I stayed by her grave for several minutes, soaking up the peace and quiet, especially after all the conversations and questions in the dining hall. I’d been on my own for so long that I was still adjusting to living in the mansion and being around so many people all the time. Whenever I needed a breather from the Family, I’d slip out of the mansion and come here, since no one seemed to visit the cemetery but Claudia and me.
I twirled the forget-me-not back and forth in my fingers, watching the fading sunlight play over the blue petals. Then I placed the flower on my mom’s tombstone, mumbled how much I still missed her to whatever ghosts and monsters might be watching, and left the cemetery.
I hiked through the woods, passing through growing clouds of cool, damp mist. The summer sun was hot enough to burn off most of the waterfall spray during the day, but as the sun set, the fog increased, sliding lower and lower on the mountain, like vanilla ice cream melting in a sundae and oozing everywhere. Most of the mist was still stuck in the trees above my head, but when night fell, it would filter down through the branches and completely saturate the forest. I wasn’t worried, though. No matter how low and thick the fog got, I would still be able to see everything as clearly as if it were noon, thanks to my sight.
No, what bothered me was the noise—or lack of it.
I don’t know how far I’d gone into the woods before I noticed that it was quiet—too quiet.
The chirp of birds and lazy drone of bugs that had surrounded the Sinclair cemetery had vanished, replaced by dead, still silence. I dropped my hand to my sword, stopped, and turned in a slow circle, peering at everything, but I didn’t spot anything out of the ordinary. Just towering trees and tangled branches and white mist as far as even I could see.
Normally, this deep in the woods, I would have expected to spot at least a couple of sets of bright, glowing, jewel-toned eyes watching me from the shadows— sapphire-blue, emerald-green, and ruby-red orbs that belonged to various monsters. But even the shadows were quiet, still, and empty. Weird. And a little creepy. So I hurried on, keeping my hand on my sword, just in case.
The Draconi compound was on the eastern slope of the mountain, directly opposite the Sinclair mansion on the west side, but it wasn’t all that far between them distance-wise, only about three miles cutting straight through the forest. So it took me less than an hour to reach the edge of the woods that flanked the Draconi stronghold.
In addition to being on the other side of the mountain, the Draconi compound was also the exact opposite of the Sinclair mansion in every possible way. It wasn’t even a mansion so much as it was a castle, made out of gleaming white stone that rose up into a series of towers, each one topped with a red flag bearing a snarling gold dragon. Everything about the structure was slick and elegant, from the tall, diamond-paned windows to the red roses twining through the white wooden trellises to the cobblestone bridge that arched over the moat in front. Seriously, it was an actual moat with water running through it and everything. That was a bit much, if you asked me.
The Draconi compound was certainly beautiful, but I preferred the Sinclair mansion. The rough, black, blocky stone there seemed much more natural and honest than this too-perfect castle with its ivory towers.
But there was one thing I did like about the Draconi castle—all the trees and bushes that dotted the sloping lawns. Thick clusters of greenery ran all the way from the woods right up to a patio on the west side of the structure. I hadn’t mentioned it to Claudia, but this wasn’t the first night I’d come here. I’d been hiking over to the Draconi compound every few days and familiarizing myself with the guard routes, doors, windows, and more, in anticipation of this night, when I would actually break into the castle itself. A good thief did her homework, and this was the same routine I’d used countless times before, whenever Mo had sent me out to retrieve an expensive item from someone’s house on the sly.
I waited until the guards turned away from my location, then sprinted forward, keeping low and moving from one cluster of bushes to the next. It took me less than a minute to creep from the woods up to the side patio. I reached for the door to see if it was locked, but the crunch-crunch-crunch of tires made me stop. I hunkered down and peered around a white marble planter shaped like a snarling dragon blowing red roses out of its mouth, instead of flames.
A dark green SUV pulled up to the front of the mansion and stopped. A silver wolf’s head gleamed on each one of the vehicle’s doors. My eyes narrowed. What were the Volkovs doing here?
