Dark Heart of Magic (15 page)

I
was so surprised that someone would be out here after dark that my brain ground to a complete halt, and I didn't even think of doing the smart thing, like vaulting over the fence and running away. Instead, all I could do was stare at the woman, my mouth gaping open.

Long, golden hair, dark blue eyes, pale skin that shimmered in the moonlight. She was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, like a fairy-tale princess come to life, but something about her seemed strangely . . . familiar. Like I'd seen her somewhere before, although I didn't think I had.

For as beautiful as she was, her appearance was also a bit strange. A long, flowing white garment covered her slender body, looking more like a nightgown than an actual dress, and her feet were bare, despite the sticks, rocks, and other woodsy debris that littered the cemetery. One lock of her golden hair was braided down the right side of her face and tied off with a sapphire-blue ribbon, while a white wicker basket full of blood-red roses dangled from her hand.

The woman stared at me, obviously seeing me despite the mist and the darkness, which meant that she had some sort of sight magic. I expected her to open her mouth and yell for the guards, but to my surprise, a soft smile curved her lips. The warm, welcoming expression made her look even more beautiful, like an ethereal ghost come to frolic in the moonlit cemetery.

“Serena!” she said, tossing her basket aside and racing over to me. “You finally came back!”

I couldn't have been more shocked than if she'd started doing cartwheels.
Serena?
She thought I was my
mom
? Why? Why would she think that? Sure, I had my mom's black hair and blue eyes, and I was even wearing her sapphire-blue coat, but I obviously wasn't
her
.

But the woman didn't seem to realize that. Instead, she stopped in front of me, reached out, and drew me into a tight hug.

“Oh, Serena,” she said in a choked voice. “It's been so long. So very, very long.”

I stood there, my mouth still gaping open, my arms hanging by my sides, wondering who this woman was and why she thought I was my dead mom. After several seconds, the woman drew back, still smiling.

“Oh, Serena,” she said in a light, lilting, almost singsong voice. “I have
so
much to tell you. About Deah and Lila and everything else that's been going on between the Families.”

More shock jolted through me. She knew my name? But if she knew that I was Serena's daughter, then why did she think that I was my mom?

I looked into her eyes, and I realized that they were unnaturally bright, as though two glittering jewels had been set into her face. But the weird thing was that my soulsight didn't automatically kick in the way it usually did whenever I locked gazes with someone.

I waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . but I didn't feel any of her emotions, even though she was obviously very glad to see me. No warm happiness, no blazing conviction, nothing. Instead, this strange, almost floating sensation filled my mind as if my head were full of the light, airy mist that surrounded us, as if I were somehow drifting away from the rest of my body—

I blinked, and the sensation vanished, although the woman's eyes remained as bright as ever. I tried to step away from her, but she reached out and grabbed my hands, hard and tight enough to tell me that she had a strength Talent.

“We have to warn the girls about the wolf,” the woman said in a low, urgent tone. “The wolf wants to devour them both, gobble them up until there's nothing left but bones and blades.... No blood, just bones and blades . . . bones and blades . . . bones and blades. . . .”

She shuddered and let go of my hands. She wrapped her arms around her body and hugged herself tight as though something terrible had happened.

“Are you okay?” I asked, having no idea what was going on or why.

The woman looked at me, her face dark and troubled. Then, in the next instant, she blinked, her lips stretching up in another sunny smile. “Just fine now that you're here, Serena.”

And then she turned around, retrieved her basket of roses, and skipped past me. Seriously, she was
skipping
as though she didn't have a care in the world. The woman headed straight to my father's tombstone, then dropped to her knees, pulled the red roses out of her basket, and started arranging them on his grave, humming a soft tune all the while.

All I could do was just stand there with my eyes bulging and mouth gaping open even wider than before. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Things just kept getting stranger and stranger.

“I thought that was you at the tournament today,” the woman said. “But, of course, I was up in the box, so I couldn't be sure.”

So she was the woman who'd been sitting in the Draconi box, the blonde wearing the white hat. That still didn't tell me who she might be in the Family, but that didn't matter. What did was getting out of here before someone else spotted me—

A branch
cracked
behind me, and a hand touched my shoulder.

Instinct took over. I grabbed the hand, turned my body into the one behind me, and flipped my attacker over my shoulder. The guy landed on his back with an audible
thump
, then let out a low groan of pain.

Felix blinked up at me. “Ouch. That hurt.”

 

“Felix!” I hissed. “What are you doing here?”

“I'd say the better question is what are
you
doing here,” another voice chimed in.

I whirled around to find Deah standing in the cemetery as well, her hand resting on the hilt of the sword strapped to her black leather belt. My hand curled around the hilt of my sword as well, and the two of us stood there, staring at each other, daring the other to make the first move.

“What are you doing here?” Deah demanded again. “You're trespassing.”

I couldn't exactly tell her that I'd been sneaking around her house and spying on her dad, so I went with the first lie that popped into my head. “I was looking for Felix.”

Deah crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. Felix sighed, then held out a hand. I reached down and helped him to his feet.

“Is this another one of your girlfriends?” she snapped.

I rolled my eyes. “Don't be an idiot. I came over here to make sure that no one spotted your Romeo—like, say, Blake or your dad.”

“How did you even know I was coming over here?” Felix asked.

I snorted. “Please. You're crazy about her. As soon as she stomped off at the tournament today, I knew you'd probably sneak over here tonight and make some grand romantic gesture to win her back. Am I wrong?”

Felix winced, but he didn't deny my accusation.

