Slowly, they walked across the bridge, stopping to bow their heads to Claudia, then headed past her, taking their place in the ranks with the Sinclair guards. The Sinclairs eyed the newcomers with more than a little suspicion, but no more fights broke out and I knew that we were finally on our way to a real, lasting peace.
Claudia looked over and nodded at me. I nodded back and she turned away to start seeing to the wounded guards, Sinclairs and Draconis alike. The Itos and Salazars also crossed the bridge, with Hiroshi Ito and Roberto Salazar ordering their guards to tend the injured as well.
“Help me up,” I said. “I have to check on someone.”
Devon put his arm around my waist and slowly lifted me to my feet, with Oscar still buzzing circles around us. With Devon’s help, I slowly shuffled forward and peered over the side of the bridge. Down below, a lone tentacle rose up out of the water and waved at me. I waved back, but then my strength left me and I would have slumped back down onto the cobblestones if Devon hadn’t steadied me.
In an instant, he’d lowered me back down onto the ground, his eyes wide with concern. “Lila! Are you okay?”
“I think so,” I said. “Except for the stab wound in my side. That’s three times now that I’ve been stabbed this summer. Why do the bad guys always get me there?”
I laughed, but it was a weak sound, and more white stars flashed in front of my eyes, telling me I was close to passing out.
“It’s okay,” Oscar said, hovering in midair in front of my face. “Relax, Lila. Just relax. We’ll get you healed up and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
“Okay,” I murmured. “Okay.”
Devon gathered me up into his arms. His crisp, clean pine scent washed over me, and I let the blackness sweep me away.
Sunlight streaming in through the windows woke me up the next morning. I groaned and snuggled down deeper into the sheets, trying to block out the sunlight, but it was no use.
“Finally, cupcake,” a familiar voice groused. “I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up.”
I cracked my eyes open to find Oscar sitting in a pixie-size recliner on a table close to the bed I was lying on. A pixie-size table was also there, and Oscar was playing solitaire with a deck of miniature cards, while Tiny ambled around him, sniffing the cards to see if they were edible. The tortoise huffed, disappointed that they weren’t.
Oscar put his cards down, flitted over, and landed on the bed beside me. “How are you feeling?”
“Better now,” I said. “Much better.”
He nodded, his face creasing with relief. I concentrated and realized that I did feel better. The stab wound in my side had been healed, and so had all the other cuts, scrapes, and bruises that I’d gotten during the latter part of my fight with Victor. Angelo and Felix had used their healing skills on me yet again and I felt perfectly fine.
Except for the bright blaze of magic in my body.
I could still feel Victor’s power running through my veins, waiting to be unleashed, wanting to be used in some way. I’d thought it might burn out of me, the way monster magic did when you used it all up, but I felt the magic as strongly as I had last night. And I knew that if I concentrated, I could call it up, could call forth that lightning and use it however I wanted.
I shivered. The idea of having so much magic, so much power . . . it made me sick to my stomach, especially since it was Victor’s magic, the blood magic he’d stolen from others. But it seemed as if it was mine to keep now. I didn’t know how I felt about that, much less what I would actually do with the power, but I would worry about that later. Right now, I wanted to know what had happened while I’d been unconscious.
So I shoved a couple of pillows behind my back and sat up, my gaze flicking over the room. A bed, a nightstand, a cabinet full of medical supplies. I frowned, wondering if we were where I thought we were. “Are we back at the Sinclair mansion?”
“Yep, in one of the infirmary rooms,” Oscar said. “After the battle last night, Claudia ordered that the injured be brought back here and that everyone else get started on the cleanup. I promised Devon I would watch over you until you woke up. He’s been overseeing the guards and pixies who are going through the mansion, seeing to . . . everyone.”
He bit his lip, took off his hat, and scuffed his black cowboy boots back and forth on the sheets. What he really meant was that the guards and pixies had been taking care of all the bodies of everyone who had been killed when the Draconis had attacked the mansion. He blinked a few times, holding back the tears in his eyes. Yeah. Me too.
Oscar cleared his throat. “Anyway, the Itos and Salazars have both come over to help as well. It’s actually been . . . nice, knowing that we aren’t at war with them anymore.”
“And what about the Draconi guards?”
He shrugged. “Claudia has Deah overseeing them. The guards are going to remain in their quarters over at the Draconi compound for the time being, but it seems like most of them are willing to forget about Victor and what he had planned. Claudia, Hiroshi, and Roberto all plan to let the guards choose which Family they want to join. Or if they don’t want to work for the Families at all anymore.”
I nodded. I hadn’t really thought about what would happen to all the Draconi guards, workers, and pixies, but it made sense that they would be able to decide what they wanted to do going forward. That was certainly more of a choice than Victor had ever given them about anything.
Since I was feeling better, I threw back the covers and went back to my own room, with Oscar flying through the air behind me, carrying Tiny in his arms. To my surprise, a new door had already been placed into the frame. My stomach twisted as I remembered the utter destruction of my room the last time I’d been in here, but I drew in a breath, turned the knob, and stepped inside.
