Cold Burn of Magic

by Jennifer Estep

  Maybe this wasn’t about the Families so much as it was about the mystery man. But surely, he had to be working for someone in order to have hired that much muscle. Either that, or he was independently wealthy. But even then, someone should know something about him.

  “But let’s say that the Volkovs were behind the attack tonight,” Felix said. “How did they even know Devon was here? Nobody saw us leave the mansion. Even if they did, they couldn’t have possibly known we would wind up here.”

  “Someone knew,” I pointed out. “Because the mystery man was here, just like he was in the pawnshop. He was the one who attacked Devon.”

  “But how?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know the answer. If I did, I’d probably know who the mystery man was and what he really wanted from Devon. Actually, I had that last part figured out already.

  A few more guards entered the library. Reginald and Grant turned to them, and Claudia stopped her conversation with Devon to listen as well.

  “Anything?” Grant asked.

  One of the guards shook his head. “There’s no trace of anyone around the building. Sorry.”

  Claudia pressed her lips together, then her eyes cut to me. Her worry squeezed my heart.

  “We’ll talk more about this at the mansion,” she snapped. “We’re leaving. Now.”

  Felix started to help me up, but Devon hurried over and stepped in front of him.

  “I’ve got Lila,” he said.

  Devon’s voice didn’t crackle with magic, not like it had before, but it was a clear command all the same. Felix nodded and moved off to grab my suitcases, which had somehow made it through the fight unscathed.

  Devon helped me to my feet and wrapped his arm around my waist. Despite the blood that covered both of us, he still smelled fresh and clean. I breathed in his scent, letting that sharp tang of pine wash away the coppery stench of blood—my blood.

  I did that over and over again, desperately trying not to notice how gentle and considerate he was being with me, or how warm and hard the muscles of his chest were pressed up against my side.

  Devon guided me to one of the black SUVs sitting at the curb outside the library. Claudia walked along behind us. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her icy gaze boring into the back of my skull, and the sharp snap-snap-snap of her stilettos on the sidewalk seemed to echo her displeasure. She didn’t like her son helping me, and I liked it more than I should have. Neither one of us was happy.

  Devon slid in the back beside me, while Felix put my suitcases in the rear, then got in on my other side. Reginald drove, while Claudia took the front passenger’s seat. Grant was in another car, the one he’d driven me to the Razzle Dazzle in, with the guards following him in two more vehicles.

  Nobody said anything on the ride back to the mansion, but Claudia kept glancing over her shoulder and frowning, clearly pissed at me. She thought that I’d put her son in danger.

  She was right about that.

  Because the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Devon and Felix weren’t the only ones who’d been following me. Someone had to have seen me leave the Razzle Dazzle and take the trolley over to the library. That was the only way someone could have possibly been at the library to see Devon and Felix go inside. But who would want to follow me? And why would he or she think that I’d lead them to Devon?

  I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes, trying to puzzle it out. Trying to get all the tumblers to fall into the right spots so the lock would pop open, then I would know how the attack at the Razzle Dazzle fit in with what had happened tonight. My thoughts kept going back to the mystery man. He was at the center of this whole thing, like a blinking red alarm that I needed to disable before it went off and gave me away—or got me killed.

  If I found the mystery man, I’d learn the answers to everything else.

  Thirty minutes later, Reginald steered the SUV onto the grounds of the Sinclair mansion. Ten minutes after that I was in a room down the hall from the greenlab, lying on a hospital bed with the leg of my cargo pants cut open, trying not to wince as Felix and Angelo poked and prodded at my wound.

  “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of poison, so that’s good,” Felix murmured. “Just a clean slice. What do you think, Dad?”

  “I agree.” Angelo leaned over so I could see his face. “You were very lucky, Lila. Three inches the other way, and he would have sliced your femoral artery wide open.”

  “Yeah. Lucky me.”

