Cold Burn of Magic

by Jennifer Estep

  “So why do I stay?” Oscar sighed. “I don’t really know. I guess I’m just a dang fool.”

  He scuffed the heels of his cowboy boots against the fence post, then stared off into space. Tiny continued to munch on his strawberries.

  “It must be hard. Getting to know people, and then seeing them die, one after another.”

  He let out a hoarse, bitter laugh. “You have no idea. It would be bad enough to go through it once or twice, but over and over again, for decades on end? It’s torture. And every time—every single time—I tell myself that I’m not going to get involved. That I’m not going to care about the next person who walks through that door. But I end up doing it anyway, and then they always get killed.”

  He scowled, but tears shimmered in his violet eyes. It had been bad enough seeing the aftermath of my mom’s murder, but Oscar had lost dozens of friends, if not more.

  “Well, you don’t have to care about me. Not one little bit. And you don’t have to worry about me getting killed, either. If there is one thing I’m good at, it’s surviving.”

  Oscar snorted, as though he didn’t believe me, but the briefest, faintest of smiles flickered across his tiny face. Suddenly, I wanted to make him smile—really smile—the same way I had Devon.

  “Just do me one favor.”

  He eyed me with suspicion. “What?”

  “Don’t put itching powder in my bed,” I drawled. “At least not tonight. I’m too tired to sleep on the couch.”

  He barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. Oscar’s lips pinched together, and he gave me another suspicious look. I winked at him, scratched Tiny’s head, and got into bed.

  My body was already starting to tighten up from the fight, and I let out a low groan as I reached for the sheets, trying to pull them up.

  “Let me,” Oscar said, grabbing the sheets.

  He lifted them up and over my body before tucking them in under my chin, just the way I liked them. He stood there on the bed, shifting back and forth on his feet, his wings twitching, not quite looking at me.

  “Good night,” Oscar said.

  “Good night.”

  The pixie twitched his wings a final time, fluttered over to his house on the table, and went inside for the night. But for once, he didn’t slam the door shut behind him. He gently closed it instead.

  I smiled and snuggled down a little farther under the sheets.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The next few days were quiet, if tense.

  I stuck to my routine of getting up, stuffing myself with breakfast, and going wherever the day took me. Mostly, I hung out with Felix in the greenlab, helping him and Angelo prune the stitch-sting bushes so they could make more healing liquid. I also went down to the Razzle Dazzle every chance I got, but Mo hadn’t found out anything about either one of the attacks, although he said that one of his contacts might have something for him soon.

  I also did everything I could think of to find the mystery man. I kept chatting up folks about Devon, trying to figure out who might know about his compulsion magic and want it for himself. I also wandered through the Midway, eavesdropping on the guards from the other Families and picking up what gossip I could.

  I even broke back into the brownstone of the accountant where I’d swiped the ruby necklace, since his guards had attacked Devon the first time in the pawnshop. But there were no incriminating papers or other clues in the accountant’s office that told me anything I didn’t already know.

  All that effort, and I didn’t learn anything new. The mystery man was still, well, a mystery.

  The one person I didn’t see much of was Devon. I didn’t have to guard him at the mansion, and he stayed put on the grounds. Supposedly, he was busy with Family obligations, including some new training for the guards, but he was avoiding me, and I did the same to him. Every time I saw him walking through the mansion, I made sure I was going in the opposite direction, and I absolutely did not look into his eyes. I didn’t want my soulsight to show me how much he regretted almost kissing me. Especially since part of me wanted to pick right back up where we’d left off.

  But the night of the dinner for all the Families finally arrived, and Devon came over to me long enough in the dining hall at breakfast to tell me that Claudia wanted me to go.

  “Why?” I asked. “There will be plenty of guards. She doesn’t need me there, too. Besides, your mom has made it pretty clear that she hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you,” he said. “No one here does.”

  “Well, at the very least, she doesn’t trust me.”

  Devon shrugged. “Well, she still wants you to go. She didn’t tell me why.”

  He walked away before I could ask him anything else. Maybe that was for the best.

  Oscar had come into my bedroom an hour earlier, carrying a garment bag. I’d unzipped it to find a black pantsuit and a matching shirt, similar to the ones Claudia always wore, along with a pair of low-heeled black pumps and a small black purse. I’d grumbled at the clothes, but I supposed I couldn’t show up to a Family dinner wearing my usual T-shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers.

  So I’d taken a shower, slicked my hair back into a high ponytail, and even went through the drudgery of putting on a little makeup. But I also made sure that I had all of my usual tools with me. My belt with its hidden slots and three throwing stars, my chopstick lock picks stuck in my hair, my phone and several quarters that I dropped into the bottom of the purse. As a final touch, I slipped my mom’s star-shaped sapphire ring onto my finger.

  The only thing missing was the black blade belted around my waist, but no one was allowed to have weapons at a Family dinner. At least, not any obvious ones.

  Now I was standing in front of my vanity table, peering at my reflection in the mirror. And I realized something. Black suit, black shirt, black heels. I looked like a mobster—and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  “Nice,” Oscar called out from the front porch of his trailer. “You clean up real good, Lila.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered, pulling down the suit jacket a little more.

