Dark Heart of Magic

by Jennifer Estep

  Devon shrugged again. “They are. Maybe you’ll get to find out for yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He glanced at Felix, and they both grinned.

  “Oh, you know, when we go watch the tournament.” Devon’s voice was just a little too casual to be believable.

  I waited for him to look at me, so I could use my soulsight and feel what he really meant, but Devon pulled out his keys and stepped toward the SUV. I glanced at Felix, but he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slid them onto his face, hiding his eyes. Oh, yeah. They both knew something that I didn’t, and they didn’t want me to guess what it was.

  Devon unlocked the SUV. He started to get into the driver’s seat, then stopped and glanced down at his persimmon-spattered clothes. “Reginald is going to kill us for dirtying up the leather.”

  “Oh, Reginald’s bark is worse than his bite.” Felix arched an eyebrow at him. “Besides, you’re the Family bruiser. You’re not supposed to be afraid of anyone.”

  Devon snorted. “Everyone’s afraid of Reginald. Especially you.”

  “You’d better believe it.” Felix grinned. “But it’s your car, so you can be the one to tell him why it smells like a juice box.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  Devon laughed, and the two of them kept talking, debating whether they should ask the pixies to try to wash their clothes or just go ahead and throw them away when we got back to the mansion.

  Instead of listening to them, I found myself focusing on the sudden, odd lack of noise. Sure, murmurs, music, and more floated down the alley from the Midway, but the parking lot itself was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Devon and I had been attacked and kidnapped in this very spot a few weeks ago, and he, Felix, and I were the only folks here now. There was no love lost between Blake and us, so I wouldn’t put it past Blake to try to sneak back here with some Draconi guards in hopes of beating us senseless—if not worse.

  My gaze scanned over the cars, and I used my sight to peer in through the tinted windows, just to make sure that no one was lurking inside, watching us. All the vehicles were empty, but it didn’t lessen my worry.

  Something was wrong here.

  My hand dropped to my sword, my fingers tracing over the star carved into the hilt. Whether it was a parking lot, a pit, or a palace, there were three rules when it came to a place being too quiet.

  Too quiet meant you weren’t as alone as you thought you were.

  Too quiet meant someone was up to something.

  Too quiet all too often meant death.

  So I scanned the parking lot again, looking—really looking—at everything with my sight. The cars, the pavement, even the access doors on the backs of the buildings to see if someone was peering out one of them at us. And I finally spotted something out of place—a small, dark, glistening pool oozing out from behind one of the dumpsters.

  Blood.

  I drew my sword. The rasp of the black blade sliding free of its scabbard caught Devon’s and Felix’s attention.

  “Lila?” Devon asked, going on alert. “What’s wrong?”

  “Blood. Over there.”

  I headed in that direction. Devon stepped up beside me, with Felix behind him.

  “Stay behind me,” I growled at Devon. “I’m your bodyguard, remember?”

  “And Sinclairs take care of each other, remember?” he shot right back.

  I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop Devon from drawing his own sword, ready to attack whatever danger was lurking here.

  Together, the two of us crept closer and closer to the dumpster, with Felix right behind us, gripping his own sword and literally breathing down our necks. I held up three fingers and looked at Devon. He nodded back. We silently mouthed the words together:

  One . . . two . . . three!

  Together, we rushed around the side of the dumpster, our swords held high.

  But nobody was hiding behind the container.

  Instead, a tree troll lay in the dumpster’s shadow, its gray, furry body propped up against the brick wall like it was a drunk tourist sleeping off a bender. But the monster wasn’t drunk.

  It was dead—its throat cut open.

  Devon and I lowered our swords. Behind us, Felix let out a tense breath and did the same.

  “What do you think did this?” Felix asked. “Another troll? Some other monster?”

  I moved forward and crouched down, scanning the troll’s body. It looked small in death, sad, deflated, and crumpled, like a piece of garbage that someone had tossed aside with no care or concern about where the creature had landed.

