Dark Heart of Magic

by Jennifer Estep

  I thought of Victor and Blake. Both of them were definitely that cruel. Both of them could easily kill monsters—and people too—just because they wanted to. Just because it amused them. Just because they thought it was fun. But I didn’t understand why they would bother with tree trolls.

  “This must be what’s driving the trolls down the mountain and into the squares,” Devon said. “They know that someone’s hunting them.”

  The three of us moved back over to the ravine, with Devon shining his flashlight down the rocky slope again. We stared at the broken, murdered creatures, but there was nothing we could do for them. We didn’t have any rope to climb down to get to them, and we didn’t have any shovels or other tools to bury them.

  Besides, all around us, blue, green, and red eyes appeared, glowing brighter and brighter as the other monsters crept closer and closer, drawn by the scent of fresh blood. Whoever had killed the troll was long gone, which meant that the danger had passed. But there were still other things lurking in the mist, hungry things that would be happy to snack on the dead troll—and us too, if we didn’t leave soon.

  “Let’s go,” Devon said. “There’s nothing we can do for the trolls, and it’s not safe for us to stay here any longer.”

  He moved away from the edge of the ravine. So did Felix. But I stayed behind, staring down at what was left of the dead tree trolls.

  No blood, just bones and blades . . . bones and blades . . . bones and blades....

  For some reason, Seleste Draconi’s warning whispered in my mind. I shivered, clutched my sword a little tighter, and hurried after my friends.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We made it back to the Sinclair mansion without running into any more problems—or finding any more dead monsters.

  The three of us headed to the library, where Claudia was sitting behind her desk, shuffling through papers and pointedly ignoring Mo, who was lounging on a white velvet settee by the fireplace, sipping some delicious-smelling hot chocolate.

  I went into the library first, and Mo straightened up.

  “Where have you been, kid?” he asked. “I was getting worried.”

  “Oh, I picked up some company in the woods on the way back.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder.

  Felix and Devon stepped inside the library, with Devon shutting the doors behind him.

  “We need to talk,” Devon said. “About exactly why you sent Lila to spy on Victor.”

  Claudia sighed, took off her silver reading glasses, and sat back in her chair. Mo looked at me, but I shrugged. I hadn’t been here all that long, but I’d quickly learned that there was no stopping Devon when he wanted answers about something.

  Devon marched over to Claudia’s desk, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at his mom. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were sending Lila to spy on the Draconis? I’m the Family bruiser. I should know about these things.”

  “Because I knew that you’d try to go with her,” Claudia said.

  “And what would have been wrong with that?”

  She arched her eyebrows at his harsh tone, but Devon didn’t back down.

  “Because Lila is a thief and a very good one at that,” she said in a cool voice. “She’s used to getting into and out of places she isn’t supposed to be with no one seeing her.”

  “You’d better believe it,” Mo chimed in, toasting me with his cup of hot chocolate and extolling my virtues, such as they were.

  Claudia ignored him. “This job required the Family thief, not the Family bruiser. Besides, there was more risk of both of you getting caught if you went with her.” She looked at Felix. “Although I see that you took Felix along with you . . . unless he had some other reason for going over to the Draconi compound?”

  Felix gave her a tentative smile, but Claudia’s gaze was hard and knowing. It looked like Devon wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Felix and Deah making googly eyes at each other. Then again, it was Claudia’s job to know everything that was going on with all the Sinclairs.

  “Felix saw Lila leave, and we went after her,” Devon lied. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you should have told me what you asked Lila to do, especially given how dangerous it was. She’s only been here a few weeks. You should have sent someone else, if you were that worried about Victor.”

  “I’m always that worried about Victor,” Claudia snapped. “And with good reason. You know he’s plotting something against the other Families, against us.”

  “And you sent Lila to try to find out what it was?” Devon shook his head. “You should have sent someone else. You should have sent me.”

