Bright Blaze of Magic

  And then there were the weapons.

  Several duffel bags peeked out from underneath the metal rack, the cots, and even the corner table where the lamp was. The tops of the bags were all open, revealing the dull, ash-colored swords and daggers inside—the real, magic-filled black blades that Devon, Felix, and I had stolen from Victor over the past two weeks. The chill of magic emanating from the weapons filled the air, making it feel even cooler than it really was in the basement, but I didn’t mind the sensation because it told me that no one had been near the weapons since the last time I’d come down here.

  Claudia had asked me to take the weapons somewhere safe, and this was the first place I’d thought of.

  The library had had one of its fundraising sales earlier this summer, right around the time I’d packed up most of my stuff and had moved to the Sinclair mansion. After the sale, I’d snuck back into the basement to check on the rest of my things, and the furniture I’d left behind had still been here, hidden behind boxes of old, used books that hadn’t gotten sorted through and sold.

  So I’d pulled all the furniture back out and put it right back where it had been before, as though I was still living here. Then I’d gone the extra step of bringing in the food, water, and other supplies, just in case my friends and I might need them some night.

  Like tonight.

  Devon looked around. “You’ve been busy.”

  I shrugged. “I wanted to put the weapons somewhere a little safer than a tree in the woods. Who would ever think to look for black blades in a library basement?”

  Felix shook his head. “Not me, that’s for sure.”

  Oscar flew up out of my coat pocket and hovered in midair in front of the metal rack. “I knew that you couldn’t be eating all those bags of bacon-flavored beef jerky by yourself. I knew it!” He zipped back over to me. “You were stockpiling them, weren’t you? Telling me that you were hungry and asking me to grab them from the mansion kitchen when you planned on bringing them down here the whole time.”

  “I did eat some of them.” I grinned. “They are bacon-flavored, after all.”

  Oscar huffed, but a small smile lifted his lips.

  “I can’t decide if you’re supersmart or superparanoid to have brought all this stuff down here,” Deah said. “I’m going to go with both.”

  “Both is probably right, but I’ll take that as a compliment. Anyway, we should clean up and then try to get some rest. It’s been a long night, and tomorrow . . .”

  My voice trailed off, but I didn’t have to finish my sentence. We all realized that we didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow. The light mood vanished and everyone quieted down again.

  I handed out the extra clothes I’d stored down here, then led the others back upstairs and showed them where the restrooms were. It wasn’t as good as taking a long, hot shower, but we cleaned the blood, dirt, and grime off ourselves as best we could. I even stopped up a sink in the men’s restroom and filled it up with water so Oscar and Tiny could take a bath.

  When we were mostly clean, we headed back downstairs to the basement to try to get some sleep. Devon and Felix took the air mattress on the floor, while Deah and I curled up on the cots. Oscar used some of the extra clothes to make a bed for himself and Tiny, right next to the bags of bacon-flavored beef jerky on one of the metal racks.

  Once everyone was settled down, I ran my fingers over the touch lamp, casting the basement into darkness. One by one, the others drifted off to sleep, their breaths growing deep and even, but I lay on my cot, staring up at the cracks that zigzagged through the ceiling, replaying tonight over and over again in my mind, wondering what I could have possibly done that would have saved everyone at the restaurant and the mansion from Victor. Even though I’d known that it was coming, he’d still attacked my friends, my Family, and I had failed to save the people I cared about.

  Just as I’d failed to save my mom four years ago.

  My hand curled around the Sinclair cuff on my right wrist, my fingers tracing over the small sapphire star embedded in the metal. The sharp points of the star pricked my skin, but the sensation soothed me because it told me that I was still alive and that I still had a chance to save my friends.

  I’d kept Devon, Felix, Deah, Oscar, and Tiny safe, and I was going to make sure they stayed that way. In the morning, I would start figuring out how to find and rescue Mo, Claudia, and the rest of the captured Sinclairs.

  And Victor . . . I was going to find some way to defeat him, to finally make him pay for all the horrible things he’d done to me, my mom, and my friends.

  I wouldn’t fail them again—no matter what.

  My promise complete, I dropped my hand from the cuff, turned over onto my side, and finally let myself drift off to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Ouch!”

  A sharp bang, followed by that whispered word, made my eyes snap open sometime the next morning.

  Had the Draconis found us after all? Were Victor and Blake here, ready to finish what they’d started at the restaurant last night? I lay still on my cot, although my hand had already wrapped around my mom’s sword, which I’d slid under my pillow. My fingers curled around the hilt and my entire body tensed as I readied myself to leap up and start swinging the weapon at anyone who came near me.

  “Be quiet!” another voice hissed. “Lila’s still asleep!”

  I knew those voices and I relaxed as I realized what was happening. Devon and Felix were trying to quietly get up but not having any success at it, since the basement was still pitch-black. I looked over at the clock sitting on the table in the corner. Just before noon. We’d been down here for almost twelve hours. I scrubbed my hands over my face. I felt like I could sleep for twelve more hours, but I couldn’t afford to stay in bed any longer. Not if we wanted to get to Mo, Claudia, and the others in time.

