Cold Burn of Magic(60)

“But let’s say that the Volkovs were behind the attack tonight,” Felix said. “How did they even know Devon was here? Nobody saw us leave the mansion. Even if they did, they couldn’t have possibly known we would wind up here.”

“Someone knew,” I pointed out. “Because the mystery man was here, just like he was in the pawnshop. He was the one who attacked Devon.”

“But how?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know the answer. If I did, I’d probably know who the mystery man was and what he really wanted from Devon. Actually, I had that last part figured out already.

A few more guards entered the library. Reginald and Grant turned to them, and Claudia stopped her conversation with Devon to listen as well.

“Anything?” Grant asked.

One of the guards shook his head. “There’s no trace of anyone around the building. Sorry.”

Claudia pressed her lips together, then her eyes cut to me. Her worry squeezed my heart.

“We’ll talk more about this at the mansion,” she snapped. “We’re leaving. Now.”





Felix started to help me up, but Devon hurried over and stepped in front of him.

“I’ve got Lila,” he said.

Devon’s voice didn’t crackle with magic, not like it had before, but it was a clear command all the same. Felix nodded and moved off to grab my suitcases, which had somehow made it through the fight unscathed.

Devon helped me to my feet and wrapped his arm around my waist. Despite the blood that covered both of us, he still smelled fresh and clean. I breathed in his scent, letting that sharp tang of pine wash away the coppery stench of blood—my blood.

I did that over and over again, desperately trying not to notice how gentle and considerate he was being with me, or how warm and hard the muscles of his chest were pressed up against my side.

Devon guided me to one of the black SUVs sitting at the curb outside the library. Claudia walked along behind us. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her icy gaze boring into the back of my skull, and the sharp snap-snap-snap of her stilettos on the sidewalk seemed to echo her displeasure. She didn’t like her son helping me, and I liked it more than I should have. Neither one of us was happy.

Devon slid in the back beside me, while Felix put my suitcases in the rear, then got in on my other side. Reginald drove, while Claudia took the front passenger’s seat. Grant was in another car, the one he’d driven me to the Razzle Dazzle in, with the guards following him in two more vehicles.

Nobody said anything on the ride back to the mansion, but Claudia kept glancing over her shoulder and frowning, clearly pissed at me. She thought that I’d put her son in danger.

She was right about that.

Because the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Devon and Felix weren’t the only ones who’d been following me. Someone had to have seen me leave the Razzle Dazzle and take the trolley over to the library. That was the only way someone could have possibly been at the library to see Devon and Felix go inside. But who would want to follow me? And why would he or she think that I’d lead them to Devon?

I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes, trying to puzzle it out. Trying to get all the tumblers to fall into the right spots so the lock would pop open, then I would know how the attack at the Razzle Dazzle fit in with what had happened tonight. My thoughts kept going back to the mystery man. He was at the center of this whole thing, like a blinking red alarm that I needed to disable before it went off and gave me away—or got me killed.

If I found the mystery man, I’d learn the answers to everything else.

Thirty minutes later, Reginald steered the SUV onto the grounds of the Sinclair mansion. Ten minutes after that I was in a room down the hall from the greenlab, lying on a hospital bed with the leg of my cargo pants cut open, trying not to wince as Felix and Angelo poked and prodded at my wound.

“Well, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of poison, so that’s good,” Felix murmured. “Just a clean slice. What do you think, Dad?”

“I agree.” Angelo leaned over so I could see his face. “You were very lucky, Lila. Three inches the other way, and he would have sliced your femoral artery wide open.”

“Yeah. Lucky me.”

Angelo got a bottle of stitch-sting and slowly poured the dark green liquid all over the wound, causing a faint, woodsy scent to waft up.

That was the only pleasant thing about it.

I hissed as the stitch-sting seeped into the gash in my leg, and I had to dig my nails into my palms to keep from snarling. The liquid burned every inch of skin it touched, even worse than if I’d upended an entire bottle of iodine over my leg.

That familiar, icy surge of magic flooded my veins as the potion did its work. I lay still despite the power coursing through my body, begging to be used, wanting to be unleashed in some way.

Angelo and Felix talked in soft voices as they moved around the room, washing their hands and throwing away the supplies they’d used to clean out the gash in my leg. But after a minute, they stopped talking, both of them coming back over to hover by the bed.

“What?” I asked through gritted teeth, staring up at the ceiling. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Angelo said. “It’s just . . . your wound is completely healed. Already. Normally, an injury like this would require much more stitch-sting than what I’ve used so far.”