  Angelo got a bottle of stitch-sting and slowly poured the dark green liquid all over the wound, causing a faint, woodsy scent to waft up.

  That was the only pleasant thing about it.

  I hissed as the stitch-sting seeped into the gash in my leg, and I had to dig my nails into my palms to keep from snarling. The liquid burned every inch of skin it touched, even worse than if I’d upended an entire bottle of iodine over my leg.

  That familiar, icy surge of magic flooded my veins as the potion did its work. I lay still despite the power coursing through my body, begging to be used, wanting to be unleashed in some way.

  Angelo and Felix talked in soft voices as they moved around the room, washing their hands and throwing away the supplies they’d used to clean out the gash in my leg. But after a minute, they stopped talking, both of them coming back over to hover by the bed.

  “What?” I asked through gritted teeth, staring up at the ceiling. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Angelo said. “It’s just . . . your wound is completely healed. Already. Normally, an injury like this would require much more stitch-sting than what I’ve used so far.”

  “Maybe it’s more of that luck you were talking about earlier,” I muttered. “Because believe me, it still hurts.”

  Even as I said the words, the last of the magic evaporated from my body, taking the burn of the stitch-sting along with it. I propped myself up on my elbows, but the skin of my leg was smooth and unbroken, and I could move it without any pain.

  “Perhaps,” Angelo murmured, still peering at where the wound had been, then glancing at the bottle he’d put on the nightstand next to the bed. “Or perhaps this batch is a little stronger than most. I do remember putting some extra cuttings in when I was brewing it . . .”

  Felix and his dad started talking about the merits of stitch-sting versus other magical plants while they cleaned the rest of my other, minor wounds. Oscar must have brought them some of my clothes because Felix gave me a familiar blue T-shirt and a pair of black shorts to put on, since the clothes I’d been wearing had been ruined by all the blood.

  I’d just finished getting dressed when a knock sounded on the door. “Yeah?”

  The door opened and Felix stuck his head inside the room, his face serious. “Claudia would like to see you.”

  I just bet she would.

  I followed Felix to the library. Reginald was standing by the doors. He gestured for me to go inside, but he held out a hand, stopping Felix when he tried to follow me.

  “Sorry,” Reginald said. “Miss Claudia only wants to see her.”

  Felix rolled his eyes, but there was no way he could get past the older man.

  “I’ll see you later,” Felix said.

  “Sure.”

  If I was still here later. For all I knew, Claudia already had one of the guards firing up a cement mixer to make a special pair of shoes just for me. But I had been summoned, so I stepped into the library.

  Claudia was sitting in her chair in front of the fireplace, as regal as any queen. Devon was in the chair next to her, with Grant perched on the white velvet settee across from them. Grant was leaning forward, talking in a low voice and gesturing with his hands, as if he was trying to convince Claudia about something. She didn’t seem to be paying any attention to him. Her green gaze focused on me, already frosty with anger. Terrific.

  “There you are,” Claudia murmured. “Finally.”

  “I did have a gash in my leg, in case
you hadn’t heard.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Grant, please leave us. I would like to speak to Lila and my son alone.”

  Grant wet his lips, looking from me to Claudia and back again. “Are you sure that’s . . . wise?”

  “We’ll be fine,” she insisted in a hard voice that left no room for argument.

  Grant got to his feet. “Good luck,” he whispered as he passed me.

  We both knew I was going to need it.

  Claudia made a motion with her hand, ordering me to sit in the spot that Grant had vacated. I plopped down on the velvet, digging my bare toes into the rug to keep from sliding off.

  Everyone was quiet, although the mantel clock kept tick-tick-ticking to fill the silence.

  “My son tells me that you saved his life—again,” Claudia said. “That he and Felix would have walked into an ambush if you hadn’t realized that someone was outside.”

  I shrugged. “Just doing my job and being a good little Family soldier.”

  Her eyes glittered with even more anger. “I gave you a chance to keep your head down and make some money. Not put my son in more danger. Once again, he was almost assassinated while in your company.”

