Bright Blaze of Magic

by Jennifer Estep

  So I looked around the warehouse again, this time searching for Draconi guards, but I didn’t see any—not a single one. I wondered why none of the guards were here to keep an eye on me. Then again, I supposed that Victor didn’t need any guards, given how much magic he had. Even as he circled around me, I could feel the cold chill of power radiating off his body and I knew it was from the lightning magic he possessed. I wondered if he was going to kill me with it. Probably. The thought chilled me even more.

  My own transference power stirred weakly in response to his magic, although not enough to give me the strength necessary to break through the thick ropes tying me down. Still, I slowly started flexing my hands and arms, trying to create at least a little slack in the ropes. The long sleeves of my coat hid the furtive motions.

  Victor kept circling around me. Every tap-tap-tap-tap of his polished black wingtips on the concrete sounded like a nail being driven into a coffin—my coffin.

  Finally, he stopped circling and stood in front of me again. “So,” he said in a cold voice. “You are Serena Sterling’s daughter.”

  There was no point in denying it, so I lifted my chin. “Yes, I am. Lila Sterling. That’s my real name.”

  Blake’s eyes narrowed with confusion. “Sterling? But that’s Seleste’s last name.”

  I looked at him. “Seleste and my mom were sisters. That makes Seleste my aunt and Deah my cousin.”

  His lips twisted into a sneer. “So Deah betrayed her Family for you and Morales? I always thought she was dumb, but I didn’t realize she was such a complete idiot.” He glanced over at his dad. “Did you know about Seleste and this Serena Sterling person?”

  “Of course I knew,” Victor said. “The sight magic that runs in the Sterling Family is the only reason I married Seleste. I wanted her visions without the trouble of taking her magic and actually experiencing them myself.”

  He shuddered a little, as if the thought of doing and saying all the odd things that Seleste did made him ill. My hands curled into tight fists. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to punch Victor in his smug face for daring to mock Seleste, even if he would electrocute me with his lightning magic on the spot. Part of me was wondering why he hadn’t done that already, why he hadn’t just gone ahead and killed me when I’d been unconscious. Or maybe he had something worse in mind. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. I didn’t know what could be worse than being electrocuted, but I’m sure Victor had thought of it long ago.

  His gaze flicked over my face, then my long, blue coat. I stayed absolutely still, not even daring to flex my hands under his intense scrutiny.

  “Yes, yes, I see it now,” he murmured. “Same features, same black hair, same Sterling blue eyes. I would know those eyes anywhere.”

  He bent down, his face so close to mine that I had no choice but to look him directly in the eyes. His golden gaze was bright yet cold and empty at the same time, as though I were looking at a picture of a handsome man instead of at an actual real, live person. I could see the monster lurking underneath, though. I wondered what Victor saw when he looked at me. Part of me didn’t want to know.

  “Tell me, girl,” he said. “What kind of magic do you have?”

  My stomach clenched at the eagerness in his voice, but I shrugged. “Sight magic, like my mom. And a bit of strength. Moderate Talents, at best.”

  Victor stared at me, but I looked right back at him, keeping my face flat and blank, even as my stomach churned and churned. He was going to kill me, no matter what kind of magic I had, but I couldn’t let him guess anything about my soulsight or especially my transference power. Otherwise, he would rip the Talents out of me and make himself that much stronger, which was the last thing I wanted.

  He arched an eyebrow as if he didn’t believe me. “Ordinary sight and strength magic? That’s it? Those are all the Talents you have?”

  “That’s all I’ve ever seen her use,” Blake said, although Victor wasn’t paying any attention to him.

  I shrugged again. “What were you expecting?”

  He started circling around me again. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps something like Devon Sinclair’s compulsion magic.”

  My hands curled around the arms of my chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Victor let out a soft, sinister laugh. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Very noble, the way he kept screaming at my guards, trying to compel enough of them so that he could save you. I imagine that’s the reason Claudia took you in. So you could protect Devon from me. Did you know that I tried to kidnap him years ago to determine exactly what kind of magic he had? But of course, your meddling mother was there, and she killed all my men before they even had a chance to bring Devon to me.”