  But there wasn’t nearly as much blood as there should have been. With a wound that deep and vicious, the monster’s blood should have been splattered all over the dumpster, the wall, and the asphalt. But only a small pool gleamed by the creature’s leg, the one I’d spotted from across the parking lot. So where had the rest of the blood gone? Had some other monster come along and lapped it up? My stomach twisted with disgust.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “If the troll had been attacked by another monster, it would have been clawed, more torn up. That looks like a clean slice to me. I think . . . maybe a person did this.”

  I crept even closer, leaning down and tilting my head to the side so that I could stare into the troll’s emerald-green eyes, which were dull and glassy with death—

  White stars exploded in front of my face the second my gaze locked with the monster’s.

  It wasn’t like looking back into my own past with my soulsight and watching everything unspool like a movie. These images were all quick, hazy, disoriented, like I was glimpsing random photos I’d never seen before. And I felt all the pain that went along with them as if it were my own; a shadow sneaking up on me; something grabbing hold of my arm and throwing me forward; my face slamming into the wall, stunning me; and finally, a hand rolling me over and a dagger lashing out toward my throat—

  I choked down a scream and staggered back, my sword slipping from my suddenly nerveless fingers. My feet slid out from under me, and my ass hit the asphalt. I blinked at the hard jolt, and the images vanished, although the feelings—especially the fear—lingered.

  “Lila!” Devon crouched down by my side. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  My hand latched onto my neck, but the skin there was smooth and unbroken, despite the blood roaring in my ears, the terrified thump-thump-thump of my heart, and the hot, phantom sting throbbing from one side of my throat to the other.

  I shook my head. The last of the white stars vanished, and my vision returned to normal. The sting in my throat lingered, though. So did the fear squeezing my chest.

  I’d seen dead monsters before, but I’d never looked one directly in the eyes. Apparently, my soulsight worked just as well on dead creatures as it did on living ones, and I realized that I’d just seen the last few moments of the troll’s life. I shuddered, wishing I hadn’t.

  “Lila?” Devon asked again.

  “I’m fine. Just lost my balance. Clumsy me.” I let out a weak laugh.

  Devon frowned. He knew I was lying, but instead of calling me on it, he held out his hand and helped me back to my feet.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I forced myself to let go of his hand before he noticed how much mine was trembling. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  He kept staring at me, so I fixed a smile on my face and made a big show out of dusting off my pants, picking up my sword, and sliding it back into the scabbard on my belt.

  “Why would anyone want to kill a tree troll?” Devon asked.

  “Well, they can be annoying pests, but this. . . .” Felix trailed off. “This is kind of extreme.”

  “No,” I cut in, my voice cold and harsh. “This is just cruel.”

  The two of them didn’t have my soulsight, so they hadn’t seen or felt the troll’s terror, shock, and suffering like I had. And they hadn�
�t heard the worst thing of all, the one thing that was still ringing in my ears and making me sick to my stomach, even now.

  The mocking, heartless laughter that had sounded as the killer had sliced open the troll’s neck with that dagger.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Devon called some guards over to the parking lot to properly bury the tree troll’s body and clean up what little blood there was. He also asked the guards to e-mail the day’s security footage to him so he could try to figure out who might have done this, but I knew it would be a dead end. Hundreds of people walked through the Midway, the alley, and this parking lot every day, and there were no cameras back here in the parking lot. He wouldn’t be able to pinpoint who had murdered the troll, although I admired him for trying.

  Once the guards arrived, there was nothing more for us to do, and Devon and Felix headed back to the SUV. But I lingered by the troll’s body, staring at that one, small pool of blood on the asphalt, still wondering why there wasn’t more of it.

  “Lila!” Devon called out. “Let’s go!”

  I turned to walk over to the SUV when a small shadow fell over me. My head snapped up, and my hand dropped to my sword, wondering if the murderer might have come back to admire his sick handiwork.