The driver got out of the SUV and hurried to open the back door. A second later, a short, muscular man with a bushy brown beard emerged from the vehicle. Nikolai Volkov, the head of his Family. And he wasn’t the only person I recognized. Katia got out of the vehicle as well, along with a middle-aged man who had to be Carl Volkov, her father, since he had the same dark red hair she did.
Nikolai, Katia, and Carl stood by the car, their faces neutral, waiting for the king himself to emerge.
The front doors of the mansion swung open, and Victor Draconi stepped outside, with Blake right beside him, just like always. I looked for Deah, but she didn’t appear.
“Nikolai, Katia, Carl,” Victor called out. “Thank you for coming.”
The Volkovs murmured their greetings, and Victor held out his hand, gesturing for them to follow him inside. “This way. My chef has prepared a fine meal for us tonight . . .”
They all disappeared inside the mansion, along with Blake. The Volkov driver stayed with his SUV, eyeing the Draconi guards as though he was worried that they might attack him, now that their respective bosses were gone. The Draconis returned his hostile glares, their hands on their swords, but they went back to their rotations, and no one spotted me lurking on the patio.
I waited five minutes, hoping that was enough time for Victor and the others to reach whatever dining room they would be eating in, then reached up and tried the patio door.
Locked.
But I could fix that.
I plucked the chopsticks out of my hair and twisted the black lacquered wood, revealing the picks inside, then went to work on the lock. Several seconds later, the tumblers click-click-clicked into place, and the door snicked open. I stuck the chopsticks back into my ponytail, slipped inside, and shut and locked the door behind me.
I’d told Mo that I was planning to break into the Draconi compound at some point during the summer. He hadn’t liked the idea any more than Claudia had, but he’d realized that he couldn’t talk me out of it, and he’d come through for me the way he always did. Thanks to his shady connections, Mo had gotten his hands on the castle’s blueprints, so I knew which hallway to head down and which stairs to climb to get to where I wanted—Victor’s office.
According to the gossip I’d heard, only a few folks had access to Victor’s office, and it was the most logical place for him to keep any incriminating files on whatever he was plotting against the other Families. Maybe I’d find out something about the rope ladder too, if Blake or one of the other Draconis had sabotaged it, although my money was still on Vance for that crime.
The Sinclair mansion was richly furnished, but it looked as rundown and rickety as Oscar’s pixie trailer compared to the sheer, overwhelming opulence of the Draconi compound. Everything inside the castle gleamed with some sort of gold, whether it was the threads in the couch cushions, the gilt-edged mirrors on the walls, or even the solid gold chandeliers dangling from the ceilings.
I’ll admit it. I stopped and stared at one of the chandeliers, greedily dreaming about how I could put that in my pocket and sneak away with it. But that would be impossible, even for me, at least without a ladder, a cart, and some power tools, so I hurried on.
Besides the gold, the other most notable ornament was the snarling dragon crest. It was embroidered, carved, and chiseled into practically everything, from the scarlet curtains to the dark mahogany furniture to the white flagstones embedded in the floors. Victor had his symbol displayed on everything inside his castle
, and I had no doubt that he wanted to stamp it on the rest of Cloudburst Falls too.
Only the Draconis themselves—Victor, Blake, and Deah—actually lived in the castle, with the rest of the Family housed in various outbuildings. So the guards only patrolled the perimeter of the structure, and I didn’t see anyone, not even pixie housekeepers, as I slipped from one hallway to the next. The inside of the castle was as eerily too-quiet as the woods had been, and unease curled up in my stomach. Something was wrong here. Other than, you know, me breaking into a place where I would be tortured and killed if I were caught sneaking around.
I’d just started down another hallway that would get me closer to Victor’s office when the murmur of voices sounded, along with the clink-clank of silverware. So I followed the noise until I spotted a set of closed double doors at the end. From the blueprints Mo had given me, I knew that the doors led into one of the mansion’s dining rooms, but of course I couldn’t go in there.
