Bright Blaze of Magic (Black Blade, #3)(35)

The more I looked around, the tighter my hand curled around my stolen sword, and the more white-hot rage surged through my body. It wasn’t bad enough that the Draconis had killed so many people tonight. Oh, no. They’d had to destroy the mansion and take everything that belonged to the Sinclairs too.

It wasn’t right—it just wasn’t right.

I might be a thief, but at least when I stole something, I didn’t hurt the person it belonged to, and I didn’t wreck the rest of their possessions just for fun. This . . . this level of gleeful cruelty disgusted me.

In that moment, I wanted to destroy every single Draconi the same way that they’d destroyed the mansion and all the people inside. Cut and stab and hack and slash until there was nothing left of the Draconi Family. No guards, no workers, no castle, not so much as a single paperweight with that stupid dragon crest on it.

We moved on. Still, the longer we searched, and the more rooms and floors we went through, the more a teeny, tiny bit of hope sparked to life in my heart. Because I didn’t see Oscar or Tiny anywhere among the bodies. Maybe Oscar had realized what was happening, that the Draconis were attacking, and had managed to get himself and his pet tortoise outside the mansion to safety. That was my hope anyway.

I didn’t want to think about the alternative.

Finally, we reached my bedroom. The door had been busted open, just like all the others, and the wood was splintered right down the middle like a tree that had been struck by lightning. So the Draconi guards had been in here too. Of course they had. I drew in a breath and slowly let it out, steeling myself for the destruction—and the two small bodies—that might be waiting inside.

Devon put a hand on my shoulder, his face somber. He knew how worried I was about Oscar and Tiny. I reached up and squeezed his hand with my own. Then I faced the door, slowly eased the part of it that was still clinging to the frame open with the point of my sword, and stepped inside.

My room didn’t have nearly as much damage as some of the others. Mainly because I didn’t have anything that was worth stealing. Someone had rifled through my closet and tossed my clothes all over the floor, along with my ratty sneakers. They’d also ripped into the couch cushions and had even dragged the comforter, pillows, and mattress off my bed and cut them all open, so that piles of white, fluffy stuffing covered the floor like snow drifts.

But my gaze quickly moved past the debris and locked on to Oscar’s trailer.

The ramshackle pixie house, corral, barn, and surrounding fences had all been knocked off their table, and splintered pieces of ebony littered the floor, as though someone had stomped on the wooden structures over and over again in order to smash them into as many pieces as possible.

Blake, I thought darkly. He was the one who’d done this. I was sure of it. He must have driven up to the Sinclair mansion after he’d left us at the lochness bridge. Blake would have come to my room looking for me, just to make sure that I wasn’t still alive and up here hiding. While he was here, he would have delighted in destroying Oscar’s pixie house and the rest of my things just because he could. Something else that he and Victor were going to pay for.

But I pushed my anger aside and scanned the room again, looking for the two most important things.

“Oscar?” I called out. “It’s Lila. Are you in here?”

No answer, and nothing moved or stirred in the debris. I went over to the patio doors, which had had the glass busted out of them, stepped outside onto the stone balcony, and tried again.

“Oscar?” I called out again. “If you can hear me, please come out.”

Still, no answer.

My heart dropped, my stomach clenched, and more tears gathered in my eyes, but I blinked them away and trudged back into my room. Given their small size, pixies were very good at hiding, and I had no easy way of finding Oscar. All I could do now was hope that he and Tiny were somewhere safe.

Devon and Felix looked at me, asking me the same silent question, but I shook my head. Their faces tightened and sympathy flashed in their eyes. They knew how much I cared about the pixie and his tortoise, how much I valued Oscar’s friendship and Tiny’s too, even if the tortoise couldn’t actually talk.

I wandered around the room, kicking my way through my trampled clothes and causing the mattress stuffing to fly up into the air like snowflakes before slowly drifting down again. Devon and Felix stared out over the destruction, their faces still sad, but Deah looked much more thoughtful as she glanced from one side of the room to the other.

“Okay,” she said. “So where did you stash your sword and all your other important stuff?”

I arched my eyebrows at her. “And what makes you think I would do something like that?”

She snorted. “Because you’re not running from one side of the room to the other, ranting and raving about how the guards either destroyed or took all your stuff. That means the things you really care about are probably still here, hidden away somewhere. Once a thief, always a thief, right?”

“Funny you should say that. I might have tucked a few things away here and there before we left the mansion tonight. Just in case things didn’t go so well at the dinner.”

Deah winced at my careless words. Yeah, me too. The images of all the blood, bodies, and destruction at the White Orchid and here in the mansion flashed through my mind, making me even more heartsick.

I jerked my head. “Here. I’ll show you.”