Dark Heart of Magic (9 page)

Then it was my turn.

I grabbed hold of the metal handles attached to the zip line and pushed off from the platform, the air rushing over my body. The sensation was almost as good as free-falling down a drainpipe, and a happy laugh escaped my lips. Maybe the tournament would be more fun than I'd thought.

I let go, landed in the sandpit, and rolled up onto my feet. Vance grunted as he landed beside me. I glanced at him, and he scooped up a handful of sand and flung it at my face, trying to blind me. I jerked my head to the side, barely avoiding getting the wad of sand in my eyes, although it still hit my neck and sprayed all over my body. Vance laughed, surged to his feet, and rushed over to the cold spring.

So that's how it was going to be? Well, if Vance wanted to play dirty, I could give as good as I got.

It was so
on
.

I put on an extra burst of speed and leaped out as far as I could into the spring, tucking my knees up into my chest.

“Cannonball!” I yelled.

Vance's head snapped up, and I landed right beside him.

I went all the way under. The water was shockingly cold, and I came up shivering. But it was worth it to see Vance soaked through and through. He growled and pretended to stumble into me. Down in the water, out of sight, Vance hooked his foot around mine, trying to use his strength magic to trip me and make me plunge under the surface again.

But the instant he touched me, my transference Talent kicked in, and my body absorbed all the energy, all the power, he was using to try to take me down.

I welcomed the cold burn of magic in my veins and used the extra burst of strength to put my shoulder down and plow right through him. Vance slipped and did a face-plant into the water. I kept going, grabbed the far edge of the spring, and pulled myself up and out of the water. Behind me, I could hear Vance sputtering and cursing.

I grinned. Oh, yeah. This was
fun
.

After the cold spring, there were more sprints and hurdles, along with several balance beams, and then the big finale of the fifty-foot rope ladder. I made it through the other obstacles and ran over to the base of the ladder, glancing up.

Katia was still in the lead, but Deah was right behind her, with Poppy a few feet farther down and about ten feet off to the side, on the far section of the ladder. Devon was directly below Poppy, with Blake beneath Katia and Deah. The ladder was as wide as it was tall, and since I didn't want to impact Poppy's and Devon's climbs, I took hold of the side where Katia, Deah, and Blake were. I'd just started to pull myself up the first rung, when I felt a shoulder slam into mine, knocking me to the ground.

“See you at the top, loser,” Vance hissed, throwing himself up onto the ladder.

I cursed and got to my feet, determined to beat him to the platform.

But it wasn't going to happen.

Vance had the perfect combination of speed and strength magic to scale the rope ladder, and he was already halfway up before I even got started. But I moved as quickly as I could, stretching and reaching and climbing, trying to make up as much ground as possible.

I looked up, judging my progress. Several feet above my head, near the top of the platform, something flashed a bright silver before winking out. I blinked. What was that?

A loud cheer rang out all around the stadium, telling me that someone had already reached the top, but I couldn't tell if it was Katia or Deah. A few seconds later, Vance joined them, leaning over the edge and sneering down at me.

I ground my teeth together, angry that he'd beaten me, but I kept climbing. Poppy and Blake had both made it to the top as well, but Devon was still on the ladder, and he glanced over at me.

“Race you to the top!” he called out, a grin spreading across his face.

“You're on!” I shouted back.

I was only about ten feet from the platform now, and I reached up for the next rung.

An ominous
creak
sounded.

My head snapped up. Above me, at the very top of the ladder, long, thick fibers sprouted up like weeds where one of the ropes connected to the wooden platform. It took me a second to realize that the rope was actually unraveling.

And it wasn't the only one.

More and more of those fibers appeared, running all along the top of the ladder like kudzu unfurling everywhere. A sick feeling filled my stomach. I knew what was going to happen next.

“Watch out!” I yelled, hoping to warn everyone else on the ladder and trying to scramble to my right, away from the unraveling ropes.

But it was already too late.

With a series of loud,
crack-crack-cracks
, this entire section of rope snapped free from the top of the wooden platform, and the ladder started to fall.

Dragging me down with it.

S
creams and shouts sounded as the crowd realized what was happening, and horrible thoughts shot through my mind one after another as I started to fall.

I was forty feet up in the air, and there was no soft sandpit at the bottom of the ladder. This was going to hurt—
a lot.
I'd be lucky if I only broke an arm or leg, instead of my neck—

I stopped in midair, my right arm feeling like it was being torn out of my shoulder socket. A hand gripped my wrist, and I looked up.