That didn’t mean that I couldn’t spy on what was going on inside, though.
I climbed a set of stairs to the second floor and another door directly above the ones on the ground level. It wasn’t locked, so I turned the knob and cracked it open. Since no lights blazed on this level, I felt safe enough to ease the door open and tiptoe through to the other side.
The door led out onto a balcony that overlooked the first-floor dining room. The area was deserted, so I dropped down onto my stomach, pulled up my spidersilk coat until it covered most of my head, and slithered up to the edge of the balcony, staring down through the slats in the white marble railing.
In the dining room below, Victor sat at the head of a rectangular table, with Blake to his right and Deah to his left. Katia was next to Blake, with Carl across from her. Nikolai Volkov sat at the other end of the table. The pixies had already served the food, and everyone was digging into cheesy lasagna, buttery garlic bread, and a green salad full of colorful veggies.
“So, Katia,” Victor said, picking up his glass and swirling around the red wine inside. “Congratulations. Your performance in the obstacle course today was quite impressive. Your speed Talent served you well. I’ve never seen anyone move quite so fast before.”
His words were innocent enough, but he stared at her, his golden gaze sly, as if he knew some secret about her victory. But there was nothing to know. Katia had used her speed magic to win fair and square . . . right? That’s how it had looked to me. Then again, I hadn’t been up front with her and Deah.
For a moment, Katia chewed on her lower lip, worry filling her face, but then she smiled and nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Never thank someone for something you’ve earned by being smarter than everyone else,” Victor corrected.
Smarter than everyone else? What did that mean? The way Victor talked, it was almost as if he knew that Katia had somehow cheated. Even more puzzling, it seemed to make him happy, as if she’d done something that he heartily approved of, although I had no idea what it could be. Maybe she’d pulled the same sort of dirty tricks on Deah that Vance had on me. If so, you would think that Victor would be upset about that, instead of pleased.
“Your victory is one of the reasons I asked you and Nikolai here tonight,” Victor continued. “I always enjoy dining with winners.”
He arched his eyebrow and gave his daughter a pointed look, telling everyone that he didn’t consider her to be a winner tonight.
Deah’s lips twisted with misery, but she sat up straight and tried to rally. “Well, it’s always nice to have some competition. But it’s only the first day of the tournament. What matters is who is left standing at the end, right?”
Katia scowled at her, and Deah shot her a dirty look in return. Victor glanced back and forth between the two girls, nodding his approval. A smile curved his lips, and I realized that he was enjoying pitting them against each other. It was just another sign of his cruelty.
Deah’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up off the table and read the message on the screen. But when she realized that her father was still staring at her, she set her phone aside, dropped her head, and concentrated on her lasagna.
“I’m glad that Deah enjoys the competition,” Nikolai drawled. “Perhaps this will be the year when that competition finally beats her.”
His voice was pleasant enough, but his brown gaze was hard and expectant when he looked at Katia. She gave him a curt nod, as if promising that she wouldn’t let Deah defeat her again.
Victor’s smile widened. “Care to make a friendly wager on that?”
Nikolai reached up and stroked his brown beard, giving himself time to think. “What sort of wager?”
“Oh, I’m sure I can think of something that will be to our mutual benefit,” Victor said, his voice smooth and seductive. “We are allies now, remember?”
“Mmm.” Nikolai’s tone was far more noncommittal.
The two men stared each other down, the silent tension between them growing and growing.
I looked back and forth between them, but the angle was too high for me to use my soulsight to see what they were really feeling. Still, Victor’s words troubled me.
Allies? Since when were the Draconis and Volkovs allies? The Volkovs were the third most powerful Family in town, behind the Draconis and the Sinclairs. Everyone knew that the Volkovs wanted the top two Families to destroy each other so they could step up and seize power. So what had changed to make Nikolai join Victor?
More worry rippled through me. Maybe Claudia was wrong. Maybe Victor wasn’t going to wait until after the tournament to strike out against the Sinclairs.