  “And you need to set your feelings aside and trust Lila to do her job,” she snapped again. “Just like you trust the guards to do theirs. Just like I trust you.”

  Devon opened his mouth to keep arguing with her, but I stepped up beside him.

  “She didn’t send me anywhere,” I said. “The whole thing was my idea—hiking over to the Draconi property, sneaking into the castle, searching Victor’s office. I wanted to do it.”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “Why would you want to do something like that? Something so dangerous? Do you know what the Draconis would have done if they’d caught you, Lila? Victor would have executed you on the spot.”

  Frustration blazed in his eyes, along with more than a little stomach-churning fear. He’d been worried about me. That was why he’d come looking for me. His obvious concern touched me, but it also annoyed me. Because Claudia was right—I was a good thief, a good fighter, and Devon needed to trust me to do the job I was here to do.

  “It was a risk I was willing to take.”

  “Why?”

  “You know exactly why—because Victor murdered my mom.” I ground out the words, my hands clenching into fists, my whole body trembling with fury. “And I will do everything in my power to make sure that he pays for what he did to her. I don’t care what I have to do or how dangerous it is. I would go right back over there this very second if I thought it would help us and hurt him.”

  Everyone stared at me. They could all hear the rage and need for vengeance in my voice.

  “So what did you find out?” Claudia asked in a neutral tone, trying to diffuse the tension that blanketed the room.

  “Lots of things. For starters, Victor, Blake, and Deah were having dinner with Nikolai Volkov. Carl and Katia were there too.”

  “What did they talk about?” she asked, leaning forward in her chair. “Tell me everything. I want to hear every single detail.”

  So I told her, Mo, Felix, and Devon everything that had happened while I’d been skulking around the Draconi castle, except for Felix and Deah hooking up in the greenlab.

  “So Victor wants to combine the Draconis and Volkovs into one Family,” Claudia murmured. “Interesting. That’s a bold move.”

  “But Victor has to know the other Families would never allow that,” Mo said. “It sounds to me like it’s just a distraction. Victor gets everyone stirred up about a possible merger, while he’s really planning something else.”

  Claudia picked up her glasses and tap-tap-tapped them on her desk. “For once, I agree with Mo. But if the merger isn’t his main goal, then what is?”

  “Maybe it has something to do with all those creepy files in his office,” I said.

  I filled them in on the files and e-mailed the photos I’d taken to everyone. Claudia, Mo, Felix, and Devon all pulled out their phones and scrolled through the pictures.

  “All the files had these weird notes in them?” Claudia asked. “With all these CC2 and other codes?”

  “All the files have notes about the person’s magic, but the Draconi files were the only ones that also had the codes. At least, from what I could tell.”

  Her green eyes glinted with interest. “How many Draconi files were there total? If you had to guess?”

  I thought back, picturing the tall stack of files on Victor’s desk. “Probably around twenty or thirty. However many people he has
competing in the tournament. But that was just on his desk. He could have had more files in his office, maybe one on every single person in the Draconi Family. I didn’t have time to search everywhere.”

  I thought of that secret space I’d discovered behind the stone dragon carving. Victor had something hidden back there, and I was going to find out what it was. But I didn’t say anything to the others. Claudia might have risked my going over to the Draconi castle once, but I didn’t know if she would approve a second trip. Then again, I didn’t plan on telling her about it—until after I was back.

  “Files on people, notes about their magic, talk of increasing their powers.” Mo let out a low whistle. “It sounds like Victor is trying to build an army.”

  Claudia didn’t say anything, but her mouth pinched with worry. This was not what she’d wanted to hear. But at least she knew that Victor was trying to ally with the Volkovs now, even if we had no clue what his files or notes were really about.

  She looked at Mo. “This is more serious than we thought.”

  He nodded. “I’ll reach out to my sources. See if anyone else knows that Victor is trying to merge with the Volkovs or why he has detailed records on everyone in the tournament, including his own people.”

