cheerfulAs you all know, I pay careful attention to the wishes of my wise and lovely blog readers at all times! And people seemed to feel that the cookie which would be the most appreciated would be a cookie containing a bit of Sin action.
Sin, as you guys may know, is the point of view character of the third book. And yet she is only in one scene in the first book. So it is indeed high time for you to get to know her better!
"Who will you be dancing with, child?”
“Me,” said Sin, the single word warm and certain.
Mae looked into her laughing eyes.
“Um,” she said. “I thought that it had to be a girl and a guy.”
“Not necessarily,” Sin told her, that husky voice seeming about to tip into a laugh at every word. “It usually works best that way, but I think we could manage to tempt a demon or two together. Don’t you?”
The whole Market was humming and shining with magic, its leader had welcomed her, and now Sin of the Market reached out and offered Mae both her hands.
Mae let herself relax at last, almost at home amid all the wonder. She took up Sin’s challenge and touched the tips of Sin’s fingers, which were outlined by fairy lights.
“I’m not totally convinced,” she said, grinning at Sin’s startled look. “But I’m willing to give it a try. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Sin threw back her head and laughed. She seemed more real suddenly: less like an ideal and more like someone Mae wanted as a friend.
“Try to keep up with me, tourist,” she said with the laugh still lingering in her voice. She swayed away from the cliff edge, already dancing, and called back over her shoulder: “If you can.”
Mae followed her to a place in Tintagel where there was no stone and only a grassy dip in the ground, like a forest grove, if forests were made of ruins instead of trees. There were dancers in the clearing already cutting circles in the ground with ceremonial knives, drawing the lines of communication and intersection between the worlds.
Mae had always had a knack for graphs and maps. She remembered these symbols.
“Hey, Sin,” Mae said.
Sin turned. “Yes?”
“Let me cut the circles.”
Sin’s eyebrows were the expressive kind of eyebrows, ones that could indicate surprise when the rest of her face was still. Just now the delicate black arches looked about to take flight off her face.
“Pretty confident, aren’t we?”
“Usually,” said Mae, and Sin reached around to the back of her dress and produced a long knife, which she tossed at Mae. Mae crushed down her instinct to duck away from the huge sharp thing hurtling towards her, and caught it easily enough by the handle.
She knelt down on the ground, the dew on the grass soaking the knees of her jeans, and her blade parted the earth easily, forming shapes and angles. It was like doing maths equations or reading music, foreign at first glance but making so much sense in the end, and beginning to come naturally.
Once she was done with her own circle of summoning she did Sin’s, the circle just touching hers.
Only then did she look up and see Sin’s intent eyes as she returned to Mae with her hands full of bright fire-like fruit.
“I’m impressed.”
“Thanks,” said Mae, and offered Sin her knife back.
Sin took it in one hand and then, fingers moving deftly, she cut the fever fruit in her other hand into gleaming, tempting slices. The golden juice spilled into Sin’s palm, then slid slowly down the inside of her wrist, gleaming in the faint fairy lights against the tracery of veins.
Mae remembered how the fruit had tasted with a sudden visceral pang of yearning. All other food had tasted like ashes in her mouth for days afterward.
“It’s all right,” Sin whispered. She held the fruit up to Mae’s lips and said: “Taste.”
Hope you enjoy! Let me know the flavour of cookie you desire NEXT month!
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