Cold Burn of Magic(38)

Grant, Devon, Felix, and I headed toward the main part of the Midway. Felix started talking to Grant, not paying the least bit of attention to his surroundings, but Devon scanned the streets and buildings around us, as though he was the bodyguard instead of me. He wasn’t wearing a sword, but from what I’d seen in the training room yesterday, he could handle himself as well as I could. If I hadn’t witnessed the assassination attempt, I wouldn’t have thought Devon needed any protection. His mouth was set into a hard slash, his fingers clenching and unclenching, as if he was hoping that someone would try to jump us, if only so he could let loose his anger and frustration by beating an enemy to a bloody pulp.

Yeah, I knew the feeling.

But no one approached or threatened us, and we left the parking lot and side streets behind and stepped out into the Midway.

The Midway was the crown jewel of Cloudburst Falls, the place where all the tourists flocked to, and the place where they left so much of their money behind. The circular area covered dozens of acres, with shops, restaurants, and casinos forming the outer ring. An enormous park lay in the center of the circle, with booths set up along the cobblestone walkways that crisscrossed from one side of the park and the Midway to the other. Dozens of fountains of all shapes and sizes bubbled, spurted, and spewed like geysers in the park, and kids laughed and shrieked as they ran through the arching sprays of water.

Even though it wasn’t quite noon yet, the area was already full of folks in shorts, sandals, and tacky T-shirts, with cameras hanging off their necks and phones dangling from their fingers. The greasy scents of popcorn, funnel cakes, and sticky-sweet cotton candy filled the air, while flashing neon signs mounted on some of the larger, castle-shaped food carts invited folks to check out pralines and salt water taffy, among other treats.

But the Midway itself wasn’t the only place that tourists visited. Cobblestone walkways spiraled out from all sides of the enormous circle, leading to smaller squares full of hotels, along with shops, restaurants, game booths, go-cart tracks, movie theaters, ziplines, and more. But whether they were in the Midway or one of the outlying squares, almost all the businesses tied in with the town’s overall fairy-tale theme, with names like Ye Olde Bowling Alley and Her Majesty’s Mini Golfe and all the old-timey decorations and costumes to match. It was like being in the middle of the world’s cheesiest, most over-the-top renaissance faire.

But there were some actual magical attractions mixed in as well, like the Monstrous Museum, with its displays of stuffed monsters, educational programs about the creatures’ habitats, and zoos where kids could pet baby tree trolls and the like. Other museums showcased everything from the history of Cloudburst Falls to fun facts about the waterfalls to how bloodiron had been mined out of the mountain.

Some of the squares had even been turned into nature sanctuaries, where folks could wander through patches of woods and watch rockmunks use their razor-sharp talons to carve their nests into boulders, while their smaller chipmunk cousins looked on. All put together, the sanctuary squares were sort of like open-air butterfly houses. Only with teeth and claws instead of pretty wings.

The tourists weren’t the only ones moving through the Midway, however. In keeping with the overall ren-faire atmosphere, men and women wearing knee-high black boots, black pants, colorful shirts and cloaks, and matching cavalier hats topped with feathers stationed themselves throughout the crowd, keeping an eye on everything, their hands resting on the swords belted to their waists. I always thought they looked like extras from some old Three Musketeers movie, but more than one tourist stopped to snap photos of the costumed guards. Bits of gold, silver, and bronze glimmered on the guards’ wrists, denoting which Family each one belonged to, but it was easy to tell who was who, since the guards’ cloaks bore their Family’s color. Black for the Sinclairs, red for the Draconis, purple for the Itos, and so on and so forth.

Each Family had a different piece of the action. The Draconis ran the casinos, the Itos owned the hotels, the Salazars had the restaurants. From what I knew, the Sinclairs ran the banks, along with some other interests, like the nature sanctuaries and bloodiron mines on the mountain. And all of the Families made a sizable chunk of change in protection money by dealing with the wayward monsters who slithered around town in search of an easy tourist meal.

The Families had divvied up the Midway like wedges of a pie, and each Family had guards stationed in its section to deal with any problems. Customers who complained about high prices and sloppy service. Employees who skimmed cash out of the registers. Monsters who wandered a little too close to the crowds. Thieves like me.

I wondered how the Sinclairs were keeping up with everyone else, since Grant said that so many folks had left the Family, but several guards wearing silver hand and sword cuffs patrolled the Sinclair territory as usual. Perhaps things weren’t as bad as Grant had made them out to be.

“Come on,” Devon said. “Let’s head over to the arcade. I want to get this over with.”

He headed toward the north section of the Midway. Felix followed him, with Grant and me flanking them. The guards eyed me suspiciously as I passed, their gazes taking in the sword belted to my waist, since no one except Family guards were supposed to have weapons on the Midway. Please. As if I couldn’t swipe their cuffs right off their wrists if I wanted to. But their faces relaxed when they realized I was walking next to Grant. He smiled, waved, and called out greetings to the guards. He seemed to know almost all of them, including the Draconis.