Devon grimaced, his fingers digging into my arm. “I've got you, Lila!”

Somehow, he had realized what was happening and had crawled close enough to reach out and catch me. Gasps rang out from the crowd, but I blocked out the noise and focused on Devon.

He stared at me, his green gaze locking with mine. “
Hold on!
”

His voice cracked with his compulsion magic, and his power wrapped around my entire body as though I were nothing more than a puppet and he was the one pulling my strings. I had no choice but to do as he asked, so I locked my fingers around his wrist.

But my own transference magic kicked in as well, and Devon's compulsion quickly melted into pure, cold power surging through me. He wasn't controlling me anymore, and his magic increased my own, giving me a welcome boost of extra strength and making my grip even tighter than his.

We held on to each other while I kicked my leg out and hooked my foot through a section of rope that was still firmly attached to the platform. Devon helped swing me over so that I could grab on to the ladder with my free hand.

“I'm good!” I called out.

He nodded, the tension draining from his face, and let go of my wrist. We were closer to the top than the bottom, so we kept climbing. Poppy leaned over and helped us both up and onto the wooden platform.

Devon and I sprawled on our backs, both of us sweating and breathing hard. My heart
thump-thump-thumped
loud enough to drown out the crowd's cheers, and the metallic taste of my own shock, dread, and fear filled my mouth.

“Are you guys okay?” Poppy asked, her dark eyes wide. “What happened?”

“No idea,” Devon said, sitting up. “One second the rope was fine. The next, it wasn't. Lila, are you all right?”

I sat up as well. “Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks to you.”

I nudged his shoulder. Devon smiled and nudged me back.

“Just watching out for you. That's what Sinclairs do, remember?”

I nodded, my throat tight with emotion. It had been a long time since anyone had helped me the way Devon just had. He could have easily fallen off the ladder trying to grab me, or I could have dragged him down off it, but he hadn't hesitated, and he'd saved me.

Slowly, the cheers died down, but other sounds rose to take their place—hoarse, raspy moans of pain.

Devon and I both got to our feet and peered over the side of the platform. Two guards were sprawled at the bottom of the rope ladder. I didn't know how far up they'd been, but they'd both landed awkwardly. One of them—a Draconi—was moaning, rocking back and forth, and clutching her arm to her chest as though it was broken. The other competitor was one of ours—Henry, a Sinclair guard. His left leg was twisted underneath his body, and I could see the broken bone pressing against his skin from up here. The pain was so bad that he was crying and choking down screams.

A hush fell over the crowd, and shouts rose up as the medical staff raced over to the bottom of the ladder. Angelo was with them. He took one look at Henry's wound, then gestured for a stretcher. A few seconds later, Henry was being rolled away toward the white medical tent. The crowd got to its feet, clapping, but the polite noise didn't come close to drowning out Henry's screams.

I looked down again. Henry had hit the ground so hard that his body had made an outline in the grass, like a drawing of a murder victim on a crime show. I shivered. That could have been me down there with a busted leg.

Or worse—dead.

Everyone on the top of the platform was yelling, pointing, and running back and forth, including Deah and Blake, who had their heads together, whispering to each other. Poppy was gesturing with her hands and talking to Devon, but I wasn't paying attention to her sharp, worried words.

Instead, I kept thinking about the ropes and how they had snapped away from the platform. I'd climbed up my fair share of ropes, and they didn't just unravel like that, especially not these thick, heavy ones. Even someone with a strength Talent would have had a hard time tearing through them. But the ropes had fallen away from the platform as easily as I could swipe my hand through a spider's web.

So what had really happened to them?

 

The officials stopped the tournament, and we all climbed down the ladders attached to the side of the platform. The other competitors who hadn't been on the course came over, along with the higher-ups in the Families, and everyone checked on their friends. Claudia, Reginald, Mo, and Felix hurried over to Devon and me, with Oscar zipping along behind them.

“You okay, kid?” Mo asked, his eyes dark with concern.

“Yeah, I'm fine, thanks to Devon.”

I looked over, but Devon was reassuring his mom, Reginald, Felix, and Oscar that he was okay.

Mo took off his white hat and started whipping it back and forth in front of his face to create a breeze. He stared up at the ladder. “Scariest thing I've ever seen, the way the rope just fell like that. What happened up there?”

“I have no idea, but I'm going to find out. Give me your phone, and cover me.”

I jerked my head at the ladder. Mo handed over his phone, slapped his hat back on his head, and followed me.