  So I reached over and hit the touch lamp with my fingers, flooding the basement with light. Devon and Felix froze at the bottom of the steps, while Deah let out a low groan, rolled away from the light, and pulled her blanket up over her head. On their shelf on the metal rack, Oscar and Tiny didn’t move or stir at all, both of them still snoring in chorus, like a low drumbeat running through one of the pixie’s beloved country songs.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, my voice thick with sleep.

  The guys exchanged a guilty look, but they both turned to face me.

  “We were going out to the Midway to see if we can spot any Sinclair guards or get any news about my dad and the others,” Felix said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? Whose dumb idea was that? The Draconis, especially Blake, are sure to be looking for any Sinclairs that they didn’t kill or capture last night. They’ll have guards posted all over the Midway. The two of you wouldn’t last three minutes before getting spotted.”

  “Well, we can’t just hide down here and do nothing,” Devon said. “Not when Victor has my mom and Angelo and all the others. We have to find some way to save them before it’s too late.”

  “And we will,” I said. “But you guys are thinking that you can just walk through the Midway like everything’s normal. Like you still have the full force of the Sinclair Family behind you when you don’t.”

  Worry filled Felix’s dark eyes, while a muscle ticked in Devon’s jaw. I hadn’t meant my words to be so harsh, but they were, because we all remembered the blood, bodies, and destruction at the Sinclair mansion. And we all knew that nothing would make Victor and Blake happier than capturing or killing us just like they had all the other Sinclairs.

  I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the cot. Deah sighed, threw back her blanket, and did the same. Oscar and Tiny kept right on snoring, though.

  “Listen,” I said. “I want to find the others just as badly as you guys do, but we have to be careful. That’s the only way we’re all going to get through this in one piece. Victor. . . he’s been planning this for a long, long time. He’s sure to have thought about
how things might go wrong and have contingency plans in place. He might not have expected us to switch out the black blades for fakes, but he’s probably already regrouped and has a plan to find us, get the weapons back, and finish what he started. And he’s got the guards to help him do it. All we have is each other and what’s in this basement, so we have to be smarter about things, sneakier, and cleverer than he is.”

  Devon’s hands tightened into fists, and he started pacing back and forth across the basement. “We can’t just stay down here and do nothing,” he repeated.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “My mom and the others could already be dead,” he said in a harsh voice. “Victor could have killed them last night while we were running all over town.”

  Devon stared at me, the red-hot needles of his pain and anguish stabbing me in the chest, while his aching desperation and helpless rage boiled in my veins. I felt the same way, but I pushed the sensations aside and focused on him.

  “You saw Victor at the restaurant last night. You saw the look on his face when he realized that Claudia had stolen all of his precious black blades right out from under him,” I said. “He won’t kill her. Not until she tells him what she did with the weapons.”

  “He’ll torture her to get the information. You know he will,” Devon snapped, more anguish filling his eyes. “No doubt he’s already started.”

  I got up and went over to him, taking his hands in my own, and making him stop pacing. “I know,” I said in a low voice. “I know what Victor is capable of better than anyone else, and I wish I could have saved your mom from that. But Claudia is strong, and every second that she holds out gives us more time to save her. Okay?”

  Devon stared back at me, pain and worry still shimmering in his eyes, but he finally nodded and squeezed my hands. “Okay.”

  I nodded back at him, then dropped his hands and looked over at Deah. “Can you think of any place where your dad might be holding Claudia and the others? Do you think they’re up at the Draconi mansion?”

  Deah shook her head. “No. If my dad—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “If Victor took all the other Sinclairs prisoner, then there’s no place at the Draconi mansion big enough to hold them all. He’ll have to keep them down here in town, probably at one of the Family warehouses.”

  “Which one?” Devon demanded, his hands clenching into fists again.

  She gave him a helpless look. “I don’t know. He has dozens of warehouses all over town. It could be any one of them, or someplace else that I don’t even know about. I’m sorry, but Victor and Blake never talked to me much about the Family businesses. I guess my dad always knew that I wouldn’t like what he was planning and didn’t want to risk me messing things up. And I was always so busy training for the Tournament of Blades or watching out for my mom that I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. I’m sorry. I wish I could be more help.”

  Felix walked over, sat down on the cot next to her, and slung his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “It’s okay. I understand, and so does Devon. Don’t you, Dev?”

  Devon’s lips pressed together for a second, but then his shoulders slumped and he nodded.

  “So now what?” he asked, pacing back and forth again. “How can we figure out where the others are without getting captured ourselves?”

  “Simple,” I said. “Deah and I will go out to the Midway, snoop around, and see what we can find out.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” Felix asked. “Because the Draconis will come after you the second they spot you guys, just like they would Devon and me.”

  I went over to one of the suitcases full of extra clothes and dug through the piles of fabric inside until I found exactly what I wanted. I held up the T-shirt so that the others could see it. All three of them winced, especially Deah.

  “Please tell me that you don’t expect me to wear that,” she said.