  Mo pulled out his phone and started texting.

  “There’s one more thing,” I said.

  I told them about the dead tree trolls we’d found in the ravine close to the Draconi compound. I also pulled out the candy bar I’d taken from the trap and showed it to everyone, but it was just chocolate, the sort of thing you could buy at any store.

  “That just sounds like Victor being Victor,” Claudia said. “He’s always been the sort to pull the wings off a butterfly just because he can. Trapping and killing tree trolls is right up his alley.”

  “Blake’s too,” Devon agreed. “Either one of them could have put that cage in the woods.”

  “But what about the troll we found next to that dumpster yesterday?” I asked. “That wasn’t anywhere near the Draconi section of the Midway.”

  Devon shrugged. “Blake could have done that too. We ran into him and Deah a few minutes before we found the troll, remember?”

  I nodded. He was probably right, but I still couldn’t help but feel there was something more to the monsters’ deaths. Sure, Victor and Blake delighted in their cruelty, but they also didn’t waste their time on things that wouldn’t help them. What could they possibly hope to gain from murdering a bunch of monsters?

  I didn’t know, but I had a bad, bad feeling that it was the key to Victor’s plot against Claudia and all the other Families.

  There was nothing else for us to report, so Devon, Felix, and I said our goodnights. Mo shooed us out of the library, claiming that we needed to get as much sleep as possible, since the Tournament of Blades would start bright and early again in the morning.

  Yippee-skippee.

  I went back to my bedroom, where Oscar was sitting on the front porch steps of his trailer. Tiny was on his back, snoozing in the corral, not looking like he had moved an inch in all the hours I’d been gone, although the tortoise’s feet were twitching in time to the twangy country music drifting out of the pixie’s trailer.

  Oscar drained the rest of his honeybeer, then crumpled the miniature can in his hand and tossed it out onto the lawn, where it clattered against the ones already littering the grass. His violet gaze locked onto my coat. “I see you’ve been out.”

  I shrugged out of the sapphire-blue spidersilk and hung it up on one of the posters on the bed. “It’s what I do.”

  “And where did you go skulking off to tonight?”

  “Nowhere special,” I said. “Just the Draconi compound.”

  “What!” Oscar’s voice rose to a shriek that was loud enough to drown out the music.

  Tiny grumbled and cracked one of his black eyes open, giving the pixie a reproachful look for disturbing his nap. Oscar ignored him and hopped to his feet, yanking his black cowboy hat off his head and whipping it back and forth in agitation.

  “Why in the world would you go over there?” Oscar demanded, his voice climbing up another octave. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”

  I winced at his screech. “Of course I do. But it wasn’t any more dangerous than living on the streets for four years. First Devon, now you. It seems like all anyone ever does around here is tell me what I shouldn’t do.”

  “Well, maybe you should listen to us,” Oscar sniped back. “Because we’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have, cupcake. Call me crazy, but I’m not in a hurry for you to get yourself killed, especially not over a piece of scum like Victor Draconi.”

  I winced, this time at my own stupid thoughtlessness. Oscar had lost a lot of friends to the Draconis over the years, so he was a bit sensitive about my putting myself in danger. In a way, the pixie and I were just alike. We didn’t want to care too much about people because we knew how easily they could be taken away from us—and how much it hurt when your heart was broken over and over again.

  “Oscar, I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to worry you—”

  “Forget it,” he spat out. “I don’t care to hear your lame-ass apology right now.”

  The pixie glared at me, then slapped his cowboy hat back onto his head, stormed into his trailer, and used one of his boots to kick the door shut behind him. The resulting bang was hard enough to rattle the trailer windows and make a few more loose shingles slip off the roof and drop down onto the lawn. A few seconds later, Oscar turned his music up as loud as it would go, assaulting my ears with the twangy tunes.

