Devils & Thieves (Devils & Thieves #1)(56)

“I had to warn you. You’re important and you have to be safe. He’s not safe, and you have to stay away—” He grimaced and bowed his head.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

He let out a low, broken chuckle. “I never expected he would do anything like this.”

“Did you take Alex?” I whispered. “Do you have Flynn and Gunnar, too?” Somehow, he’d had Flynn’s magic all around him just now. A complete illusion. My throat constricted. “Can you steal other people’s magic?”

Just like his brother had.

“You have to be careful. You can’t trust him.”

“Crowe?”

Killian raised his head, and his face was pulled into a terrible grimace. “He has to be stopped!” His animus magic wound more tightly around me, and the blood-and-ash scent of it made me feel like I was drowning. I leaned against him as it sapped every thought from my mind, and watched helplessly as it slid around him as well, across his sharp cheekbones and into his ears, his nostrils. As it did, the pungent ashy scent grew stronger, like the smell of a hundred stale cigarettes, and the light of the flashlight dimmed as magic as dark as the night wafted between us.

“Crowe has to be stopped,” Killian said firmly. “He’ll destroy everything.” He clamped his eyes shut and shook his head, then groaned.

Images of Crowe, venemon snaking from his fingertips, his eyes dark and forbidding, filled my head. He could rain destruction on the people in this festival if he wanted. He could curse us with plague. He could boil our blood in our veins. He could carve his initials on our hearts with the brush of his thoughts. Somewhere in a dark corner of my mind, a rebellious thought held its own, though. No.

“N-no,” I mumbled.

Killian’s grip on my hand tightened. “Stop him,” he begged. “You’re the only one who can.”

I tore my hand from his, feeling like I was swimming through rapidly hardening cement. Every step was a chore. The crimson threads of Killian’s magic were wrapped around my throat, my face, but now all I could smell was cinders and ash, not copper and salt. Killian made a desperate sound and bashed himself in the face with the flashlight. “Don’t listen to me!” he shouted. As he staggered backward and dropped the light, the threads of animus fell away like he’d taken a pair of scissors to them.

I sucked in a breath—and I ran.





FIFTEEN


“NO!” KILLIAN SHOUTED. THE SOUND OF THRASHING and unsteady footsteps followed, but I was powered by pure terror. I practically flew through the forest, dodging trees, branches scraping against my arms and cheeks. I ran, blundering through the darkness with my hands out, my breath squeaking from me in desperate bursts, until my head spun and my side ached. Finally, I had the wherewithal to pull out my cell phone and use the flashlight app to light my way. But the farther I went, the more confused I was.

Killian, who had been nowhere to be found for most of the day, had just ambushed me while pretending to be Flynn. He’d told me that Crowe was going to destroy everything.

He’d also seemed completely unstable and insane. He’d beaten Boone and left him bleeding and unconscious. He’d hit himself in the face, too, for God’s sake. All while exuding animus magic streaked with black. It definitely hadn’t looked that way last night.

A chime from my phone brought me to a stop just as lights in the distance told me I was about to reach the festival grounds.

It was a text from my mom: Come home. I need you.

With trembling fingers, I replied. What’s wrong? Are you okay?

Just come home.

I frowned. Mom was no alarmist, and if she needed me, it was probably serious.

But so was what had just happened. Either Killian was convinced Crowe was up to something terrible, or Killian himself was using other kindled powers, just like his brother had.

I recalled the scent of ash in the air. A kind of magic I’d never before sensed—until this morning when Katrina had been surrounded by it as she hurled a terrible curse at Crowe. Had Killian been behind that, too?

Nothing was making sense.

Using my cell phone light, I made my way back to the spot where Killian had attacked Boone, but Boone wasn’t there. Blood on the leaves told me I was at the right spot, though. He must have gotten up and gone back to the festival, maybe to get Crowe. But a shaky mistrust filled my head when I thought of seeing Crowe, so I texted the one person who might be able to shed some light on what I’d just experienced with the president of the Deathstalkers—Darek.

Hey. Just saw your pres in the woods and he was acting super weird. Can we talk?

I had just hit Send when I remembered that Darek’s phone had been destroyed. With a groan, I pulled my keys from my pocket and staggered to my car. Confusion ruled my thoughts, and all I wanted to do was make sure Mom was okay. Then I’d decide who to talk to first and figure out what the hell was happening. Dad was at the top of that list, considering figuring this out was literally his job, but I was too frazzled to deal with him at the moment.

Gravel popped under my tires as I sped down the road. I was home in less than ten minutes. Mom’s car was there—but so was another, parked right next to it. Darek was leaning on its trunk as I pulled the car into the driveway.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I got out, realizing as I did that there was a blue thread of magic wound around me, spiraling up into the sky like a beacon.