  “Oh, you’re going to wear it all right,” I said. “And once you put it on, you’re going to become practically invisible to the Draconis.”

  Deah groaned and flopped back down onto her cot. I just grinned.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Deah asked. “I feel like I’m wearing a flashing sign that says, Here I am! Come and get me!”

  “It’ll work. Trust me.”

  Deah and I were standing in one of the alleys close to the Midway, along with Devon and Felix. We’d left Oscar and Tiny back in the safety of the library basement. Since it was Sunday, the library was closed, and after I’d told the others what I had in mind, we’d gotten ready, snuck out, and walked over here. Now we were hiding behind some dumpsters, reviewing our plan.

  It was simple, really. Deah and I would wander through the Midway, eavesdrop on the Draconi guards, and try to pick up information about where Victor might be holding Claudia, Mo, and the others. When we were done, we’d come back here, meet up with Devon and Felix, and head back to the library to plan our next move.

  “Well,” Deah said, holding her arms out wide. “How do I look?”

  Devon and Felix stared at her, then me, then back at her.

  “Um, bright?” Felix said, trying to be nice.

  I’d given Deah some clothes from my stash in the library, and she now wore gray sneakers, gray cargo shorts, and a T-shirt. But not just any T-shirt. One that was the boldest, most electric, neon blue you’d ever seen. A shirt that was so loud, bright, and colorful that it hurt your eyes to look at it for more than a few seconds. The words The Pork Pit—Best Barbecue Ever were done in sparkly silver sequins across the front of the shirt, adding even more glittering shine to it. A matching, neon-blue baseball cap perched on top of Deah’s head, hiding most of her golden hair from sight and casting her face in shadow.

  Deah glared at Felix, who shrugged back at her.

  “What?” he asked. “I’m not the one who made you put on that ridiculous shirt. That was all Lila.”

  She turned her hot glare to me, even though I had on the exact same thing she did.

  “And it will work,” I said. “Trust me. Only the tourist rubes wear matching T-shirts and baseball hats, especially ones that are this color. The Midway guards, especially the Draconis, won’t give us a second glance, and we’ll walk right by them. They won’t even think to actually look at our faces to see if we might be the people they’re searching for. Trust me. This will work.”

  Deah sighed, but she finally nodded, agreeing with me.

  “I still don’t like this,” Devon said. “It’s risky, especially since you two don’t have any weapons.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but only Family guards and workers have weapons on the Midway. Carrying around a couple of swords would tell the Draconis exactly who we are, and they’d be on us in a heartbeat. This way, we can nose around the entire Midway, Deah can point out the senior guards who might know something, and we can see what’s what. We’ll be fine.”

  Devon still didn’t like my plan, but he didn’t say anything else.

  “Now, stay here until we get back,” I said.

  Devon and Felix both looked at each other, guilt flickering in their faces.

  “Guys,” I warned. “I don’t need to worry about the two of you going off and getting captured while we’re gone. Deah and I will have enough problems getting through the Midway and back here again. Promise me that you’ll both stay right here until we get back. Okay?”

  The guys both sighed, but they nodded.

  “All right then,” I said. “Here we go.”

  Devon opened his arms. I stepped into them and he hugged me tight.

  “Be careful,” he whispered. “I couldn’t stand to lose you too.”

  “I’m always careful,” I whispered back.

  His arms tightened around me for a moment, as if he didn’t ever want to let me go. But we both knew that this was the only way to find out where Mo, Claudia, and the others were. Devon sighed, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and dropped his ar
ms.

  Felix finished hugging Deah and she moved to stand beside me. I took one last look at Devon, while Deah did the same thing to Felix.

  Then together, the two of us left the guys behind and stepped out of the alley and into the hot summer sunshine.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The alley led out to a street that was on the very edge of the tourist area, and we crossed it and entered one of the shopping squares. It was after two o’clock now, and people moved from one side of the square to the other, despite the sweltering July heat. No one gave Deah and me a second look, and we moved from that square over to the next one and the next one until we had reached one of the many entrances to the Midway.

  I looked at Deah. “No matter what happens, we need to stick together. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Her fingers twitched. “I still wish I had a sword, though.”

  “I know. Me too.” I drew in a breath. “Here we go.”

  Deah nodded at me, and together we walked out into the Midway.

  At first, everything looked normal. People moving in and out of the shops, stopping at the food carts to get sweet and salty snacks, taking pictures of the stuffed monsters and other displays in the museum windows. The scents of popcorn and caramel apples filled the air, while kids shrieked, laughed, and ran circles around their parents.

  But the deeper we headed into the Midway, the more I realized that something was seriously wrong.

  Oh, the restaurants, shops, hotels, and other businesses were still open, but I only spotted a few guards from the Ito, Salazar, and Volkov Families patrolling through their designated areas. And the guards that I did see were in teams of three or more, all of them with their hands on their weapons, ready to draw their swords at the slightest hint of danger. My soulsight let me see and feel every bit of their worry, fear, and tension. The emotions punched me in the chest over and over again, with every guard I looked at.