Several officials were already gathered around the ladder, talking, taking photos, and more. The ropes lay where they had fallen—the long, thick brown strands looking like copper crushers lazily sunning themselves in the grass.

“How do you want to play this?” Mo asked.

I grinned. “Just be your usual loud, charming, demanding self.”

He grinned back, then barreled over to the officials. “What is the meaning of this? Did you guys not check the ladder before you let everyone start climbing it?”

One of the officials stepped forward and held his hands out, trying to placate Mo. “Mr. Kaminsky, I assure you that we are looking into the situation—”

Mo poked his finger into the guy's chest. “Looking into the situation?
Looking into the situation?
I'd say that we've all
looked into the situation
since everyone saw the ladder fall like it was made out of cotton candy. What I want to know is what you're going to do about the fact that my guy has a broken leg and there's a Draconi guard with a busted arm. . . .”

And Mo was off, bellowing at the officials. People stared at him, and I used the distraction to sidle forward, moving closer to the ladder. Everyone was clustered at the base where the majority of the ropes had landed, but one strand had curled around the side of the platform. I bent down, as though I was tying my sneaker, and stared at the rope.

The end was frayed, as though the rope was worn and weak and the weight of the competitors hanging on to it had just been too much. That was exactly what I would expect, given how it had snapped away from the top of the platform. So I looked at it—
really
looked at it—using my sight magic to pull the rope into supersharp detail.

The rope was frayed—but it had also been cut.

A small, clean slice went about halfway through the strand, one that I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't been looking for it with my magic. Cut away half the rope, and the weight of the competitors
would
have been too much for it. It was no wonder that the other half of the rope had unraveled as quickly as it had.

No way that slice was any sort of normal wear and tear. That was the kind of mark that couldn't have been made by anything other than a knife. I thought of that flash of silver I'd seen when I'd peered up the ladder, trying to catch up to Vance.

Someone had deliberately cut the rope.

I was sure of it. And I was willing to bet that the other strands had similar slices.

But who had cut the ropes? And why?

I thought back, trying to remember who had been where and when, but the course had been a mad scramble from start to finish, and the ladder had been no different. It would have been easy for someone to pause at the top before they pulled themselves onto the platform, pretend they were winded, pull a knife from their shorts pocket, and slice through some of the ropes, especially if they had a speed Talent to help them pull it off.

This was supposed to be a friendly competition. Did someone really want to win so badly that they would try to take out other people? In the very first event on the very first day? Henry and the Draconi guard could have easily broken their necks. They were lucky they hadn't been killed. I'd always known that the competition between the Families was cutthroat, but this was something else.

Something dark. Something sinister.

Something deadly.

By this point, the official had herded Mo off to the side of the ladder, and Mo was running out of things to yell at the other man. Time to go. So I angled his phone at the rope, taking several shots of the cut and frayed end. Then I got to my feet, slid the phone into my shorts pocket, and walked behind the official that Mo was still berating. I jerked my head, letting him know that he could wrap things up. Mo winked back at me.

“Well, perhaps I have been a bit hasty,” he said, his voice suddenly charming instead of angry. “I should let you fellas do your job. Thanks for the info, buddy. Keep up the good work.”

Mo clapped the official on the shoulder, leaving the other man with a dazed expression on his face.

Mo fell in step beside me. “What did you find out, kid?”

“Later,” I whispered back. “When it's just the Family.”

He nodded, and we headed over to Claudia, Reginald, Devon, Felix, and Oscar, who were checking on the other Sinclair guards.

Through the crowd, I noticed Vance watching me. He realized that I was okay, and he snorted and started talking to Katia, who was frowning, her hazel eyes dark with thought.

I remembered how Vance had thrown sand at me, tried to trip me in the spring, and shoved me out of the way when I was starting up the ladder. He had been directly above me and had just crawled onto the platform when the ropes had given way. He had Talents for speed and strength, so he could have easily cut the ropes in all the confusion. Vance was a jackass, but was he really that much of a monster? I didn't know.

And he wasn't the only suspect. Blake had been on top of the platform too, and he outright hated me. He could have cut the ropes to hurt me, or maybe even ordered another one of the Draconis to do it for him in order to take out as many of the other competitors as possible.

Anger and worry surged through my body, and my hands clenched into fists, even as another shiver slithered up my spine. I found myself looking over my shoulder and staring at the imprint of Henry's body in the grass again.

Oh, yeah. That could have easily been me.

But the far more troubling thought was that maybe someone had
wanted
it to be me.