  “I know,” I snapped. “I was in the park that day too.”

  “Hmm. Yes, I suppose you were. I always thought it was stupid of Serena to come back to Cloudburst Falls. I was rather surprised to learn that she’d been doing it for years.” He paused. “Before that final summer, of course.”

  I didn’t respond, but my hands clenched into fists again. Victor moved so that he was standing in front of me again.

  Blake frowned, looking back and forth between his dad and me. “Wait a second. Are you talking about that woman in that ratty apartment a couple of years ago? That was her mom?”

  I stared at him, my face as cold as Victor’s. “Her name was Serena, and you should remember her. You were there when your dad killed her, when he cut her to pieces.”

  “And where were you, Lila?” Victor asked. “Why, I would think such a loving, devoted daughter would have immediately come to her mother’s defense, but you weren’t there. I’d heard rumors that Serena had a child, and I was always so disappointed that I didn’t get the chance to kill you in front of her before I finished her off. Why weren’t you there that day?”

  Every word out of his mouth was like a knife to my heart, which was exactly what he wanted, but I kept my face blank. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of realizing how guilty I felt that I hadn’t been with my mom that day, even if I would have died right alongside her. White stars winked on and off in front of my eyes, but I forced them away. I couldn’t afford to think about my mom right now or how Victor had hurt her. Still, I had to clear the emotion out of my throat before I could speak again.

  “She knew you were coming for her after she spoiled your plan to kidnap Devon, so she sent me out for ice cream. Of course I didn’t realize it at the time.” My voice came out as a harsh rasp and I had to force out the next words. “I was on my way back to our apartment when I heard her start screaming.”

  Even now, four years later, I could still taste the strawberry cheesecake ice cream that I’d been eating, still feel the two cones slip from my hands, still hear their soft splatters against the lochness bridge even as I started running, trying to get to my mom in time....

  More white stars flashed on and off in front of my eyes, but I ruthlessly blinked them back. Now was not the time to get thrown back into the past. Not if I wanted to survive whatever cruel torture Victor had in mind. I needed to stay sharp, stay focused, and not remember how he had utterly destroyed my world that hot summer day.

  “So you found your mother’s body, and then did what? Stayed in town and hid all this time?” he asked.

  I shrugged a third time, even as I started flexing my hands and arms again, still trying to get some slack into the ropes that tied me down. “It wasn’t like I had the money to go somewhere else.”

  “No,” he murmured. “I suppose you didn’t.”

  Victor stared at me again, the cold curiosity in his eyes crystalizing into something hard and ugly. “But you’ve meddled in my affairs one too many times, just like Serena did. She should have stayed away. I warned her that if she ever came back to town, I would kill her, but she just didn’t listen.”

  “Why did you hate her so much?” I wanted to scream out the words, but my voice came out as a choked, ragged whispe
r instead. “Why did you kill her?”

  He looked down his nose at me. “We all grew up together. Me, Serena, Claudia, Seleste, even that fool Mo Kaminsky. The Families were much friendlier back then. I always thought my father was too soft, playing so nicely with everyone else. He could have easily taken control of the town and crushed all the other Families, but he preferred to live in peace. He said there had already been too much bloodshed over the years and he wanted it to stop.”

  “But you didn’t want it to stop.”

  “Of course not,” Victor said. “The Draconis founded this town. We’re the ones who built it up out of nothing. The Sinclairs just rode along on our coattails, copying every single thing we did. Cloudburst Falls belongs to the Draconis, to me, and no one else.”

  The cold vehemence and ringing conviction in his voice made me shiver, and even Blake shifted on his feet, as though this side of his father made him uncomfortable.

  “So I came up with a plan to take control of the Draconis and then all the other Families,” Victor said. “I’m sure you can guess what that plan was, since you’ve interfered in things just like your mother did.”

