Dark Heart of Magic (Black Blade #2)(30)

For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t the only one Victor and Blake had hurt.



The officials announced that the obstacle course was closed so they could investigate further. They canceled the other heats for the day and announced that the competitors would be randomly seeded, with the individual matches starting in the morning. The crowd groaned, but everyone packed up their belongings and headed home. We did the same.

Two hours later, I was back in the library, sitting on a white velvet settee by the fireplace, along with Mo. Claudia and Devon were sitting in chairs across from us.

Angelo, Felix, Reginald, and Oscar were watching over Henry, who was in the mansion infirmary. They’d fixed his broken leg with some stitch-sting, and he was resting now. I didn’t envy him. A broken leg was bad enough, but I thought the pain of the liquid stitch-sting seeping into your wound and yanking, pulling, and sewing all your skin, muscles, and bones back together was even worse.

“So you think the ropes were deliberately cut,” Claudia said, scrolling through the photos I’d taken on Mo’s phone.

“I know they were—I could see it.”

“Maybe you could, but the officials didn’t,” she said. “Or they chose to ignore it. Either way, they’ve ruled it an accident. The tournament will proceed as planned in the morning.”

I frowned. “Why wouldn’t they admit that someone cut the ropes?”

“Because the Tournament of Blades is one of the biggest events of the summer,” Mo chimed in. “Nobody wants to cancel it. Even if one of the officials did realize that the ropes were cut, they would still declare it an accident. There’s too much pressure from the Families to let the tournament continue for the officials to rock the boat. Too much money from ticket sales and concessions is at stake.”

Claudia handed Mo his phone. “The bigger question is who cut the ropes and why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was too far down on the ladder—all I saw was the flash of the knife. Devon?”

“Katia and Deah were both on the platform when the ropes started unraveling. So were Poppy, Blake, and a few other folks.” Devon shook his head. “I didn’t see anything either. Then again, I wasn’t really looking.”

I drew in a breath. They wouldn’t like what I was about to say, but the suspicion had been running through my mind for hours now. “What about Vance? He was up there too.”

The three of them stared at me in surprise.

“You think Vance cut the ropes?” Devon asked. “Why?”

“Well, he was right above me when it happened. And he wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was in the tournament.”

I told them how Vance had tried to sabotage me before we’d reached the rope ladder.

“Throwing sand in your eyes, tripping you, shoving you out of the way. Yeah, Vance can be a jerk like that. But actually cutting the ropes?” Devon shook his head again. “That’s pretty hardcore. Besides, Vance and Henry are friends. Vance wouldn’t have wanted to hurt him.”

“Maybe Vance didn’t realize that Henry was on the ladder too,” I said. “Or maybe he just didn’t care.”

Nobody had any answers, and we all fell silent, lost in our own thoughts. Finally, Claudia got to her feet.

“Well, no matter who cut the ropes, I want you two to be careful,” she said, looking at Devon and me. “The tournament is always a bit volatile, with all the Families in one place.”

“What if it happens again?” I asked. “What if someone tries to hurt the other competitors again?”

“I don’t see how they can,” Devon replied. “The individual rounds start tomorrow; so it will be all one-on-one matches, just two people fighting in the ring. Hard to sabotage that.”

Claudia and Mo murmured their agreement. Even if the saboteur was already thinking about striking again, there was nothing we could do about it tonight. So Mo left to check in with his sources and see if they had heard anything else, while Devon went to clean up for dinner.

Claudia moved over to her desk, sat down behind it, slid on her glasses, and started shuffling through her papers. I ambled in her direction. I waited until Devon had closed the library doors behind him before I spoke.

“Interesting run-in you had with Victor.”

“Yes, he was as charming as always,” she replied in a dry tone.

“Does he always treat Deah like that?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Why?”

Claudia looked up from her papers. “Why does Victor do anything? The short answer is simply because he can, or he thinks that it will benefit him in some way, or both. But he’s always been hard on Deah, much harder than he’s ever been on Blake.”

And Victor had hurt Deah much more than he ever had Blake. Victor should have been proud that she’d finished second in the obstacle course, but he’d been cold and dismissive instead, calling her a loser in front of his sworn enemies. I wondered if anything Deah ever did was good enough for him.

“How does making his own daughter feel terrible benefit him?”

Claudia pulled off her glasses and set them aside. “I have never claimed to understand the inner workings of Victor Draconi’s twisted mind. The only answer I can give you is that he has a dark heart, which you’ve seen for yourself.”