Someone must have been working in here all night long because my room was already clean. All the ripped clothes, mattress stuffing, and other debris had been removed and replaced with new furniture, including a new bed made up with a black-and-white-striped comforter.
Somehow, Oscar’s pixie house had even been patched back together and put on its usual table close to the patio doors. The ebony trailer was more rundown, rickety, and ramshackle than ever before and held together with glue and duct tape in more than one place, but it warmed my heart to see it sitting in its usual spot.
“Who did all this?” I asked.
“I did,” a voice called out behind me.
I turned and Devon was there. He gave me a crooked grin and leaned against the doorframe. Dirt smudged his face and streaked his black T-shirt and khaki cargo pants, but I thought he had never looked more wonderful.
“As soon as he was sure that you were going to be okay, he came up here and started cleaning up your room,” Oscar chimed in.
Tears stung my eyes, and a wave of love flooded my heart. Of course Devon had done all this. Because that’s just the kind of great guy he was. I didn’t know how I was going to repay him for this, but I would.
I ran over, threw myself into his arms, and hugged him tight. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you so much.”
“I’d do anything for you, Lila,” he whispered back.
I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his. Devon pulled me closer and I melted into him, both of us swaying up against the doorframe for support. I kissed him again, then again, then again, a dizzying rush of feeling roaring through my body, hotter and stronger than even the magic running through my veins—
“All right,” Oscar groused, buzzing around our heads and breaking the spell. “That’s enough of that. There’s still work to be done around here, you know, so we might as well get started on it.”
Devon and I broke apart, both of us grinning wide.
“To be continued later?” he asked.
“You’d better believe it.”
Oscar snorted and rolled his eyes before flying across the room and dropping Tiny off in the corral, just like usual. There wasn’t any gra
ss for him to munch on yet, but Tiny nodded his green head and let out a snort of approval. He was glad to be back home.
And so was I.
After promising to meet me on the roof later tonight, Devon went back downstairs to check on the guards and pixies. I took a long, hot shower, while Oscar fished through what was left of my clothes to find me something to wear that Blake hadn’t ripped to shreds.
An hour later, I was in my usual gray sneakers, gray cargo shorts, and a pale blue T-shirt. But instead of going to find Devon and the others, I went to the library, opened one of the balcony doors, and snuck off into the woods. It didn’t take me long to reach the Sinclair Family cemetery and my mom’s tombstone.
I stood in front of her marker. The sunlight streaming in through the trees made her name stand out like polished silver against the black stone.
“Well,” I said. “I guess you know everything that happened last night. How it all went down. I hope you’re proud of me. At the very least, Victor will never hurt anyone again. I just wish . . . I just wish that you were still here with me.”
“She’ll always be here with you, darling,” a voice called out behind me.
I turned around, and Seleste and Claudia stepped through the open gate and into the cemetery. Claudia was wearing another white pantsuit, while Seleste was sporting a gauzy white dress and carrying a white wicker basket full of red roses, just as she had been the very first time I’d seen her at the Draconi Family cemetery.
“See?” Seleste said, giving Claudia a smug smile. “I told you she’d be out here.”
Claudia shook her head, but there was a smile on her face too.
Seleste skipped over and hugged me. Then she dropped down on her knees and started humming while she arranged the red roses all over my mother’s grave. Claudia walked over and the two of us watched her work in silence.
Victor had finally been defeated, but my mom was still gone, and I would always carry the hurt and pain of her loss with me. But for the first time, a sense of peace was mixed in with my emotions too. I’d kept my promises to my mom and Claudia. I’d avenged her death, and I’d kept my friends and Family safe from Victor.
And I knew what my mom would tell me if she was still here—that it was time for a new start, a new beginning, a new chapter in my life. One where I could focus on all the good things that I had, instead of all the things that had been taken from me.
I stayed quiet and still until Seleste had finished arranging the roses in a large star pattern. She got to her feet, standing beside me and Claudia, and the three of us stared down at my mom’s tombstone.
“I still miss her,” Seleste whispered. “She was my best friend.”
Claudia reached out and squeezed her hand. “Mine too.”
“Mine three,” I added.
“But we still have each other,” Seleste said. “And Deah and Devon and all the others.”
“That we do.” I nodded. “That we do.”
I held out my arms, and Seleste and Claudia linked theirs through mine.
Together, arm in arm in arm, the three of us walked out of the shadowy cemetery and into the warm summer sun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Claudia, Seleste, and I headed back to the Sinclair mansion. Claudia went to help Devon with the guards and workers, while Seleste skipped off to the kitchen, saying something about helping the pixies with dinner. I had no idea if Seleste could actually cook or not, but I watched her go with a smile on my face. Then I walked through the mansion, stopping and looking into every single room I passed.
All of the bodies had been removed, and much of the destruction from the attack had already been cleaned up. The broken glass, splintered furniture, and cracked doors had all been removed, but other, more gruesome things remained behind that were harder to clean up. More than one pixie hovered in midair, a rag clutched in his or her hand, scrubbing at the bloodstains on the floors, walls, and even the ceilings. Those would take far longer to get rid of, and I knew that I would always see them in my nightmares.
