie. "Right. Never mind."
December 6, 2010
Egypt, Sarah Style
What have I been up to, internet?
Well, here is a summary of my doings of the year, the fact you should all watch the movie Easy A, and also things I cannot tell you yet.
Also, for those on a quest to collect all my writings ever (anyone? anyone? Bueller?) I am in a book of Irish authors translating Catullus with their own spin. You know, me and John Banville and Michael Longley. I'm fancy and learned like that.
Something even more fancy is the fact that my short story The Spy Who Never Grew Up has been selected as one of the stories in the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. The full list is there, but - wow. I mean, Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow and Ellen Kushner (not to mention Holly Black and Diana Peterfreund): they are really fancy people. Some days I feel all full of hope about this writing lark.
Of course, I told my loving parents about this, and...
FATHER: Oh, well done, Sarah! Well deserved! Is this the vampire in the boyband short story?
SARAH: No, the Peter Pan is a superspy for the Queen of England short story.
FATHER: ... Really?
SARAH: What?
FATHER: Well, I just really liked the vampires one.
SARAH: ...
FATHER: Peter Pan was good too...
SARAH: You're fired. Fired.
One other thing I have been up to is going to Egypt. It has always been the number one place I want to go. I have a job I can do while travelling. I do mainly travel for work, but I just kept thinking 'Why don't I go?' Added to which, I live with a lady who is a museum detective. So in the end, we went!
It ended up that we went right after our emergency house move, and when I was so exhausted from work I wasn't forming complete sentences, but this is Always The Way.
Going on holiday with a writer is a little bit like going on holiday with an art thief. (But without the police sirens blaring and the eventual imprisonment for being an accomplice. Well, usually without that, I'm not making any promises I can't keep.) I constantly trail around behind the group making notes of stuff I'll be stealing for stories later and climbing on things I shouldn't be climbing on. Get Down From That Antiquity, Writer Girl.
Going on holiday with a museum detective (this really is basically the Durham Lass's job description) is a much more informative and less mildly terrifying thing, and if the Durham Lass had a blog you would right now be enjoying descriptions of how you can tell if stones lying on the ground looking like any other stones are actually flint tools thousands of years old. But sadly you are stuck with me, making puns about the pharaohs.
I also play games like 'Winner of the Worst Royal Name' (King Snofru) and sing songs like 'Oh I do like to be amid the pyra, oh I do like to be amid the pyr!' (To the tune of 'Beside the seaside,' of course.)
Then there was the camel riding. The Durham Lass was given a frisky young camel who was trying to make friends with all the other camels. I am happy to say my camel was a sedate, mature animal, who spurned the Durham Lass's camel's advances. I named him Snofru.
CAMEL OWNER: Time to drop the camel leads and take your pictures!
DURHAM LASS: disappears into the desert on back of joyously free camel
SARAH: Oh my God. Snofru, stay still. Stay still like the wind. On a very calm day.
SNOFRU: stays still. Like the wind. On a very calm day.
SARAH: Good Snofru. Noble steed!
We saw Luxor Temple in the moonlight and Karnak Temple in the sunshine, colour still on some of the art on the walls and pillars.
We also saw the many, many statues of Ramses II. Ramses II was a dude who had a fairly good opinion of himself: he thought he was so awesome all the statues should be of him. So he basically went around the temples and made it so.
NOBLE: Man, this is one crazy hot statue. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'stone fox.'
RAMSES II: Excellent. Put my name on it.
NOBLE: Er - no, but you see, pharaoh, this statue is in fact a gi-
RAMSES II: Are you saying Pharaoh's not crazy hot?
NOBLE: No! No, I would never say that.
RAMSES II: Have you seen Pharaoh's guns?
NOBLE: Um.
RAMSES II: You know the rules. If you like it then you should put a plaque on it. A plaque saying 'Ramses II.'
NOBLE: ...
RAMSES II: It's good to be pharaoh.
Seeing the pyramids is strange and awe-inspiring: from a distance, from up close. They're vast and old, and it's odd to see those ancient golden lines cutting up the sky, and know the messages on them. Which are basically along the lines of 'Pharaoh Gazza Is Great.' Still, pyramids, graffiti, writing of all kinds, is a way to say 'I was here.' The difference is how you say it.
The pyramids say it kind of beautifully.
It's also amazing to see stars painted on the ceilings of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, and the Romanised catacombs in Alexandria, where poor little Anubis, jackal-headed god of the dead, has to wear laurel leaves and a fish tail. He's already got a jackal head, Roman army, stop destroying a god's chances with the ladies.
Speaking of the ladies, it is a different culture over there, and it was also a little strange to be so aware, as a lady, of whether your hair/elbows/knees were covered, and aware that if they weren't people would perceive you differently. But of course, to a different extent, this is the case everywhere. People just take more notice of girls' clothes/hair/what they call themselves/how they act. (This is even true about fictional girls, so there's no way for real girls to escape it!) All I can do is try not to do it myself.
... I did receive a truly magnificently terrible chat-up line in Egypt. It went: 'Hey, baby, I like your size.' My friends have been saying it nonstop since our return. Also - my mother.
From seeing the dawn pour like gold on the statues at Abu Simbel and reading Gothic novels in the sunshine going down the Nile, the Durham Lass and I flew back to Ireland and the worst blizzard of our lifetime.
DURHAM LASS: Why do these things always happen around you?
SARAH: I live in a force field of adventure! Excuse me I have to go put bed socks on my hands.
There you have it, ladies and gents. Latin poems and vampires, force fields of adventures and bed socks. More anon!
Well, here is a summary of my doings of the year, the fact you should all watch the movie Easy A, and also things I cannot tell you yet.
Also, for those on a quest to collect all my writings ever (anyone? anyone? Bueller?) I am in a book of Irish authors translating Catullus with their own spin. You know, me and John Banville and Michael Longley. I'm fancy and learned like that.
Something even more fancy is the fact that my short story The Spy Who Never Grew Up has been selected as one of the stories in the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. The full list is there, but - wow. I mean, Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow and Ellen Kushner (not to mention Holly Black and Diana Peterfreund): they are really fancy people. Some days I feel all full of hope about this writing lark.
Of course, I told my loving parents about this, and...
FATHER: Oh, well done, Sarah! Well deserved! Is this the vampire in the boyband short story?
SARAH: No, the Peter Pan is a superspy for the Queen of England short story.
FATHER: ... Really?
SARAH: What?
FATHER: Well, I just really liked the vampires one.
SARAH: ...
FATHER: Peter Pan was good too...
SARAH: You're fired. Fired.
One other thing I have been up to is going to Egypt. It has always been the number one place I want to go. I have a job I can do while travelling. I do mainly travel for work, but I just kept thinking 'Why don't I go?' Added to which, I live with a lady who is a museum detective. So in the end, we went!
It ended up that we went right after our emergency house move, and when I was so exhausted from work I wasn't forming complete sentences, but this is Always The Way.
Going on holiday with a writer is a little bit like going on holiday with an art thief. (But without the police sirens blaring and the eventual imprisonment for being an accomplice. Well, usually without that, I'm not making any promises I can't keep.) I constantly trail around behind the group making notes of stuff I'll be stealing for stories later and climbing on things I shouldn't be climbing on. Get Down From That Antiquity, Writer Girl.
Going on holiday with a museum detective (this really is basically the Durham Lass's job description) is a much more informative and less mildly terrifying thing, and if the Durham Lass had a blog you would right now be enjoying descriptions of how you can tell if stones lying on the ground looking like any other stones are actually flint tools thousands of years old. But sadly you are stuck with me, making puns about the pharaohs.
I also play games like 'Winner of the Worst Royal Name' (King Snofru) and sing songs like 'Oh I do like to be amid the pyra, oh I do like to be amid the pyr!' (To the tune of 'Beside the seaside,' of course.)
Then there was the camel riding. The Durham Lass was given a frisky young camel who was trying to make friends with all the other camels. I am happy to say my camel was a sedate, mature animal, who spurned the Durham Lass's camel's advances. I named him Snofru.
CAMEL OWNER: Time to drop the camel leads and take your pictures!
DURHAM LASS: disappears into the desert on back of joyously free camel
SARAH: Oh my God. Snofru, stay still. Stay still like the wind. On a very calm day.
SNOFRU: stays still. Like the wind. On a very calm day.
SARAH: Good Snofru. Noble steed!
We saw Luxor Temple in the moonlight and Karnak Temple in the sunshine, colour still on some of the art on the walls and pillars.
We also saw the many, many statues of Ramses II. Ramses II was a dude who had a fairly good opinion of himself: he thought he was so awesome all the statues should be of him. So he basically went around the temples and made it so.
NOBLE: Man, this is one crazy hot statue. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'stone fox.'
RAMSES II: Excellent. Put my name on it.
NOBLE: Er - no, but you see, pharaoh, this statue is in fact a gi-
RAMSES II: Are you saying Pharaoh's not crazy hot?
NOBLE: No! No, I would never say that.
RAMSES II: Have you seen Pharaoh's guns?
NOBLE: Um.
RAMSES II: You know the rules. If you like it then you should put a plaque on it. A plaque saying 'Ramses II.'
NOBLE: ...
RAMSES II: It's good to be pharaoh.
Seeing the pyramids is strange and awe-inspiring: from a distance, from up close. They're vast and old, and it's odd to see those ancient golden lines cutting up the sky, and know the messages on them. Which are basically along the lines of 'Pharaoh Gazza Is Great.' Still, pyramids, graffiti, writing of all kinds, is a way to say 'I was here.' The difference is how you say it.
The pyramids say it kind of beautifully.
It's also amazing to see stars painted on the ceilings of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, and the Romanised catacombs in Alexandria, where poor little Anubis, jackal-headed god of the dead, has to wear laurel leaves and a fish tail. He's already got a jackal head, Roman army, stop destroying a god's chances with the ladies.
Speaking of the ladies, it is a different culture over there, and it was also a little strange to be so aware, as a lady, of whether your hair/elbows/knees were covered, and aware that if they weren't people would perceive you differently. But of course, to a different extent, this is the case everywhere. People just take more notice of girls' clothes/hair/what they call themselves/how they act. (This is even true about fictional girls, so there's no way for real girls to escape it!) All I can do is try not to do it myself.
... I did receive a truly magnificently terrible chat-up line in Egypt. It went: 'Hey, baby, I like your size.' My friends have been saying it nonstop since our return. Also - my mother.
From seeing the dawn pour like gold on the statues at Abu Simbel and reading Gothic novels in the sunshine going down the Nile, the Durham Lass and I flew back to Ireland and the worst blizzard of our lifetime.
DURHAM LASS: Why do these things always happen around you?
SARAH: I live in a force field of adventure! Excuse me I have to go put bed socks on my hands.
There you have it, ladies and gents. Latin poems and vampires, force fields of adventures and bed socks. More anon!
November 15, 2010
Getting Published In Three Simple Steps
This post by Maureen Johnson about James Frey has enraged me to a point where I feel I must make a post telling everybody how to get published. (Finally - the secrets revealed!) Probably you will all find it childishly simple! But I think of it as Publishing 101. And maybe someone can email this link to people at Columbia.
1. Write a book.
This is a tremendous amount of time and work. Shutting yourself up away from your friends and family. Tapping away at computers and missing crucial bits of TV and movies. (Frequent refrain at Casa Shadowchurch: What just happened? What did she just do? Where'd that monkey come from?)
Complications To This Step: It doesn't always get you to step two. Oh my gosh no. I mean, I know some writers sell their first books - and well done them! - but even in their case, I doubt that book is the first piece of writing they've ever done. I bet there've been scribblings as a kid, beginnings of other books, poems.
And for most people, it's not the first book. I have written thirty-four books. I have published two and will unless disaster strikes publish a third. After that, who can say? I can say this: I will not be publishing all the books I've written. Many of them are bad. So so bad. Astronomically bad. Even if someone offered me a big truck full of money, I could not cope with the shame of knowing others would read those words. (Those words include such sentences as 'But was giving her the cut direct at Almack's enough? Embarrassment might be a bitter drink, Julia reflected, but not so bitter as that from the bottle on her papa's desk marked POISON.' Also the immortal line 'Suddenly, ninjas.')
So you slave away for a year or more, and you are left with a pile of paper that is good for nothing but the attic. It may take you a long time to realise this. Sometimes you will not give up, and you'll be right not to! Sometimes, though, you will have to table it. Shelve it. Shove it under the bed, and move to the next thing. Even though it really hurts. I still hear the voices of some characters in books I've had to put in the attic. (Shut up kids! I might revise you someday. Until then, no funny business up there.)
I have heard people say in horror 'You have to write a whole book?' Yes, you do. Already-successful writers can sell on proposal (summaries of novels, can be 1 to 60 pages long, I've seen both) but the vast majority of new writers have to write a whole book. And then they have to throw out that whole book and start all over again, with no consolation but 'Well - that's one book closer to The One. Maybe THIS one will be The One!' Like dating. Dating lots of different people you have made up in your brain.
My advice for what it is worth (this is free on the internet so - uh - nothing!) the writers I think are most likely to be successful are those who never give up on writing itself, but who can give up on a certain project. (Or thirty of them.)
2. Get a literary agent.
Sometimes people skip this step. They can if they like! If they are totally amazing at negotiating, then at contract language, then (if you haven't sold your foreign rights to your publisher) at finding good foreign publishers. Then you negotiate with them, and fiddle with those contracts. Next step, to movies, and finding the right people and getting a good contract! Also if you think whenever problems arise (I hate my cover/My book's publication date has been pushed back four years/My editor wants me to add Martians with probes in the middle of the love scene!) you will be able to deal with your publishers all by yourself and be perfectly cool, calm and collected in achieving your ends.
If all that is true, go ahead, and know you have my undying admiration. If it all sounds like it might be beyond your grasp or within your grasp but leave you with little time for actual writing, a literary agent is good to have.
Complications To This Step:Doesn't always get you to Step Three. Your agent will send your book to say, ten editors s/he's chosen. They may all say no. Next round! They may all say... And so on, until your agent may advise you to put that one on the shelf, as well.
Also other stuff can happen! The Lovely Kristin Nelson isn't my first agent. When I was seventeen, I had a literary agent in London. She very, very nearly sold a book of mine.
It was terrible. The heroine was reincarnated - with a totally different personality - every chapter. The publisher, I think, thought they could do something with it: total rewrite while still using Cute Little Me as a writer? I don't even know. But at the time, the suggestion of drastic changes sent me running screeching my cute little head off, because I Was A Genius, How Could They Not See? And so the publisher backed off in a hurry because I was obviously going to be a nightmare to work with.
Every writer who's ever signed a bad contract, there but for the grace of my seventeen year old delusions of genius go I. It's so, so tempting to seize desperately at any chance of publication. But think long term.
3. Get an editor.
Once you have a good, legitimate editor, you are PROBABLY going to get published. (Though if your editor gets fired, or someone embezzles all your publishing house's money...)
It may take a while. (Publishing dates get pushed back all the time for a million reasons.) It may also not turn out like you planned. Basically there is a whole new set of problems. But, you are published! Success! Step 4 - Maybe Profit! A Little!
Shortcuts To The Three Steps
Self-publish! It totally worked for Christopher Paolini!
... Name ten other people it worked for! Christopher Paolini had a lot of other factors weighing in there, plus he did end up getting published by a traditional publisher. Lightning can strike twice but it is awfully unlikely. I have a (very talented, and traditionally published too) writer friend who used amazon's self-publishing lark with a (wonderful) book of hers. So far she has made five dollars. (I am not exaggerating for humorous effect. Five sweet, sweet dollars.)
Be a celebrity!
Actually that does work. But it's kind of difficult to become a celebrity, and then you're so busy celebritying, generally you have to hire a ghostwriter to write the book, so it's not even your book, and people are following you around claiming you're dating Jake Gyllenhall all the livelong day.
If you become accidentally famous for some freak accident involving melons and pandas, go ahead and use the fame to publish a book. Also, try to date Jake Gyllenhall. Why not?
Write fanfiction!
Doesn't work. I mean, I've done it, and I've also been published, but I also ate daffodils this one time. There is no connection between the two things. Write fanfiction if you think it might be fun, and never eat daffodils. They are not delicious.
This publisher says they will publish me, and see, a contract, so I can just sign it!
Get a literary agent. They will know if it's a legitimate publisher (though you can also find this out often through the magic of google) and they will know if it's a fair contract. If you really, really don't want a literary agent, then get a lawyer to look at the contract at least. (If you are a lawyer yourself, well done! Good idea! Like becoming a celebrity, probably too much trouble if that's all you want your lawyering degree for.)
Get to know published authors!
I know many aspiring writers. I can advise them on their work, and have done so! I don't know how helpful I am, but I do know... some stuff... about publishing and writing... so maybe a little helpful, and I hope that is nice! But I haven't been able to get anyone a book deal. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do it: if I tried people would give me funny looks. It's just not how publishing works. Writers write - publishers publish!
Every writer I know knows aspiring writers. They haven't been able to get them book deals. Knowing friends who can give you good advice, always nice! But it's no guarantee of anything. Do the three steps. It doesn't matter who you know in the end. (You can always get to know people after you are published, at book fairs and things. See also, One Day I Will Surely Meet Megan Whalen Turner, And Tell Her How I Love Her, And Then She Will Back Swiftly Away, O Glorious Day...)
Do work for hire, or book packaging!
