Dark Heart of Magic
Page 5

“Right,” Felix drawled. “Because the two of you haven’t spent the last few weeks making googly eyes at each other when you think the other person isn’t looking. I might be a flirt, but at least I’m honest about it. You two just need to make out already and be done with it.”
Luckily, the steady rush-rush-rush of the fountains and the chatter of the crowd drowned out his words so that Devon didn’t hear them. I glared at Felix, but he smirked and elbowed me in the side again.
Devon faced us, using the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe off his face and revealing his stomach muscles. Yeah, I totally stared at him again.
Devon dropped his shirt and looked at me. “Something wrong?”
I shook my head hard enough to make my ponytail flap against my shoulders. “Nope. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all. Not one little thing.”
“Okay,” he said, although I could tell he didn’t really believe me.
I moved past Devon, heading deeper into the park. Carts lined the winding path, with vendors selling everything from frozen lemonade and caramel popcorn to sunglasses and T-shirts. The scents of bacon-wrapped hot dogs and fried funnel cakes topped with snowy mounds of powdered sugar filled the air, making me sigh with longing.
Felix eyed me. “Don’t tell me you’re hungry again already—especially after all those BL Ts you inhaled for lunch.”
“Climbing trees and bargaining with monsters is hard work.” My stomach rumbled in time to my words. “I need to keep my strength up.”
Felix groaned, but Devon laughed.
“I think we have time to get Lila a snack before we go back to the mansion,” Devon said.
We veered into a section of the park that was all food. Several wrought iron benches were spaced in between the carts, and folks chowed down on everything from ice cream to nachos to deep-fried pickles. And just like the rest of the Midway, guards patrolled this area, all of them sporting swords and bronze cuffs stamped with a hacienda—the Salazar Family crest.
As the Sinclair bruiser, Devon was well-known by all the Families, and the Salazar guards gave him respectful nods, which he returned. Felix was much more sociable, going over to and chatting with a cute Salazar guard who was about our age. I rolled my eyes. Sometimes, I thought that Felix knew every single girl in Cloudburst Falls, especially the pretty ones.
The Salazar guards eyed me, their stares cautious and curious, since I was a new member of the Sinclairs and a relative unknown. Their sharp gazes took in everything from my black hair and dark blue eyes to the silver cuff on my wrist to my pulp-covered clothes and sneakers.
But the thing that really caught their attention was the sword belted to my waist.
The weapon was sheathed in a plain black scabbard, but the hilt was exposed, showing off the five-pointed star carved into the metal there. Smaller stars ran down the hilt and were also etched into the blade itself.
Surprise flashed in the guards’ eyes, and a few of them whispered to each other, wondering whether my sword was really made out of bloodiron. Given the metal’s name, you would expect the weapon to be a rusty red, but the sword was actually a dull, ashy gray. They were called black blades by most magicks because of one simple, horrifying fact—the more blood you got on the blade, the blacker the metal became.
I didn’t like the Salazar guards’ scrutiny, and I had to curl my fingers into a tight fist to stop myself from wrapping my hand around the sword’s hilt and hiding the beautiful scrollwork from sight.
Bloodiron was rare, and most weapons made out of it were highly prized—so highly prized that family symbols and crests were carved into the metal to make the weapons easy to identify and harder to sell on the black market. Even I had never stolen a black blade because it just wasn’t worth all the trouble it would take Mo Kaminsky, my pawnbroker friend, to fence it.
Not that I would ever even consider selling my black blade. The sword had been my mom’s, and it was one of the few things I had left of her, along with my star-shaped sapphire ring.
“The more you try to hide your sword, the more attention you draw to it, and yourself too,” Devon murmured, noticing how tense I was. “You’re a Sinclair now, Lila. You don’t have to hide in the shadows anymore. Not from the Salazars, not from anyone. We watch out for each other, remember?”
“Yeah. Right.”
I smiled at him, but I curled my fingers even tighter together to keep from reaching for my sword again.
Devon bought us dark chocolate-covered apples dipped in crushed, toasted almonds and drizzled with raspberry syrup. Felix grabbed his apple, then went back over to the Salazar guard to continue his flirting.
“Let’s go sit in the shade for a few minutes,” Devon said. “That’s how long it will take before Felix runs out of steam.”
I snorted. “Run out of steam? Are you kidding? He’s eating that apple even faster than he talks. All that sugar will just rev up his engine that much more.”
Devon laughed, and we headed toward the nearest bench, which was shaded by a tall maple. I peered up at the tree, but I didn’t spot any trolls, just a couple of rockmunks running up and down the branches, chattering to their chipmunk cousins.
We’d almost reached the bench when I realized exactly where we were in the park—the spot where my mom had once saved Devon from being kidnapped.
White stars flashed on and off in front of my eyes, threatening to crash together, form a solid wall, blot out the here and now, and throw me back into the past.
And make me relive all the horrible memories I wanted to forget.
Devon noticed the stricken look on my face. He stared at me, then at the bench. He winced, realizing exactly what I was thinking about.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize.... We can go somewhere else—”
I forced myself to blink away the white stars and shake my head. “No, it’s fine. Really. Let’s sit.”
I went over and plopped down on the bench, trying not to think about the last time I’d sat here, eating ice cream with my mom. Those white stars rose up in my mind again, but I ruthlessly forced them away. I’d relived that awful day a thousand times in my head, and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Not when I had other things to think about.
Like getting revenge on Victor Draconi for murdering my mom.
Devon sat down beside me, his shoulder brushing mine in a silent show of support. I didn’t look at him because I didn’t want to see or especially feel the soft sympathy that was surely shining in his eyes right now. It would just make me like him more than I already did. I might be a sucker for a cute guy, but I was no fool. And since I planned on leaving the Sinclairs and Cloudburst Falls as soon as I could, there was no point in starting something up with Devon when it would just end all too soon.