  He cleared his throat. “Just . . . be careful tonight, okay? These dang Family dinners can be brutal, especially on the nerves.”

  I winked at him. “Always.”

  Oscar nodded, but his smile was more sad than happy as he got up and headed into his trailer, as if he already knew that I wasn’t coming back after the dinner.

  For some reason, I felt that way, too.

  I joined the other Family members who were already gathered in the library. Claudia, Devon, Felix, Grant, Reginald, Angelo. Everyone wore the same sort of black suit and shirt that I had on, along with serious expressions that matched their dark clothes.

  “Now that we are all finally here,” Claudia said, arching an eyebrow at me. “We should leave. We don’t want to be late.”

  She swept out of the library, followed by Reginald and Angelo. Grant nodded his head as he passed me, and I did the same. That left me standing with Felix and Devon, who still wasn’t looking at me. Not that I noticed, since I was extremely busy not staring back at him.

  “Not bad, Merriweather.” Felix let out a low whistle. “Not bad at all. Don’t you think so, Devon?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, Lila looks nice.”

  Felix rolled his eyes. “There goes Mr. Understatement again.”

  “Anyway, we should go,” Devon continued. “We don’t want to keep the others waiting.”

  We headed outside. Claudia, Reginald, and Angelo were already in one car. Felix said that he was going to ride with his dad and headed in that direction. That left me, Devon, and Grant to follow in the second SUV. We rode in silence down the mountain and over to the Midway. Grant parked in the lot reserved for the Families, and the three of us got out and walked over to the restaurant where the dinner was being held. I stopped on the sidewalk and stared up at the neon sign burning a bloody red. Then I started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?�
�� Grant asked.

  I pointed up at the sign. “The Red Cannoli? Really?”

  “What about it?” Devon asked.

  “Don’t you find that just a little ironic?”

  Devon and Grant both shrugged. Apparently, I was the only one around here who watched mob movies where bad things happened in Italian restaurants. With its oh-so-appropriate name, the Red Cannoli could have come right out of a gangster flick.

  The inside of the restaurant was exactly what I expected. The walls were made of a dark cherry wood and flanked by red leather booths, while thick white cloths covered all the tables. A bar lined the back wall, the bottles of liquor shining like polished gems underneath the muted white lights. An enormous painting of an old Spanish hacienda that was a mix of reds, oranges, yellows, and greens took up most of the wall behind the bar. The hacienda could also be seen stamped into the bronze cuffs the bartender and the wait staff were wearing, since it was the crest of the Salazar Family.

  “This is one of the Salazars’ joints, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Devon answered. “The Families rotate who hosts the dinner as well as the location. It was the Salazars’ turn this time. So here we are.”

  We moved deeper into the restaurant. Devon, Grant, and I joined Claudia, Angelo, Felix, and Reginald, who were standing in front of the booths on the right side of the restaurant. The smells of garlic, seared onions, and crushed red pepper tickled my nose, and my stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  Felix eyed me. “You cannot possibly be hungry again. We just had dinner, like, two hours ago. And you ate twice as much as I did.”

  I grinned. “I could always eat. Besides, it smells fantastic.”

  Everyone from the other Families kept more or less to themselves, all of them standing in tightly clustered groups like we were. Everyone had on a black suit, and the only real differences between folks were the color of their shirts and the cuffs on their right wrists. I spotted Poppy standing close to her father. She waved at me, and I waved back.

  A large circular table stood in the center of the room, with several other, smaller circular tables spiraling out from it. The table in the middle was for the heads of the Families, some of whom had already taken their seats. Hiroshi Ito, Roberto Salazar, Nikolai Volkov, and a few others from the less powerful Families. Only two empty seats remained at the table. One of those had to be for Claudia, who was moving around the restaurant, shaking hands with members of all the other Families. The other had to be for Victor Draconi, but he wasn’t here yet—

  The restaurant doors banged open, and several people strode inside. A hush fell over the room, and everyone turned to face the new arrivals.

  The Draconi Family.

  They wore black suits with red shirts and gold cuffs, all of which were stamped with that snarling dragon crest. Every single one of them looked either tall, angry, and vaguely threatening, or short, mean, and openly hostile. The guards came in first, followed by Blake, who swaggered in as if he owned the joint. Deah followed her brother, looking cold, beautiful, and only slightly less menacing than the rest of her Family.

  Beside me, Felix sucked in a breath. Deah scanned the room, and her eyes met his for a second before skittering away.

  Blake and Deah moved about halfway into the room, then stopped, turned, and faced each other. The rest of the guards formed two lines, one behind Blake, and the other behind Deah.

  Blake, Deah, and the guards each snapped to attention and took three steps back, and a man strode into the restaurant, walking through the center of the aisle they’d created for him.

  He was handsome, with a lean, trim figure, thick, wavy blond hair, and eyes that were more gold than brown. He wasn’t as large and beefy as the other men, but it was easy to tell that he was the most powerful. He just had that sort of commanding presence about him, and practically everyone in the restaurant bowed their heads to him. I could feel the chill of magic rolling off him from all the way across the room. I wondered what his Talent was—and if he had more than one, given the cold crush of power he wore like a crown perched on top of a king’s head.

