Cold Burn of Magic

  His mirthless chuckles finally died down.

  “Don’t worry. I will do my duty.” He ground out the last word. “I will wash and clean and make sure you have everything you need. But that’s it. That’s as far as it goes.”

  “What else is there?”

  His mouth gaped open in surprise, and he gave me another suspicious look. More anger burned in his violet eyes.

  “Let’s get something straight, cupcake,” he snapped. “We are not friends. We will never be friends, so let’s not go through the whole getting-to-know-you rigmarole, all right? It’ll save us both a lot of trouble.”

  “Really? Why is that?”

  The look he gave me was far more haunted than I was expecting. “Because you’ll be dead soon enough, and there will be somebody new in here to take your place just as soon as it happens. And when it does, I’ll be packing up your things, just like I did Ashley’s.”

  His eyes locked with mine. Pain and anguish shimmered in his bloodshot gaze, the twin emotions like red-hot needles twisting deeper and deeper into my own heart.

  “I’m sorry about Ashley. You’re right. She didn’t deserve to die like that. I wish I could have saved her, too.”

  Oscar snorted. “Yeah, but you didn’t, did you? You saved Devon instead. How very practical of you, saving such an important member of the Family, instead of just his bodyguard.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I protested. “Devon was closer to me than Ashley was—”

  “Open up that disgrace you call a suitcase and leave it on the bed, and I’ll unpack your things,” he interrupted me again. “After I have another honeybeer. Or two. Or six. Or however many are left in the fridge.”

  Oscar got up, wrenched open the screen door that fronted his trailer, and stomped inside. The door banged shut behind him, with the interior wooden door slamming shut as well. Five seconds later, country music started blasting. The pixie had cranked up his twangy playlist again. Oh, goody.

  The music roused Tiny from his nap. The tortoise cracked a black eye open at me for about half a second before going back to sleep. Seemed he was used to Oscar’s temper tantrums—and ignoring them. I wondered how many years that had taken. Because that was one very angry pixie.

  I started to lean down so that I could peer in through one of the trailer windows, but I remembered what Reginald had said about Oscar not liking people spying on him—and trying to poke their eyes out with his sword.

  So I stood up, walked over and grabbed my suitcase, and put it on the bed, just like he’d ordered. I left everything in the suitcase, except for my mom’s photo, which I slid in between the folds of her sapphire coat in one of the vanity table drawers so the pixie wouldn’t see it. As I glanced over at the trailer again, it occurred to me that Oscar had given me the same speech, more or less, that I’d given to Devon at breakfast.

  But the surprising thing was that Oscar’s words had wounded me as much as mine had hurt Devon.

  Oscar stayed inside his trailer, probably drinking and brooding, so I left my room, mostly to get away from his too-loud music. I asked a pixie flitting through the air where I could find Felix, and she told me to check the greenlab on the third floor. I followed her directions to the west wing of the mansion and walked through a pair of glass double doors.

  The area before me was part greenhouse, part chemistry lab. To my right, roses, orchids, lilies, hydrangeas, and other, more exotic flowers perched in neat rows, while brown clay pots held herbs like dill, sage, rosemary, and thyme. The savory smells of the herbs, mixed with the soft scents of the flowers, created a heady perfume.

  Directly in front of me were several rows of dense hedges, each one featuring sharp, dark green needles that were longer than my fingers. Stitch-sting bushes.

  To my left, burners, beakers, and other scientific equipment squatted on long metal tables. Shelves built into the stone wall behind the tables were filled with bottles of dark green, liquid stitch-sting. A heavy metal grate covered each shelf, locking the bottles away in the same way as the black blades in the training room.

  Dealing with monsters was hard, dirty, dangerous work. Yeah, most of the monsters stayed where they were supposed to, either in their sanctuaries or in the shadows. But sometimes, they would wander through the squares or even the Midway, making the tourists shriek and scream, before the Family guards managed to capture and return the creatures to their intended habitat. And while some of the monsters, like the lochness, would let you pass through their territories by paying them tribute, others might attack you just for the fun of it, whether they were hungry or not.

  Given all that, every Family kept a stockpile of stitch-sting on hand to deal with all the injuries sustained from monster wrangling. The Families also made nice piles of cash selling stitch-sting creams, ointments, and more to pharmacies and other shops, like the Razzle Dazzle. Pour enough stitch-sting on and in a wound, and your injury would heal—although not before the potion caused almost unbearable pain. Like needles stitching your skin, muscles, and bones together, hence the name.

  A tall, thin man walked out from behind the stitch-sting bushes, wearing a white beekeeper suit, his arms full of fresh cuttings. The bushes weren’t exactly monsters, but they required tribute before allowing anyone to harvest their limbs. And you had to drizzle the ground around their roots with honey before they let harvesters close enough to prune them. Even then, the bushes were still likely to stab you at least a few times, just for fun, which was the reason for the man’s protective suit.

  The man laid down his cuttings on one of the tables and removed his beekeeper hat, revealing his wavy black hair and brown eyes. He stopped when he noticed me lurking near the doors.

  “Oh,” he said, smiling. “Hello. You must be Lila. I’m Angelo Morales, Felix’s dad. He’s told me all about you.”

  I thought of Felix’s nonstop chatter. “I bet he has.”

  “I would shake your hand, but . . .” Angelo held up his glove-covered hands.

  “It’s okay.”

  He tipped his head. “Felix is in the back if you’re looking for him.”

  I nodded and stepped onto one of the black flagstone paths that curved deeper into the greenlab. A glass roof covered the entire space, the sunlight streaming inside adding even more warmth to the already humid air. I wandered through the rows of flowers, herbs, and bushes, enjoying the quiet.

