Cold Burn of Magic

by Jennifer Estep

  But everyone I spoke to admired and respected Devon, and nobody had anything bad to say about him. I even used my soulsight to make sure folks were telling me the truth, but they really meant all the good things they said. If the mystery man did have a spy in the Sinclair Family, I couldn’t find the informer.

  I didn’t do much actual bodyguarding, though. Mostly what I did was stand out of the way in a corner, my hand on my sword, as Devon met with other guards, business owners in the Midway, or whoever else he needed to see. He also had some more fake dates with Poppy, trying to smooth things over between the Sinclairs and the Itos, before the night of that big dinner when all the Families would get together. Felix and I tagged along on those, too. I didn’t mind, though. I liked Poppy. She was smart, funny, and loved action movies, just like me.

  I also used those opportunities to ask people outside the Sinclair Family about Devon, but I got the same answers and admiration as before. So far, the mystery man had covered his tracks well, and I was no closer to figuring out his identity than when I’d started.

  Devon and Felix wanted to have some cheesy monster movie marathon at the mansion, which meant I got an afternoon off. So I decided to visit Mo. He’d texted me, and we’d chatted on the phone several times, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him in person. Besides, I wanted to know if he’d found out anything about the attack on Devon, since I’d hit nothing but dead ends so far.

  Grant had some business at one of the Sinclair banks, and he volunteered to drive me to the Razzle Dazzle. The sun and heat weren’t as intense today, so Grant buzzed down the windows. I leaned my head back against the seat and enjoyed the steady breeze on my face. The wind whipped at my ponytail, but I didn’t mind. At least, not until I realized that Grant didn’t have a hair out of place. Seriously. His golden mane looked as sleek and smooth as when he’d first gotten into the car. I wondered how he did that. Or perhaps that’s what his Talent was—always looking perfect. Heh. A faint chill of magic emanated from him, indicating he was using his magic in some small way, although it wasn’t enough to trigger my own transference power.

  Grant drove over the lochness bridge, showing no signs of slowing down to pay the toll. But I was ready for that. I palmed some coins from one of my pockets, then dangled my hand out the window and flicked open my fingers.

  Clink. Clink. Clink.

  The three quarters skipped across the top of the bridge before tumbling down into the river below. That should satisfy the lochness.

  “What are you doing?” Grant asked.

  I pulled my hand back into the car. “Nothing.”

  I didn’t care to be made fun of again, just because he didn’t believe in things like lochness tolls.

  “So,” he said, “how are you liking the Family so far?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Well, the guards have been quite impressed with you. I’ve heard reports that you’ve beaten all of them in one-on-one combat. What’s your secret?”

  “Bacon,” I deadpanned. “And lots of it.”

  He laughed, but his chuckles sounded a little forced. He opened his mouth to ask me another question, but I cut in before he could get started. I had zero desire to talk about myself. Besides, this was the first chance I’d had to pump Grant for information about the attack at the pawnshop.

  “Have you learned anything else about the attack at the Razzle Dazzle? Who the mystery man was, and why he wanted Devon dead?”

  Grant shrugged. “I’m investigating, but nothing concrete has come up yet. If the Itos or another Family were behind the attack, they’ve kept it quiet so far.”

  “What about the dead guys? Who were they?”

  He shrugged again. “Just some guys who hired themselves out as muscle. Low-level thugs. Nobody important.”

  I frowned. The guys were important enough to have provided protection to the accountant I’d robbed, the one that had some Family connections. I’d have to ask Mo which Family the accountant worked for. That might provide some sort of clue about the attack, or at least narrow it down to which Family was really behind it.

  “Why are you suddenly so interested in the attempt on Devon’s life?” Grant asked.

  “I just want to know what I’m up against.”

  “Are you sure it doesn’t have something to do with Devon?”

  I couldn’t keep myself from stiffening a tiny bit. “Why would you say that?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lila,” Grant said. “But I’ve seen this before. It happened with Ashley and another girl before her who was assigned to guard Devon. He treated them as friends, the way he does everyone, but they both got a little too . . . close to him.”

  His meaning was clear. The girls had fallen for Devon, and their devotion had cost them—their lives.

  “There’s just something about Devon,” Grant mused. “Everyone loves him . . . for some reason.”

  He stared through the windshield instead of at me, but the longer I looked at him, the more his blue eyes seemed to darken, like they had at breakfast the other morning. He shook his head, and the illusion vanished.

  “Just be careful, okay?” Grant said. “I wouldn’t want to see a nice girl like you get hurt.”

  Nice girl? That was the last thing I was.

  Or maybe I didn’t want to admit that he was right. That I had way more than just a casual interest in Devon Sinclair.

  One that was probably going to get me killed.

  Grant dropped me off in front of the square near the Razzle Dazzle. He offered to come back for me after he finished at the bank, but I told him I could take one of the tourist trolleys back up the mountain, so he drove off.

  I stepped inside the store, rattling the lochness bones. The pawnshop was empty except for Mo, who was sitting at the back counter, his white straw hat tipped back on his head, flipping through another decorating magazine. He wore his usual Hawaiian shirt, this one a bright green patterned with pink flamingos. My heart squeezed, and I realized how much I missed him.