This can vary widely. Book packaging, sometimes it means having a book that will say on the front it's by you and only you, but the publisher gave you a description of what they wanted the book to be about, and you get a lump sum but not any royalties. Some very successful books are written this way! There's nothing wrong with doing it: I once talked about doing it. When given a description to write by, I then changed the description to be more feminist and exciting (to me). Kind of changed it completely.
... Shockingly, I did not hear back about that project, because I was doing the equivalent of handing someone a grapefruit when they had asked for a carrot. But other people can and have done it super well. However, I still recommend a literary agent. They will look at the contract, and explain what the drawbacks and pros of the situation are.
Then there is work for hire. James Patterson has a factory with writers in it, who write books according to his outlines, and they will have his name on the front (other writer's name will be somewhere also). When I was wee, I read the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate, and the Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal. I was shocked to realise, a couple years in, that many of the books in these serieseses were written by different writers. Other people have been shocked to realise that the writer for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys was totally made up.
People have loved these books. I have loved these books. They have been a part of publishing since forever. These days, I do tend not to read them, because the writers of those books tend to be hidden away, and reading an author you love is like being in love: nobody else will do. I want that experience, and I try to find it.
But some brilliant writers write these things. I remember one Sweet Valley High book, where Good Boy Todd Wilkinson went Goth, and the people of Sweet Valley were utterly confounded by this turn of events until Bad Boy Bruce Patman was like 'Someone in make-up. NEVER FEAR. BRUCE KNOWS WHAT TO DO' and whistled at him. Genius I say. GENIUS. If only I hadn't been too young to know the truth behind 'created by Francine Pascal' I could have found out the author's name.
So that's totally doable as well. If it ever came up, I bet I would write a book set in Sweet Valley. (It would be called 'Bruce Patman Makes Out With Everybody.' ... Mind you, I bet that might be a bit 'handing grapefruit to someone who wants carrots'-ish as well.)
But have a literary agent to make sure the contract is fair, and you understand fully what you're getting into. You see where I keep going with this.
Shortcuts are very tricky! Often they do not work. You end up in a marsh, wailing despairingly as your friends try to fish you out with umbrellas. (That... never happened to me, of course.) Think of a literary agent as a friend with an umbrella.
Obstacles To The Three Steps
People will tell you that what you are doing is bad. This happens to everyone, all the time, and it never stops. (I have been telling James Joyce I think his books are atrocious for years. Does he ever listen?) One squillion times have I heard 'oh This Published Book is so terrible, it will be a snap for me to get published.' (Yes, I've heard it about my own books. And then I break out my internet death ray! ... It doesn't work yet, but one day, my friends. One day.) Tastes are subjective! Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, you may never know and may always want to stab them with a spoon, but try not to yell at anyone on the internet.
People will sometimes tell you what you do is bad, and how to fix it. Sometimes, they will be right. Try taking their advice - you can always go back. And if you're feeling unhappy about taking their advice, stop. If their advice worked amazingly, go back to them and also, sing them love songs. 'Baby baby, you were right about my descriptive language. Honey honey, also the emotional arc. Won't you be my critique partner 4 lyfe. Baby baby, you were so right.' (If one is seeking critique, I hear good stuff about www.critters.org)
People will tell you the thing you want to do is bad. My MFA had many cool things about it, including a publishing business seminar and this truly amazing course on children's literature, but the fact I wanted to write teen fantasy was baffling and appalling to them. Everyone was very kind: people told me I was really talented. But stop doing what you want to do, because it is bad was still a prevalent message.
It was a message I'd heard before. Once when I was in my teens, I got a letter from a Real Writer who had read one of my (awful, terrible, bad) books for some reason. I think an agent I'd submitted to gave it to the writer. The writer wrote me the kindest letter imaginable. I cried over it. I tried to write a response and was much, much too shy. The writer advised me to write realistic fiction, and I tried, I really did try, and I was bored out of my skull and gave up. This writer is now writing a successful fantasy series, so I hope they decided fantasy was awesome in the end.
Write what you want. Inform yourself as fully as you can. Listen to criticism. Follow the three steps, unless you have a good reason not to. (Write book! Get agent! Get editor.)
... Simple, right?
It does sound kind of hard. But as I think Terry Pratchett (a dude who writes his own books, despite the fact that his health problems would make a factory kind of understandable) said, the only way harder than the hard way is the easy way.
1. Write a book.
This is a tremendous amount of time and work. Shutting yourself up away from your friends and family. Tapping away at computers and missing crucial bits of TV and movies. (Frequent refrain at Casa Shadowchurch: What just happened? What did she just do? Where'd that monkey come from?)
Complications To This Step: It doesn't always get you to step two. Oh my gosh no. I mean, I know some writers sell their first books - and well done them! - but even in their case, I doubt that book is the first piece of writing they've ever done. I bet there've been scribblings as a kid, beginnings of other books, poems.
And for most people, it's not the first book. I have written thirty-four books. I have published two and will unless disaster strikes publish a third. After that, who can say? I can say this: I will not be publishing all the books I've written. Many of them are bad. So so bad. Astronomically bad. Even if someone offered me a big truck full of money, I could not cope with the shame of knowing others would read those words. (Those words include such sentences as 'But was giving her the cut direct at Almack's enough? Embarrassment might be a bitter drink, Julia reflected, but not so bitter as that from the bottle on her papa's desk marked POISON.' Also the immortal line 'Suddenly, ninjas.')
So you slave away for a year or more, and you are left with a pile of paper that is good for nothing but the attic. It may take you a long time to realise this. Sometimes you will not give up, and you'll be right not to! Sometimes, though, you will have to table it. Shelve it. Shove it under the bed, and move to the next thing. Even though it really hurts. I still hear the voices of some characters in books I've had to put in the attic. (Shut up kids! I might revise you someday. Until then, no funny business up there.)
I have heard people say in horror 'You have to write a whole book?' Yes, you do. Already-successful writers can sell on proposal (summaries of novels, can be 1 to 60 pages long, I've seen both) but the vast majority of new writers have to write a whole book. And then they have to throw out that whole book and start all over again, with no consolation but 'Well - that's one book closer to The One. Maybe THIS one will be The One!' Like dating. Dating lots of different people you have made up in your brain.
My advice for what it is worth (this is free on the internet so - uh - nothing!) the writers I think are most likely to be successful are those who never give up on writing itself, but who can give up on a certain project. (Or thirty of them.)
2. Get a literary agent.
Sometimes people skip this step. They can if they like! If they are totally amazing at negotiating, then at contract language, then (if you haven't sold your foreign rights to your publisher) at finding good foreign publishers. Then you negotiate with them, and fiddle with those contracts. Next step, to movies, and finding the right people and getting a good contract! Also if you think whenever problems arise (I hate my cover/My book's publication date has been pushed back four years/My editor wants me to add Martians with probes in the middle of the love scene!) you will be able to deal with your publishers all by yourself and be perfectly cool, calm and collected in achieving your ends.
If all that is true, go ahead, and know you have my undying admiration. If it all sounds like it might be beyond your grasp or within your grasp but leave you with little time for actual writing, a literary agent is good to have.
Complications To This Step:Doesn't always get you to Step Three. Your agent will send your book to say, ten editors s/he's chosen. They may all say no. Next round! They may all say... And so on, until your agent may advise you to put that one on the shelf, as well.
Also other stuff can happen! The Lovely Kristin Nelson isn't my first agent. When I was seventeen, I had a literary agent in London. She very, very nearly sold a book of mine.
It was terrible. The heroine was reincarnated - with a totally different personality - every chapter. The publisher, I think, thought they could do something with it: total rewrite while still using Cute Little Me as a writer? I don't even know. But at the time, the suggestion of drastic changes sent me running screeching my cute little head off, because I Was A Genius, How Could They Not See? And so the publisher backed off in a hurry because I was obviously going to be a nightmare to work with.
Every writer who's ever signed a bad contract, there but for the grace of my seventeen year old delusions of genius go I. It's so, so tempting to seize desperately at any chance of publication. But think long term.
3. Get an editor.
Once you have a good, legitimate editor, you are PROBABLY going to get published. (Though if your editor gets fired, or someone embezzles all your publishing house's money...)
It may take a while. (Publishing dates get pushed back all the time for a million reasons.) It may also not turn out like you planned. Basically there is a whole new set of problems. But, you are published! Success! Step 4 - Maybe Profit! A Little!
Shortcuts To The Three Steps
Self-publish! It totally worked for Christopher Paolini!
... Name ten other people it worked for! Christopher Paolini had a lot of other factors weighing in there, plus he did end up getting published by a traditional publisher. Lightning can strike twice but it is awfully unlikely. I have a (very talented, and traditionally published too) writer friend who used amazon's self-publishing lark with a (wonderful) book of hers. So far she has made five dollars. (I am not exaggerating for humorous effect. Five sweet, sweet dollars.)
Be a celebrity!
Actually that does work. But it's kind of difficult to become a celebrity, and then you're so busy celebritying, generally you have to hire a ghostwriter to write the book, so it's not even your book, and people are following you around claiming you're dating Jake Gyllenhall all the livelong day.
If you become accidentally famous for some freak accident involving melons and pandas, go ahead and use the fame to publish a book. Also, try to date Jake Gyllenhall. Why not?
Write fanfiction!
Doesn't work. I mean, I've done it, and I've also been published, but I also ate daffodils this one time. There is no connection between the two things. Write fanfiction if you think it might be fun, and never eat daffodils. They are not delicious.
This publisher says they will publish me, and see, a contract, so I can just sign it!
Get a literary agent. They will know if it's a legitimate publisher (though you can also find this out often through the magic of google) and they will know if it's a fair contract. If you really, really don't want a literary agent, then get a lawyer to look at the contract at least. (If you are a lawyer yourself, well done! Good idea! Like becoming a celebrity, probably too much trouble if that's all you want your lawyering degree for.)
Get to know published authors!
I know many aspiring writers. I can advise them on their work, and have done so! I don't know how helpful I am, but I do know... some stuff... about publishing and writing... so maybe a little helpful, and I hope that is nice! But I haven't been able to get anyone a book deal. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do it: if I tried people would give me funny looks. It's just not how publishing works. Writers write - publishers publish!
Every writer I know knows aspiring writers. They haven't been able to get them book deals. Knowing friends who can give you good advice, always nice! But it's no guarantee of anything. Do the three steps. It doesn't matter who you know in the end. (You can always get to know people after you are published, at book fairs and things. See also, One Day I Will Surely Meet Megan Whalen Turner, And Tell Her How I Love Her, And Then She Will Back Swiftly Away, O Glorious Day...)
Do work for hire, or book packaging!
This can vary widely. Book packaging, sometimes it means having a book that will say on the front it's by you and only you, but the publisher gave you a description of what they wanted the book to be about, and you get a lump sum but not any royalties. Some very successful books are written this way! There's nothing wrong with doing it: I once talked about doing it. When given a description to write by, I then changed the description to be more feminist and exciting (to me). Kind of changed it completely.
... Shockingly, I did not hear back about that project, because I was doing the equivalent of handing someone a grapefruit when they had asked for a carrot. But other people can and have done it super well. However, I still recommend a literary agent. They will look at the contract, and explain what the drawbacks and pros of the situation are.
Then there is work for hire. James Patterson has a factory with writers in it, who write books according to his outlines, and they will have his name on the front (other writer's name will be somewhere also). When I was wee, I read the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate, and the Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal. I was shocked to realise, a couple years in, that many of the books in these serieseses were written by different writers. Other people have been shocked to realise that the writer for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys was totally made up.
People have loved these books. I have loved these books. They have been a part of publishing since forever. These days, I do tend not to read them, because the writers of those books tend to be hidden away, and reading an author you love is like being in love: nobody else will do. I want that experience, and I try to find it.
But some brilliant writers write these things. I remember one Sweet Valley High book, where Good Boy Todd Wilkinson went Goth, and the people of Sweet Valley were utterly confounded by this turn of events until Bad Boy Bruce Patman was like 'Someone in make-up. NEVER FEAR. BRUCE KNOWS WHAT TO DO' and whistled at him. Genius I say. GENIUS. If only I hadn't been too young to know the truth behind 'created by Francine Pascal' I could have found out the author's name.
So that's totally doable as well. If it ever came up, I bet I would write a book set in Sweet Valley. (It would be called 'Bruce Patman Makes Out With Everybody.' ... Mind you, I bet that might be a bit 'handing grapefruit to someone who wants carrots'-ish as well.)
But have a literary agent to make sure the contract is fair, and you understand fully what you're getting into. You see where I keep going with this.
Shortcuts are very tricky! Often they do not work. You end up in a marsh, wailing despairingly as your friends try to fish you out with umbrellas. (That... never happened to me, of course.) Think of a literary agent as a friend with an umbrella.
Obstacles To The Three Steps
People will tell you that what you are doing is bad. This happens to everyone, all the time, and it never stops. (I have been telling James Joyce I think his books are atrocious for years. Does he ever listen?) One squillion times have I heard 'oh This Published Book is so terrible, it will be a snap for me to get published.' (Yes, I've heard it about my own books. And then I break out my internet death ray! ... It doesn't work yet, but one day, my friends. One day.) Tastes are subjective! Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, you may never know and may always want to stab them with a spoon, but try not to yell at anyone on the internet.
People will sometimes tell you what you do is bad, and how to fix it. Sometimes, they will be right. Try taking their advice - you can always go back. And if you're feeling unhappy about taking their advice, stop. If their advice worked amazingly, go back to them and also, sing them love songs. 'Baby baby, you were right about my descriptive language. Honey honey, also the emotional arc. Won't you be my critique partner 4 lyfe. Baby baby, you were so right.' (If one is seeking critique, I hear good stuff about www.critters.org)
People will tell you the thing you want to do is bad. My MFA had many cool things about it, including a publishing business seminar and this truly amazing course on children's literature, but the fact I wanted to write teen fantasy was baffling and appalling to them. Everyone was very kind: people told me I was really talented. But stop doing what you want to do, because it is bad was still a prevalent message.
It was a message I'd heard before. Once when I was in my teens, I got a letter from a Real Writer who had read one of my (awful, terrible, bad) books for some reason. I think an agent I'd submitted to gave it to the writer. The writer wrote me the kindest letter imaginable. I cried over it. I tried to write a response and was much, much too shy. The writer advised me to write realistic fiction, and I tried, I really did try, and I was bored out of my skull and gave up. This writer is now writing a successful fantasy series, so I hope they decided fantasy was awesome in the end.
Write what you want. Inform yourself as fully as you can. Listen to criticism. Follow the three steps, unless you have a good reason not to. (Write book! Get agent! Get editor.)
... Simple, right?
It does sound kind of hard. But as I think Terry Pratchett (a dude who writes his own books, despite the fact that his health problems would make a factory kind of understandable) said, the only way harder than the hard way is the easy way.
November 9, 2010
The First Surrender Cookie
Jennifer Lynn Barnes, author of the I've-already-mentioned-fabulous Raised by Wolves has written an article in the Guardian about her top ten favourite fantasy fictional families - and the Ryves brothers are on there, along with the Pevensies! I feel pretty fancy.
I hear that![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380442969i/1326421.gif)
goblinmarket_sw
is concluded, and there are lots of pretty Demon's Lexicon pictures and stories to look at. I can't read the stories, of course, but the pictures are really awesome, aren't they? (Mae is a MERMAID!)
And since it is November, and the people have spoken - Jamie is apparently your king! Time for the first cookie from The Demon's Surrender, featuring the fascinating Mr Crawford...
Sin was left with the two magician boys. Which was better odds than she'd had before.
"Looks like it's you and me, Seb," she said, and sank her voice just in case a pretty girl in distress might appeal to him. She could use that. "And you," she added to the boy in the window seat. "I don't think we've been introduced."
The boy turned away from the window.
All of Sin's breath was scythed out of her throat.
He unfolded from the window seat in a leisurely fashion, in slow deliberate movements, and every movement sent chills down Sin's spine, like a ghost drawing a cold finger along the small of her back. He was slight and not tall, but that didn't matter: it just made her think of elves as they were in the oldest stories, alien and terrible, child thieves and traitors. His eyes were silver coins, whatever color they had once been drowned in shimmering magic, and his face was a perfect blank.
Sin's sense of dread built, as if the finger tracing her spine had become a claw. The thing between his palms, the thing he was turning over and over as if it was a familiar and favorite toy, was a gleaming-sharp knife. There were carvings on the hilt and the blade looked too sharp to be real.
Worse than that, as he turned to face her head-on, she saw the demon's mark set along the sharp line of his jaw. It was a dark and wavering brand, an obscene shadow crawling on the boy's porcelain-pale skin.
"You don't remember me?" he asked. "I'm Jamie."
... scene cut for truly terrible spoilery references to other events
*
There were steps outside the door. One was someone in heels, Sin thought. Seb jerked away at the sound, as if he'd been caught doing something indecent. Jamie didn't seem to care.
"Here it is," Celeste's voice said.
Sin couldn't see her, because she was standing behind Nick.
He stood at the door like death waiting to be invited in, all in black. It made his face look white as a skull.
"You're late," Jamie snapped. He clicked his fingers and Nick walked slowly, reluctantly, forward over the tilting floor.
Sin realized this wasn't Nick's ordinary pallor. He was a demon in a human body: being trapped in a vessel over running water must be like being slowly tortured. There was no way he would be here willingly.
He was here though, and coming like a dog to heel.
When he reached Jamie he went down in a crouch by the table. His eyes flickered over Sin, not even seeming to register her.
Jamie reached out and twisted the cord of Nick's talisman around his fingers. Sin saw the leather bite deep into the side of Nick's neck.
