Dark Heart of Magic
Page 75

“We have to,” Felix said. “I don’t know if it will work either, but it’s her only shot.”
Devon nodded and stared back at his friend. “On three then. One . . . two . . . three!”
Felix tightened his grip on my hand and let loose another burst of magic, this one stronger than ever before, as though he was scraping up every bit of power he had left and funneling it into my body. Even as he blasted me with his healing magic, Devon leaned down so that he was staring straight into my eyes. He only said one word.
“Heal.”
The sharp crack of magic in his voice sounded as loud as a clap of thunder booming in my head. From one second to the next, his power took hold of me, and my insides started squeezing and squeezing together, trying to mash everything back where it was supposed to be. I screamed and arched back, my body growing colder and colder as Devon kept repeating his heal command to me over and over again, and Felix kept pouring more and more of his magic into me at the same time.
But then my own magic, my own transference power, kicked in, and all I felt was the cold burst of energy pulsing through my body, more intense than any I’d ever experienced before. Devon’s command still tugged at my body, so I focused on obeying that order as much as I could, trying to add Felix’s healing magic to the mix to get things done. It was weird, but I could almost picture my insides in my mind, all those torn muscles and severed blood vessels pulling themselves back together. And I realized that I could only feel the cold burn of magic in and around my stab wound—nowhere else in my body.
I wasn’t sure if Devon’s power and his command had faded away, or if I just figured out how to use my transference magic in this new way, but I slowly started to get better.
I slowly started to heal.
I screamed and then screamed again as the blood loss slowed down and then trickled to a stop. My muscles pulled themselves back together, with my skin sealing itself shut over everything. It was worse than any stitch-sting I’d ever used, worse than any pain I’d ever felt, even when Katia had stabbed me in the first place. Every second was utter, miserable, white-hot agony. But I screamed through it, and I focused on using the surge of magic to repair as much of the damage as fast as I could.
Slowly, my breathing grew easier, and the black and white stars faded from my vision. My screams died down to choked sobs and then even those dissolved into a silent stream of tears trickling down my face. It took me a minute to realize that I actually felt . . . okay. Like I wasn’t dying anymore.
I blinked and realized that I was flat on my back on the floor, with Devon and Felix still holding my hands and looming over me, and Deah standing behind them, all three of them staring at me with tense, tight expressions.
“Did it work?” Devon asked in a shaky voice.
“I don’t know,” Felix said. “But she stopped screaming. That’s usually a good sign.”
“Well, pull her shirt up and look at the wound, you idiots,” Deah said.
Devon and Felix kept gaping at me, so she dropped to her knees, shouldered Felix out of the way, and lifted up my T-shirt.
“Her skin—” Felix murmured, leaning forward and peering at my stomach. “It’s whole again. There’s not even a scar!”
“Well, then, I would say that it worked,” Deah sniped.
But her hands were surprisingly gentle as she smoothed down my T-shirt again.
“Devon! Felix! Lila!”
Somewhere outside the boathouse, voices started shouting our names. Felix got to his feet and hurried over to the open door, waving his hands.
“Over here!” he called out. “We’re over here!”
Felix stepped outside to get more help, while Devon and Deah helped me sit up and slump back against the wall.
Deah looked at him, then me, her eyebrows arching up. “That was quite a show, for a girl who supposedly only has sight and strength Talents and a guy who supposedly doesn’t have any magic at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that almost looked like transference power, along with compulsion.”
Devon’s face hardened. “And what if it was? You going to run and tell your dad? Because that’s exactly what Blake would do.”
Deah flinched at the mention of Victor and Blake, but anger sparked in her eyes. “No matter what you think about me, Sinclair, I’m not a monster.”
“But you are a Draconi,” he said in a cold voice. “And information like this would be very important to Victor.”
“He’ll try to kill us and take our magic,” I said. “You know he will.”
Deah stared at me. “Is it true? What you said to Katia. That your mom and mine were sisters? That we’re cousins?”
Devon sucked in a breath at the revelation, but he didn’t say anything. He knew this moment was between Deah and me.
“Look at my sword. Tell me what you think.”
Deah went over, grabbed my sword, and sank back down beside me. She laid my sword out on the floor next to hers.
They were almost identical.
My sword had a large, single star carved into the hilt, whereas hers had three stars that were equal size. But the star patterns running down the blades were exactly the same, and it was obvious the swords were from the same family—the Sterling Family.
Deah stared at the swords for several seconds, all sorts of emotions flashing in her eyes, but I was too tired to use my soulsight to try to see what she was feeling. Finally, she got to her feet, grabbed her sword, and slid it back into her scabbard.
“What are you going to tell people?” Devon asked. “About Katia and everything else that happened?”
He was really asking again if she was going to blab to Victor about our magic.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Deah’s mouth twisted, but her voice was sad when she spoke again. “Don’t worry. No one will ask me anything because no one will even realize that I was gone.”
She looked at me a second longer, then turned and left the boathouse.
 
 
The rest of the night passed by in a blur. Claudia, Mo, Angelo, Reginald, and Oscar came to the boathouse, along with several Sinclair guards. I told Claudia and my friends the truth about what had happened, but Claudia decided to leave Deah out of things completely, since it would be easier for her and us if there was no mention of Deah being here tonight.
And just as Deah had said, I doubted that Blake and Victor would wonder where she had been. I just hoped that she didn’t get in trouble for telling everyone that I’d let her win the tournament, but there was nothing I could do about that now.