Cold Burn of Magic (15 page)

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.

F
elix 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.”

Oscar snorted. “I wouldn't have thrown them at you. I would have smashed them in your face.”

I had to admire his fighting spirit, since I was almost ten times his size.

“You do not bring Tiny anything,” Oscar snapped. “No berries, no fruit, no treats of any kind. He's
my
pet, not yours, and you'd do well to remember that.”

I bent down so that I was eye-to-eye with the pixie. “Listen, pal, you may not like me, and that's fine. I don't much like being saddled with you, the world's smallest, honeybeer-swilling redneck cowboy, either. But Tiny and I don't have any problems, and if I want to bring him treats every single day of the week and twice on Sundays, then I will do
exactly
as I please. You got that?”

Oscar put his hands on his hips. “You better watch your tone with me, cupcake. I can make your life miserable.”

“Really? How so?”

His eyes narrowed to slits so thin I could just barely make out his violet glare. “Itching powder in your bed. Fleas on your clothes. Garbage tucked into the toes of your ratty sneakers. All the usual pixie tricks.”

“Do your worst, pal. Do your
worst
.”

“Oh,” he snarled. “I will.”

“Promises, promises,” I mocked him.

“Why, you . . . you . . . you!”

That was all Oscar sputtered before he fluttered over to his front porch, wrenched open the door, stalked inside, and slammed it shut behind him so hard that the entire trailer rattled on the table.

In the corral, Tiny kept right on munching on his last strawberry, as calm as ever, totally used to Oscar's snits. I had a feeling I was going to have to get used to them, too.

 

I was too riled up to go to bed, so I opened one of the doors leading to the balcony and stepped outside.

The sun had set while I was arguing with Oscar, and day was slowly giving way to night. Down in the valley, the lights on the Midway were already flashing, pulsing like a neon heart—

The sounds came again and again, drifting out of the mansion from somewhere above. I cocked my head to the side, listening.

Unless I was mistaken, someone was hitting something—repeatedly. Well, why should they get to have all the fun?

I glanced around the balcony and discovered a staircase built into this side of the mansion, zigzagging from one level to the next. It would have been easy enough to climb the stairs, but I walked over and took hold of the drainpipe instead.

The pipe was made of stone that had been hollowed out; it ran from the top of the mansion all the way down here before snaking around the balcony and continuing its downward journey. I gave the stone a vicious shake, but it didn't so much as rattle. The only way this drainpipe would come away from the wall was if you took a sledgehammer to it.

I wrapped my hands around the stone, which was still warm from the day's heat. Then I drew in a breath and started climbing.

The drainpipe was narrow and worn smooth with age, wind, and weather, but I gripped the stone with my fingers and toes and scurried up it like a chipmunk climbing a tree. Nothing I hadn't done before. In fact, this drainpipe was much sturdier than many I'd snuck up on my jobs for Mo. Besides, it was better to see how fast I could climb it now, when nobody was chasing me. It was always good to think ahead.

It didn't take me long to climb from one level to the next and reach this part of the mansion roof. I hooked one leg over the iron railing that separated the roof from the steep drop below, then the other one before letting go of the drainpipe. Grinning, I swung there for a moment, like a kid hanging upside down on a monkey bar, before pulling myself upright and perching on the railing.

This section of the roof formed a terrace that was open on three sides and overlooked the mountain below. At the top of the terrace, a couple of lawn chairs sat close to the iron railing, along with an open cooler filled with bottles of water and juice embedded in ice. Old-fashioned iron streetlights towered at each one of the four corners of the terrace, and a hammock had been strung up between one of them and the wall.

But the most interesting thing was the elaborate series of metal pipes that jutted out from the wall, almost like construction scaffolding. The iron pipes zigzagged this way and that, reminding me of some elaborate jungle gym, especially since punching bags of different shapes and sizes dangled from some of the posts.

Someone was working the heavy bag in the middle of the pipes, which accounted for the sounds. The bag swung toward me, and a fist plowed into it from the side, sending it spiraling away once again.

And that's when I saw him.

Devon.