Dark Heart of Magic (26 page)

Suddenly, I realized why Katia's eyes kept going from hazel to green and back again—because of all the stolen tree troll magic pumping through her veins. Devon had said there was no way to cheat in the tournament, but he'd been wrong.

So very, very wrong.

“The trolls' magic . . . Vance's magic . . . you wanted it for the tournament. You took their power and used it to try to help you win.”

“Bingo again,” Katia said. “Look at you, on a roll and everything. And now I'm going to do the same thing to Deah. Come to think of it, I should have done this last year, when I had the chance.”

“You want her magic? You want her mimic power?”

“Of course I
want
it,” Katia snarled. “With Deah's power, I can beat anybody and win any tournament I enter, and I can finally scrape together enough money to leave my father behind forever. And forget working for the Volkovs too. With Deah's magic, I can do things the way
I've
always wanted to.”

She noticed my horrified expression. “Oh, don't look so shocked. You know what a loser my dad is. You see how he drinks.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And I know how much that must hurt. But that's no excuse for doing horrible things. Lots of kids have crappy parents, and they don't go around murdering monsters and people. Killing Deah isn't the answer to your problems.”

“Sure it is,” she replied. “And yours too. With her out of the way, they'll have to declare you the winner of the tournament like they should have all along. I saw your last fight with her, and I heard what she said to you at the picnic tables. You had her beat, so why did you let her win?”

“Because Deah's dad would have hurt her if she didn't win.”

She snorted. “Please. Deah should protect herself from Victor. She's strong enough to do it. She just doesn't have the spine for it.” Katia paused. “At least, she would have been strong enough, but now, all that lovely, lovely magic is going to be
mine
.”

I shook my head and stepped forward. “No way. I won't let you hurt her. It's sick and wrong and twisted, and you know it.”

Katia laughed, the sound cold enough to chill my bones. “Sure, I know it. But
I don't care
. The only thing I
do
care about is myself and finally
winning
. You don't have any say in it. Don't try to stop me, Lila. You won't like what happens.”

I raised my sword. “I'm not going to let you murder her.”

She grinned. “You don't have a choice. And since you're taking her side, well, I guess I'll be getting two powers for the price of one today. More strength magic for me. Goody.”

Katia drew out a dagger from the belt on her waist. I recognized it—it was the same dagger she'd used to kill Vance and the tree troll at the Midway.

I snapped my sword up into an attack position, but then she moved, almost too fast for me to follow. Of course, she was fast now. Her eyes were as bright and green as a troll's, which meant she had some monster magic running through her body.

I barely got my sword up in time to avoid her first blow and all the others she rained down on me. I'd fought people with speed Talents before, even during the tournament, but Katia was something else. She was just too quick for me, and it was all I could do to parry her lightning-fast attacks. A few more moves, and she would be able to disarm me. Still, I fought on, trying to figure some way out of this mess.

Katia finally got the advantage and knocked my sword out of my hand. Desperate, I charged at her, but she easily sidestepped me. But that was okay because it gave me enough time to yank my phone out of my pocket. I hadn't managed to connect with my earlier swipes, but I hit the screen and speed-dialed Devon. I could hear the call going through.

“What do you think you're doing?” Katia hissed. “Who are you calling?”

She lashed out with her dagger, and I ducked out of the way. She made another move for my phone, but I threw it into the bushes before she could get her hands on it.

Katia rushed at me again, and I sucked in a breath to yell, hoping that Devon would hear the noise through my phone. But she was so quick that I didn't even get a chance to do that.

Even as I opened my mouth to scream, her fist zoomed toward my face. I tried to turn away, but she was faster than I was, and I couldn't avoid the hard, sharp blow.

Everything went black.

T
he pounding in my head woke me.

I groaned and realized that my neck was twisted at an awkward angle and that I was slumped up against a hard, wooden wall like a sack of potatoes. My eyes fluttered open, and a couple of overhead lights burned into my brain. I closed my eyes against the harsh glare and sat upright, even though it increased the pounding in my skull. For some reason, my arm was wrenched up above my head, making my shoulder ache as well. I tried to lower it, only to find that I couldn't.

I peered up, squinting against the glare of the bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling. A thick shackle circled my right wrist, above my silver Sinclair cuff, with a chain leading from the shackle to a metal loop that had been driven deep into the wall. I sucked down a breath and yanked and yanked on the chain, but it was made out of hard, heavy metal, and all I could do was make the links
rattle-rattle
together like bones.