  Devon sighed. “It wasn’t Lila’s fault. She didn’t even realize that Felix and I were following her until she saw us at the library.”

  Claudia fixed her icy stare on him. “Well, she should have, if she is half the arrogant thief she claims to be.”

  Sadly, I couldn’t argue with her about that.

  “And I can’t believe that you were so reckless as to traipse all over Cloudburst Falls after a girl,” Claudia continued, still staring at her son. “You know the dangers out there. You know we’ve been having problems with the other Families. You were lucky those men didn’t kill you.”

  Devon stiffened, sitting up to his full height. “And I’m your second-in-command, the Family bruiser. I can’t hide here in the mansion all day, every day. It makes me look weak in front of our own people, and it makes the Sinclairs look weak to all the other Families. That’s more dangerous than anything else, even—”

  He cut off his words, but I knew what he’d been about to say, and why Claudia was so worried about his safety.

  “Actually, the men would have killed me and Felix, but they would have let Devon live,” I said. “At least for a little while.”

  Claudia frowned. “And how do you know that?”

  “Because the mystery man wasn’t trying to kill Devon,” I said. “He was trying to kidnap him.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Claudia’s face remained blank, but her gaze flicked to her son, just for a second. But that was long enough to confirm my suspicion that something else was going on here than someone simply trying to kill Devon.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “The guys who attacked us all had swords, and they were very eager to use them on me, and Felix, too. But when the mystery man finally got close enough to Devon to kill him, he didn’t run Devon through with his sword. Instead, he clamped his hand over Devon’s mouth, put a dagger to his neck, and tried to drag him off. If he wanted your son dead, the mystery man could have stuck that dagger in his back easily enough. But he didn’t. He wanted to take Devon—alive.”

  Claudia and Devon didn’t respond, so I decided to fill in the blanks for them. I knew most of the answers to my questions. All I needed now was some confirmation.

  “Forget about the mystery man,” I said. “The really interesting thing is what happened during the attack.”

  Devon tensed before he could stop himself, although Claudia remained calm.

  “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”

  “I killed two of the men, but I was injured and the fight wasn’t going my way. In fact, one of those guys was about to take my head off—until Devon opened his mouth and asked him to stop,” I said. “And surprise, surprise, the guy froze. Just like that.”

  I snapped my fingers, and they both flinched at the sound.

  “The guy stopped cold, even though I could tell exactly how much he wanted to kill me.”

  I paused, but neither one of them said anything, so I continued.

  “And not only did the guy not kill me, but Devon barked out a few more commands and the guy actually turned on his friends and started killing them instead. All on Devon’s orders. He said exactly five words to the other man—stop, turn around, protect us—and that’s exactly what the guy did, even though I could tell just how much he didn’t want to.”

  They still didn’t respond.

  “On the ride back to the mansion, I started thinking about the first fight in the Razzle Dazzle. And it occurred to me that the guy who attacked Devon didn’t actually swing his sword at him. Instead, he grabbed Devon’s neck. At the time, I thought the guy was going to choke him to death. But really, all he was doing was keeping pressure on Devon’s throat so he couldn’t speak. To keep him from giving any of his special orders.”

  Silence. Absolute silence.

  A minute ticked by, then two, then three.

  Finally, Claudia sat up straight, raised her chin, and fixed me with a ruthless glare.

  “You will never, ever tell anyone what Devon did in the library,” she snapped. “Or I will kill you myself.”

  My mouth fell open. It was bad enough Claudia was forcing me to work for her Family, but I’d saved Devon from being kidnapped again. And now she was threatening me? With death?

  Anger bubbled up inside me, as hot and bitter as acid. My hands clenched into fists, and I opened my mouth to tell Claudia Sinclair exactly what I thought of her—

  “Enough, Mom,” Devon said. “That’s enough. Lila saw what I did. I can’t hide it from her. Not anymore.”

