Cold Burn of Magic(93)

And then there was that hot spark, a little darker and dimmer than before, but still burning all the same.

“Me too,” I said.

Devon smiled, and that spark brightened just for a moment, and I felt an answering bit of warmth stir in my own heart. I nodded at him, and we both went back to our food, things a little less tense between us. A few seconds later, we were laughing, along with Oscar, as Mo and Felix talked over each other nonstop.

Somewhere between those laughs and all the others that morning, I realized something.

My home. My friends. My Family.

Sometimes, good things come in threes.





Don’t miss Jennifer Estep’s next Black Blade novel, Dark Heart of Magic, coming this November.





Working for the mob isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Oh, sure. It looks all glitzy and glamorous on TV and in the movies. Folks wearing slick suits, eating in fancy restaurants, and talking about how to best deal with their enemies over coffee and cannolis. And maybe I’d actually done some of those things during these past few weeks I’d been working for the Sinclair Family. But most of the time, taking care of Family business was a boring, tedious job, just like any other—

“Watch out, Lila!” Devon Sinclair shouted.

I ducked just in time to keep from getting pelted in the face by a blood persimmon. The ripe, apple-size fruit sailed over my head and splattered against the ground. The skin exploded on impact, painting red pulp all over the gray cobblestones and filling the summer air with a sweet, sticky scent.

Sadly, the cobblestones weren’t the only things covered in fruit—so was I. Red pulp had soaked into my blue T-shirt and gray cargo pants from where I’d already been hit, while seeds and bits of skin clung to the laces of my gray sneakers.

An angry, high-pitched cheep-cheep-cheep sounded, the noise somewhere between a crow’s cawing and a chipmunk’s chirping. I glared up at the tree where the persimmon had come from. A creature with charcoal-gray fur and emerald-green eyes jumped up and down on its hind legs on a branch about ten feet above my head. The creature’s jumps were so hard and powerful that more ripe blood persimmons dropped from their branches and hit the ground, bursting open and adding to the oozing mess that already coated the cobblestones. Oh, yeah. The tree troll was definitely upset it had missed me with its latest fruit bomb.

Tree trolls were among the many monsters that made their home in and around Cloudburst Falls, West Virginia, along with mortals and magicks, like me. I’d always thought of the trolls as sort of a cross between an oversize squirrel and the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. Oh, tree trolls couldn’t actually fly, but the black webbing under their arms helped them catch wind currents as they hopped from one branch and tree to the next, while their long, bushy tails let them dangle upside down. The trolls were about a foot tall, so they weren’t nearly as dangerous as copper crushers and many of the other monsters in town. Most of the time, trolls were pretty harmless unless you got them riled up. And this one was certainly riled, since it kept jumping up and down and cheep-cheep-cheeping at us all the while.

Careful of the falling persimmons, Devon Sinclair stepped up beside me and craned his neck back. His black T-shirt and khaki cargo pants were splattered with even more persimmon pulp than mine, making it look as though he’d been caught in a red rainstorm. The only part of him not covered in fruit was the silver cuff that glimmered on his right wrist, one stamped with a distinctive design—a hand holding a sword aloft. The symbol of the Sinclair Family.

“He’s not a very happy fellow, is he?” Devon murmured in his deep, rumbling voice. “No wonder the tourists are complaining about him.”

Cloudburst Falls was known far and wide as “the most magical place in America,” a place where “fairy tales are real,” so tourism was the name of the game around here. People from all over the country and the world came to see the magnificent views from Cloudburst Mountain, the rugged, fog-covered peak that loomed over the city. They also enjoyed the shops, casinos, restaurants, hotels, and other attractions that ringed the Midway, the main drag in the center of town.

But monsters were also drawn to the area because of all the bloodiron, a magical metal that had been mined out of Cloudburst Mountain over the years. At least, that’s what the local legends and tall tales claimed. Tourist rubes might like to ooh and aah at the monsters in the various zoos in the Midway and photograph the creatures in their natural habitats during tours and expeditions up the mountain, but the out-of-towners didn’t appreciate tree trolls lobbing persimmon grenades their way as they walked down the sidewalk. And the tourists didn’t care to be attacked or eaten by dangerous monsters lurking in dark alleys and shadowy spots around town. So it was the job of the Families, or mobs, to make sure the monsters stayed in their designated areas. Or at least didn’t snack on too many tourists.

This particular troll had taken up residence in a tall blood persimmon tree that sat at the edge of one of the shopping squares off the Midway. Since this particular square was part of the Sinclair territory, we had been called in to deal with the creature. For the last three days, the troll had been fruit-bombing everyone who dared walk by its tree, causing several tourists to drop and break their expensive phones and cameras. Nothing pissed off a tourist more than losing their fancy new phone. I knew, since I’d spent the last few years swiping phones out of the pockets, purses, and fanny packs of every out-of-towner who looked like an easy mark.