I forced down my panic and looked around, trying to figure out where I was and how I could get out of here. There was only one door, directly opposite from where I was shackled, and the entire structure was made out of old, weathered boards, including the wall I was chained to. The wood might have been painted a cheery red at one time, but the color was now a dull, rusty brown. The wide open area and high A-frame ceiling reminded me of the picnic shelters by the lake. An old, dusty table and a couple of cobweb-coated chairs squatted off to one side of the room, along with two splintered oars and a wooden canoe with a gaping hole in its hull. The air smelled of fish, and I could hear the steady
rush-rush-rush
of the lake slapping against the shore.

The old boathouse. I was in the old boathouse that Katia had mentioned. Her special spot with Felix. I shuddered.

“You really should have stayed at the picnic tables,” a voice muttered. “We both should have.”

I looked to my left to see Deah sitting on the floor a few feet away. One of her arms was chained to the wall as well, and she'd been struggling against the shackle and chain for quite a while, judging by the red marks that circled her wrist.

“What's going on?” I asked, trying to focus despite the pounding in my brain. “Who did this to us?”

“You really don't remember?”

I shook my head and bit back another groan as that small motion made the ache intensify in my skull. I cradled my head in my free hand and took some deep breaths, trying to get the pounding pain under control.

Finally, I managed it and raised my head again. Deah sat slumped up against the wall, a miserable expression on her face. She kept glancing at the door across from us.

“She'll be back soon,” Deah said in a flat voice. “I imagine that she'll get started then.”

Suddenly, everything came rushing back to me. Finding Deah in the woods, hearing Katia brag about all the horrible things she'd done, fighting Katia, losing when she'd used her stolen speed magic to punch me out.

“How did we get here?” I asked.

Deah shrugged. “I was knocked out for most of it. All I remember is Katia throwing me over her shoulder and carrying me through the woods. She must have done the same thing to you, and now, here we are.”

“We have to get out of here before she comes back.”

Deah snorted. “Way to state the obvious, Lila. But it's not going to happen. Believe me, I've tried.”

She cursed and rattled her chain again, but it didn't jerk free of the wall.

Footsteps sounded outside, getting louder and louder as they headed in our direction. Deah scrambled to her feet, and I did the same, the links in our chains
clank-clank-clanking
together in a dark, ominous chorus.

The door to the boathouse slammed open, and Katia strolled inside. She gave me and Deah a thin smile, then went over and set down the gold winner's cup on top of the table. She also threw down two black leather scabbards next to it. Our swords. I tensed and so did Deah. If we could just get our hands on the weapons, we might have a chance.

Katia noticed us staring longingly at the swords and unsheathed first one, then the other, staring at the scrollwork carved into the hilts and black blades.

“Funny how they both have stars carved into them,” she said. “Almost like you two were from the same family or something.”

“That's because we are,” I said. “We're cousins. Our moms, Seleste and Serena Sterling, were sisters.”

Deah gasped, her eyes bulging in shock. She'd never expected me to say something like that. Even I wasn't quite sure why I'd revealed that particular secret right now. Maybe because I was tired of people keeping things from me and didn't want to do the same thing to her.

Deah kept staring at me. I shrugged back at her.

“Seleste might get confused, but she doesn't get
that
confused,” I said. “I do look quite a bit like my mom.”

“Whatever. I didn't bring you two here to listen to your family drama.” Katia held up my sword, admiring it. “But I have been wanting a new blade. Maybe I'll use yours, Lila. You won't be needing it anymore.”

My hands curled into fists. “The only way you're getting my mom's sword is over my dead body.”

She smirked at me. “Why do you think we're all here at the boathouse? So no one will hear the two of you scream when I take your magic.”

Deah's hands also clenched into fists, and she surged forward, but the chain on her arm pulled her up short.

Katia grinned and clucked her tongue. “What's the matter, Deah? Feeling a little . . . tied up?” She laughed. “Or maybe you just don't know what to do now that you're not the center of attention. When there's no one around to make sure that I fight fair.”

Deah didn't say anything, but if looks could kill, Katia would have been feeding the fishes by now.

“Now, you two just hang tight,” Katia said. “I want to check my traps before we get started.”

“What traps?” I asked.

She laid my sword down on the table. “Oh, the ones I stole from Uncle Nikolai last summer. He had several of them rusting away in a shed at the Volkov compound. I doubt he even noticed they were gone.”

I remembered what Mo had told me about murdered monsters being found on the edge of the Volkov property last year. So Katia had been killing creatures last summer as well. I wondered how many monsters she'd tortured just to get their magic.

“This summer, I set some traps along the lake in hopes of catching more trolls than I did last year,” Katia said. “There was a copper crusher in one of them when I looked earlier. I'm going to go take care of it right now.”