“Don't be so cross, darling,” another voice piped up. “It's always nice to have visitors.”

The blond woman had finished arranging the roses on my father's grave. She got to her feet, skipped back over, and stopped next to me.

“What are you doing out here?” Deah asked, concern creasing her face. “You know you're not supposed to leave the house after dark. It's not safe.”

The woman beamed at me. “Talking to Serena. What does it look like I'm doing, silly? And it's perfectly safe. Serena knows all about the monsters and the best ways to handle them.”

Deah sighed. “Mom. . . .”

My eyebrows shot up in my face. “This is your
mom
?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “This is my mom. Seleste Draconi. Do you have a problem with that?”

Her eyes glittered with anger, and her hand dropped to her sword again in a clear challenge.

“Now, don't be mad at Serena,” Seleste said. “We were just catching up. It's been so terribly long since I've seen her. We're family, you see.”

Seleste patted my shoulder, her touch light and soft. Us? Family? Why would she think
that
?

Deah frowned. “What's she talking about? Why does she keep calling you Serena? Did you do something to her?”

I held up my hands. “I didn't do anything to your mom. I was out here looking for Felix when she came skipping into the cemetery.”

“What did she say to you?”

I shrugged. “Nothing really. Just some weird, random stuff.”

Deah tensed, her jaw clenching. “She talked to you? Tell me what she said. Tell me the
exact words
.”

“Why? It was all just gibberish about bones and blades and stuff.”

She opened her mouth, probably to demand that I tell her what her mom had said, but another voice boomed through the night.

“Deah!” Blake shouted. “Where are you? Your crazy-ass mom got out of her room again!”

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she turned and yelled back to him. “I'm over here, Blake! I found her! We'll be there in a minute!”

Blake didn't respond, although a door slammed somewhere in the distance as though he'd gone back inside the castle.

“You two need to leave,” Deah hissed. “Now.”

Felix held out his hand. “But—”

“No buts. Just go.” Her face softened. “I'll text you later. Okay?”

He nodded. Deah stepped up, put her arm around her mom's shoulder, and gently steered her away from me. Still smiling, Seleste looked back over her shoulder and gave me a cheery wave.

“So nice to finally meet you, Lila. I'll be seeing you again soon,” she called out in that eerie, singsong voice.

Deah tightened her grip on her mom, opened the cemetery gate, and hurried toward the castle. She never looked back.

I waited until they were out of earshot before I looked at Felix. “What was that about? Why does Deah's mom act like that?”

He sighed and kicked at a tuft of overgrown grass. “Because she has a Talent for sight, specifically for seeing the future. She's always been like that, for as long as I can remember.”

“Deah's mom can see the future?” I'd heard of folks having that power, but it was a rare Talent, and I'd never met anyone before with it.

He nodded. “Yeah. She's always saying strange stuff, calling people by other names, seeing monsters that aren't there, things like that. And she's always wandering off. Deah has to watch her all the time to make sure she doesn't get too far from the house and accidentally hurt herself or get eaten by a monster. Once, Seleste managed to get all the way down to the lochness bridge in town before Deah and the guards caught up with her.”

I winced. That sounded like a rough life for Deah and her mom. “Is Seleste always so . . . out of it?”

Felix shrugged. “It comes and goes. Apparently, she's pretty clear during the day, but the sight or visions or whatever get worse at night.” He looked at me. “What did she say to you? According to Deah, she's pretty accurate. The rumor is that's why Victor married her—for her visions.”

Seleste's urgent, singsong voice whispered in my mind. This time, I was the one who shuddered. I didn't know if she could actually see the future or not, but those files and notes in Victor's office had me worried enough already, without thinking about bones and blades, or whatever her warning really meant.

“Nothing that made sense,” I said, answering Felix's question. “Deah's right. We need to leave before one of the guards decides to patrol through here. Let's go.”

 

Felix and I left the cemetery and headed through the woods toward the Sinclair mansion. Well, I walked and Felix trudged, banging into more trees and crashing through more bushes than he maneuvered around, since the white mist had now fully engulfed the forest.

“Slow down,” he muttered, after bouncing off yet another tree. “Some of us don't have magical night vision, remember?”

“Well, then, it's a good thing you can use your healing Talent to stitch up all those cuts and scrapes you're getting.”

“You are
so
not funny,” he groused.

I grinned, even though he couldn't see me. “I'm a laugh riot and you know it.”

Felix grumbled something under his breath that I was probably better off not hearing.

“Actually, I don't think that trespassing on Draconi property is really a laughing matter,” a low voice drawled.

My hand dropped to the hilt of my sword, ready to pull it free, while Felix stepped up beside me. But instead of a Draconi guard, Devon stepped out of the trees right in front of us.

“Busted,” Felix muttered.

Devon crossed his arms over his chest, his mouth fixed in a flat line. A black cloak covered his shoulders to help him better blend in with the shadows, and a sword was belted to his waist. Devon rarely carried a weapon, and the sword told me how worried he'd been about us. He was also holding a flashlight, the circular beam shooting off into the trees.

Devon raised his eyebrows. “Care to tell me what the two of you are doing way out here where you shouldn't be?”

Felix opened his mouth, but for once, words escaped him. He clamped his lips shut and looked at me for help. I shrugged. I didn't have any lies ready either. There was really no good reason for either one of us to be out here, and all three of us knew it, especially Devon.

“Let me see if I can explain things,” Devon said. “Felix went over to the Draconi compound to see Deah, apologize, and explain to her why Katia was flirting with him at the tournament.”