"Don't be late again," Jamie commanded softly. "Or I won't let you go back. Understand?"
Jamie's hold on the talisman forced Nick's head back, his face tilted up to Jamie's. The strange light of Jamie's eyes shone reflected in Nick's blank black gaze.
Nick lowered his eyelids, and nodded.
"Turns out when a demon marks a magician," Celeste said from the door, her voice rich with satisfaction, like a cat in the process of drinking the cream, "it doesn't give the demon any power over the magician at all. Rather the opposite, in fact. Isn't it marvelous?"
It couldn't be true, Sin thought. If Gerald had control over Nick already, he wouldn't have bothered torturing Alan.
"Marvelous for me," Jamie agreed, his tone as silky as hers. "Since he's mine, and I don't feel like letting the rest of the Circle enjoy any of his magic. I guess you shouldn't have killed my mother."
"Jamie, do we have to go through this again?" Celeste sounded impatient. "Helen has apologized. And she was only a human."
"I know, I know," Jamie drawled. "But it's the little things. Don't you agree?"
"Make sure it behaves at the party tonight," Celeste ordered. She turned on her heel and left.
Jamie let go of Nick's talisman and leaned back along the table, putting his weight on his hands behind him.
"You heard my fearless leader, Hnikarr," he said. "This party is going to be her little show of strength to the other Circles. I want you to stay in the ballroom like everyone else, so I can show you off. And I want you to be on your best behavior. No more magically throwing people down the stairs. That is naughty."
"I understand," Nick grated out, as if he was having difficulty speaking at all, or as if he was too sick to talk much.
Sin felt sick too, sick at the thought that this was how magicians treated their friends. She wanted to do something, to hurl the knife she had just stolen at Jamie's head, but she couldn't do a thing to help Nick, and if she tried she would only make sure she couldn't help herself.
"Atta boy," Jamie said encouragingly. "That's what I like to hear. See how nice the world can be, when one of us is just the obedient slave of the other?"
I hear that
goblinmarket_sw
is concluded, and there are lots of pretty Demon's Lexicon pictures and stories to look at. I can't read the stories, of course, but the pictures are really awesome, aren't they? (Mae is a MERMAID!)And since it is November, and the people have spoken - Jamie is apparently your king! Time for the first cookie from The Demon's Surrender, featuring the fascinating Mr Crawford...
Sin was left with the two magician boys. Which was better odds than she'd had before.
"Looks like it's you and me, Seb," she said, and sank her voice just in case a pretty girl in distress might appeal to him. She could use that. "And you," she added to the boy in the window seat. "I don't think we've been introduced."
The boy turned away from the window.
All of Sin's breath was scythed out of her throat.
He unfolded from the window seat in a leisurely fashion, in slow deliberate movements, and every movement sent chills down Sin's spine, like a ghost drawing a cold finger along the small of her back. He was slight and not tall, but that didn't matter: it just made her think of elves as they were in the oldest stories, alien and terrible, child thieves and traitors. His eyes were silver coins, whatever color they had once been drowned in shimmering magic, and his face was a perfect blank.
Sin's sense of dread built, as if the finger tracing her spine had become a claw. The thing between his palms, the thing he was turning over and over as if it was a familiar and favorite toy, was a gleaming-sharp knife. There were carvings on the hilt and the blade looked too sharp to be real.
Worse than that, as he turned to face her head-on, she saw the demon's mark set along the sharp line of his jaw. It was a dark and wavering brand, an obscene shadow crawling on the boy's porcelain-pale skin.
"You don't remember me?" he asked. "I'm Jamie."
... scene cut for truly terrible spoilery references to other events
*
There were steps outside the door. One was someone in heels, Sin thought. Seb jerked away at the sound, as if he'd been caught doing something indecent. Jamie didn't seem to care.
"Here it is," Celeste's voice said.
Sin couldn't see her, because she was standing behind Nick.
He stood at the door like death waiting to be invited in, all in black. It made his face look white as a skull.
"You're late," Jamie snapped. He clicked his fingers and Nick walked slowly, reluctantly, forward over the tilting floor.
Sin realized this wasn't Nick's ordinary pallor. He was a demon in a human body: being trapped in a vessel over running water must be like being slowly tortured. There was no way he would be here willingly.
He was here though, and coming like a dog to heel.
When he reached Jamie he went down in a crouch by the table. His eyes flickered over Sin, not even seeming to register her.
Jamie reached out and twisted the cord of Nick's talisman around his fingers. Sin saw the leather bite deep into the side of Nick's neck.
"Don't be late again," Jamie commanded softly. "Or I won't let you go back. Understand?"
Jamie's hold on the talisman forced Nick's head back, his face tilted up to Jamie's. The strange light of Jamie's eyes shone reflected in Nick's blank black gaze.
Nick lowered his eyelids, and nodded.
"Turns out when a demon marks a magician," Celeste said from the door, her voice rich with satisfaction, like a cat in the process of drinking the cream, "it doesn't give the demon any power over the magician at all. Rather the opposite, in fact. Isn't it marvelous?"
It couldn't be true, Sin thought. If Gerald had control over Nick already, he wouldn't have bothered torturing Alan.
"Marvelous for me," Jamie agreed, his tone as silky as hers. "Since he's mine, and I don't feel like letting the rest of the Circle enjoy any of his magic. I guess you shouldn't have killed my mother."
"Jamie, do we have to go through this again?" Celeste sounded impatient. "Helen has apologized. And she was only a human."
"I know, I know," Jamie drawled. "But it's the little things. Don't you agree?"
"Make sure it behaves at the party tonight," Celeste ordered. She turned on her heel and left.
Jamie let go of Nick's talisman and leaned back along the table, putting his weight on his hands behind him.
"You heard my fearless leader, Hnikarr," he said. "This party is going to be her little show of strength to the other Circles. I want you to stay in the ballroom like everyone else, so I can show you off. And I want you to be on your best behavior. No more magically throwing people down the stairs. That is naughty."
"I understand," Nick grated out, as if he was having difficulty speaking at all, or as if he was too sick to talk much.
Sin felt sick too, sick at the thought that this was how magicians treated their friends. She wanted to do something, to hurl the knife she had just stolen at Jamie's head, but she couldn't do a thing to help Nick, and if she tried she would only make sure she couldn't help herself.
"Atta boy," Jamie said encouragingly. "That's what I like to hear. See how nice the world can be, when one of us is just the obedient slave of the other?"
November 3, 2010
The Demon's Surrender US Cover!
Here is the cover of The Demon's Surrender! It is my very favourite of the three US covers. Behold - The Alan Cover!
It's exciting to have a whole set of covers! A trilogy set! I hope you like it.
It's exciting to have a whole set of covers! A trilogy set! I hope you like it.
November 1, 2010
Happy November!
First things first: the winner of the fancy Robin McKinley prize pack is... drum roll please...
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380442897i/1319734.gif)
smartie1685
. Please email me with your address at sarahreesbrennan@gmail.com!
So, Halloween: how did you spend yours?
I spent mine moving house. Yes indeed, while everyone else was parading around wearing Saucy Pippi Longstocking costumes, I was pitching face forward into a box full of hangers. (Little bit like falling into a tank of piranhas who love you. Hangers grab hold. Also a little bit like ducking for apples, if the apples were hooks.)
Ah, the endless glamour of a writer's life!
So how did this come about? Well, my tale begins on a night in September. I called out 'Bye, ladies, I am off to see Inception!' Jennet Wilde, my DJ housemate, said 'Could you come in for a minute?'
JENNET: I must give notice. I wish to pursue a life of adventure in London.
DURHAM LASS, MY OTHER HOUSEMATE: London, lovely! I hope you'll have a great time! Sarah and I will just find a two-person house.
SARAH: Er but no, but yes, yay for Jennet and adventure, but I am going to America for a month.
JENNET: Well, I could stay an extra-
SARAH: And then it's Children's Book Month in Ireland and I'm going down to Cork and-
DURHAM LASS: We're going to have to live in a gutter.
SARAH: I can build a house out of books. We'll be safe there. Until it starts to rain. Which in Ireland, okay, will be about five minutes.
We ended up with literally four evenings in which to find someplace to live. It was a panicky time, especially since I also had Work Things I Will Tell You About Someday Soon. We saw some dark things.
PROSPECTIVE LANDLORD: Let me just check if the lights are working.
SARAH AND DURHAM LASS: Oh...
PROSPECTIVE LANDLORD: Nope, they're not!
SARAH AND DURHAM LASS: ... dear.
SARAH: Well, this house is in a slightly dodgy neighbourhood, but it's quite big inside, and maybe-
DURHAM LASS: Let's go.
SARAH: What's happened? Why are you twitching?
DURHAM LASS: I WILL NOT LIVE HERE.
SARAH: There's a wild look in your eye...
DURHAM LASS: I will not speak of what I saw outside.
SARAH: What did you see outside?
DURHAM LASS: I SAID I WILL NOT SPEAK OF IT.
Readers, to this day I do not know what she saw.
At one point we had a mutual nervous breakdown in a pizza parlor. We were approached by a gentleman who was concerned about our well-being, and startled when we asked him for the bill.
Then we found a fabulous new house. It is a little red-brick house near two famous cathedrals in Dublin, St Patrick's Cathedral and Christchurch, and so in the tradition of me giving my homes names for the blog, I am calling it Shadowchurch-on-the-Corner.
Our new house does have a drawback, however. It has no bath. Do not worry. I am not about to embrace uncleanliness as a lifestyle. There is a power shower, but alas no bath. I love a bath. I like to sit swathed in bubbles, like a very foamy mummy, and read.
This meant I took a bath every day for the last week in our previous residence the Cherry Bomb, to the great detriment of my hair. At one point our friend June dropped by to have dinner.
JUNE: Ahhh!
SARAH: I know.
JUNE: Uh. You just look - a little fluffy.
SARAH: I am aware I currently bear a striking resemblance to Aslan, yes.
There was also the problem of moving. Now, the Durham Lass, I have spoken of her before. She looks like Snow White, but with added ruthless efficiency. She keeps me to deadlines, wakes me up with tea in the mornings, and is generally the ideal housemate. I did become a bit scared of her while we were packing, though. I feared I would wake up in a box labelled 'ROOMMATE.'
I am certain that the package would have been delivered to the correct address, though, and I would have missed the expression on the face of the Durham Lass's father. (Both our fathers kindly agreed to help us move.)
The poor man arrived, and saw the boxes piled up in the hall.
DURHAM DAD: I have never seen so many books.
SARAH: There are a few more in my room.
DURHAM DAD: Er, books?
SARAH: Um. Boxes.
His day only got worse. Because we were moving on Hallowe'en. At one point, carrying endless rounds of books to the truck, someone let off a firework down the street.
ROCKETS: Whizz by!
LIGHTS: Burning!
SMOKE: Smoking!
SARAH: AHHHHH! It is the end times! Are we all doomed?
DURHAM DAD: Excitable, the young lady with the book army.
SARAH'S DAD: AHHHHHH! It is the end times! Are we all doomed?
I come by being excitable honestly.
Installed in Shadowchurch, then came The Unpacking: The Book-Shelving, Unpacking 2: Appropriating Cabinets For Further Book-Shelving, and the long-awaited follow-up, Unpacking 3: Any Flat Surface Will Do If I Can Find Objects To Use As Book-Ends.
Now I am sitting writing this, about to make enchiladas, with a fire burning in our floating stone-carving and brickwork fireplace, and my framed picture of the moon and the crooked tree leading to the Goblin Market on top of the Secret Book Cabinet.
And it is November, so it is almost time for the first Book Cookie for The Demon's Surrender. Hence, I have made a POLL.
View Poll: #1639446
smartie1685
. Please email me with your address at sarahreesbrennan@gmail.com!So, Halloween: how did you spend yours?
I spent mine moving house. Yes indeed, while everyone else was parading around wearing Saucy Pippi Longstocking costumes, I was pitching face forward into a box full of hangers. (Little bit like falling into a tank of piranhas who love you. Hangers grab hold. Also a little bit like ducking for apples, if the apples were hooks.)
Ah, the endless glamour of a writer's life!
So how did this come about? Well, my tale begins on a night in September. I called out 'Bye, ladies, I am off to see Inception!' Jennet Wilde, my DJ housemate, said 'Could you come in for a minute?'
JENNET: I must give notice. I wish to pursue a life of adventure in London.
DURHAM LASS, MY OTHER HOUSEMATE: London, lovely! I hope you'll have a great time! Sarah and I will just find a two-person house.
SARAH: Er but no, but yes, yay for Jennet and adventure, but I am going to America for a month.
JENNET: Well, I could stay an extra-
SARAH: And then it's Children's Book Month in Ireland and I'm going down to Cork and-
DURHAM LASS: We're going to have to live in a gutter.
SARAH: I can build a house out of books. We'll be safe there. Until it starts to rain. Which in Ireland, okay, will be about five minutes.
We ended up with literally four evenings in which to find someplace to live. It was a panicky time, especially since I also had Work Things I Will Tell You About Someday Soon. We saw some dark things.
PROSPECTIVE LANDLORD: Let me just check if the lights are working.
SARAH AND DURHAM LASS: Oh...
PROSPECTIVE LANDLORD: Nope, they're not!
SARAH AND DURHAM LASS: ... dear.
SARAH: Well, this house is in a slightly dodgy neighbourhood, but it's quite big inside, and maybe-
DURHAM LASS: Let's go.
SARAH: What's happened? Why are you twitching?
DURHAM LASS: I WILL NOT LIVE HERE.
SARAH: There's a wild look in your eye...
DURHAM LASS: I will not speak of what I saw outside.
SARAH: What did you see outside?
DURHAM LASS: I SAID I WILL NOT SPEAK OF IT.
Readers, to this day I do not know what she saw.
At one point we had a mutual nervous breakdown in a pizza parlor. We were approached by a gentleman who was concerned about our well-being, and startled when we asked him for the bill.
Then we found a fabulous new house. It is a little red-brick house near two famous cathedrals in Dublin, St Patrick's Cathedral and Christchurch, and so in the tradition of me giving my homes names for the blog, I am calling it Shadowchurch-on-the-Corner.
Our new house does have a drawback, however. It has no bath. Do not worry. I am not about to embrace uncleanliness as a lifestyle. There is a power shower, but alas no bath. I love a bath. I like to sit swathed in bubbles, like a very foamy mummy, and read.
This meant I took a bath every day for the last week in our previous residence the Cherry Bomb, to the great detriment of my hair. At one point our friend June dropped by to have dinner.
JUNE: Ahhh!
SARAH: I know.
JUNE: Uh. You just look - a little fluffy.
SARAH: I am aware I currently bear a striking resemblance to Aslan, yes.
There was also the problem of moving. Now, the Durham Lass, I have spoken of her before. She looks like Snow White, but with added ruthless efficiency. She keeps me to deadlines, wakes me up with tea in the mornings, and is generally the ideal housemate. I did become a bit scared of her while we were packing, though. I feared I would wake up in a box labelled 'ROOMMATE.'
I am certain that the package would have been delivered to the correct address, though, and I would have missed the expression on the face of the Durham Lass's father. (Both our fathers kindly agreed to help us move.)
The poor man arrived, and saw the boxes piled up in the hall.
DURHAM DAD: I have never seen so many books.
SARAH: There are a few more in my room.
DURHAM DAD: Er, books?
SARAH: Um. Boxes.
His day only got worse. Because we were moving on Hallowe'en. At one point, carrying endless rounds of books to the truck, someone let off a firework down the street.
ROCKETS: Whizz by!
LIGHTS: Burning!
SMOKE: Smoking!
SARAH: AHHHHH! It is the end times! Are we all doomed?
DURHAM DAD: Excitable, the young lady with the book army.
SARAH'S DAD: AHHHHHH! It is the end times! Are we all doomed?
I come by being excitable honestly.
Installed in Shadowchurch, then came The Unpacking: The Book-Shelving, Unpacking 2: Appropriating Cabinets For Further Book-Shelving, and the long-awaited follow-up, Unpacking 3: Any Flat Surface Will Do If I Can Find Objects To Use As Book-Ends.
Now I am sitting writing this, about to make enchiladas, with a fire burning in our floating stone-carving and brickwork fireplace, and my framed picture of the moon and the crooked tree leading to the Goblin Market on top of the Secret Book Cabinet.
And it is November, so it is almost time for the first Book Cookie for The Demon's Surrender. Hence, I have made a POLL.
View Poll: #1639446
October 25, 2010
A Very Exciting Entry Indeed: Robin McKinley & Presents!
So during the Sirens conference I was at, when we were doing the Golden Age of YA panel, Rachel Manija Brown (All The Fishes Come Home To Roost), Janni Lee Simner (Bones of Faerie, Malinda Lo (Ash) and me (well, The Demon's Lexicon, but I hope you guys know that by now) were all talking about how we feel this latest wave of lots of, and lots of really terrific, young adult fiction is inspired by the young adult books we were reading as we developed as writers. Lots of names were mentioned, but the author that all four of us said we were inspired by was Robin McKinley.
I found this unsurprising. Robin McKinley has written a ton of awesome books. Robin McKinley is, indeed, still writing a ton of awesome books. Her latest book Pegasus is out in one week and one day, on November 2nd. It is high fantasy, and stars a very short and very determined princess called Sylvi and a very tall, muscular, talented and dashing flying beast called Ebon. By the terms of their people's treaty, each royal personage is bound to a pegasus of rank. Sometimes the binding means they can understand each other a little, and with the help of magicians they can understand each other a little more. 'Sire, that pegasus kicking holes in the palace walls is definitely feeling a trifle testy today.'