  Mo raised his head, and his face split into a wide smile. I thought about running around the counter and hugging him, but I resisted the urge. Mo wasn’t a hugger any more than I was.

  “Why, hello, stranger,” he rumbled. “Welcome to my humble little corner of the world.”

  “Nice digs,” I said, playing along. “A girl leaves you alone for a few days, and you go and repaint the whole store again.”

  Instead of robin’s egg blue, the walls were now a light green.

  Mo held up his magazine. “It’s called seafoam. I read this article about it. The color is supposed to put people in a good mood. And people in a good mood . . .”

  “Spend more money,” I said, laughing and finishing the saying he’d quoted to me many, many times.

  He shrugged and gave me a good-natured grin. “Something like that. How are you, kid? How’s life with the Sinclairs?”

  I propped my elbows on the counter and told Mo everything that had happened. He nodded, absorbing my words, but he was also on the lookout for anyone passing by outside who stopped long enough to peer in the windows. Every time he made eye contact with someone, he grinned a little wider, trying to get them to come into the shop. But everyone ignored Mo’s attempts at charm.

  Eventually, he gave up and focused on me again. “You know what, kid? I’m starting to think you’re bad for business.”

  “Nah. You just need to up your game. So you can compete with the big boys out on the Midway.”

  Mo grumbled at my teasing. “Speaking of the big boys, how are you getting along with the folks in the Family?”

  “Fine. There’s one guy, Felix Morales, that I hang out with. He’s okay, for someone who never shuts up.”

  “And what about Devon?” Mo asked in a sly voice.

  I tensed up the same way I had with Grant in the car. “What about Devon?”

  “You’ve been texting me about him a lot.”

  “No more so than anyone else.”

&
nbsp; “True. But you never really say anything about him,” Mo countered. “Just that he’s there.”

  “What am I supposed to say? I follow the guy around all day long. Trust me. He’s not that interesting.”

  Yeah, I was totally lying, but I didn’t know how I felt about Devon. I didn’t childishly hate or automatically blame him for causing my mom’s murder. Not anymore. Not since that night on the rooftop when I’d seen how much her death and the murders of Ashley and all his other bodyguards weighed on him.

  “Have you heard anything else about the attack here?” I asked, changing the subject. “Who was behind it and why?”

  Mo shook his head. “Nope. Not a peep from anyone. And you would think by now that someone would have spilled their guts about something. It’s hard to keep a secret in this town, especially where the Families are concerned.”

  “But what about the dead guys? I recognized them. They worked for the accountant I swiped that ruby necklace from, the one you said was mobbed up.”

  “Nothing on them, either,” Mo replied. “Besides, they’re dead, so what does it matter?”

  I told him my theory that maybe the dead guys had been working for the same Family the accountant did. Mo didn’t know who the accountant worked for, but he promised to find out.

  I started to ask him some more questions, but Mo distracted me by talking about some of the items that people had brought into the pawnshop over the past few days, everything from an oversize rubber bath duck to a fountain pen that only wrote with invisible ink to a superhero action figure that was in mint condition.

  His quick, excited words washed over me, and I found myself relaxing. Mo was like Felix—once he got wound up, it was hard to get a word in edgewise. It made me smile because it was a typical day at the Razzle Dazzle. But it made me a little melancholy, too. Because it wasn’t a typical day, not really, not with me having to report back to the Sinclair mansion tonight or risk Claudia sending the guards out to hunt me down. No, things weren’t the same, and they never would be again.

  I was surprised by how sad that made me.

  Mo ran out of steam about the new items in the shop, although he gave me a thoughtful look. “Now that you’re all moved in at the mansion, what are you going to do with the rest of your stuff?”

  “You mean what’s left in the library?”

  He nodded.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll go get it at some point, I guess.”

  “Well, you better do that soon. Isn’t it about time for the summer sale?”

  I groaned. With everything that had been going on, I’d forgotten all about the sale the library sponsored at the beginning of every summer to clean out the old, used books and earn a little money to buy shiny new titles. But the date was circled in red on the cheap calendar by my cot because it was one of the few weeks of the year when I had to crash at Mo’s. During the sale, the librarians actually came down into the basement to sort through and clean out everything. I had to hide my stuff as far back in the basement as it would go, stack boxes of books in front of it, and hope my things would be left alone until after the sale. Then, when it was over, I could put everything back the way it was. At least until the next sale.

  Mo had already brought my most treasured items to the mansion, but there were some things in the library I still wanted. Extra clothes, extra weapons, a few more knickknacks.

  “What’s the date of the sale?”

  Mo pulled out his phone and surfed the library’s website. “Let’s see. According to the calendar, it looks like they start going through stuff tomorrow. The sale starts three days after that.”

  I groaned again. That meant I needed to get my things tonight or risk losing them. No doubt the librarians would wonder exactly why they hadn’t noticed the cot, the mini-fridge, and the rest of my stuff before. I’d be lucky if they only added it to the sale, instead of calling the cops to complain about someone squatting in the library. I didn’t think anything there could be traced back to me, but it was better not to take the chance.