  I’d almost reached the back of the greenlab when a series of soft scrape-scrape-scrapes interrupted the silence. I headed toward the sound.

  I rounded another row of stitch-sting bushes and found Felix perched on a stool. Several clay pots crouched on the table in front of him, along with bunches of herbs laid out on damp paper towels, as though he’d just picked them. But his attention was fixed on the blood-red rose in his hand, and he didn’t hear me walk up behind him.

  “Picking another rose for Deah Draconi?” I asked in a snide tone.

  Felix yelped in surprise, crushed the rose in his hand, and then yelped again as its thorns stabbed his skin. He winced and dropped the mangled flower onto the table.

  “Geez! Give a guy a heart attack, why don’t you?” he muttered. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do. Because you gave Deah a rose just like that one at the arcade.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did,” I said. “You brought that white rose for Devon to give to Poppy, as part of their fake date, but that red one was for Deah all along, wasn’t it? That’s why you were carrying that gift bag around. Because you had two flowers in there and you didn’t want anyone to see the second rose or know who it was for.”

  Felix opened his mouth, but for once, no words came out. He bit his lip, and a guilty flush stained his cheeks.

  “You can’t tell anyone, okay? Please?” he asked, desperation creeping into his voice. “The Sinclairs and Draconis don’t exactly get along.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping my mouth shut . .
.”

  He relaxed a little.

  “For the right price.”

  He sighed. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know . . . yet. But when I do, so will you.”

  I grinned in the face of his sour, petulant expression and leaned against the table. “Although, I have to ask. Deah Draconi? Really?”

  Felix straightened up. “Deah’s not so bad.”

  “Not so bad? She stood by and let her brother assault Poppy.”

  He shook his head. “Nobody can stop Blake, not even Deah. And he’s second-in-command to their father, who listens to everything Blake says.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. Everyone knew about Blake and Victor Draconi and their combined cruelty. But I just couldn’t picture motormouth Felix with stuck-up Deah.

  “Is that why you flirt with every girl you see? Because you don’t want anyone to know that you’re totally hung up on Deah?”

  “What’s it to you?” he muttered. “You’re just like everyone else. You hate her just because she’s a Draconi, and you don’t even know her.”

  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.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Felix and I went down to the dining hall. He handed the herbs off to a pixie, then we sat down at a table and kept talking. I liked him. He really was a chatterbox who wasn’t happy unless his mouth was going at least a hundred words a minute. The only time he was quiet was when he was eating. Even then, he still tried to talk with his mouth full.

  Speaking of food, the eats tonight were as good as they had been at breakfast. Thick, hearty, roast beef sandwiches with ooey, gooey wads of melted Swiss cheese and piled high with fresh tomatoes, crispy lettuce, and tangy slices of red onion. A horseradish dressing gave the sandwiches a spicy kick, and homemade potato chips provided some salty crunch to the meal. The pixies had sprinkled the fresh dill from the greenlab onto the chips, giving them even more savory flavor. Trays of fresh fruit and brownies with a molten chocolate center were served for dessert. I set a few strawberries aside on a napkin to take back to my room for Tiny. Oscar might not like me, but that was no reason for the tortoise to suffer.

  After dinner, Felix asked if I wanted to hang out in the game room and play some pool, but I turned him down. It had been a long day and I wanted some time to myself. After being alone for so long, being constantly surrounded by people was a little exhausting.

  I went back to my room, opened the door, and stepped inside. Oscar must have worked hard while I’d been out because my suitcase wasn’t on the bed anymore. I opened the closet door. Sure enough, the suitcase had been moved to the back corner. All of Ashley’s things were gone, replaced by my clothes, although my few pairs of jeans, shorts, cargo pants, and T-shirts took up a pitifully small amount
of space. I closed the door on the depressing sight.

  And that wasn’t the only thing Oscar had done. He’d made up the bed and pulled the sheets back. A basket of apples and oranges sat on the table in front of the TV, and a fresh assortment of soaps and lotions were lined up on the counter inside the bathroom. I grinned. I could totally get used to this.

  I went over to the pixie house to thank Oscar, but all the curtains and shades were drawn. There was no sign of him, although more honeybeer cans littered the yard. I wrinkled my nose at the sour stench.

  Oscar might not be around, but Tiny was in his corral, slowly wandering from one side to the other. It was the first time I’d seen him actually move.

  “Here you go, little fella.”

  I dropped the strawberries I’d saved for him into the corral. Tiny waddled over and sniffed them before sticking his beak into one of the berries. I stroked my finger over his soft, velvety head. Tiny blinked back with black eyes. I took that as a thank-you. I left him to munch on his treats and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

  Twenty minutes later, I stepped out of the bathroom and clicked off the light. I turned around to head for the bed—

  Something zipped in front of my face.

  I batted my hand in the air, thinking it was a bee, before I realized it was Oscar—and he wasn’t happy.

  The pixie crossed his arms over his chest, gave me an angry glare, then zoomed over to his house, dropping down and landing on a fence post at Tiny’s corral. Oscar was wearing jeans with holes in the knees, along with a black, faded T-shirt. Black cowboy boots with sharp silver tips once again covered his tiny feet.

  Oscar stabbed his finger at the tortoise, who was munching on the last of the berries. “What. Is. That?” he demanded.

  I went over and scratched Tiny’s head again. “Those are some strawberries I had left over from dinner. I thought Tiny might like them.”

  The tortoise opened his mouth and let out a small, satisfied sound. Okay, that burp was definitely a thank-you.

  “I would have brought you some, too. But I didn’t want you to throw them at me.”