Except that Sylvi and Ebon instantly understand each other completely. Cue magicians yelling about how it is Unholy and Taboo, pegasus and human politics, Forbidden Meetings (Some Involving Balconies, I Find It Romantic Okay), and the looming threat of war.
In short it is an excellent book you guys. Now I secured an advance copy of Pegasus, which is how I know these things, and after I did so nothing made me happy but pestering its author, making vile and unwarranted insinuations about Sylvi and Ebon's relationship as is my way (ROBIN: Theirs is currently a platonic relationship. SARAH: Or is it? ROBIN: What is wrong with you, get away from me. SARAH: He's a fine figure of a pegasus is all I'm saying...).
It seemed like we had one of two choices. Option A: Robin McKinley puts Mace into her rose sprayer, and uses it on me. Option B: I babble about Pegasus in public.
We went with Option B. Also, there are going to be prizes. Fancy interview with Robin McKinley and prizes, y'all! Also, she uses footnotes: the blog is never going to be this fancy again.
FANCY INTERVIEW WITH ROBIN MCKINLEY:
SARAH: So in the book, humans and pegasi share a land: pegasi were the original inhabitants but they were beleaguered by terrible beasties, so when the humans arrived they were welcomed with open hoofish-hands. The two races formed an alliance, and the royals get assigned royal pegasus attendants.
Honestly it reminded me of a bit in Irish history, where the king of one province in Ireland stole another king's province, and the second king was like 'Uh, the English? Door's wide open. PS I got a marriageable daughter. Just sayin'.' Colonisation and alliance, complicated things in the real world, and even more so between humans and nonhumans. Did anything in history inspire Pegasus?
ROBIN: Not specifically*, but very much the sort of thing you're describing: history sometimes seems to me like one long slithery cascade of misalliance with occasional aberrations of a league or an association or even (gosh) a marriage that worked for all of 2.3 minutes. And for history read 'life.'**
In terms of watching my fellow human beings make utter horses' asses of themselves on a global scale I have lived too long already*** but as I get older the thing I get more and more conscious of, or maybe I mean obsessed with, is the way Everything Is Connected. And from that inevitably comes the dire realisation of Personal Responsibility. I've taken a certain amount of stick over the decades for writing too many stories about princesses and the grand and titled generally and thus making my characters inaccessible to my readers. Erm. Well, obviously I don't agree, or I wouldn't keep writing stories about princesses (we're all clear that the heroine of PEGASUS—the Standard McKinley Heroine—is a princess?), but one of the uses of royalty I think is to have a kind of heightened ordinariness. This clearly insupportable theory probably comes from having read way too many fairy tales at a young age—remember I was starting to read for myself in the Early Mesozoi—I mean the 1950s, before 'young adult literature' was invented, let alone 'urban fantasy'. I didn't even meet LOTR till I was eleven. I was already totally ruined by Andrew Lang by then.
And while one of the tangential attractions of my favourite fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is that Beauty is not a princess, well, the Beast is usually a prince or some major aristo, and he's certainly wealthy. And the folk and fairy tales that bent my young imagination in irredeemable ways tend to have royalty either as the central characters (the guys) or as the reward (the girls). So as I came out of my story-telling starting gate snarling I WANT GIRLS IN BOOKS WHO DO THINGS royalty seemed like one of the basic playing pieces. Royalty is where a lot of paths cross without your having to make them cross: Default connectedness and built-in responsibility. You can just sit there playing eenie meenie about which way you're going to go. Except, of course, the story won't let you. This way, it will say sternly, slipping the chain round your neck.
SARAH: While casually stalking you - uh, I mean, reading the tor.com discussion of Beauty and Rose Daughter because I Love Literature, and thinky thoughts about literature, someone quoted you in the comments as saying:
'The story I tell over and over and over and over is Beauty and the Beast. It all comes from there. There are variations on the theme–and it's inside out or upside down sometimes–but the communication gap between one living being and another is pretty much the ground line. And usually the gap-bridger is love.'
And that made me go 'OH' both because it's true, it's something that I love in books (eyes meeting across a crowded room kind of love, pfaugh, talk to each other)!
ROBIN: I. COULD. NOT. AGREE. MORE. Biiiiiiiig major fixation here. Second only to the Girls Doing Things fixation. I mean, fine, that your eyes meet across a crowded room. But after you make your way through the crowd, breathing heavily and using your elbows a lot, talk to each other.
SARAH: and because I think you took this common theme of yours a step further with Pegasus. In your previous books, people talk to each other and come to understand each other, but in Pegasus the problem and the miracle of communication is literalised. Sylvi and Ebon are members of two different species who are not supposed to be properly capable of talking to each other, and yet who can. Did you think about it as literalising your favourite theme, of bridging gaps and creating love through communication? To employ a Metaphor, what new alleys inside a favourite city were you able to create?
ROBIN: I hadn't dragged it blinking out of its comfortable ginnel into strong light like this before, but in hindsight, yes. What I think I'm doing—what the story is doing through me—is ratcheting up both the stakes and the difficulty and then saying . . . yup. Love can still do it. Nanny nanny boo boo.†
SARAH: The types of beast vary in your books: foreigner regarded with suspicion, actual beast, vampire, dragon, dude made of fire. In this case, it's a pegasus: something out of myth, something so beautiful it fills humans with dazzled amazement. (Uh, not like that. Though well, I don't know. Ebon is a fine figure of a pegasus. So strong and manly, and also with excellent sculpting skills.) What made you think of turning Pegasus from one mythological horse to a race of horses - what drew you to them?
ROBIN: Snork. Like I had any input on this one. I wasn't drawn to them. I woke up one morning and found my bed covered with large, shiny, funny-looking feathers . . . uh. Which reminds me;
VERY IMPORTANT, NO, CRUCIAL POINT. PEGASI ARE NOT WINGED HORSES. NOT. NOT. NOOOOOOOOOT. GOT THAT? GOOD. EXCELLENT.
There's been way too much 'Robin McKinley's race of flying horses' already and the book isn't even out yet. PEGASI ARE NOT FLYING HORSES. THEY'RE PEGASI. Are deer horses with split hooves and big ears? No. Are cheetahs really fast tigers with spots? No. Are hippopotamuses wet rhinos without horns? No. Are pegasi horses with wings? NO.
Here is a nice helpful excerpt from p 128:
'Pegasi looked almost more like four-legged birds, standing next to horses. Their necks were longer and their bodies shorter in comparison, their ribs tremendously widesprung for lung space and their shoulders broad for wing muscles, but tapering away behind to almost nothing; their bellies tucked up like sighthounds', although there were deep lines of muscle on their hindquarters. Their legs seemed as slender as grass stems, and the place where the head met the neck was so delicate a child's hands could ring it; they moved as if they weighed nothing at all, as if they might float away, even without spreading their wings.'
Now. Ahem. Back to the question. If you stalk me a lot . . . I mean, if you've read much of either my blog or web site, you'll already know that I like to say that I don't make my stories up, they happen to me. I had no conscious intention of doing anything with pegasi, which, before I met them, I assumed were flying horses, and while the flying part was kind of exciting and I have been seriously horse mad pretty much all my life, for some reason I always thought pegasi were kind of a snore. Oh, and yes, I know the old dad was Poseidon (Poseidon? And you get a flying horse?), mum was Medusa story (dad was Poseidon and mum was Medusa? And you get a flying horse? Seriously?) and he was born out of his mother's severed neck ewwwwww (Yo, ancient Greek dude, can we talk about these issues you have around women and childbirth?) . . . but that was clearly bogus (and to do with the ickiness of the ancient Greek psyche).
SARAH: The Greeks, man. Swans. Showers of gold coins. Helen of Troy was born out of an egg. It must have been a real relief when she came out hot - and then later not so much.
ROBIN: I've always known there was a race of pegasi. I just didn't expect to wake up one morning and find feathers on my pillow . . . feathers large enough that my first thought was that if we are talking predator here I'm in large ugly trouble. Fortunately the pegasi are sweeties. And vegetarian. After that it was just the usual system of trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how I was going to write it down.††
And there is absolutely no snaky hair in PEGASUS or PEG II. I promise.
SARAH: I love Sylvi's parents - her tall warrior mother, and her wee fearsome diplomat father. I love them a lot. I think we've all had the experience of getting really invested in a minor character: are there minor characters from your books who you have really cottoned to?
ROBIN: Always. Starting with Ger back in BEAUTY. Mel in SUNSHINE (as I've said elsewhere) is the Most Criminally Underused Character in the McKinley Oeuvre and may be the single strongest reason for any remote possibility of another story about Sunshine some day.††† I've had a crush on Jack Dedham in SWORD for thirty years. There's something mysterious about Sibyl in OUTLAWS. I know what happens to most of Robin's remaining band; all I know about Sibyl is that there's a mystery. Arrrgh. I would like to know more about Lissar's friend Lilac in DEERSKIN. The list goes on . . .
I'm not going to talk about PEGASUS, I think, because this writing-a-second-book-out-of-the-same-story thing is strange to me and I'm feeling Very Superstitious. There are a couple of minor characters in PEG I that I'm still hoping are going to rip up some radical scenery in PEG II.
SARAH: So would you say that you think the end of Pegasus is a) cruel, b) diabolical or c) why I don't know what you're talking about Sarah, or why you have torn out all your hair and been found, bald and frantic, hunting for clues in my flowerbeds so often... (I may have an opinion about the end of Pegasus myself but as your interviewer, I shall of course remain entirely and coolly unbiased.)
ROBIN: I think cruel and diabolical is a sound, judicious description of the end of PEGASUS, yes, and I'm very sorry about your hair. If I were either already fabulously wealthy from my previous forty-six New York Times best-sellers or a faster writer, I might have just hung onto it and produced one single epic volume, sold with its own carrying straps.‡ But I am not fabulously wealthy and gods know I am not a fast writer, and the hellhounds and I need to keep eating.‡‡ When the awful idea of whacking PEGASUS in half came to me my hand kept being relentlessly carried to the end of Chapter Nineteen‡‡‡. Stories are terrible bullies.
If it's any comfort, quite a lot of the writing of PEG II has been like walking on knives. Hot knives. (Little mermaid, pfaugh, as you would say.§) Because of the end of PEG I.
* * *
* Specific? With this memory? I don't do specific. Some of Peter's family were here this weekend and they were sitting around discussing the History of Shakespeare's History Plays. Wasn't Richard III the one who runs across stage shouting, An Imperial Landing Craft! My kingdom for an Imperial Landing Craft! No, no, on second thought I'd rather have a Death Star! I'll show that Henry Bolingb—Henry—uh—Tudor! —I covered for my crass ignorance on these exquisite matters by the well-known fact that I don't frelling much like Shakespeare, and that's aside from trying to keep his Richards and Henrys straight. PS: I hate Falstaff. HAAAAAAATE.
** Possibly not about the 2.3 minutes of a happy marriage. After (almost) twenty years Peter still makes sure there is chocolate and champagne in the house at all times, in case of emergencies, and asks me what I want for my birthday. I hear someone from the back row—where it's dark, and I can't see your face—asking what I do for him. Hey. I'm fun to watch. That has to be worth remembering to keep the champagne/chocolate stash topped up.
*** Although I'm planning on living disgracefully long in total. You're invited to my 100th birthday party in 2052. There will be champagne and chocolate cake.
† Or neener neener if you prefer.
†† And still is the usual system. One of the reasons I'm getting this interview in later than I should've is because PEG II: THE RATBAG has been torturing me more actively than usual this week.
††† Remote. Remember: remote.
‡ And a short list of possible alternative uses. Footstool. Barbell. Boxcar derby ballast. Coffee table: just add artfully cut glass sheet.
‡‡ Peter makes his own arrangements. Partly because he believes in regular meals. But the hellhounds need their chicken, and I need the occasional cute little cropped cashmere cardigan to keep my spirits festive.
‡‡‡ Not that it was Chapter Nineteen at that point. It was that MEEEP! bit after that other meep! meep! bit.
§ I am going to adopt pfaugh. It is so excellent.
At this point I realise you are all saying, 'God bless the McKinley lass, she has the patience of a saint, what kind of interview questions do you call those?'
You are probably also saying 'You were saying something about prizes, Sarah?'
Why, yes. There is a Robin McKinley prize pack going. It contains Chalice (a beekeeper raised to higher things. A mysterious, hot man. And by hot I mean 'mostly made of fire'), Sunshine (a vampire whose skin is reminiscent of undead mushrooms. A baker heroine. Sarah says 'This vampire book is making me SO HUNGRY' and worries her friends. Neil Gaiman says 'this book is pretty much perfect' so you don't have to take Sarah's word for it), a Pegasus poster - the cover is really pretty, you guys and a copy of Pegasus itself, which I think I've made clear, is a deeply desirable thing to have.
In order to win, tell me about a relationship, platonic, arguably platonic or otherwise, in which the characters communicate and don't just stare at each other, and it is awesome.
And I hope you all enjoyed the Fancy Interview With Robin McKinley!
I found this unsurprising. Robin McKinley has written a ton of awesome books. Robin McKinley is, indeed, still writing a ton of awesome books. Her latest book Pegasus is out in one week and one day, on November 2nd. It is high fantasy, and stars a very short and very determined princess called Sylvi and a very tall, muscular, talented and dashing flying beast called Ebon. By the terms of their people's treaty, each royal personage is bound to a pegasus of rank. Sometimes the binding means they can understand each other a little, and with the help of magicians they can understand each other a little more. 'Sire, that pegasus kicking holes in the palace walls is definitely feeling a trifle testy today.'
Except that Sylvi and Ebon instantly understand each other completely. Cue magicians yelling about how it is Unholy and Taboo, pegasus and human politics, Forbidden Meetings (Some Involving Balconies, I Find It Romantic Okay), and the looming threat of war.
In short it is an excellent book you guys. Now I secured an advance copy of Pegasus, which is how I know these things, and after I did so nothing made me happy but pestering its author, making vile and unwarranted insinuations about Sylvi and Ebon's relationship as is my way (ROBIN: Theirs is currently a platonic relationship. SARAH: Or is it? ROBIN: What is wrong with you, get away from me. SARAH: He's a fine figure of a pegasus is all I'm saying...).
It seemed like we had one of two choices. Option A: Robin McKinley puts Mace into her rose sprayer, and uses it on me. Option B: I babble about Pegasus in public.
We went with Option B. Also, there are going to be prizes. Fancy interview with Robin McKinley and prizes, y'all! Also, she uses footnotes: the blog is never going to be this fancy again.
FANCY INTERVIEW WITH ROBIN MCKINLEY:
SARAH: So in the book, humans and pegasi share a land: pegasi were the original inhabitants but they were beleaguered by terrible beasties, so when the humans arrived they were welcomed with open hoofish-hands. The two races formed an alliance, and the royals get assigned royal pegasus attendants.
Honestly it reminded me of a bit in Irish history, where the king of one province in Ireland stole another king's province, and the second king was like 'Uh, the English? Door's wide open. PS I got a marriageable daughter. Just sayin'.' Colonisation and alliance, complicated things in the real world, and even more so between humans and nonhumans. Did anything in history inspire Pegasus?
ROBIN: Not specifically*, but very much the sort of thing you're describing: history sometimes seems to me like one long slithery cascade of misalliance with occasional aberrations of a league or an association or even (gosh) a marriage that worked for all of 2.3 minutes. And for history read 'life.'**
In terms of watching my fellow human beings make utter horses' asses of themselves on a global scale I have lived too long already*** but as I get older the thing I get more and more conscious of, or maybe I mean obsessed with, is the way Everything Is Connected. And from that inevitably comes the dire realisation of Personal Responsibility. I've taken a certain amount of stick over the decades for writing too many stories about princesses and the grand and titled generally and thus making my characters inaccessible to my readers. Erm. Well, obviously I don't agree, or I wouldn't keep writing stories about princesses (we're all clear that the heroine of PEGASUS—the Standard McKinley Heroine—is a princess?), but one of the uses of royalty I think is to have a kind of heightened ordinariness. This clearly insupportable theory probably comes from having read way too many fairy tales at a young age—remember I was starting to read for myself in the Early Mesozoi—I mean the 1950s, before 'young adult literature' was invented, let alone 'urban fantasy'. I didn't even meet LOTR till I was eleven. I was already totally ruined by Andrew Lang by then.
And while one of the tangential attractions of my favourite fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is that Beauty is not a princess, well, the Beast is usually a prince or some major aristo, and he's certainly wealthy. And the folk and fairy tales that bent my young imagination in irredeemable ways tend to have royalty either as the central characters (the guys) or as the reward (the girls). So as I came out of my story-telling starting gate snarling I WANT GIRLS IN BOOKS WHO DO THINGS royalty seemed like one of the basic playing pieces. Royalty is where a lot of paths cross without your having to make them cross: Default connectedness and built-in responsibility. You can just sit there playing eenie meenie about which way you're going to go. Except, of course, the story won't let you. This way, it will say sternly, slipping the chain round your neck.
SARAH: While casually stalking you - uh, I mean, reading the tor.com discussion of Beauty and Rose Daughter because I Love Literature, and thinky thoughts about literature, someone quoted you in the comments as saying:
'The story I tell over and over and over and over is Beauty and the Beast. It all comes from there. There are variations on the theme–and it's inside out or upside down sometimes–but the communication gap between one living being and another is pretty much the ground line. And usually the gap-bridger is love.'
