Cruel Magic (Royals of Villain Academy #1)(3)

When I was satisfied with the sketch, I started warming up the orange clay that would form the base of the phoenix’s body. Its tangy waxy smell filled my nose. The feel of the clay softening under my fingers always took me into a sort of trance that felt almost magical. My art was the closest thing I had to a special power.

I was shaping the lump of clay, humming faintly with the song that had just come on, when the ceiling shook.

Bang. Bang. Two sharp thuds echoed from upstairs in quick succession, so violent my skin jumped. The clay slipped from my fingers.

Voices barked loud enough for the hostility to travel through the ceiling, but the words were indistinct. I jabbed the music off, my heart thumping. What the hell was going on?

One of the voices upstairs yelled again. Something made of glass or china smashed. I swallowed hard and grabbed my phone. As I slipped out of my apartment to the stairs at the other end of the laundry room, I dialed 9-1-1.

“What is your emergency?” said a woman on the other end, who managed to sound both pert and deadly serious.

“I don’t know,” I said, fighting and failing to keep my voice steady. “It sounds like someone broke into my parents’ house. I’m in the basement—I can hear a commotion upstairs. It doesn’t sound good.”

“What is your address?”

I rattled it off.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll have the police there as soon as we can. You hang tight. Stay on the phone with me—and stay out of whatever’s going on.”

That was easy for her to say. It wasn’t her parents going through God knew what up there. I kept the phone clutched by my ear, but I also slunk halfway up the stairs, placing my feet carefully so the steps wouldn’t creak.

The voices got clearer. They must be in the kitchen—Mom and Dad often lingered there for a while reading or chatting after breakfast.

“…is she?” a man was demanding. “Out with it, or this can get much worse.”

There was no sound of impact, but Mom let out a pained gasp as if she’d been hit. Was this some kind of home invasion? Couldn’t she and Dad use their magic to turn the tables on these assholes?

I guessed there wasn’t much joy in the room for them to draw on.

I couldn’t help myself. Maybe some other girl would have stood by while thugs smacked around her parents, but not this one. I eased up another step so I could peek through the mudroom into the kitchen.

Mom and Dad were hunched on the floor at opposite ends of the room, Dad farther away with his back against the fridge, Mom closer to me, braced against the oven. Five figures stood over them, three men and two women, all dressed in posh black shirts and slacks like they should have been out at some exclusive dinner party and not here threatening random innocent people.

Except, what were they threatening them with? I didn’t see weapons in anyone’s hands. What the fuck was going on?

Footsteps thumped down the stairs at the other end of the house. “Second floor is clear,” a guy hollered.

Clear of what? What had they thought might be up there?

“Check the basement,” said the man who’d been warning Mom earlier.

Mom’s back stiffened. A strange look came over her face, frantic but fierce.

“You don’t have to,” she said with a rasp. “I’ll tell you where she is.”

Two suspicions clicked into place in my head: The assholes were looking for me. And Mom was only pretending to give in to get the satisfied smile that crossed the man’s face in that moment. A brief jolt of happiness was all she’d need to break out her powers.

Heaving herself to her feet, she thrust her arms out with a swift murmur. The man and the woman next to him stumbled backward. My heart leapt with hope in the instant before the man caught himself. He slashed his hand and spat out a word that wasn’t from any language I recognized.

Mom’s flesh tore open from the base of her chin all the way down her throat. Blood gushed out, streaming down the front of her pink cotton tunic. Her legs gave way beneath her as the color drained from her face. She sagged over in front of the oven.

My mind went blank with horror. No, no, no. I dropped the phone and threw myself toward my mother.

The man had already been swiveling toward Dad. “You deserve far worse for the crimes you’ve—”

He cut himself off as I hurtled into the room. I managed to catch Mom’s head before it hit the tiled floor. Her blood washed hot over my forearms and flowed across the tiles. Her head lolled in my hands, her eyes glazed and lifeless.

My stomach flipped. I pressed my palm against the raw gaping wound on her throat instinctively, as if any part of me really believed I could still save her. “Mom,” I choked out.

“Rory, get out of here! Run to—”

The woman closest to Dad said a word and twitched her fingers, and his mouth snapped shut. Several hands grasped my arms to haul me away from Mom’s body.

I tried to wrench away, to hit the people around me, to stop them somehow, but my feet tripped under me. One of the figures spun me around to face him. His fingers clamped on my shoulder, his bright hazel eyes catching my gaze from where he’d tipped his head close to mine.

I registered through the roar of anguish in my head that he looked younger than the others, not much older than me, and that he was one of the most striking guys I’d ever seen. Even if I hadn’t been in the middle of the most horrifying scene in my life, with one glimpse that smooth face with its slicked-back black hair and those brilliant eyes would have been burned into my memory.