Cold Burn of Magic(45)

I shrugged. “So make me not hate her. Tell me about her. How did the two of you hook up, anyway?”

For the first time since I’d surprised him, a smile flitted across Felix’s face.

“It was dumb, really. All the Family kids go to the same school. It’s supposed to foster better relations between us or something like that. Anyway, Deah and I were in the same chemistry class this year, and everyone was doing an experiment. Of course, I was talking with my lab partner through the whole thing.”

“You? Talking? Really?”

“Yes, really,” he said, laughing. “Anyway, Deah was at the next table, and my talking was bugging her, because she finally told me to shut up. Then I told her to shut up, and before you know it, the teacher is telling us both to shut up and giving us two weeks of detention after school.”

Felix sucked down a breath and kept right on talking. “So we get detention, and we’re all alone in the school library, and there is absolutely nothing to do, since they take your phones away. Since there’s no one else to talk to, I start talking to Deah.”

“And she didn’t knock your teeth out of your mouth?”

“Oh, she was pissed at first, but she was as bored as I was. So she starts talking back to me. One thing leads to another . . .” His voice trailed off, and he waggled his eyebrows.

“And now the two of you are sneaking around behind both your Families’ backs,” I finished. “How very Romeo and Juliet. You know how that went down, right? Because these kinds of things never end well.”

It certainly hadn’t for my parents.

He winced. “You can’t tell anyone. Seriously. My dad and Claudia would freak, and the Draconis . . . well, I don’t know what they would do. And I don’t want to find out. Neither does Deah. So don’t say anything. Okay, Lila? Please?”

“Don’t worry. Who am I to stand in the way of true love?”

I put my hand over my heart and sighed dramatically. Felix laughed and chucked what was left of the rose at me. I dodged it, and I found myself laughing with him. It felt . . . strange. Mo was the only person I had laughed with since my mom died. In fact, Mo was the only person I’d had a real conversation with since she’d been gone.

The thought made my laughter dry up, but Felix didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he glanced down at his hand, which was still bleeding from the rose thorns. “Well, I guess I should take care of this.”

“Is it true? What Blake said? That you have a Talent for healing?”

Felix winked. “Watch and find out.”

He held his hand out, showing me the three deep gouges in his palm. He stared at the wounds, and his skin began to wiggle, move, and slowly draw together, like a door sliding shut. Even though Felix was using his magic on himself, I could still feel it shimmering in the air around him, like a cloud of frost.

Felix wiped the blood off his hand and held his palm up again, showing me his smooth skin. “See? All better now.”

“Pretty cool.”

He shrugged. “What would be really cool was if I could do more with it. But cuts and bruises are about all I can fix. My dad, too. We have to use stitch-sting to heal everything else. It works great, but it’s so painful. One of the guards came in with a broken arm the other day. We had to use almost a whole bottle of stitch-sting on his arm, and he was screaming by the time we were done.”

I frowned, thinking about the attack at the pawnshop. I’d thought that the mystery man had hit Felix first because he’d been the one standing closest to the door. But what if there had been another reason? What if the mystery man had taken out Felix so he couldn’t try to heal Devon and Ashley?

That would mean that the mystery man knew Felix—or at least knew about his Talent.

Knowing someone’s Talent was no big deal, most of the time. Most magicks didn’t try to hide their powers. Still, something about the whole situation nagged at me. But before I could figure out what it was, a pixie zipped around the bushes and over to us.

“Hey, Felix,” she called out. “Reginald needs those herbs for dinner. He sent me to check on you.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

The pixie nodded and darted away.

Felix slid off his stool and started gathering up the paper towels filled with herbs. “Duty calls.”

I nodded, and we walked toward the front of the greenlab. Angelo was now standing in front of the stitch-sting bushes, his beekeeper hat back on, whacking at the limbs with a set of pruning shears. Felix and I waved at him. Angelo returned the gesture before going back to his trimming.

Before we reached the doors, Felix stopped and looked at me. “You know, it was really awesome what you did to Blake. Do you think you could teach me how to do that wrist thing?”

“Sure, but don’t the guards teach you guys stuff like that?”

He shrugged. “The guards are always, well, guarding things. Grant is too busy working on Family deals to spar with me, and Devon just likes to punch things. He doesn’t exactly go in for subtle stuff. Besides, I’d like to learn.”

I didn’t ask why. It was obvious it had everything to do with Deah.

“Maybe we can work on some stuff tomorrow?”

He winked. “It’s a date.”

I groaned.