And that made me go 'OH' both because it's true, it's something that I love in books (eyes meeting across a crowded room kind of love, pfaugh, talk to each other)!
ROBIN: I. COULD. NOT. AGREE. MORE. Biiiiiiiig major fixation here. Second only to the Girls Doing Things fixation. I mean, fine, that your eyes meet across a crowded room. But after you make your way through the crowd, breathing heavily and using your elbows a lot, talk to each other.
SARAH: and because I think you took this common theme of yours a step further with Pegasus. In your previous books, people talk to each other and come to understand each other, but in Pegasus the problem and the miracle of communication is literalised. Sylvi and Ebon are members of two different species who are not supposed to be properly capable of talking to each other, and yet who can. Did you think about it as literalising your favourite theme, of bridging gaps and creating love through communication? To employ a Metaphor, what new alleys inside a favourite city were you able to create?
ROBIN: I hadn't dragged it blinking out of its comfortable ginnel into strong light like this before, but in hindsight, yes. What I think I'm doing—what the story is doing through me—is ratcheting up both the stakes and the difficulty and then saying . . . yup. Love can still do it. Nanny nanny boo boo.†
SARAH: The types of beast vary in your books: foreigner regarded with suspicion, actual beast, vampire, dragon, dude made of fire. In this case, it's a pegasus: something out of myth, something so beautiful it fills humans with dazzled amazement. (Uh, not like that. Though well, I don't know. Ebon is a fine figure of a pegasus. So strong and manly, and also with excellent sculpting skills.) What made you think of turning Pegasus from one mythological horse to a race of horses - what drew you to them?
ROBIN: Snork. Like I had any input on this one. I wasn't drawn to them. I woke up one morning and found my bed covered with large, shiny, funny-looking feathers . . . uh. Which reminds me;
VERY IMPORTANT, NO, CRUCIAL POINT. PEGASI ARE NOT WINGED HORSES. NOT. NOT. NOOOOOOOOOT. GOT THAT? GOOD. EXCELLENT.
There's been way too much 'Robin McKinley's race of flying horses' already and the book isn't even out yet. PEGASI ARE NOT FLYING HORSES. THEY'RE PEGASI. Are deer horses with split hooves and big ears? No. Are cheetahs really fast tigers with spots? No. Are hippopotamuses wet rhinos without horns? No. Are pegasi horses with wings? NO.
Here is a nice helpful excerpt from p 128:
'Pegasi looked almost more like four-legged birds, standing next to horses. Their necks were longer and their bodies shorter in comparison, their ribs tremendously widesprung for lung space and their shoulders broad for wing muscles, but tapering away behind to almost nothing; their bellies tucked up like sighthounds', although there were deep lines of muscle on their hindquarters. Their legs seemed as slender as grass stems, and the place where the head met the neck was so delicate a child's hands could ring it; they moved as if they weighed nothing at all, as if they might float away, even without spreading their wings.'
Now. Ahem. Back to the question. If you stalk me a lot . . . I mean, if you've read much of either my blog or web site, you'll already know that I like to say that I don't make my stories up, they happen to me. I had no conscious intention of doing anything with pegasi, which, before I met them, I assumed were flying horses, and while the flying part was kind of exciting and I have been seriously horse mad pretty much all my life, for some reason I always thought pegasi were kind of a snore. Oh, and yes, I know the old dad was Poseidon (Poseidon? And you get a flying horse?), mum was Medusa story (dad was Poseidon and mum was Medusa? And you get a flying horse? Seriously?) and he was born out of his mother's severed neck ewwwwww (Yo, ancient Greek dude, can we talk about these issues you have around women and childbirth?) . . . but that was clearly bogus (and to do with the ickiness of the ancient Greek psyche).
SARAH: The Greeks, man. Swans. Showers of gold coins. Helen of Troy was born out of an egg. It must have been a real relief when she came out hot - and then later not so much.
ROBIN: I've always known there was a race of pegasi. I just didn't expect to wake up one morning and find feathers on my pillow . . . feathers large enough that my first thought was that if we are talking predator here I'm in large ugly trouble. Fortunately the pegasi are sweeties. And vegetarian. After that it was just the usual system of trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how I was going to write it down.††
And there is absolutely no snaky hair in PEGASUS or PEG II. I promise.
SARAH: I love Sylvi's parents - her tall warrior mother, and her wee fearsome diplomat father. I love them a lot. I think we've all had the experience of getting really invested in a minor character: are there minor characters from your books who you have really cottoned to?
ROBIN: Always. Starting with Ger back in BEAUTY. Mel in SUNSHINE (as I've said elsewhere) is the Most Criminally Underused Character in the McKinley Oeuvre and may be the single strongest reason for any remote possibility of another story about Sunshine some day.††† I've had a crush on Jack Dedham in SWORD for thirty years. There's something mysterious about Sibyl in OUTLAWS. I know what happens to most of Robin's remaining band; all I know about Sibyl is that there's a mystery. Arrrgh. I would like to know more about Lissar's friend Lilac in DEERSKIN. The list goes on . . .
I'm not going to talk about PEGASUS, I think, because this writing-a-second-book-out-of-the-same-story thing is strange to me and I'm feeling Very Superstitious. There are a couple of minor characters in PEG I that I'm still hoping are going to rip up some radical scenery in PEG II.
SARAH: So would you say that you think the end of Pegasus is a) cruel, b) diabolical or c) why I don't know what you're talking about Sarah, or why you have torn out all your hair and been found, bald and frantic, hunting for clues in my flowerbeds so often... (I may have an opinion about the end of Pegasus myself but as your interviewer, I shall of course remain entirely and coolly unbiased.)
ROBIN: I think cruel and diabolical is a sound, judicious description of the end of PEGASUS, yes, and I'm very sorry about your hair. If I were either already fabulously wealthy from my previous forty-six New York Times best-sellers or a faster writer, I might have just hung onto it and produced one single epic volume, sold with its own carrying straps.‡ But I am not fabulously wealthy and gods know I am not a fast writer, and the hellhounds and I need to keep eating.‡‡ When the awful idea of whacking PEGASUS in half came to me my hand kept being relentlessly carried to the end of Chapter Nineteen‡‡‡. Stories are terrible bullies.
If it's any comfort, quite a lot of the writing of PEG II has been like walking on knives. Hot knives. (Little mermaid, pfaugh, as you would say.§) Because of the end of PEG I.
* * *
* Specific? With this memory? I don't do specific. Some of Peter's family were here this weekend and they were sitting around discussing the History of Shakespeare's History Plays. Wasn't Richard III the one who runs across stage shouting, An Imperial Landing Craft! My kingdom for an Imperial Landing Craft! No, no, on second thought I'd rather have a Death Star! I'll show that Henry Bolingb—Henry—uh—Tudor! —I covered for my crass ignorance on these exquisite matters by the well-known fact that I don't frelling much like Shakespeare, and that's aside from trying to keep his Richards and Henrys straight. PS: I hate Falstaff. HAAAAAAATE.
** Possibly not about the 2.3 minutes of a happy marriage. After (almost) twenty years Peter still makes sure there is chocolate and champagne in the house at all times, in case of emergencies, and asks me what I want for my birthday. I hear someone from the back row—where it's dark, and I can't see your face—asking what I do for him. Hey. I'm fun to watch. That has to be worth remembering to keep the champagne/chocolate stash topped up.
*** Although I'm planning on living disgracefully long in total. You're invited to my 100th birthday party in 2052. There will be champagne and chocolate cake.
† Or neener neener if you prefer.
†† And still is the usual system. One of the reasons I'm getting this interview in later than I should've is because PEG II: THE RATBAG has been torturing me more actively than usual this week.
††† Remote. Remember: remote.
‡ And a short list of possible alternative uses. Footstool. Barbell. Boxcar derby ballast. Coffee table: just add artfully cut glass sheet.
‡‡ Peter makes his own arrangements. Partly because he believes in regular meals. But the hellhounds need their chicken, and I need the occasional cute little cropped cashmere cardigan to keep my spirits festive.
‡‡‡ Not that it was Chapter Nineteen at that point. It was that MEEEP! bit after that other meep! meep! bit.
§ I am going to adopt pfaugh. It is so excellent.
At this point I realise you are all saying, 'God bless the McKinley lass, she has the patience of a saint, what kind of interview questions do you call those?'
You are probably also saying 'You were saying something about prizes, Sarah?'
Why, yes. There is a Robin McKinley prize pack going. It contains Chalice (a beekeeper raised to higher things. A mysterious, hot man. And by hot I mean 'mostly made of fire'), Sunshine (a vampire whose skin is reminiscent of undead mushrooms. A baker heroine. Sarah says 'This vampire book is making me SO HUNGRY' and worries her friends. Neil Gaiman says 'this book is pretty much perfect' so you don't have to take Sarah's word for it), a Pegasus poster - the cover is really pretty, you guys and a copy of Pegasus itself, which I think I've made clear, is a deeply desirable thing to have.
In order to win, tell me about a relationship, platonic, arguably platonic or otherwise, in which the characters communicate and don't just stare at each other, and it is awesome.
And I hope you all enjoyed the Fancy Interview With Robin McKinley!
October 18, 2010
The Demon's Surrender, Chapter One
You know what October means, sooner or later. Here is the first chapter of The Demon's Surrender.
My next blog post is going to be something very exciting. Wait and see. But til then I hope you think this is exciting too. ;)
THE DEMON'S SURRENDER
Chapter One
Summer Past
Magic was like a special guest in Sin's life. It appeared all too rarely, stayed for a brief interval, and she spent the rest of her time preparing for it to come again.
She had taken the day off school so she and her dancers could set up the lights. She and Chiara had spent an hour singing into Phyllis's new music boxes, which echoed back their voices transformed into strange sweet melodies. Then she'd had to rush away and help Carl set up his display of knives with luck stones in the hilts.
The magic had been worth waiting for. The Market at Dover Beach was one of the most beautiful Markets she'd seen this year.
The musicians were high on the white cliffs, streaked with shadows by the twilight, and the Market itself was being held on a platform a few steps up from the shingled beach. The sea lay sparkling and still in the curve of the bay, like water held in the hollow of a pale hand, and fainter than the light of the stars Sin could see the night-time lights of the French coast.
There were other Goblin Markets held in other countries. She wanted to dance at them all one day.
For now she was glad to be at this one.
Sin was watching Toby while Mama put the finishing touches on the fortune-telling stall. The lanterns swinging over their heads cast rainbow gleams over the surface of the crystal balls, in the depths of the jewels on Mama's hands. Sin rocked Toby and Mama sang a Goblin Market song to them both as she laid out the cards.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word
If you have two marks never get a third.
Hush little baby, don't you cry.
Mama never falls and demons never lie.
Hush little baby, don't say a thing.
Mama's going to buy you a magic ring.
And if your ring won't give you a wish.
We'll be all right, baby, just like this."
Sin smiled. "Who are you planning to dance with tonight?"
"The best-looking man who asks me," Mama replied, and they both laughed.
Mama was in a good mood for the first time in a long time. She had been sick too long after Toby was born and Victor had left with no word ever since to Mama, the woman he'd said he loved, or to Toby and Lydie, his children.
He wasn't Sin's father, and they were better off without him, but money had been tight since he went. What tourists really paid for were answers from demons, and to get those you had to dance. Mama had been too sick to dance, and she never accepted help from anyone. She'd never even let Dad help after he left. They had barely been able to scrape by on what Sin made dancing.
But now Mama was finally ready to dance again, they would be all right. Just like this.
"How about you?" Mama asked.
Sin just smiled, which meant she was holding out for Nick Ryves. He hadn't been to the Market in a couple of months, so he was due back.
Nick and Sin weren't exactly friends. It was hard to be friends with Nick.
He was the best dancer she'd ever seen, though, and that made her like him. Sin respected talent, and it was hard to dislike anyone when you loved to watch them move. Besides, you learned a lot about people dancing with them. That was why Sin made sure to dance with every new dancer once.
"Don't tell me it's Nick Ryves." Mama wrinkled her nose. "That boy's creepy. I'm saying this as someone personally acquainted with fifteen necromancers."
Sin shrugged. "He's better than his brother."
"I don't see what you have against Alan," Mama said, predictably. "He's very gifted."
Alan Ryves was the kind of boy all the parents and grandparents and busybodies of the Market thought everyone should be like: perfect, studious, ever so polite and ever so politely disdainful of the dancers. He got up Sin's nose more than anyone she had ever met.
"I know. Being so boring and yet so irritating at once, that's a gift."
Mama did not respond. Sin glanced up to see her mother's eyes had gone wide, pools of brightness reflected from the lanterns, and Sin immediately twisted around to see the threat.
There was no threat. There was just Alan Ryves and his annoying face, and at his shoulder where Nick always stood there was… well, there was Nick.
It wasn't that Sin did not recognize him. It was unmistakably Nick, all dead-white skin, dead-black hair and drop-dead stare, but those sullen too-sharp and too-strong features of Nick's had clicked into place: he was almost as tall as his brother now when he'd always been short. Muscles that had made him look squat before, like a surly full-grown goblin rather than a kid, fit on his new frame in easy rippling lines as he walked.
He still moved like a dancer, smooth and sure.
This was Nick made new under the burning lanterns, light racing golden along the angular line of his cheekbones, fire kindling in the depths of his black eyes.
Mama whistled.
Sin smiled absently. It wasn't that she was not interested by Nick's sudden ridiculous good looks. She was just distracted by something even more unexpected.
She found herself feeling a little sorry for Nick.
Sin had always been a cute kid. She'd known that ever since she could remember: there was no way not to know, when she and Mama had to use it. She'd been using curls and ribbons and a sweet smile to get people to come to Mama's stall and have their fortunes told since she was five years old.
She'd been dancing almost as long. First just to amuse the tourists, providing entertainment that was more about her smiles and her pretty costumes than the fact she could dance, and then for the demons, when it was only talent that really counted. But making it look good never hurt.
She was used to attention and admiration. But it did change when you grew up, new and sometimes unexpectedly painful like aching muscles.
Last year she had been at the stall of a potion-maker she'd known for years, and he'd given her a present because she looked so pretty that night. He'd spelled out her name in dandelion seeds, shining like stars in the moonlight.
He'd spelled it Sin. She'd always spelled it Cyn before. But now people looked at her and saw something different.
Mama had put her arm around Sin's shoulders as they left the potion-maker's stall.
"So make the name yours," she'd said.
A stage name was the truest name a dancer could have. She'd learned to use what people saw when they looked at her. She'd always been a performer.
Heads were turning as the brothers moved through the crowd, and Nick did not look even slightly fazed. Sin saw him meet a few gazes for an instant and then let his eyes slide deliberately away, his mouth curling. Nick, who never wanted to talk or play or be friends, looked as comfortable as he did in the dancing circle with the demons. As if he had always known he was going to be beautiful.
Nick had never been one for performance. But it looked like he knew how to use this new power he had as a weapon.
She could understand that.
Sin rose from her place by Toby's crib, and took a moment to let the lights of the Market and the wind from the beach wash over her.
Her mother caught her eye and winked. "Go get your partner."
"Oh, I will, but Nick can wait," Sin said. "First I want an audience."
It was the night of the Goblin Market, a night for seeing someone in a new light.
She thought Nick was human at the time.
*
Sin spotted her mark right away. He was a guy in a suit who had the air of someone who'd been to the Market a few times before and who was trying to give the impression it had been more than a few. He was also handing over a lot more money than the German book of witchcraft he was paying for was worth.
"Welcome to the Market," Sin said.
When he spun around, she was already positioned so that the fairy lights caught the red glints in her hair and left her face wearing shadows and a slow scarlet smile.
It was a lot like placing her mother's crystal balls on the stall so they were shown off to their best advantage. Sin wasn't for sale, but it did no harm to let tourists believe she might be.
The man visibly hesitated, then swallowed. "It's not my first time."
"Oh," said Sin. "I could tell."
"I guess," the guy said, his eyes travelling over Sin's bright clothes and gleaming skin. "You're one of the attractions?"
"I'm the star attraction," Sin murmured. "Follow the music when it starts, and you'll see me dance."
The man took a step towards her and she felt a flash of triumph. She had him, like a fish on a line.
"What are you doing right now?" he asked.
"She's busy being underage," said the most annoying voice in the world.
They both looked around to the book stall, which Alan Ryves was leaning his bad leg against, a book in one hand and his usual expression of righteousness on his face.
"So perhaps what you should do right now is leave," he continued, in his gentle voice, the one he used as he limped around the Market charming every old biddy in the place. Such a nice boy, they all said.
Nice boys were such a pain.
"Er, so I'll just be," said the tourist, and then stepped backwards and away, into the crowd.
Alan gave her a little smile, as if he expected her to thank him for scaring away her audience. As if he'd done something nice for her, and he was expecting her to be pleased. There were fairy lights over his head, too, making his glasses catch the light and his red hair seem to catch fire. He looked even more ridiculous than usual.
He was wearing a T-shirt that said 'I GET MY FUN BETWEEN THE COVERS.' It had a picture of a book on it.
"Hi, Cynthia," he said.
"What is wrong with you?" Sin demanded. "Besides the obvious."
Alan's smile twisted in on itself, and Sin bit her lip as she realized what he thought she'd meant. She hadn't been thinking about – well, she had been, it was hard not to notice – but she hadn't intended for him to assume she was talking about his leg.
She didn't feel like losing any ground before the ever-so-saintly Ryves brother, though, so she just sneered, turning her face pointedly away to look at the rest of the Market. There were a lot of sights that deserved her attention far more than Alan.