  But it wasn’t the killer—it was the tree troll that I’d given the chocolate bar to earlier, the one with three jagged scars on its face.

  The troll was perched on the roof above my head. It stared down at me, its green eyes bright and accusing, as if to say, “I tried to tell you something was wrong, but you didn’t believe me.”

  I shivered, dropped my gaze from the creature, and hurried over to the SUV.

  Devon drove, with me in the front passenger’s seat and Felix lounging across the back, smearing persimmon pulp and seeds everywhere. Devon maneuvered through town, passing the trolleys that hauled tourists around Cloudburst Falls. We stopped at a red light and watched several bicycles cruise by, the magicks that were steering them using their speed and strength Talents to churn their legs and pull cutesy carriages full of tourist rubes along behind them.

  The light turned green, and Devon left the main drag and headed through the side streets. My stomach clenched with nervous anticipation. He always went this way now, whenever we came into town. And so did I.

  A few minutes later, we reached a gray cobblestone bridge that arched over the Bloodiron River. With its dilapidated buildings, abandoned warehouses, and shadow-filled alleys, this definitely wasn’t the nice part of town, and no other vehicles were on the bridge or the surrounding streets. Mortals and magicks alike avoided this area and the others like it in town. Not because there were any obvious dangers, but because the lizard parts of their brains whispered a warning to them.

  Here be monsters.

  Devon eased the SUV onto the cobblestones and stopped in the middle of the span. I fished three quarters out of my pants pocket to pay the toll, just like I had when I gave that chocolate bar to the tree troll earlier. Except the consequences of not giving the lochness that lived under the bridge the tribute it required would be much, much worse than getting pelted with fruit.

  So I rolled down my window, stretched my hand out, and laid the coins on a worn, smooth stone marked with three Xs in the center of the bridge.

  Clink-clink-clink.

  The quarters clattered onto the Xs, the sounds soft, no more than rasps of metal scraping against the stone, but I felt like I was banging a drum, drawing the attention of everyone—and everything—around us. I stared at the three coins, wondering if the lochness would scoop up the quarters with one of its long, black tentacles.

  Nothing happened.

  I waited ten seconds, twenty, thirty, before sitting back in the SUV and rolling up the window. I looked at Devon and shrugged. He hissed out a breath between his teeth, took his foot off the brake, and drove on, but I stared in the rearview mirror, watching the coins glimmer in the afternoon sun.

  The second the vehicle’s tires rolled off the bridge, a black tentacle shot up out of the water and swiped the quarters from the center stone.

  I blinked, and the tentacle was gone, although the surface of the river rippled from far more than just the current.

  “Did you see it?” I asked.

  Devon’s gaze was focused on the rearview mirror. “Yeah. Just for a second.”

  Felix had been staring out the back of the SUV, and he shivered and faced the front again. “Have I told you guys how creepy it is that we always drive over the lochness bridge now? And that you always stop and pay the toll?”

  “Well, when a monster saves your life, it’s only fair to give it what it wants,” I murmured. “Unless you want to end up like Grant.”

  Grant Sanderson had been the Sinclair broker, but what he’d really coveted had been Devon’s compulsion magic— the power to make people do whatever Devon said, even if they didn’t want to. Grant had kidnapped Devon and me and tried to take our magic for his own. But we’d escaped, and I’d tricked Grant and two other men into crossing the bridge on foot without paying the toll.

  The lochness had dragged all three of them into the river—and eaten them.

  I didn’t have any regrets about what I’d done to Grant, since he’d been trying to kill us, but Devon winced, his face creasing with guilt. He still thought he should have seen Grant for the cruel, jealous person that Grant really was and tried to help him somehow. It was just another way in which Devon was a good guy, and I wasn’t.

