Dark Heart of Magic (Black Blade #2)(41)

White stars flashed on and off in front of my face in warning, but I ruthlessly blinked them away. I couldn’t afford to let my soulsight throw me back into the past to relive my mom’s murder. Not now, when my own future was so very much in doubt.

“Something wrong?” Nikolai asked.

Victor waited several seconds before answering. “Seems I forgot to shut the door when I was admiring the view earlier.”

He went back into the office and closed and locked the door behind him.

As much as I wanted to bolt from my hiding place and get out of here as fast as possible, I made myself stand absolutely still, in case he decided to look out the door again.

Sure enough, a second later, Victor stepped in front of the glass again, peering out into the night. He knew—or at least suspected—that someone had been in his office. All I could do now was hope that he thought it was Blake or some other Draconi.

After several long, tense seconds, Victor moved away from the glass, took the drinks he’d fixed over to Nikolai and Carl, and sat down behind his desk. They started talking, but the glass muffled their words, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Besides, I’d been here long enough, and I’d pushed my luck as much as I dared to.

So I slipped out from behind the roses, waited until the guard below the balcony had moved away, climbed down the closest drainpipe, and vanished into the night.





I made it across the grounds and back over to the woods that ringed the castle. Victor’s office had been on the opposite side from where I’d gone in, so I had to circle all the way around the compound. I had almost reached the trail that would take me back to the Sinclair mansion when I came across something else interesting—the Draconi Family cemetery.

It was just like the Sinclair cemetery, a clearing ringed with a wrought iron fence, with one notable difference—almost all the tombstones said Draconi. Apparently, the Draconis preferred to bury only their blood relatives here, instead of all those who had been loyal to their Family like the Sinclairs did. Exactly what I would expect from Victor.

I should have kept walking, since it was getting late and I needed to get back to the mansion, but I found myself stopping, opening the gate, and moving deeper into the cemetery. It took me several minutes, but I found a single white tombstone set off all by itself at one edge of the cemetery, like a lonely kid being left out of the rest of the cool crowd. Only a few simple words flowed across it: Luke Silver.

My father.

My heart squeezed tight as I stared at the marker, all sorts of emotions bubbling up inside me. This was the first time I’d ever seen where he was buried. This was the first time I’d ever seen any tangible proof that he’d ever truly existed, other than a few old photos my mom had shown me.

I’d never known my father, but my mom had told me all about him. Luke Silver had been the Draconi Family bruiser—before Victor had him killed. Victor hadn’t liked Luke’s relationship with my mom, especially after he’d proposed to her. Victor had thought that my dad was being disloyal to the Draconis by being with her, so he’d sent my dad out to deal with a copper crusher that had invaded one of the Family businesses.

It should have been a routine assignment, but Victor hadn’t told my dad that there was a whole nest of copper crushers, and Luke had been ambushed, overwhelmed, and killed by the monsters. My mom had left Cloudburst Falls shortly after his death. He’d never even known that she was pregnant with me.

I turned my star-sapphire ring around and around on my finger—my mom’s engagement ring—even as my heart twisted and twisted in my chest as though a copper crusher was coiled around it and squeezing the life out of me.

I’d once told Felix that Romeo-and-Juliet relationships between the Families never worked; because if Victor could so easily betray his bruiser, his right-hand man, his supposed friend, he wouldn’t hesitate to arrange some sort of similar accident for Felix.

All the stupid, senseless Family plots and politics were another reason that I wanted to leave Cloudburst Falls as soon as possible—after I made sure that Felix, Devon, and the rest of the Sinclairs were safe.

This part of the cemetery wasn’t as well tended as the rest, and bunches of wildflowers had grown up along the fence. I reached down, picked another blue forget-me-not, and laid it on my father’s tombstone. I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say, so I clamped my lips shut and settled for turning my sapphire ring around on my finger one more time.

I sighed and rubbed my head, which was aching. There was nothing to say. Luke had loved my mom, and he’d been killed because Victor didn’t approve of their relationship. Yet another love story with a tragic, bitter end.

There was nothing in this cemetery but ghosts, hurts, and regrets. That was the way I felt about all of Cloudburst Falls sometimes—the Midway, the squares, even the sweeping views from the mountain. All of it reminded me of my mom and everything I’d lost.

And all of it made my heart keep right on aching from the deep, jagged wounds that would never, ever heal.

So I sighed again and turned around, ready to leave the cemetery and all the painful memories behind, and go back to the Sinclair mansion for the night. I looked up, my breath catching in my throat.

A woman stood at the cemetery gate.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


I was so surprised that someone would be out here after dark that my brain ground to a complete halt, and I didn’t even think of doing the smart thing, like vaulting over the fence and running away. Instead, all I could do was stare at the woman, my mouth gaping open.