  Claudia sucked in a breath. “Devon, think about this. You don’t know what you’re saying. The more people who know, the more—”

  “Danger I’m in,” Devon finished. “Yeah. I got the memo on that a long time ago.”

  He stared into the fireplace, even though it was cold and empty. I wondered if he was thinking back to that day on the Midway, when my mom had saved him and Claudia. I’d always wondered why he’d been targeted by so many men. I’d assumed it was because of some Family feud, but I was beginning to think his special power might be the real reason.

  Devon shook off his memories and turned to me. Despite his bravado, the worry in his green eyes pinched my heart.

  “It’s my Talent,” he said. “What I did to that guy in the library . . . it’s called compulsion. I tell someone what to do, and they automatically do it—whether they want to or not.”

  Compulsion was a rare Talent. I’d heard of it, but I’d never actually met someone with the power to make other people act against their own free will. No wonder the mystery man wanted to kidnap Devon. As long as he held Devon prisoner, he could get Devon—and whoever he forced Devon to compel—to do exactly what he wanted.

  Or worse, the mystery man could take Devon’s Talent for himself, rip the magic right out of Devon’s body, and kill him in the process. It was the same thing my mom had always feared would happen to me if someone learned about my transference power.

  “Some Talent, huh?” Devon barked out a harsh laugh. “Tell her the rest of it.”

  Claudia shook her head. “There’s nothing else to tell.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You know that’s not true.” He drew in a breath and looked at me again. “It’s the reason my dad died. He was murdered because of my damn Talent.”

  He said it as though it were a curse. Maybe it was, to him.

  Claudia sighed. “Devon, you don’t know that—”

  “Yeah,” he said in a soft voice, his green eyes dark with guilt. “I do.”

  Devon surged to his feet, stalked over to the doors, and wrenched one of them open. He stepped through the opening and yanked on the door from the other side, slamming it behind him. Claudia and I didn’t say anything for several seconds.

  �
�Who else knows?” I asked after the sharp echoes had faded away.

  Claudia stared at the closed doors. “Only a few Family members. Angelo, Felix, and Reginald. Some of the pixies, including Oscar. People who would never betray the Family or Devon. People I trust.”

  Meaning that she didn’t trust me. Not exactly a news flash.

  “I hope you will keep this newfound knowledge to yourself,” Claudia said in a stiff voice. “If not for Devon’s sake, then for your own. The more people who know, the more danger my son is in. And by extension, everyone else in the Family. Especially you, since he seems to have taken a . . . liking to you.”

  “Yeah,” I sniped. “Thanks for being so concerned about my well-being.”

  Claudia’s eyes narrowed. “You have a smart mouth on you.”

  “I take after my mom that way.”

  Something flashed in her eyes. It almost looked like . . . aching regret, but it vanished in an instant. I looked at her, wondering if I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets, but her face was as cool as ever.

  “Regardless, you should show more respect, especially to the head of your Family.”

  My hands balled into fists. “You are not my family, mob or otherwise.”

  She raised her chin even higher. “I am the head of the Sinclair Family, and you will treat me as such.”

  “Yeah,” I sniped again. “Because you’re so kind and generous to everyone in your Family. Like me, the girl you just threatened with death for the second time in less than a week. That really makes me want to be loyal to you.”

  I didn’t think it was possible, but her face became even frostier than before, as though her beautiful features had been carved out of stone. Marble left outside in a raging blizzard would have been warmer than her expression. Claudia opened her mouth, probably to threaten me again, but I waved my hand and cut her off.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. I breathe a word to anyone about Devon, and you’ll kill me. And let’s throw in Mo, too, just for good measure, because that seems to be how you roll. Well, don’t worry. I’m not going to say anything about Devon, and not because of your threats. Your son . . . he’s a genuinely good guy. He doesn’t deserve to be kidnapped or killed or to have his Talent ripped out of him.”