One of them was the sight of her little sister Lydie, being carried past in Trish's arms. Trish made fever wine during the day before the Market, but at night she often volunteered to babysit.
"Lydie," said Sin, and brushed a kiss at the golden curls at Lydie's temple. Lydie looked past her and reached her arms out for Alan.
"Hi, sweetheart," said Alan, his voice turning slow and sweet as honey. Lydie's arms stretched forward, questing and imperious, and Alan leaned his weight against the stall and reached out to hold her.
Sin had to look away as he lurched.
"You're so irresistible to women, Alan," she remarked. "Pity your charm only works on those over fifty or under five."
"Poor me," Alan said. "I just missed my chance of dazzling you. You're what, seven by now?"
He gave her the smug look of a boy a bare three years older than she was. Sin rolled her eyes.
"Same age as your brother," she remarked. "And he's looking pretty grown-up these days."
Alan's stance shifted suddenly, and Sin realized that there was one of the Ryves brothers at least who was not entirely comfortable with Nick's transformation. Alan's T-shirt might as well have read 'MY BROTHER IS JAILBAIT. IT'S MAKING ME ANXIOUS.'
Sin smiled with glorious and terrible joy.
"You've seen Nick," Alan said, his voice suddenly wary. "Did you talk to him?"
She raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that he needed a signed permission slip to play with the other children. I have seen him. I had a lot of fun looking."
"Yes, all right, Cynthia," said Alan, who apparently felt he needed to use her full name at all times in order to achieve the maximum possible level of condescension. "Look, I'm just – I'm just saying, maybe be a little careful."
"Careful?" Sin repeated. "You're telling me to be careful of your own brother."
Alan colored a deep unhappy red. Sin did not give a damn.
Market opinion was divided on what Nick thought of Alan, their guesses ranging from 'total indifference' to 'sullen adoration.' But Alan had always seemed to love Nick, sticking close to him, taking care of him as Nick scowled about it. It was the only thing about Alan that Sin actually approved of.
She reached out and pulled her sister out of his arms, rocking Lydie when she made a noise of extreme dissatisfaction. She pressed Lydie's cheek to her talisman, the enchanted web of net and crystal against her heart.
"I can't count the ways you make me sick," she said conversationally to Alan. "Besides the obvious."
She wielded the words with vicious, deliberate emphasis like one of her long knives, and saw them cut deep. The color drained out of Alan's face.
"Stay out of my way," Sin ordered. "And don't you dare interfere with any of my audiences ever again."
"He was a creep," Alan mumbled. "It's wrong to objectify women."
He turned away towards the piles of books as if retreating to a refuge and sounded a little awkward when he said that, as if he really believed it but knew it sounded stupid. Alan was supposed to be so smart: Sin could not understand why he didn't see that he was insulting her by implying she hadn't known exactly what she was doing, and exactly what that guy was.
She gave Lydie to Trish and stepped in close to Alan, whose eyes widened slightly. Sin ignored her own surprise that Alan was so tall and leaned in closer still, almost resting her chin against his shoulder, so close she could feel his body heat. She concentrated her gaze until he followed it, and saw who she was watching.
She gave him a slow, sweet smile.
"Guess what," she said. "I'm objectifying your brother right now."
She left without another look at him, sliding through the Market. She smiled seeing first-time tourists arrive looking wary about the mysterious invitations they'd received from strangers, looking suspicious, and then seeing their faces wiped clean of everything but wonder. The stalls were full of glittering marvels like treasure chests newly discovered and just opened for the first time, and even the stars shone bright as new coins under lamplight against the black velvet drape of a stall. Sin remembered being very small, walking through the Market holding her father's hand and dazzled by everything.
Sin was part of the marvels now.
As she listened to the pipers, the music from above changed, became something intense with a beat that rang out to the sky. Sin tipped her head back to see white cliffs painted violet and black by the falling night, the pipers at the edge with their instruments gleaming in the moonlight, and above them walls and a castle keep.
Then she lowered her gaze, and saw everyone was looking at her.
She had already positioned herself under a lantern that beamed white light in a pattern like lace: a lantern enchanted to make everything it touched radiant. Sin knew it was making her silvery dress glow like moonlight on steel, that it made the fever blossoms woven through the pale material and her dark hair kindle with crimson fire.
She sent her body rippling to the music, bringing attention to the shifting whisper-soft material over her skin, to the sway of her hips. Her movement called the other dancers to her, spilling in from every corner of the Market to join her dance.
She swayed a few more times, slow and sinuous. The whispers and gasps of the audience stroked over her like caresses.
When she pulled a fever blossom slowly out of her hair, dark locks unraveling from the flower like ribbons, the noise from the audience rose to an excited pitch.
Clearly, this crowd had been informed that whoever was thrown a fever blossom had the dancer's favor.
Sin laughed, and threw.
The single point of red drew every eye and painted a fiery streak against the sky, like a tiny falling star.
Nick was standing alone and looking bored, his eyes hooded. He caught the fever blossom in one hand.
Sin left the dance and walked towards him. His lids lifted as she came close. There was a gleam in them.
"You ready to dance?" Sin asked.
"With you?"
"Don't tell me you were considering someone else."
Nick smirked. "Why, will it break your heart?"
"No," said Sin. "I just won't believe you."
She saw the glint of appreciation touch his cold face, curling his mouth at the very edges. Nick never showed much emotion, but even the smallest hint of a reaction was like a victory. And he'd always appreciated directness.
"Well, I don't lie," he said, tucking away the fever blossom and offering her his hand. "And I don't want to dance with anyone but you."
*
The summoning circles were cut, the drums were beating and Nick was in the circle overlapping hers before she spoke to him again. Even then, he didn't speak back.
He couldn't. They always used a speaking charm so Alan could talk to the demons for him.
"Good luck," Sin murmured, and they both smiled because the idea he might need luck was a joke.
The music had started as a trickle and became a flood now, cascading over the sand and into the ocean, echoing off the pale cliffs, coursing like sweet electric shocks through Sin's bones. Sin could see the tourists' heads turning even more than usual, as she looked at them with eyes that lured them into drawing closer and Nick stared at them with eyes that said to draw closer if they dared.
The music from the new drums was better, the tiny rattle of skulls adding an edge to the melody. Lines and circles leaped into fire under Sin's feet.
She turned to fire with them, muscles burning as she twisted and turned and pushed them to their limit, blood burning in her veins as she spun. She was never so aware of her body as she was when she danced, of her body as a weapon honed to a perfect edge and a decoration polished until it was perfectly irresistible. Every pair of eyes resting on her, every breath she took away, was a triumph.
Sin never doubted the demon would come.
And Anzu did, golden wings meeting over his head like a crown, empty glass-colored eyes fixed on Nick's. Nick stared back without flinching: a real dancer, who would never in a thousand years stumble or fall.
Alan's voice came out of the darkness beyond their burning circle, sure and calm. Sin had to admit, he always knew just what to say.
She'd hardly been aware of her partner as she danced, aside from the fact she could trust Nick never to make a wrong move. But she was always most grateful for Nick when the demons came. Nothing ever frightened him.
Sin looked at him and saw the same satisfaction she felt, the same rush and thrill of daring death and doing it just right, and was absolutely certain that later tonight there would be making out.
Then a magician sent a fireball through a stall.
Merris Cromwell sent the alarm bells ringing for an attack, Matthias and his pipers started playing music to work everyone into a battle frenzy, and Carl from the weapons stall threw an axe at the head of the first magician in the sweeping rush.
Sin and Nick had to stay perfectly still. If they moved, they might break through one of the lines, they might cross the circle, and that meant the demon could tear off your talisman. That meant possession: that meant worse than death.
They were left totally exposed.
"Scared, my beautiful dancer?" Anzu the demon whispered in her ear. "Sure you don't want to run?"
"I dismiss you," Alan said coolly, as if nothing was happening. The demon's fury curled around Sin's heart like a fist as his balefire started to dim.
Sin lifted her chin and ignored him. Part of dancing was knowing when to stay still.
The demon was leaving, the fire dying. Soon the circle could be broken.
She could only see three magicians, but the three were cutting through the Market people like a spearhead, their demons clearing them a path, their hands streaming lightning and darkness. They rushed down the pier and Sin realized in a moment of cold horror that they were coming straight at Nick.
The circle would not be broken in time.
Then there was the sharp crack of a gun firing, and the head of the man in front exploded. There was another shot and the glint of a knife in the night. Blood splashed hot into Sin's face. She did not let herself even tremble.
Then there was nothing but three dead men between Alan Ryves and his brother.
Alan stepped over them without a glance, a gun in one hand and a bloody knife in the other.
"Are you all right, Nick?" he demanded, and pulled the speaking charm off Nick's neck, chain breaking in the hand that held his knife, so Nick could answer.
Nick nodded silently. He had not moved a muscle, and he did not look even slightly surprised.
Once reassured, Alan lowered his knife and looked over his shoulder at the trail of dead bodies he'd left behind. Apparently now he could register the fact he had killed three people in less than a minute and look a little startled and a little sorry.
That was why Sin didn't like guns. Apart from the fact they sometimes didn't work on magicians, it was too easy to use them. There was no physical, visceral awareness of what you had done when you used one.
She did like knives. And as the last of the balefire died she stepped out of her circle and drew hers, though there was no threat left to face.
It was excellent that there hadn't been many magicians, that they had been neutralized quickly, that the Market night could go on. But it left her with the blood racing in her veins, her heart battering her chest as if it wanted to take wing.
She had meant to stay and see Mama do her first dance.
Instead when Nick caught her eye and turned away, she followed.
*
It was dark and cool down on the shore, white seashells and sand crackling beneath her feet. Sin moved towards the shoreline where the surf was kissing the sand in a rush of exuberant foam, looked around, and saw no sign of Nick.
Sin walked along the water's edge, the lights of the Market behind her, sea and sand stretching to either side, and waited until the moon-iced surface of the ocean broke.
Nick pushed back black hair, drenched and sleek as seal fur, and smiled at her. He might as well have beckoned. The angles of his face looked more sharply cut than ever, his shoulders white and wet, all the planes of his body given gleaming definition by moonlight.
She walked into the surf and he walked out of it towards her: the water of the English Channel was cold even in August, rushing up to meet Sin mid-thigh almost at once and hitting her at waist-height as she waded in deeper, washing the sweat off her skin and all the tiredness out of her muscles, leaving her with nothing but a sweet ache along her body.
She reached out and trailed her fingertips down the ridges of Nick's stomach, curious, until her hand met the cool shock of water and the leather of his belt.
"I'm a little disappointed," Sin said.
Nick smirked. "I'm a little shy."
Sin caught hold of the wet rope securing his talisman, knotted it around her hand, and pulled his head down to hers. He caught her small delighted laugh with his mouth.
His skin was cool and his mouth hot against hers, and she arched up on her tiptoes to get more. It wasn't like Sin was short: these Ryves boys were both too tall.
Nick rescued her from the passing and disturbing moment when Alan Ryves crossed her mind by solving her problem and picking her up, hands sure on the small of her back and bending her backwards so she was lying on the water like a mermaid in her bed, her hair spreading out with the waves. Then he pulled her back up to him, and she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
"Come on," Nick murmured against her mouth. "I don't like the sea. Why don't we get out?"
Sin smiled. "Why don't we?"
He carried her out of the ocean and laid her down on the shoreline, the place where the pebbles lay washed by the surf until they looked like jewels. Her soaked hair fanned out in the sand like seaweed, and Sin arched up so he could slide his hands under her back and save her from the chill. He stroked up and down her back obligingly, and slid down her body a little, nudging her talisman sharply to one side as if it irritated him, so the wet rope bit hard against her neck as his mouth opened on it, warm and lingering.
Sin pulled his wet hair a little as a punishment, and arched up against him again.
Then an alarm shattered the silence from cliffs to sea. Sin went rigid with fear: she levered herself up and met Nick's gleaming black eyes.
"Alan," he growled.
"Mama," Sin said, and now they had both named what they had back at the Market, what could be in danger, the spell of a moment was broken. Sin was up and running, not caring if Nick was running to or where he was, only caring that she got back.
She launched herself up onto the cement platform and landed hard, skinning her knees bloody and not caring about that either, rolling to her feet and running.
There were magicians all around them. The first three magicians had been a decoy, something to make them feel as if they were safe from attack. This was real.
Sin saw the tourist Alan had warned away from her, magic glowing in his hand. His eyes went wide as he recognized her.
She was faster on the draw than he was. Her knife was buried in his throat before the magic ever left his hand, and she was running on.
Everywhere across the Market her people were fighting, and they beat the magicians back. Sin was shivering with triumph and exhaustion by the time she finally reached the dancers, ready to find Mama and rest, with her singing that they would be all right.
It was very quiet where the dancers were. It was so still.
Mama was lying face down in her circle. The balefire had all gone out.
Sin stepped into the dead summoning circle, knelt down on the earth and turned her mother over, so gently. For a moment she was absolutely, blessedly relieved: Mama's breath was coming steadily, stirring the fall of her golden-brown hair over her face, and Sin thought she was just hurt, that everything was going to be fine.
Mama opened her eyes.
All the light and joy of the Market, all the light and joy Sin knew in this world, drained away in the terrible demon darkness of those eyes.
"No," Sin said, her voice a lonely whisper, drowned out by the sound of the sea, by the terrible sucking silence emanating from the thing that had moments ago been her mother.
"Mama!" came Lydie's voice, and Sin looked up to see her little sister come dashing towards them, and thought no, no, no with the force of a scream she could not let loose, with the force of a prayer.
Alan scooped Lydie up fast as she went by, turning her face towards his with his free hand, talking to her in rapid, soothing tones, comforting her, not allowing her to see.
There was nobody to comfort Sin, and she had to see.
The demon seemed to be registering its success, its body coming to terrible life in Sin's arms, Mama's mouth curving into a gradual, terrible smile.
Mama was nothing but a shell with a demon inside her, Mama herself caged in the back of her own mind.
That was what happened whenever an ordinary person had dreams of demons and opened a window to let them in. Or whenever a dancer fell in a summoning circle.
In the distance Sin could hear Merris giving the orders to those in the know: orders for taking away a possessed person, for dragging the demon-infested body to Mezentius House where it would be held prisoner until the body rotted away from the inside out, until the body died. The necromancers were coming, the men with chains, those who had spells to throw.
Her mother was still inside there, helpless, with the demon in command.
"Mama," said Sin, finding her voice in extremity, the words tumbling desperately out. "Mama. I'll come with you. Don't be too scared. I'll come, I'll stay. Mama, I love you-"
Her voice rose then, in a high childish wail, but she couldn't afford to be childish now. As the Market people came to deal with her mother, Sin surged to her feet and went to deal with Merris Cromwell.
"You certainly cannot come to Mezentius House," Merris informed her. "You're far too valuable to risk."
Sin had always been awed and scared by Merris before. She'd always seen her at a remove, knowing that her mother would probably inherit the Market some day since she was a Davies and the best dancer they had. She'd left her mother to deal with Merris.
Her mother was as good as dead. Which meant Sin was the best dancer in the Market, and she was the next in line to be leader.
"My mother's in there," Sin said. "I'm going to stay with her. And if you don't let me, I'll leave the Market."
It was an insane thing to say. What would she do if she left the Market, especially now Mama was gone, now Toby and Lydie had only her? She couldn't do anything but dance. She would have to become one of the dancers not attached to the Market, who danced for demons alone, who usually died in less than a year.
It was an insane thing to say, but she meant it.
"You can let me go to Mezentius House, or you can find a new heir. I will not let my mother die alone!"
Merris let her go. Sin promised Trish and Carl all her tips for the next season, anything, if they would care for Lydie and Toby until she came back. Toby was asleep, but Lydie cried, and Sin was terribly grateful that Alan was still holding Lydie, his eyes wide and so sorry for them both. Sin wasn't going to let herself cry in front of Alan Ryves.
She cried at the House of Mezentius. She stayed with her possessed mother for three nightmarish weeks, cried and bled and screamed and stayed, until her mother died. And then she went back to the Market, still able to dance.
That was one mercy. There was nobody else to inherit the Market, and nobody else to take care of Lydie and Toby.
Sin did not need anyone else. She could do it, just like dancing: it didn't matter how hard it was. What mattered was never, ever to falter.
She didn't falter and she did not fall once over the year and more that passed, not when they found out that Nick Ryves was a demon that had been put in a child and raised among them all this time. Not when they discovered that Alan was the greatest traitor imaginable, someone who had chosen a demon above all their own kind. Not when the threat of the magicians became so great and Merris got so sick that they had to make a bargain with the demon and the traitor.
Not even when Alan Ryves, the boy Sin had never liked, gave her a gift she could never have imagined and could never repay, when he put himself in the power of magicians to save her brother.
So Sin was not going to hesitate for a moment now, though a demon had just strolled into her ordinary London classroom with its graying blackboards and harsh fluorescent lights. Sin's magic world and her normal world were meant to be kept apart, but here was Nick Ryves at her school.
He looked much the same as he had more than a year ago, when he had stood looking down at her with wet hair fringed by moonlight.
"Sin?" asked Nick, who she had thought was human once. He seemed, as far as you could tell with Nick, startled and perhaps even pleased to see her.
Time for another performance, then.
Sin crossed her legs under her rough uniform skirt.
"I'm sorry," she said smoothly. "My name's Cynthia Davies. I don't believe we've ever met."