I pitched in and helped where I could, mostly by carrying bags of debris and ruined pieces of furniture outside to load up onto trucks to be taken down into the city to be disposed of.
Mo was standing outside, supervising that part of the process. He was dressed in another Hawaiian shirt, this one a vivid blue covered with white ocean waves. He had a clipboard in his hands and was scribbling down notes about the items that littered the lawn around him—tables with a few scratches gouged into them, chairs that had been banged up, and several mirrors that were missing small pieces out of their frames. Unlike everything else in the mansion, most of these items were still in one piece.
Mo waved me over. “Hey, kid,” he rumbled, giving me a hug. “Glad to see that you’re up and around again. You gave us all a big scare last night.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He gave me a wicked grin and brandished his clipboard at me. “Getting some new inventory for the Razzle Dazzle. A little paint, a little polish, and all this stuff will be as good as new again. I’ve already got some folks from Ashland, Bigtime, and Cypress Mountain coming to see it. What does it look like I’m doing?”
I laughed. “It looks like you’re collecting more junk to sell to the tourists at double the price of what it’s actually worth.”
“Would I do something like that?” he asked in an innocent voice.
I snorted. “Absolutely.”
He winked at me. Mo went back to his inventory, such as it was, and I went back into the mansion. I helped the guards, workers, and pixies, but seeing all the ruined furnishings being carted off depressed me more than I thought it would. Besides, everyone kept staring and whispering about me. I hated being the center of attention, but that’s exactly what I was right now and probably would be for some time to come.
I worked hard all day long and didn’t go back up to my room until after eight that night. A small hammer and even smaller nails littered the ground outside Oscar’s trailer, along with several honeybeer cans. Repairing his trailer must have worn out the pixie because he was leaning back in a chair on his front porch, his cowboy boots up on the railing and his black cowboy hat pulled down low on his head. He clutched a honeybeer can in his lap, and soft, steady snores rumbled out of his chest. Tiny was also taking a nap in his corral, upside down on his shell like usual. I didn’t want to disturb them, so I slipped out of the patio doors, took hold of the drainpipe, and climbed up to the terrace.
Devon wasn’t here yet; he was still down in the main part of the mansion, helping Claudia deal with everyone and everything that needed to be done to repair the structure. I was grateful for the peace and quiet, especially after all the stares and whispers that had followed me around all day long.
I put my arms down on the iron railing and stared out over the Midway. The view looked the same as always, but the neon lights somehow seemed more colorful and cheerful than ever before. Or maybe that was because I knew that the danger had passed.
For now, anyway.
Victor might be dead, but Nikolai Volkov was still out there, and no doubt he would start plotting to take over the void that the Draconis had left behind. But that was a problem for another day. And there would still be fights and skirmishes between all the Families, including the Sinclairs, Itos, and Salazars, as everyone tried to figure out how things would work in a town where Victor Draconi wasn’t king anymore. But we would work it out. I knew we would.
Behind me, a door creaked open and footsteps sounded. I breathed in and the sharp, crisp scent of pine—Devon’s scent—wafted over to me. In addition to acquiring Victor’s lightning power, I also seemed to have enhanced senses now. All day long, I’d noticed that I could smell, hear, and even see better than I had before. I wondered just how much of Victor’s magic—and how many Talents—I might possess now.
The thought of where they had come from still made me sick, but the magic didn’t seem to be burning out of my body. I supposed I
would just have to live with it like I did everything else. The important thing was not to be like Victor—and not to use this new power to hurt people the way he had.
Devon walked over, leaned his arms down on the railing as well, and stared out at the view with me.
“I thought I might find you up here,” he said.
“I just needed some time to myself. Some peace and quiet to think about everything that’s happened.”
He nodded. “You missed dinner in the dining hall. The pixies made BLTs. Felix and I thought about sending out a search party when you didn’t show up to get your bacon fix,” he joked, trying to make me smile.
And I did, just a little, just for a few seconds. But then I turned and looked out over the Midway again, watching the lights wink on and off like stars cupped in the evergreen heart of the mountains. And I asked Devon something that had been bothering me all day long.
“Do you think it was all worth it? Everything we went through? All the fights and pain and heartache and loss?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. We lost a lot of good people, a lot of close friends. I wish things had been different. I wish we could have stopped the very first fight at the restaurant before it ever got started. But Victor is gone now and he can’t hurt any of us again. That’s something, right?”
“I guess it is,” I said. “I guess it will have to be.”
We stared out at the view for a while longer, both of us lost in our own thoughts, memories, and aching regrets. Finally, Devon turned to me and placed his hand on top of mine.
“You know, with everything that’s been going on, we never really did get to have a proper first date,” he murmured in a husky tone. “And before you say otherwise, sneaking over to the Draconi compound all those nights and stealing weapons doesn’t count.”