  For a moment, I didn’t understand what he meant, but then I thought of that secret room in his office, and the answer came to me.

  “Black blades,” I whispered. “Your plan was the same back then as it is now. You were going to give black blades filled with magic to everyone who was loyal to you so you could attack and overwhelm all the other Families.”

  “Precisely—until your mother found out what I was doing.”

  I stared at him, and Victor started pacing back and forth in front of me.

  “Your mother snuck out into the woods one day to meet your father, and she stumbled across one of my monster traps,” he said. “Naturally, she let the monster loose, but that’s not all she did. She destroyed that trap and all the others I’d set in the area. Serena always had a soft spot for the monsters. I can’t imagine why.”

  But I knew why. “Because they were just monsters, just animals like any others. They didn’t deserve to be trapped, tortured, and killed just because you wanted their magic.”

  Victor waved his hand. “A foolish, childish sentiment. Magic is the only thing the monsters have that’s worth taking. Magic is the only thing that’s worth anything.”

  I could have argued with him, could have told him how the monsters were beautiful and special in their own unique ways, how they should be respected and protected, instead of tortured and slaughtered, but I decided not to waste my breath. He hadn’t listened to my mother back then, and he wouldn’t listen to me now. Victor was too blinded by his greed, his thirst for power, to hear anything but the twisted desires of his own dark heart.

  Blake shifted on his feet again and then shuffled back a step, eyeing his dad with a wary expression, as if he’d never realized exactly how depraved his father was.

  “Serena realized that I was the one who had set the traps and that I was killing the monsters for their magic. She found the black blades I had hidden away, the ones I was going to use to rise up against my father and take control of the Draconi Family.” Victor stopped his pacing and looked at me, his handsome face twisting with rage, even all these years later. “She went down to the lochness bridge and threw them all into the Bloodiron River—every last one. She cost me years of work, and I had to start all over.”

  So that’s why Victor hated my mom. She’d stolen all his black blades and monster magic to stop him from killing people back then, and I’d done the same thing again now. And I was going to die for it, just like she had. Like mother, like daughter, after all.

  “After Serena got rid of my black blades, I decided I wasn’t going to risk doing something like that again. At least not immediately,” Victor said. “Instead of relying on a stockpile of weapons, I decided I would start taking magic for myself. And not just monster magic, but Talents from other people. Power that would last, instead of burning out in a few hours the way monster magic does. And it worked. Far better than I ever dreamed.”

  He held out his hand, and a ball of white lightning sparked to life in the center of his palm, crackling and spitting and hissing as though it were a living thing. I could feel the raw, electrical energy across the short distance that separated us, and my transference magic stirred again, wanting to reach out and tap into that power. My stomach roiled and bile rose up in my throat. The lightning was the most monstrous thing I’d ever seen because it was the direct result of people’s pain, suffering, misery, and death.

  “You see,” Victor purred, a sly smile curving his lips. “There comes a point when you can amass so much magic, you go beyond mere Talents, mere speed or strength or enhanced senses. You can eventually take so much magic from so many people that you can physically manifest it—call the power up in any way, shape, or form you like.”

  He stepped forward so that he was standing right in front of me, the lightning still crackling in his palm. “I’ve always been fond of electricity.”

  I shuddered and leaned my face and body as far away from him as I could. All the while, I kept flexing my hands and arms, harder and faster than before, still trying to get some slack in the ropes that bound me to the chair. I had to get out of here—soon—before Victor electrocuted me to death where I sat.

  This . . . this must have been what he’d done to my mom. He must have stormed into our apartment that day and stunned her with his lightning the way he had Claudia at the White Orchid restaurant. Then, when my mom couldn’t fight back, he had slowly moved in for the kill, cutting her up just because he wanted to, just because it amused him, just because he wanted to make her suffer.