My next blog post is going to be something very exciting. Wait and see. But til then I hope you think this is exciting too. ;)
THE DEMON'S SURRENDER
Chapter One
Summer Past
Magic was like a special guest in Sin's life. It appeared all too rarely, stayed for a brief interval, and she spent the rest of her time preparing for it to come again.
She had taken the day off school so she and her dancers could set up the lights. She and Chiara had spent an hour singing into Phyllis's new music boxes, which echoed back their voices transformed into strange sweet melodies. Then she'd had to rush away and help Carl set up his display of knives with luck stones in the hilts.
The magic had been worth waiting for. The Market at Dover Beach was one of the most beautiful Markets she'd seen this year.
The musicians were high on the white cliffs, streaked with shadows by the twilight, and the Market itself was being held on a platform a few steps up from the shingled beach. The sea lay sparkling and still in the curve of the bay, like water held in the hollow of a pale hand, and fainter than the light of the stars Sin could see the night-time lights of the French coast.
There were other Goblin Markets held in other countries. She wanted to dance at them all one day.
For now she was glad to be at this one.
Sin was watching Toby while Mama put the finishing touches on the fortune-telling stall. The lanterns swinging over their heads cast rainbow gleams over the surface of the crystal balls, in the depths of the jewels on Mama's hands. Sin rocked Toby and Mama sang a Goblin Market song to them both as she laid out the cards.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word
If you have two marks never get a third.
Hush little baby, don't you cry.
Mama never falls and demons never lie.
Hush little baby, don't say a thing.
Mama's going to buy you a magic ring.
And if your ring won't give you a wish.
We'll be all right, baby, just like this."
Sin smiled. "Who are you planning to dance with tonight?"
"The best-looking man who asks me," Mama replied, and they both laughed.
Mama was in a good mood for the first time in a long time. She had been sick too long after Toby was born and Victor had left with no word ever since to Mama, the woman he'd said he loved, or to Toby and Lydie, his children.
He wasn't Sin's father, and they were better off without him, but money had been tight since he went. What tourists really paid for were answers from demons, and to get those you had to dance. Mama had been too sick to dance, and she never accepted help from anyone. She'd never even let Dad help after he left. They had barely been able to scrape by on what Sin made dancing.
But now Mama was finally ready to dance again, they would be all right. Just like this.
"How about you?" Mama asked.
Sin just smiled, which meant she was holding out for Nick Ryves. He hadn't been to the Market in a couple of months, so he was due back.
Nick and Sin weren't exactly friends. It was hard to be friends with Nick.
He was the best dancer she'd ever seen, though, and that made her like him. Sin respected talent, and it was hard to dislike anyone when you loved to watch them move. Besides, you learned a lot about people dancing with them. That was why Sin made sure to dance with every new dancer once.
"Don't tell me it's Nick Ryves." Mama wrinkled her nose. "That boy's creepy. I'm saying this as someone personally acquainted with fifteen necromancers."
Sin shrugged. "He's better than his brother."
"I don't see what you have against Alan," Mama said, predictably. "He's very gifted."
Alan Ryves was the kind of boy all the parents and grandparents and busybodies of the Market thought everyone should be like: perfect, studious, ever so polite and ever so politely disdainful of the dancers. He got up Sin's nose more than anyone she had ever met.
"I know. Being so boring and yet so irritating at once, that's a gift."
Mama did not respond. Sin glanced up to see her mother's eyes had gone wide, pools of brightness reflected from the lanterns, and Sin immediately twisted around to see the threat.
There was no threat. There was just Alan Ryves and his annoying face, and at his shoulder where Nick always stood there was… well, there was Nick.
It wasn't that Sin did not recognize him. It was unmistakably Nick, all dead-white skin, dead-black hair and drop-dead stare, but those sullen too-sharp and too-strong features of Nick's had clicked into place: he was almost as tall as his brother now when he'd always been short. Muscles that had made him look squat before, like a surly full-grown goblin rather than a kid, fit on his new frame in easy rippling lines as he walked.
He still moved like a dancer, smooth and sure.
This was Nick made new under the burning lanterns, light racing golden along the angular line of his cheekbones, fire kindling in the depths of his black eyes.
Mama whistled.
Sin smiled absently. It wasn't that she was not interested by Nick's sudden ridiculous good looks. She was just distracted by something even more unexpected.
She found herself feeling a little sorry for Nick.
Sin had always been a cute kid. She'd known that ever since she could remember: there was no way not to know, when she and Mama had to use it. She'd been using curls and ribbons and a sweet smile to get people to come to Mama's stall and have their fortunes told since she was five years old.
She'd been dancing almost as long. First just to amuse the tourists, providing entertainment that was more about her smiles and her pretty costumes than the fact she could dance, and then for the demons, when it was only talent that really counted. But making it look good never hurt.
She was used to attention and admiration. But it did change when you grew up, new and sometimes unexpectedly painful like aching muscles.
Last year she had been at the stall of a potion-maker she'd known for years, and he'd given her a present because she looked so pretty that night. He'd spelled out her name in dandelion seeds, shining like stars in the moonlight.
He'd spelled it Sin. She'd always spelled it Cyn before. But now people looked at her and saw something different.
Mama had put her arm around Sin's shoulders as they left the potion-maker's stall.
"So make the name yours," she'd said.
A stage name was the truest name a dancer could have. She'd learned to use what people saw when they looked at her. She'd always been a performer.
Heads were turning as the brothers moved through the crowd, and Nick did not look even slightly fazed. Sin saw him meet a few gazes for an instant and then let his eyes slide deliberately away, his mouth curling. Nick, who never wanted to talk or play or be friends, looked as comfortable as he did in the dancing circle with the demons. As if he had always known he was going to be beautiful.
Nick had never been one for performance. But it looked like he knew how to use this new power he had as a weapon.
She could understand that.
Sin rose from her place by Toby's crib, and took a moment to let the lights of the Market and the wind from the beach wash over her.
Her mother caught her eye and winked. "Go get your partner."
"Oh, I will, but Nick can wait," Sin said. "First I want an audience."
It was the night of the Goblin Market, a night for seeing someone in a new light.
She thought Nick was human at the time.
*
Sin spotted her mark right away. He was a guy in a suit who had the air of someone who'd been to the Market a few times before and who was trying to give the impression it had been more than a few. He was also handing over a lot more money than the German book of witchcraft he was paying for was worth.
"Welcome to the Market," Sin said.
When he spun around, she was already positioned so that the fairy lights caught the red glints in her hair and left her face wearing shadows and a slow scarlet smile.
It was a lot like placing her mother's crystal balls on the stall so they were shown off to their best advantage. Sin wasn't for sale, but it did no harm to let tourists believe she might be.
The man visibly hesitated, then swallowed. "It's not my first time."
"Oh," said Sin. "I could tell."
"I guess," the guy said, his eyes travelling over Sin's bright clothes and gleaming skin. "You're one of the attractions?"
"I'm the star attraction," Sin murmured. "Follow the music when it starts, and you'll see me dance."
The man took a step towards her and she felt a flash of triumph. She had him, like a fish on a line.
"What are you doing right now?" he asked.
"She's busy being underage," said the most annoying voice in the world.
They both looked around to the book stall, which Alan Ryves was leaning his bad leg against, a book in one hand and his usual expression of righteousness on his face.
"So perhaps what you should do right now is leave," he continued, in his gentle voice, the one he used as he limped around the Market charming every old biddy in the place. Such a nice boy, they all said.
Nice boys were such a pain.
"Er, so I'll just be," said the tourist, and then stepped backwards and away, into the crowd.
Alan gave her a little smile, as if he expected her to thank him for scaring away her audience. As if he'd done something nice for her, and he was expecting her to be pleased. There were fairy lights over his head, too, making his glasses catch the light and his red hair seem to catch fire. He looked even more ridiculous than usual.
He was wearing a T-shirt that said 'I GET MY FUN BETWEEN THE COVERS.' It had a picture of a book on it.
"Hi, Cynthia," he said.
"What is wrong with you?" Sin demanded. "Besides the obvious."
Alan's smile twisted in on itself, and Sin bit her lip as she realized what he thought she'd meant. She hadn't been thinking about – well, she had been, it was hard not to notice – but she hadn't intended for him to assume she was talking about his leg.
She didn't feel like losing any ground before the ever-so-saintly Ryves brother, though, so she just sneered, turning her face pointedly away to look at the rest of the Market. There were a lot of sights that deserved her attention far more than Alan.
One of them was the sight of her little sister Lydie, being carried past in Trish's arms. Trish made fever wine during the day before the Market, but at night she often volunteered to babysit.
"Lydie," said Sin, and brushed a kiss at the golden curls at Lydie's temple. Lydie looked past her and reached her arms out for Alan.
"Hi, sweetheart," said Alan, his voice turning slow and sweet as honey. Lydie's arms stretched forward, questing and imperious, and Alan leaned his weight against the stall and reached out to hold her.
Sin had to look away as he lurched.
"You're so irresistible to women, Alan," she remarked. "Pity your charm only works on those over fifty or under five."
"Poor me," Alan said. "I just missed my chance of dazzling you. You're what, seven by now?"
He gave her the smug look of a boy a bare three years older than she was. Sin rolled her eyes.
"Same age as your brother," she remarked. "And he's looking pretty grown-up these days."
Alan's stance shifted suddenly, and Sin realized that there was one of the Ryves brothers at least who was not entirely comfortable with Nick's transformation. Alan's T-shirt might as well have read 'MY BROTHER IS JAILBAIT. IT'S MAKING ME ANXIOUS.'
Sin smiled with glorious and terrible joy.
"You've seen Nick," Alan said, his voice suddenly wary. "Did you talk to him?"
She raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that he needed a signed permission slip to play with the other children. I have seen him. I had a lot of fun looking."
"Yes, all right, Cynthia," said Alan, who apparently felt he needed to use her full name at all times in order to achieve the maximum possible level of condescension. "Look, I'm just – I'm just saying, maybe be a little careful."
"Careful?" Sin repeated. "You're telling me to be careful of your own brother."
Alan colored a deep unhappy red. Sin did not give a damn.
Market opinion was divided on what Nick thought of Alan, their guesses ranging from 'total indifference' to 'sullen adoration.' But Alan had always seemed to love Nick, sticking close to him, taking care of him as Nick scowled about it. It was the only thing about Alan that Sin actually approved of.
She reached out and pulled her sister out of his arms, rocking Lydie when she made a noise of extreme dissatisfaction. She pressed Lydie's cheek to her talisman, the enchanted web of net and crystal against her heart.
"I can't count the ways you make me sick," she said conversationally to Alan. "Besides the obvious."
She wielded the words with vicious, deliberate emphasis like one of her long knives, and saw them cut deep. The color drained out of Alan's face.
"Stay out of my way," Sin ordered. "And don't you dare interfere with any of my audiences ever again."
"He was a creep," Alan mumbled. "It's wrong to objectify women."
He turned away towards the piles of books as if retreating to a refuge and sounded a little awkward when he said that, as if he really believed it but knew it sounded stupid. Alan was supposed to be so smart: Sin could not understand why he didn't see that he was insulting her by implying she hadn't known exactly what she was doing, and exactly what that guy was.
She gave Lydie to Trish and stepped in close to Alan, whose eyes widened slightly. Sin ignored her own surprise that Alan was so tall and leaned in closer still, almost resting her chin against his shoulder, so close she could feel his body heat. She concentrated her gaze until he followed it, and saw who she was watching.
She gave him a slow, sweet smile.
"Guess what," she said. "I'm objectifying your brother right now."
She left without another look at him, sliding through the Market. She smiled seeing first-time tourists arrive looking wary about the mysterious invitations they'd received from strangers, looking suspicious, and then seeing their faces wiped clean of everything but wonder. The stalls were full of glittering marvels like treasure chests newly discovered and just opened for the first time, and even the stars shone bright as new coins under lamplight against the black velvet drape of a stall. Sin remembered being very small, walking through the Market holding her father's hand and dazzled by everything.
Sin was part of the marvels now.
As she listened to the pipers, the music from above changed, became something intense with a beat that rang out to the sky. Sin tipped her head back to see white cliffs painted violet and black by the falling night, the pipers at the edge with their instruments gleaming in the moonlight, and above them walls and a castle keep.
Then she lowered her gaze, and saw everyone was looking at her.
She had already positioned herself under a lantern that beamed white light in a pattern like lace: a lantern enchanted to make everything it touched radiant. Sin knew it was making her silvery dress glow like moonlight on steel, that it made the fever blossoms woven through the pale material and her dark hair kindle with crimson fire.
She sent her body rippling to the music, bringing attention to the shifting whisper-soft material over her skin, to the sway of her hips. Her movement called the other dancers to her, spilling in from every corner of the Market to join her dance.
She swayed a few more times, slow and sinuous. The whispers and gasps of the audience stroked over her like caresses.
When she pulled a fever blossom slowly out of her hair, dark locks unraveling from the flower like ribbons, the noise from the audience rose to an excited pitch.
Clearly, this crowd had been informed that whoever was thrown a fever blossom had the dancer's favor.
Sin laughed, and threw.
The single point of red drew every eye and painted a fiery streak against the sky, like a tiny falling star.
Nick was standing alone and looking bored, his eyes hooded. He caught the fever blossom in one hand.
Sin left the dance and walked towards him. His lids lifted as she came close. There was a gleam in them.
"You ready to dance?" Sin asked.
"With you?"
"Don't tell me you were considering someone else."
Nick smirked. "Why, will it break your heart?"
"No," said Sin. "I just won't believe you."
She saw the glint of appreciation touch his cold face, curling his mouth at the very edges. Nick never showed much emotion, but even the smallest hint of a reaction was like a victory. And he'd always appreciated directness.
"Well, I don't lie," he said, tucking away the fever blossom and offering her his hand. "And I don't want to dance with anyone but you."
*
The summoning circles were cut, the drums were beating and Nick was in the circle overlapping hers before she spoke to him again. Even then, he didn't speak back.
He couldn't. They always used a speaking charm so Alan could talk to the demons for him.
"Good luck," Sin murmured, and they both smiled because the idea he might need luck was a joke.
The music had started as a trickle and became a flood now, cascading over the sand and into the ocean, echoing off the pale cliffs, coursing like sweet electric shocks through Sin's bones. Sin could see the tourists' heads turning even more than usual, as she looked at them with eyes that lured them into drawing closer and Nick stared at them with eyes that said to draw closer if they dared.
The music from the new drums was better, the tiny rattle of skulls adding an edge to the melody. Lines and circles leaped into fire under Sin's feet.
She turned to fire with them, muscles burning as she twisted and turned and pushed them to their limit, blood burning in her veins as she spun. She was never so aware of her body as she was when she danced, of her body as a weapon honed to a perfect edge and a decoration polished until it was perfectly irresistible. Every pair of eyes resting on her, every breath she took away, was a triumph.
Sin never doubted the demon would come.
And Anzu did, golden wings meeting over his head like a crown, empty glass-colored eyes fixed on Nick's. Nick stared back without flinching: a real dancer, who would never in a thousand years stumble or fall.
Alan's voice came out of the darkness beyond their burning circle, sure and calm. Sin had to admit, he always knew just what to say.
She'd hardly been aware of her partner as she danced, aside from the fact she could trust Nick never to make a wrong move. But she was always most grateful for Nick when the demons came. Nothing ever frightened him.
Sin looked at him and saw the same satisfaction she felt, the same rush and thrill of daring death and doing it just right, and was absolutely certain that later tonight there would be making out.
Then a magician sent a fireball through a stall.
Merris Cromwell sent the alarm bells ringing for an attack, Matthias and his pipers started playing music to work everyone into a battle frenzy, and Carl from the weapons stall threw an axe at the head of the first magician in the sweeping rush.
Sin and Nick had to stay perfectly still. If they moved, they might break through one of the lines, they might cross the circle, and that meant the demon could tear off your talisman. That meant possession: that meant worse than death.
They were left totally exposed.
"Scared, my beautiful dancer?" Anzu the demon whispered in her ear. "Sure you don't want to run?"
"I dismiss you," Alan said coolly, as if nothing was happening. The demon's fury curled around Sin's heart like a fist as his balefire started to dim.
Sin lifted her chin and ignored him. Part of dancing was knowing when to stay still.
The demon was leaving, the fire dying. Soon the circle could be broken.
She could only see three magicians, but the three were cutting through the Market people like a spearhead, their demons clearing them a path, their hands streaming lightning and darkness. They rushed down the pier and Sin realized in a moment of cold horror that they were coming straight at Nick.
The circle would not be broken in time.
Then there was the sharp crack of a gun firing, and the head of the man in front exploded. There was another shot and the glint of a knife in the night. Blood splashed hot into Sin's face. She did not let herself even tremble.
Then there was nothing but three dead men between Alan Ryves and his brother.
Alan stepped over them without a glance, a gun in one hand and a bloody knife in the other.
"Are you all right, Nick?" he demanded, and pulled the speaking charm off Nick's neck, chain breaking in the hand that held his knife, so Nick could answer.
Nick nodded silently. He had not moved a muscle, and he did not look even slightly surprised.
Once reassured, Alan lowered his knife and looked over his shoulder at the trail of dead bodies he'd left behind. Apparently now he could register the fact he had killed three people in less than a minute and look a little startled and a little sorry.
That was why Sin didn't like guns. Apart from the fact they sometimes didn't work on magicians, it was too easy to use them. There was no physical, visceral awareness of what you had done when you used one.
She did like knives. And as the last of the balefire died she stepped out of her circle and drew hers, though there was no threat left to face.