  Victor Draconi, the big cannoli himself.

  The man who’d murdered my mom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Since my mom’s death, I had seen Victor Draconi several times over the years, moving through the crowds in the Midway, cruising around town in some dark, expensive car, even once through the window of a fancy steakhouse where he was eating. And I’d known that he was going to be here tonight.

  But knowing that and seeing him were two different things. He stopped in between Blake and Deah, and that solid wall of white swept through my mind, blotting out everything else, except the horrible memories of that day . . .

  “What are you doing?” I asked my mom, watching her frantically throw my clothes into a suitcase.

  “Packing. We’re leaving town. Today.” Her voice was clipped, as though she thought she could pack faster if she talked less.

  Two hours had passed since the fight at the park. After the attack, my mom had hustled me out of the Midway and back to our apartment near the lochness bridge. She’d told me to play in my room while she took a shower to wash the blood off her. After that, she had called Mo and whispered to him for almost an hour, pacing back and forth from one room of our tiny apartment to the next and back again the whole time. Ten minutes ago, she had hung up with Mo, stormed into my room, and opened my closet door. She hadn’t stopped grabbing things since.

  “But why do we have to leave?” I asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just trying to save that boy. Nobody even knows it was you.”

  She shook her head. “Someone will know. Someone will figure it out. Trust me, Lila. We need to leave.”

  “But the summer isn’t even half over yet,” I whined.

  I didn’t want to leave Cloudburst Falls. Not now. We hadn’t even been to the lake, the waterfalls, or the bloodiron mines yet, my favorite places to visit. We couldn’t leave without seeing them. We just couldn’t.

  Mom heard my petulant tone and stopped packing long enough to look at me. She let out a breath, sat down on the bed next to me, and threaded her fingers through mine.

  “I know it’s hard, but we have to leave today. Maybe we can come back next year and stay a little longer, okay? To make up for it.”

  I sighed and finally nodded. “Okay.”

  “That’s my girl. ”

  She smiled, kissed the top of my head, and went into her room. She came back a minute later carrying her blue spidersilk coat, her ironmesh gloves, and her black blade, snug in its scabbard. She paused, rubbing her finger over the star carved into the hilt of the sword, the one that matched her sapphire ring. Then she put the sword and everything else into the top of the suitcase full of my clothes, zipped the whole thing up, and placed it on the floor.

  “Here,” she said. “Be a good girl and take that down to the car while I start packing up the next one.”

  “Do I have to?” I whined again.

  “Yes. ” She slipped the ring off her finger and handed it to me, before digging into her pocket and coming up with a ten-dollar bill and several quarters. “But you can wear that, and you can get us some ice cream from that shack near the river, since we didn’t get to finish ours earlier. Okay? And don’t forget to pay the lochness toll. ”

  I grinned, swiped the ring and the money, then hurried over, grabbed the suitcase, and started rolling it toward the front door. Mom’s laughter followed me out of the apartment, although it seemed more sad than happy.

  The building didn’t have an elevator, and since we were on the fifth floor, it took me forever to get the heavy suitcase down the back stairs and out to the car. But I managed it, bought a strawberry cheesecake ice cream cone for myself and a double fudge one for Mom, and stopped in the middle of the lochness bridge. I slapped the three quarters on the stone, just like she had told me to, then stood in the center of the bridge and admired the view.

 
; I’d only taken two bites of my ice cream when I heard her scream.

  At first, I thought that I had imagined the sound or that maybe the lochness had snagged a bird that was getting a drink of the river. So I took a third bite of my ice cream—

  Another scream ripped through the air. Then another one, then another, coming faster and faster, each one higher, sharper, and louder than the last. And I knew that it was Mom screaming, and that she was in trouble.

  I dropped the cones in the middle of the bridge and ran the three blocks back to our apartment, my heart pounding in my ears, my breath coming in ragged gasps, my stomach churning even faster than my legs.

  Especially since I didn’t hear Mom’s screaming anymore.

  I rounded the corner and stopped short. A black SUV sat at the curb in front of our building, about fifty feet away. The fancy car definitely didn’t belong in this rundown neighborhood, and neither did the tough guy with the sword and red cloak who was standing beside it.

  I bit my lip, wondering how I was going to get past the guard, when the front door of the building opened and two people stepped outside. One was a boy a couple of years older than me, while the other was a handsome man, with wavy blond hair and golden eyes. He wore a black suit and was wiping something off his hands with a white silk handkerchief.

  Mom had pointed the man out to me on the Midway before—Victor Draconi.

  And the boy was his son, Blake.

  They stopped at the curb, while the guy with the sword hurried to open the back door of the SUV for them.

  “Who was she?” Blake asked.

  Was? My stomach clenched even tighter.

  Victor finished wiping off his hands and balled up the handkerchief.

  I didn’t have to use my sight to see the blood staining the silk.

  Victor shrugged. “Somebody who got in my way one too many times. Nobody now.”

  He dropped the bloody handkerchief into the gutter, then slid inside the vehicle, with Blake climbing in behind him. The SUV rolled away from the curb a few seconds later.