Cold Burn of Magic(33)

The boy started to run over to her, but I tightened my grip on his hand and made him hunker down beside me.

“Stay here,” I whispered. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

Fear and mistrust flashed in his eyes, as bright as the neon lights around us, but he stayed with me. His free hand clenched into a tight fist, and his gaze darted left and right, searching for more attackers, ready to fight anyone who charged at us.

But no one did.

As quickly as it had begun, the fight was over, with the five men lying dead on the ground. Mom stood in the center of them, a bloody sword clutched in her hand, breathing hard. She used the point of the sword to slice through the sleeve of one of the dead guy’s shirts. A gold cuff glinted on his right wrist, and Mom sucked in a breath.

“Devon! Devon!”

The other woman kept screaming and screaming, and the boy finally wrenched his hand free of mine and ran over to her. That was all that I saw before my mom threw down the sword, darted over to me, and grabbed my hand.

“We have to run, Lila,” she whispered in an urgent voice. “We have to run—”

A mosquito whined around my head, snapping me out of my memories. The park vanished, and the wall of white in front of my eyes drew in on itself and misted away like fog. In an instant, my vision was clear, and I was staring down at the real Midway again.

I shuddered out a breath and slumped over the balcony ledge. That was the other tricky thing about my soulsight. Not only did it let me peer into people, but sometimes it dragged me back into the past and let me see things that had happened.

All the memories I wanted to forget.

Like how my mom had saved Devon—and all the terrible consequences of her actions.

More white stars began to flash in front of my eyes as I thought about the rest of that day. Me getting emotional was a sure way to trigger another unwanted trip down memory lane, so I forced myself to blink and blink, and breathe and breathe, until the white stars had faded away and my heart wasn’t racing like one of the go-carts the tourist rubes loved to drive.

I didn’t want to remember anything else. I wasn’t going to let myself remember anything else.

Not tonight.

I whipped around, stormed back into my room, and slammed the balcony door behind me, as if cutting off my view of the Midway would somehow ease the ache in my heart.





I woke up the next morning and got ready like it was just another day—and not the first day of what was left of the rest of my likely short life.

I stuck my chopstick lock picks through my ponytail and put on my best pair of gray cargo pants, a light blue T-shirt, and blue sneakers. I also grabbed my backpack and transferred a few supplies from it into my pants pockets, including some quarters. Of course, I could have put on my blue spidersilk coat and my ironmesh gloves, but I didn’t want Claudia to see them and get suspicious about where they had come from. Besides, I had a feeling it was going to be better to blend in with the crowd here as much as I could.

As a final touch, I slid my black leather belt with its throwing stars through the loops on my pants, before buckling my mom’s scabbard to the belt. I didn’t know if or when someone here might give me a weapon, but I wanted her sword with me. Besides, I was supposed to be Devon’s bodyguard, so I might as well look the part.

I picked up her sword and stared at the star carved into the hilt of the black blade, tracing my finger over the shape, before doing the same to the other stars etched into the weapon.

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered, sliding the sword into the scabbard.

I went over and peered at the pixie house, hoping to get the introductions out of the way, but it was as dark and silent as before, although it seemed as if several more honeybeer cans now littered the yard. If Oscar had gotten his drink on last night, I hadn’t heard him. Tiny had rolled over onto his back, his chubby, dark green legs sticking up into the air as he enjoyed his morning nap. I thought about turning him right side up, but he seemed content, so I left him alone—

Music suddenly blasted out of the trailer, making me jump in surprise. I didn’t recognize the song, but it was loud, twangy, and not at all what I wanted to listen to this early in the morning. I waited, wondering if Oscar might finally deign to step out of his trailer, but the pixie didn’t appear. Tiny’s legs twitched, and he swayed from side to side on his shell, almost as if he were grooving to the music in his sleep. I winced. That made one of us.

But the music’s volume kept increasing, a clear, go-away-right-now sign, so I turned toward the closed, locked door. No one had knocked on it during the night, and no one had tried to come inside. If they had, they would have had a hard time of it, since I’d grabbed the chair from the vanity table and wedged it under the doorknob. Something I always did whenever I was sleeping in a strange, new place.

But I hadn’t heard any sounds in the hallway last night, at least none that had been loud enough to wake me. I cocked my ear toward the door, but I was greeted with silence, except for Oscar’s insanely loud music. So I guessed it was up to me to go out and greet my new Family.

Yippee-skippee.

I moved the chair out of the way, opened the door, and stepped outside.

I headed down the stairs, craning my neck from side to side, trying to see all the smooth marble floors, gleaming windows, and sparkling chandeliers at once. As I wandered from room to room, and floor to floor, I thought about picking up a few things to add to the stash of silverware that I’d put in one of the vanity table drawers in my bedroom. A crystal candelabra perched on a fireplace mantel. An ivory box sitting on a table. Silver bookends shaped like the hand-and-sword crest. But I resisted the urge to tuck away some items for a rainy day. For now.