Maybe he’d already set his plan in motion—whatever it was.
Carl broke the silence by reaching out, grabbing a bottle of wine from the middle of the table, and filling his glass all the way to the brim with the blood-red liquid. Then he raised the glass to his lips and guzzled down all the wine like it was water and he was dying of thirst. Glug-glug-glug. He let out a happy sigh, smacked his lips together, and refilled his glass as quickly as he had drained it. He held up the full glass and used it to gesture at the others.
“You should take Victor up on his bet, brother,” Carl proclaimed in a loud voice, slurring his words. A few drops of wine sloshed out of his glass and stained the white tablecloth. “And you should bet a lot. Because my girl will win this year. She’s got a secret weapon. Don’t you, Katia?”
Katia’s cheeks flamed in embarrassment, and she gave her father a sharp, disapproving look, but he was too busy gulping down his wine to notice, much less care. A spurt of sympathy filled my chest. It was obvious that Katia’s father drank—a lot.
Victor’s eyes narrowed with interest. “Really?” he asked, his voice taking on a sly, knowing tone. “And what would this secret weapon be?”
Katia’s cheeks were still red, but she shrugged, trying to deflect the question. “I’ve just been training extra hard. That’s all. But my father’s right. It’s going to pay off. I know it will.”
She stared at Deah, waiting for the other girl to react to her challenging words, but Deah was busy checking her phone again, and she didn’t even glance at Katia. Apparently, talking about the tournament wasn’t nearly as important as whatever texts were on her phone.
Blake had been shoveling food into his mouth during the whole conversation, but he stopped long enough to snicker. “Looks like some folks don’t care about your training.”
Katia’s cheeks burned again, with anger this time, and her lips flattened out in a harsh line. She didn’t like Deah ignoring her. I wondered what Katia would think when she found out that Deah was dating Felix, or whatever the two of them were doing besides stupidly sneaking around. It had been obvious at the tournament that Katia wanted to hook up with Felix again. I wondered if Felix had talked to Katia yet and told her that he was seeing someone else. Probably not, given everything that had happened with the rope ladder.
“Well,” Victor murmured. “I suppose we’ll see when the tournament resumes tom
orrow.”
“Yeah,” Katia muttered, stabbing her fork into the salad on her plate.
“I’ll be interested in watching you compete, Katia,” Victor continued. “I always admire strong fighters who are determined to win. Perhaps if things go well, Nikolai might let me borrow you for some . . . special projects that the two of us are going to be working on together.”
Katia blushed again, and her hazel eyes lit up with pleasure, as if she would actually enjoy working for Victor.
My stomach twisted with a combination of worry, disgust, and dread. Special projects? That certainly had an ominous tone to it. I waited, hoping that Victor would elaborate, but of course he didn’t.
Victor and Nikolai kept talking about the tournament, mainly who the other Families had entered. Blake and Katia both chimed in with their opinions. So did Carl, although his words slurred so badly that the others just ignored him. Deah kept sneaking glances at her phone.
They also chatted about the rope ladder, but everyone agreed that it was an unfortunate accident. If Victor or Blake had been behind someone cutting the ropes, they weren’t going to come right out and say so. Or maybe they hadn’t had anything to do with it and Vance was the guilty one, as I suspected.
I waited a few minutes, but Victor and Nikolai didn’t talk about anything else interesting or sinister, so I slithered away from the edge of the balcony and left my view of the dining hall. I probably had at least forty-five minutes before dinner would end, and I needed to get to Victor’s office, search it, and get out of here before then.
Still keeping to the shadows, I skulked through the mansion, moving from one hallway and staircase to the next, climbing higher and higher all the while. According to the blueprints Mo had given me, Victor’s office was located close to the greenlab, the space where both common and magical plants were grown, including stitch-sting bushes, which were harvested for their healing properties. I headed in that direction, and soon, the delicious smells of dinner were replaced by the softer, floral scents of flowers.
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