  I sighed. So far tonight, I’d fought with Deah, Felix, and Devon, and now Oscar was upset too. Plus, I still had no idea what Victor was really up to, I’d gotten some creepy, cryptic warning from Seleste Draconi, who might or might not be able to see the future, and I’d stumbled upon a mass grave full of tortured, murdered monsters.

  Perfect end to a perfectly miserable day.

  I took a shower, but I was too restless and frustrated to go to bed, so I threw on a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, and some sneakers. Country music still blared from Oscar’s trailer, so I went out onto the balcony and climbed up the drainpipe until I reached one of the mansion roofs that formed a wide terrace.

  The terrace was open on three sides, and three lawn chairs were perched close to the iron railing to take advantage of the spectacular view of the Midway and all its flashing lights down in the valley below. But I wasn’t here to admire the view. No, tonight I wanted to hit something—repeatedly.

  So I headed over to a series of metal pipes that jutted out of the mansion wall, snaking up and down like an elaborate jungle gym. Several punching bags dangled from the posts. An open footlocker full of boxing gloves and other sporting gear sat close to the pipes, with a cooler full of ice and drinks over by the railing.

  I didn’t bother taping up my hands or grabbing a pair of gloves from the footlocker. Instead, I marched over to the closest bag, raised my fists, and just started hitting it. I slammed my fists into the heavy bag over and over again, all the while imagining that it was Victor’s smug face I was pummeling. He’d gotten rid of my father and had murdered my mother, and now he was threatening to hurt everyone else I cared about. And I had no idea how to stop him.

  Whack-whack-whack.

  And the ironic thing was that Victor didn’t even know I existed. Oh sure, he knew that Lila Merriweather was a new guard for the Sinclairs and was competing in the Tournament of Blades, but he didn’t know that I was really Lila Sterling, the daughter of the woman he’d tortured and killed.

  And he especially didn’t know how much I hated him.

  Whack-whack-whack.

  Then again, it wasn’t like I’d shouted my true identity from the rooftops. Just the opposite. I’d worked hard to keep who I really was on the down-low. Even among the Sinclairs, only a few folks knew the truth about who I was, what Victor had done to my mom, and why.

  That had never bothered me before tonigh
t, but going over to the Draconi mansion, seeing Victor so smug in his own home, so secure and confident in his own power, and reading through that file he had on me had flipped a switch inside me. Suddenly, I wanted him to know exactly who I was—and that I wasn’t going to let him hurt another person I cared about. Not a single one.

  Whack-whack-whack.

  I whaled on the heavy bag until my knuckles bruised, my arms ached, and my legs trembled, but I kept right on hitting it. I drew back my fists for another strike when a voice sounded behind me.

  “You keep that up and you won’t have anything left for the tournament tomorrow.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Devon, who’d stepped through the door and out onto the terrace. “I don’t care about the stupid tournament.”

  He let the door swing shut behind him. “You should. You could win it. Wouldn’t that make you happy?”

  I smashed my fist into the bag again. Whack. “Not as happy as hitting Victor would make me.”

  Devon didn’t say anything, but sympathy softened his face. His dad had been murdered because of Grant Sanderson’s schemes, and he’d felt the exact same rage and frustration that I was feeling right now. He stepped over and held out his hand. I looked at his outstretched fingers instead of into his eyes. I didn’t want to see how sorry he felt for me.

  But Devon was as stubborn as I was, and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He stepped even closer, and I finally sighed, all the anger draining out of my body, and put my hand in his. Devon gave my fingers a soft, understanding squeeze, then led me over to the lawn chairs next to the railing.

  We sat down, and I started to pull my hand out of his, but Devon wouldn’t let go. Instead, he opened the cooler, reached down, and drew out a small bag of ice, which he gently placed on my bruised knuckles. I hissed at the cold sensation.

  “You hit the heavy bag like you’re trying to punch right through it and you’re wincing at a little ice? Crybaby,” Devon teased.