  Victor stepped back and the lighting vanished, although I could still feel the electrical echoes of it in the air all around me, pricking my skin like dozens of tiny pixie swords.

  “Your mother coming back to town and keeping Devon Sinclair from me was the final straw, the last insult in a long string of them,” he said. “At every turn, all the years we were growing up together, Serena Sterling was always there, always standing in my way and taking the things I wanted.”

  Another thought popped into my mind. “Like the Tournament of Blades? Mo told me she beat you in the tournament one year.”

  His eyes glimmered with fresh anger. “Not just that one year, but every single year from the time we were kids. But she wasn’t the only one who stood against me. So did your father.”

  “Luke Silver,” I whispered. “You killed him too.”

  “Luke was the Draconi Family bruiser, my right-hand man,” Victor said. “At least until Serena came along. He got all moony-eyed over her, and nothing I said or did could break her hold over him.”

  “He loved her and she loved him,” I snapped. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  He shrugged. “Love is a concept I’ve never understood. A sappy, foolish emotion at best, but it completely turned Luke against me, and he started seeing things from Serena’s point of view. Started wanting to protect the monsters instead of taking their magic.”

  “Why did you kill him?” I asked.

  He shrugged again. “Luke helped Serena get rid of my black blades. Told her exactly where I had hidden them. He betrayed me for love, for her, and that’s why he had to die. I killed him first, so that she would suffer even more. I was going to kill her too, but she managed to leave town before I got the chance.”

  By this point, Blake’s eyes were bulging, his mouth was hanging wide open, and he was staring at his dad as if he didn’t even recognize him anymore. Blake might be a cruel bully, but Victor was completely, utterly ruthless. The only thing that Victor cared about was how much power he had and how he could use it to bend others to his will. I wondered if Blake was finally starting to realize that—and that he was just as expendable to his dad as everyone else.

  “You’ll never get away with this,” I said. “The other Families know what you’re up to now. They’ll find a way to stop you. Claudia will f
ind a way to stop you.”

  Victor let out a low, amused chuckle. “Claudia won’t be a problem for much longer. I’ve challenged her to a duel, and she’s already accepted.” He paused. “Then again, she had to, since I told her that I would order my guards to start killing anyone associated with any of the Families—guards, workers, and pixies—if she didn’t.”

  I gasped and my heart clenched tight with fear. Victor had easily knocked out Claudia with his lightning magic at the restaurant and I had no doubt that he could kill her with it. With Claudia dead, the other Families would bow down to Victor and there would be no one left to stand against him. I couldn’t let that happen, but I didn’t know how to stop it either. Especially since my own future was so uncertain at the moment.

  “Anyway, I’ve dallied here with you long enough,” he said. “Tell me, Lila, do you know how your father died?”

  “Of course I know,” I snapped. “My mom told me all about it. How you sent him out to some building owned by the Draconis to deal with a copper crusher, only there was a whole nest of them inside. They attacked and killed him before he even knew what was happening.”

  Victor actually smiled at me, his face creasing with happiness. “Excellent. I was hoping Serena had told you that story. It will make this so much more satisfying.”

  My heart dropped and fear spread through my body. “What do you mean?”

  He gestured out at the empty warehouse. “Because this is the building where your father died. This warehouse has been in the Draconi Family for years. We’ve housed various businesses in here, shipping and storage companies and the like. Even a butcher at one point. But none of them ever lasted long. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head. I had no idea what he was getting at.

  “Because of the copper crushers,” Victor said. “This is one of their favorite spots in all of Cloudburst Falls. It’s why the town founders named this area Copper Street. I’m not sure exactly why the crushers like it so much. Maybe because it’s close to the river. Anyway, every couple of months, I would have to send guards down here to clean them out. You know how vicious crushers can be, especially when there’s a whole nest of them. We lost more guards than it was worth to keep the businesses open, so finally, I just let the crushers have the warehouse. Every once in a while, though, I come back here and leave a meal for them. And tonight, Lila, that meal is going to be you.”