  “I need to go then,” I said. “And salvage what I can.”

  “You want me to come with you, kid? Give you a hand?”

  The lochness bones over the front door rattled, cutting me off. Three women wearing shorts, pink baseball hats, and matching T-shirts entered the shop. Mo perked up. Only the rubes from the tour groups wore matching T-shirts.

  Still, Mo looked at the customers, then back at me, clearly torn between helping me out and making some money, but I didn’t blame him for it. He’d taught me to be the exact same way, and I would have already called out a greeting to the shoppers, if our positions had been reversed.

  “I can close the shop early and come help you,” he said, his black eyes locked onto the three women, who’d started browsing. “Just say the word.”

  “Nah. You’ve got sales to make. I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” he murmured, finally dragging his gaze back to me.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Just be careful, okay, kid?” Mo said. “The Families aren’t the only bad things roaming the streets.”

  His concern touched me, enough that I leaned across the counter and gave him that hug after all. His arms came around me, and his scent filled my nose, a faint, citrusy smell almost like lemon cleaner. It made me remember all the time I’d spent in the shop. All the summer mornings watching him wipe down the glass cases, ruthlessly eradicating the streaks and specks of dust so customers could have a clear, sparkling view of the goods inside. All the afternoons haggling with him about how much he was going to pay me for a watch I’d swiped. All the late nights eating takeout burgers and plotting my next job. My heart squeezed tight again, and I had to clear my throat before I could speak.

  “Later, Mo.”

  “Later, kid.”

  I drew back, turned, and hurried away so he wouldn’t see the tears stinging my eyes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I walked out of the shop, past the fountain in the middle of the square, and over to the street. A trolley was getting ready to leave to make its loop around the city, so I was able to hop on board.

  I found myself in an aisle seat, next to a woman who had her nose and camera pressed up against the window, staring at the food cart at the corner, as though she’d never seen a guy make snow cones with shaved ice that he created with his bare hands. She looked like the same woman I’d sat next to on my ride over to the Razzle Dazzle the day Devon had been attacked, but I couldn’t be sure. The tourist rubes all tended to look alike after a while.

  The trolley rumbled through town on its slow circuit, stopping at various squares, as well as the main entrance to the Midway. Thirty minutes later, I got off at the stop closest to the library and walked the rest of the way through the rundown neighborhood.

  It wasn’t six yet, and I thought that I might have to hide in one of the bathroom stalls until the library closed for the night. But the building was already locked up tight, and a sign on the door said that it would also be closed tomorrow so the staff could do inventory. Looked like I’d gotten lucky after all.

  I had my chopstick lock picks stuck in my ponytail, so I jimmied open the side door and slipped inside. I walked through the stacks, the storage room, and down into the basement, where I hit the touch lamp, making it flare to life. Maybe it was my imagination, but the basement looked different, even though everything was the same as when I’d last been here. The cot with its tangle of sheets, the faint hum of the fridge, the metal shelf full of what I considered treasures.

  But the more I stared at the basement, the more I realized that it was small—small and dingy and just plain sad. Or maybe that was my impression of the items scattered around it. After being surrounded by all of the slick, polished glamour of the Sinclair mansion, my things looked no better than the cheap trinkets at the ticky-tack tourist shops.

  Still, they were my things, the ones I’d saved up money to buy from doing all those odd, illega
l, dangerous jobs for Mo. I’d earned them, and I was going to take them with me.

  Mo had already brought my best suitcase to the mansion, but I still had two left. I could probably get most of my stuff into them. I hated to leave anything behind, but I couldn’t exactly walk around town carrying a cot topped with a mini-fridge. Well, I could, but it wouldn’t be practical—or comfortable. I had no desire to try to haul the cot and the fridge back to the trolley stop, and with two full suitcases, the driver would already charge me triple before letting me on.

  I started with the metal shelf, packing up my knickknacks. All the books of fairy and monster tales I’d collected. Some photos of me as a kid, grinning and trying to hold my mom’s sword upright. A cool piece of rock I’d found when Mom and I had been staying in Ashland for one of her jobs. A pretty crystal necklace she’d bought me in a shop in Cypress Mountain.

  I’d been so focused on school, my missions for Mo, and just making it day-to-day that I hadn’t looked at some of the items in a long time. All of them brought back fond memories, and I found myself smiling as I packed them away. Even though I hadn’t thought it would, the pain of my mom’s death had slowly eased, and I could look back without as much sadness as before.

  I still had plenty of anger, though—especially for the people who’d killed her.

  When all of my knickknacks were stowed away, I moved on to the remaining clothes. There weren’t many, and I folded up the few extra pairs of jeans and moved on to my winter sweaters—

  Something skittered on the floor above me.

  I darted over and touched the lamp, casting the basement into darkness, then dropped my hand to my sword, which I’d belted around my waist before I’d left the mansion with Grant. All the while, I strained to listen to who—or what—was in the library. A sword being drawn out of a scabbard, the scrabble of claws on the floor, the snap-snap-snap of teeth clacking together.