The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan Page B

mother; Sin would do anything for her. Merris had been unimpressed when Sin had thrown Nick a fever blossom on a warm night last summer.
    Nick seldom cared much about girls, but for that one night he’d thought maybe he could like this one.
    Merris pointedly introduced Mae and Jamie, and Sin flasheda bright, practiced smile at them. It warmed into a real smile as Mae enthused over her dancing, and it became an entirely different smile, something secret and tender, when Sin’s little sister ran up to tell her the baby was in bed.
    â€œThank you,” Sin said, fingers lingering in the child’s blond hair.
    The way she was with her baby brother and younger sister was one of the reasons Nick had noticed her.
    â€œCome here, sweetheart,” said Alan helpfully. He knelt with some difficulty on the grass, and the child ran to his arms as all children did, instinctively seeing him as a refuge. He whispered something to her, low and sweet, and Lydie laughed.
    â€œThanks,” Sin said without looking at him, her mouth a thin straight slash of red.
    â€œYou’re welcome, Cynthia,” Alan replied, his voice distant.
    The way all the dancers acted around Alan was one of the reasons Nick had stopped dancing and one of the reasons he had not spent any time alone with Sin since last year. It was almost reasonable, Nick supposed. Dancers relied only on their strength, their sure feet, to save themselves from the demons. Even seeing someone stumble made a dancer wince; seeing someone crippled was like seeing their own death.
    Nick understood all that and did not care. Nobody was allowed to look at his brother like they did.
    He glared at Sin, who looked badly startled. Then he looked away and met Mae’s eyes. The excited flush in her cheeks was fading, and she was watching them carefully.
    She turned to Merris and said, her voice loud in the sudden silence, “Will you tell me how the real dances work?”
    It was such a banal tourist question that everyone relaxed. Sin turned to a couple of the other dancers, Alanbegan murmuring to the child again, and Merris gave Mae an approving look. Merris’s favorites were always the ones who knew how to manage situations to their own advantage.
    Merris reached over and plucked a fever blossom from Sin’s shining hair. “These flowers grow on trees that need magic to feed them. The trees bear fever fruit; once dancers eat fever fruit, their perceptions of the world are altered and their inhibitions are lowered. In this state they can share energy with demons. They dance in magical circles and perform exorcisms.”
    â€œExorcisms?”
    Merris raised her eyebrows. “Calling demons into this world is usually referred to as an exorcism.”
    â€œI thought that meant getting rid of demons,” said Jamie.
    â€œExorcism means naming the demon and commanding it,” Merris Cromwell answered. “Often people do try commanding the demon to leave, but once a demon has a human body, it will not leave without destroying the body. Call a demon into the circle and bribe it, though, and it may do what you want. If you offer enough.”
    The dancers were already cutting the lines for the weaving. Each had already cut their own circle in the ground, perfect circles set about with charms to keep the demons inside. The demons were always trying to get out, but not even a magician would let a demon go free.
    Nick knelt on the ground, motioning away the offer of a ceremonial knife. He preferred to use his own weapons, even if he did have to sharpen them afterward. He took his largest knife from a sheath strapped around his ribs and began to cut his circle. The blade bit deep into the earth and he made a symmetrical circle with the ease of long habit, his hands remembering the symbolsand guiding the blade without input from his brain.
    First there was the circle itself. Then he cut the lines for walking between the worlds, traveling out from the