  I wasn’t going to lose a wink of sleep over Grant, but the same couldn’t be said for the murdered tree troll we’d found. Even now, I kept picturing its lifeless body, dull, empty gaze, and the vicious slash through its throat. Even worse, that soft, heartless laughter echoed in my head all the while, sending a chill down my spine. It all just reinforced a cold, hard truth that I’d learned the day Victor Draconi murdered my mom.

  Sometimes, humans were more monstrous than anything else.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Devon left town behind and headed for the mountain, steering the SUV up the curvy, narrow roads.

  We passed house after house, each one bigger and more impressive than the last. Lots of mortals and magicks had built vacation and other homes up here to take advantage of the sweeping views. Your mansion’s size and location on the mountain was a status symbol that let all your neighbors know how much money, magic, and power you had. Bigger and higher were better. Naturally.

  But the mansions quickly thinned out and disappeared, replaced by thick stone walls set with closed iron gates that led into the compounds of the various Families. Guards wearing boots, cloaks, hats, and swords patrolled behind the walls and gates, and thick screens of pine trees hid most of the compounds from view. Towers soared up out of the greenery, all of them topped with colorful flags bearing the crests of the different Families, including a wolf’s head for the Volkovs and a cluster of purple wisteria flowers for the Itos.

  Finally, we reached the Sinclair Family compound. The gates opened at our approach, and Devon steered through them, over a bridge, and along a circular driveway. An enormous mansion made out of black stone rose up in front of us—a rough, blocky structure that looked as if it had been carved out of the side of the mountain itself. Balconies, patios, and walkways fronted much of the sprawling, seven-story structure, swooping from one floor to the next, while several sections rose up and formed actual towers, just like at the other Family compounds.

  The Sinclair mansion was the highest structure on Cloudburst Mountain, so close to the top that the thick clouds that rimmed the peak year-round would often sink down into the trees and cloak the grounds at night. The white fog was actually mist that continually drifted up from the dozens of waterfalls tumbling down the mountain’s rocky ridges. Given that it was late afternoon, the sun was keeping the worst of the fog away; although the clouds were close enough to kiss the black flags on the tops of the towers.

  Devon parked the SUV next to the mansion’s main entrance. We’d barely go
tten out of the vehicle when an older man with snow-white hair strode out the front door and stopped in the driveway, his stance as stiff and crisp as his three-piece black tweed suit.

  William Reginald eyed the three of us and our persimmon-spattered clothes, his nose twitching with obvious distaste. “I take it that things didn’t go so well with the tree troll?” an English accent colored his voice, making him sound exactly like the butler he was.

  Being a Family butler involved a lot more than supervising the cooking and cleaning. Reginald basically ran the mansion, overseeing the day-to-day operations of everything from the kitchen and cleaning staff to the groundskeepers to who got admitted inside the compound to talk business with the Sinclair higher-ups. Butler was one of the three most important positions in the Family—along with the bruiser and broker—making Reginald equal to Devon in terms of power.

  Felix threw his arm around Devon’s shoulder, making bits of persimmon slide off both their T-shirts. “Oh, it went just fine and dandy. Can’t you tell?”

  Reginald sniffed, clearly not amused. “Very well. Off with the lot of you. I will see about cleaning up this . . . mess.” He pointed his finger at us in a warning. “And don’t you dare touch or sit on anything in those clothes.”

  He waited until we’d all nodded our agreement before turning back to the vehicle. Reginald peered through the window into the backseat and grimaced, as though it physically pained him to see all the red stains on the leather.

  We left Reginald standing by the vehicle, muttering about cleaning solutions. Devon opened the front door, and he, Felix, and I headed inside.

  The outside of the mansion might be black, blocky stone, but the inside was white, airy elegance. Everything glimmered, from the white marble floors to the flecks of gold, silver, and bronze that swirled through the painted walls to the crystal chandeliers that dripped down like clusters of icicles hanging from the ceilings. Faceted gemstones decorated much of the dark, heavy furniture, adding even more sparkle and color, along with the rich, vibrant stained glass that was set into many of the windows.