It was excellent that there hadn't been many magicians, that they had been neutralized quickly, that the Market night could go on. But it left her with the blood racing in her veins, her heart battering her chest as if it wanted to take wing.
She had meant to stay and see Mama do her first dance.
Instead when Nick caught her eye and turned away, she followed.
*
It was dark and cool down on the shore, white seashells and sand crackling beneath her feet. Sin moved towards the shoreline where the surf was kissing the sand in a rush of exuberant foam, looked around, and saw no sign of Nick.
Sin walked along the water's edge, the lights of the Market behind her, sea and sand stretching to either side, and waited until the moon-iced surface of the ocean broke.
Nick pushed back black hair, drenched and sleek as seal fur, and smiled at her. He might as well have beckoned. The angles of his face looked more sharply cut than ever, his shoulders white and wet, all the planes of his body given gleaming definition by moonlight.
She walked into the surf and he walked out of it towards her: the water of the English Channel was cold even in August, rushing up to meet Sin mid-thigh almost at once and hitting her at waist-height as she waded in deeper, washing the sweat off her skin and all the tiredness out of her muscles, leaving her with nothing but a sweet ache along her body.
She reached out and trailed her fingertips down the ridges of Nick's stomach, curious, until her hand met the cool shock of water and the leather of his belt.
"I'm a little disappointed," Sin said.
Nick smirked. "I'm a little shy."
Sin caught hold of the wet rope securing his talisman, knotted it around her hand, and pulled his head down to hers. He caught her small delighted laugh with his mouth.
His skin was cool and his mouth hot against hers, and she arched up on her tiptoes to get more. It wasn't like Sin was short: these Ryves boys were both too tall.
Nick rescued her from the passing and disturbing moment when Alan Ryves crossed her mind by solving her problem and picking her up, hands sure on the small of her back and bending her backwards so she was lying on the water like a mermaid in her bed, her hair spreading out with the waves. Then he pulled her back up to him, and she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
"Come on," Nick murmured against her mouth. "I don't like the sea. Why don't we get out?"
Sin smiled. "Why don't we?"
He carried her out of the ocean and laid her down on the shoreline, the place where the pebbles lay washed by the surf until they looked like jewels. Her soaked hair fanned out in the sand like seaweed, and Sin arched up so he could slide his hands under her back and save her from the chill. He stroked up and down her back obligingly, and slid down her body a little, nudging her talisman sharply to one side as if it irritated him, so the wet rope bit hard against her neck as his mouth opened on it, warm and lingering.
Sin pulled his wet hair a little as a punishment, and arched up against him again.
Then an alarm shattered the silence from cliffs to sea. Sin went rigid with fear: she levered herself up and met Nick's gleaming black eyes.
"Alan," he growled.
"Mama," Sin said, and now they had both named what they had back at the Market, what could be in danger, the spell of a moment was broken. Sin was up and running, not caring if Nick was running to or where he was, only caring that she got back.
She launched herself up onto the cement platform and landed hard, skinning her knees bloody and not caring about that either, rolling to her feet and running.
There were magicians all around them. The first three magicians had been a decoy, something to make them feel as if they were safe from attack. This was real.
Sin saw the tourist Alan had warned away from her, magic glowing in his hand. His eyes went wide as he recognized her.
She was faster on the draw than he was. Her knife was buried in his throat before the magic ever left his hand, and she was running on.
Everywhere across the Market her people were fighting, and they beat the magicians back. Sin was shivering with triumph and exhaustion by the time she finally reached the dancers, ready to find Mama and rest, with her singing that they would be all right.
It was very quiet where the dancers were. It was so still.
Mama was lying face down in her circle. The balefire had all gone out.
Sin stepped into the dead summoning circle, knelt down on the earth and turned her mother over, so gently. For a moment she was absolutely, blessedly relieved: Mama's breath was coming steadily, stirring the fall of her golden-brown hair over her face, and Sin thought she was just hurt, that everything was going to be fine.
Mama opened her eyes.
All the light and joy of the Market, all the light and joy Sin knew in this world, drained away in the terrible demon darkness of those eyes.
"No," Sin said, her voice a lonely whisper, drowned out by the sound of the sea, by the terrible sucking silence emanating from the thing that had moments ago been her mother.
"Mama!" came Lydie's voice, and Sin looked up to see her little sister come dashing towards them, and thought no, no, no with the force of a scream she could not let loose, with the force of a prayer.
Alan scooped Lydie up fast as she went by, turning her face towards his with his free hand, talking to her in rapid, soothing tones, comforting her, not allowing her to see.
There was nobody to comfort Sin, and she had to see.
The demon seemed to be registering its success, its body coming to terrible life in Sin's arms, Mama's mouth curving into a gradual, terrible smile.
Mama was nothing but a shell with a demon inside her, Mama herself caged in the back of her own mind.
That was what happened whenever an ordinary person had dreams of demons and opened a window to let them in. Or whenever a dancer fell in a summoning circle.
In the distance Sin could hear Merris giving the orders to those in the know: orders for taking away a possessed person, for dragging the demon-infested body to Mezentius House where it would be held prisoner until the body rotted away from the inside out, until the body died. The necromancers were coming, the men with chains, those who had spells to throw.
Her mother was still inside there, helpless, with the demon in command.
"Mama," said Sin, finding her voice in extremity, the words tumbling desperately out. "Mama. I'll come with you. Don't be too scared. I'll come, I'll stay. Mama, I love you-"
Her voice rose then, in a high childish wail, but she couldn't afford to be childish now. As the Market people came to deal with her mother, Sin surged to her feet and went to deal with Merris Cromwell.
"You certainly cannot come to Mezentius House," Merris informed her. "You're far too valuable to risk."
Sin had always been awed and scared by Merris before. She'd always seen her at a remove, knowing that her mother would probably inherit the Market some day since she was a Davies and the best dancer they had. She'd left her mother to deal with Merris.
Her mother was as good as dead. Which meant Sin was the best dancer in the Market, and she was the next in line to be leader.
"My mother's in there," Sin said. "I'm going to stay with her. And if you don't let me, I'll leave the Market."
It was an insane thing to say. What would she do if she left the Market, especially now Mama was gone, now Toby and Lydie had only her? She couldn't do anything but dance. She would have to become one of the dancers not attached to the Market, who danced for demons alone, who usually died in less than a year.
It was an insane thing to say, but she meant it.
"You can let me go to Mezentius House, or you can find a new heir. I will not let my mother die alone!"
Merris let her go. Sin promised Trish and Carl all her tips for the next season, anything, if they would care for Lydie and Toby until she came back. Toby was asleep, but Lydie cried, and Sin was terribly grateful that Alan was still holding Lydie, his eyes wide and so sorry for them both. Sin wasn't going to let herself cry in front of Alan Ryves.
She cried at the House of Mezentius. She stayed with her possessed mother for three nightmarish weeks, cried and bled and screamed and stayed, until her mother died. And then she went back to the Market, still able to dance.
That was one mercy. There was nobody else to inherit the Market, and nobody else to take care of Lydie and Toby.
Sin did not need anyone else. She could do it, just like dancing: it didn't matter how hard it was. What mattered was never, ever to falter.
She didn't falter and she did not fall once over the year and more that passed, not when they found out that Nick Ryves was a demon that had been put in a child and raised among them all this time. Not when they discovered that Alan was the greatest traitor imaginable, someone who had chosen a demon above all their own kind. Not when the threat of the magicians became so great and Merris got so sick that they had to make a bargain with the demon and the traitor.
Not even when Alan Ryves, the boy Sin had never liked, gave her a gift she could never have imagined and could never repay, when he put himself in the power of magicians to save her brother.
So Sin was not going to hesitate for a moment now, though a demon had just strolled into her ordinary London classroom with its graying blackboards and harsh fluorescent lights. Sin's magic world and her normal world were meant to be kept apart, but here was Nick Ryves at her school.
He looked much the same as he had more than a year ago, when he had stood looking down at her with wet hair fringed by moonlight.
"Sin?" asked Nick, who she had thought was human once. He seemed, as far as you could tell with Nick, startled and perhaps even pleased to see her.
Time for another performance, then.
Sin crossed her legs under her rough uniform skirt.
"I'm sorry," she said smoothly. "My name's Cynthia Davies. I don't believe we've ever met."
October 14, 2010
Sarah Is a Busy Bee
So, I had a lovely time in America!
The Smart Chicks tour you have heard about: I also saw New York, Baltimore and Massachusetts, attended not one but two weddings and not one but two debates on zombies versus unicorns. (Naomi Novik of His Majesty's Dragon renown secured my support for team unicorn by feeding me cupcakes. I am easily bought: all you need is cupcakes.)
Here is a picture of me, Scott Westerfeld and Robin Wasserman, taken by Maureen Johnson on our way to one wedding.
Right after this picture was taken we got into a van. The van door was beside me. It kept opening and closing, as if pulled by a magic hand. We could not get it to stop.
SARAH: Just drive, my fine driver!
DRIVER: drives
CAR DOOR: opens and closes, opens and closes
PASSING PEOPLE IN CARS: all stare
PASSING MOTORCYCLE: circles back to get another look
SARAH: waves. Like the Queen.
ROBIN: You know how you always say that you're cursed? I BELIEVE YOU NOW.
You would this moment have video footage of this event, except both Scott and Maureen were laughing so hard they both fouled up taking video with their phones.
The final thing I did on my trip away was attend Sirens, a convention in Denver about women and fantasy.
I was on two panels: one about fans and feminism, in which we discussed (among other things) how female creators get hated and male creators get loved. See people saying things like 'Joss Whedon is my master now' - I have never seen anyone talk about female creators like that. Women also get to create TV shows much less often, but a lovely member of the audience pointed out that Shonda Rhimes created Grey's Anatomy and is vocally hated by many fans of the show.
It is the same with writers: popular guy authors like Neil Gaiman? A lot of love. Popular lady authors like J.K. Rowling? Not so much.
In the end our only conclusion was that we must all try not to judge ladies, both real and fictional, more harshly than guys! But it was nice to all rant together.
The other panel was on YA fantasy, and is ably recapped here! Though I think I said what I wanted when I was younger was fiction on the corner of magic and deviance. (Not that I don't love a vampire. But I wish to be clear my heart is also open to demons and magicians and werebeasts of all kinds. Except the werepossum. Werepossums are out!)
I also very much enjoyed going to roundtables and discussing stuff loudly. Holly Black, Mallory Loehr (Tamora Pierce's editor, so a very fancy lady indeed) and I walked into a roundtable on sexuality in YA, and were all immediately outspoken about wanting to see diversity: there should be books for all teens, with all different experiences.
Also Malinda Lo, with Cindy Pon as her right-hand lady, ran an excellent roundtable on faeries and the fey.
During that roundtable and also the panel on YA, Malinda and I both got to talk a lot about gay characters in YA: how we're seeing more of them, and less of 'the only story is the coming-out story' but how it's very much a process, and how a lot of readers are still just not expecting gay characters at all.
In Malinda Lo's Ash, which I have previously recommended here, the Cinderella-ish heroine falls for the king's huntress rather than the prince, and readers write to her saying they were stunned when the two girls get together! I myself have received emails from people who were very surprised when Jamie turned out to be gay in The Demon's Covenant, which always makes me picture a couple scenes in The Demon's Lexicon with great amusement.
NICK: What are you looking at?
JAMIE: I was just thinking something.
NICK: What.
JAMIE: Well, speaking purely heterosexually, dude, you are smokin'.
NICK: I get that a lot.
But even though people are surprised, we see progress by seeing how people mostly accept it much more happily than they would have done in the past. My own sister was I think a little taken aback that Jamie was gay, but she likes him best and thinks that I made a Serious Mistake by not writing The Demon's Surrender from his point of view. Holly and I both got to talk about how great it was to see the massive outpouring of fan love for Alec and Magnus (a serious young demonhunter and a sparkly bisexual warlock), the gay couple in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series.
So in conclusion: Sirens, it was lovely to meet so many great people and discuss the Things I Love Discussing in-depth!
I got back to Ireland on Tuesday. It's children's book month in Ireland, so I have library events every day this week and next, and this weekend I am attending Octocon, an Irish fantasy convention, on Saturday discussing Paranormal Romance Vs Urban Fantasy at 12, and Likeable Anti-Heroes at 2pm. On Sunday I will be doing a workshop on writing YA with Claire Hennessey.
Guess who else will be at Octocon? George R.R. Martin, of A Song of Ice and Fire fame. I think this means everyone will be staring at him in fascination, and I will be able to say all the scandalous things I can think of and not get in trouble...
I also have a book to finish, a book to edit, two short stories to edit, and I have to move house. (Alas, Cherry Bomb of my heart, goodbye forever.) And I must put up chapter one of The Demon's Surrender for all of you!
So in November... I may die. We shall SEE. Until my death, I'd love to talk about books, my curse, zombies versus unicorns, feminism or anything at all.
The Smart Chicks tour you have heard about: I also saw New York, Baltimore and Massachusetts, attended not one but two weddings and not one but two debates on zombies versus unicorns. (Naomi Novik of His Majesty's Dragon renown secured my support for team unicorn by feeding me cupcakes. I am easily bought: all you need is cupcakes.)
Here is a picture of me, Scott Westerfeld and Robin Wasserman, taken by Maureen Johnson on our way to one wedding.
Right after this picture was taken we got into a van. The van door was beside me. It kept opening and closing, as if pulled by a magic hand. We could not get it to stop.
SARAH: Just drive, my fine driver!
DRIVER: drives
CAR DOOR: opens and closes, opens and closes
PASSING PEOPLE IN CARS: all stare
PASSING MOTORCYCLE: circles back to get another look
SARAH: waves. Like the Queen.
ROBIN: You know how you always say that you're cursed? I BELIEVE YOU NOW.
You would this moment have video footage of this event, except both Scott and Maureen were laughing so hard they both fouled up taking video with their phones.
The final thing I did on my trip away was attend Sirens, a convention in Denver about women and fantasy.
I was on two panels: one about fans and feminism, in which we discussed (among other things) how female creators get hated and male creators get loved. See people saying things like 'Joss Whedon is my master now' - I have never seen anyone talk about female creators like that. Women also get to create TV shows much less often, but a lovely member of the audience pointed out that Shonda Rhimes created Grey's Anatomy and is vocally hated by many fans of the show.
It is the same with writers: popular guy authors like Neil Gaiman? A lot of love. Popular lady authors like J.K. Rowling? Not so much.
In the end our only conclusion was that we must all try not to judge ladies, both real and fictional, more harshly than guys! But it was nice to all rant together.
The other panel was on YA fantasy, and is ably recapped here! Though I think I said what I wanted when I was younger was fiction on the corner of magic and deviance. (Not that I don't love a vampire. But I wish to be clear my heart is also open to demons and magicians and werebeasts of all kinds. Except the werepossum. Werepossums are out!)
I also very much enjoyed going to roundtables and discussing stuff loudly. Holly Black, Mallory Loehr (Tamora Pierce's editor, so a very fancy lady indeed) and I walked into a roundtable on sexuality in YA, and were all immediately outspoken about wanting to see diversity: there should be books for all teens, with all different experiences.
Also Malinda Lo, with Cindy Pon as her right-hand lady, ran an excellent roundtable on faeries and the fey.
During that roundtable and also the panel on YA, Malinda and I both got to talk a lot about gay characters in YA: how we're seeing more of them, and less of 'the only story is the coming-out story' but how it's very much a process, and how a lot of readers are still just not expecting gay characters at all.
In Malinda Lo's Ash, which I have previously recommended here, the Cinderella-ish heroine falls for the king's huntress rather than the prince, and readers write to her saying they were stunned when the two girls get together! I myself have received emails from people who were very surprised when Jamie turned out to be gay in The Demon's Covenant, which always makes me picture a couple scenes in The Demon's Lexicon with great amusement.
NICK: What are you looking at?
JAMIE: I was just thinking something.
NICK: What.
JAMIE: Well, speaking purely heterosexually, dude, you are smokin'.
NICK: I get that a lot.
But even though people are surprised, we see progress by seeing how people mostly accept it much more happily than they would have done in the past. My own sister was I think a little taken aback that Jamie was gay, but she likes him best and thinks that I made a Serious Mistake by not writing The Demon's Surrender from his point of view. Holly and I both got to talk about how great it was to see the massive outpouring of fan love for Alec and Magnus (a serious young demonhunter and a sparkly bisexual warlock), the gay couple in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series.
So in conclusion: Sirens, it was lovely to meet so many great people and discuss the Things I Love Discussing in-depth!
I got back to Ireland on Tuesday. It's children's book month in Ireland, so I have library events every day this week and next, and this weekend I am attending Octocon, an Irish fantasy convention, on Saturday discussing Paranormal Romance Vs Urban Fantasy at 12, and Likeable Anti-Heroes at 2pm. On Sunday I will be doing a workshop on writing YA with Claire Hennessey.
Guess who else will be at Octocon? George R.R. Martin, of A Song of Ice and Fire fame. I think this means everyone will be staring at him in fascination, and I will be able to say all the scandalous things I can think of and not get in trouble...
I also have a book to finish, a book to edit, two short stories to edit, and I have to move house. (Alas, Cherry Bomb of my heart, goodbye forever.) And I must put up chapter one of The Demon's Surrender for all of you!
So in November... I may die. We shall SEE. Until my death, I'd love to talk about books, my curse, zombies versus unicorns, feminism or anything at all.
September 28, 2010
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Crossposted at www.sarahreesbrennan.com/blog
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