I shuddered, thinking of the cage I'd found on the Draconi property—and how Katia would carve up the crusher to take its strength magic.

“Anyway, I'll be back in a few minutes, and then we'll see just how loud the two of you can scream.”

Katia smirked at us again, then turned and left the boathouse, slamming the door shut behind her. Deah started pulling on her chain again, even harder than before.

I sighed. “Maybe we should talk about being cousins—”

“Shut it,” Deah snapped, still pulling and pulling on her chain. “The only thing I'm concerned about right now is getting out of here. And you should be too.”

She was right. Escape first, talk later. Still, her tone annoyed me.

“Well, that's not going to work, unless you have some strength magic that I don't know about,” I said.

“Well, do you have a better idea?” she snapped.

“Maybe.”

I held up my arm and looked at the shackle on my wrist. The shackle was old and thick, too thick for me to have any chance of breaking it, but Katia had snapped a tiny metal padlock through the loops to secure the two halves of the shackle together. A nice, new, shiny padlock that wasn't nearly as sturdy as it appeared to be. The sort of padlock that I'd picked open a hundred times before. I grinned. We were as good as out of here.

I reached up into my ponytail—but my chopstick lock picks were gone.

No picks meant no opening the padlock and no chance of escape. Panic welled up in me, but I forced it down and looked around the boathouse, hoping that the chopsticks had just fallen out of my hair and were somewhere in here.

A few seconds later, I spotted the two shiny black sticks lying on the floor—on the far side of Deah, well beyond my reach.

I cursed, and Deah stopped pulling on her chain to see what I was staring at.

“You want your hair sticks?” she sniped. “Really?”

“They're not just for my hair,” I sniped back. “They're lock picks. You know, something that might actually help us get out of these.” I held up my shackled arm. “Unless you have a better idea?”

She shook her head.

“I didn't think so. So can you grab them and hand them over to me . . .
please
?” I had to choke out the last word, but there was no way I could reach the chopsticks, so I decided to be nice.

“And why would I want to do that?” She crossed her arms over her chest at the snarky tone in my voice.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I don't know. So we can get out of here and away from the evil girl who wants to cut us up and take our magic.”

Deah kept glaring at me. I sighed.

“Look, I don't like it any more than you do, us being related and everything that means, but working together is the only way we're getting out of here alive. Unless you want to be gutted like a fish and have your magic torn out of you just so Katia can win some tournaments?”

Deah sighed. “Fine. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. Or you. Or especially that secret you just dropped on me,
cousin
.”

“I wouldn't dream that you ever would,
cousin
,” I sniped back.

She glanced at the closed door, then slid to her left, moving slowly so as not to make her chain
clank-clank-clank
any more than necessary.

“Hurry up!” I hissed.

She gave me a withering look, but she increased her pace. Deah reached the end of her chain, then dropped to her knees and stretched her hand out as far as she could.

Short—she was three feet too short.

Deah stretched and stretched, but no matter how hard or far she clawed, she just couldn't reach the chopsticks. After about two minutes of heaving, she gave up, panting hard and trying to get her breath back.

“It's no use,” she said. “I can't reach them. Now what?”

Instead of answering, I looked around the boathouse again, searching for anything that would let her bridge those final three feet and reach the chopsticks. But there was nothing. Our swords were out of reach on the table, and the only things Katia had left on us were our clothes and shoes. Even if they were closer to us, the splintered oars and busted boat were useless. The one thing that might have helped us was a fishing pole, but I didn't see any sort of fishing gear—

Wait a second. Fishing poles. I didn't have one of those, but maybe I didn't need one. Maybe I could just make my own.

I thought about things, working out the problem in my mind, then bent down, yanked off my sneakers, and stripped the laces out of them.

“What are you doing?” Deah asked. “How is taking off your shoes going to help anything?”

I tied the laces together, then threaded one of the ends through the eyelets on my right sneaker, tying it off into a tight knot. Now I had a sneaker with more than three feet of string dangling from it.

“Here,” I said, passing the shoe over to her. “Think of it as a fishing pole.”

Deah stared at the shoe, then me. “You are either the craziest person I've ever met or the smartest.”

“Let's hope it's the smartest. Now, come on. Katia could come back any second.”

Deah nodded and turned toward the chopsticks. She let out a breath, then threw out the shoe, careful to hold on to the lace on the end, so she wouldn't lose it.

She hadn't thrown it hard enough, and it landed short of the chopsticks. We both froze at the loud noise it made, but five seconds passed, then ten, then fifteen, and no footsteps sounded. Katia either hadn't heard the noise or wasn't worried enough to leave her traps and come investigate it.

“Again,” I said. “Again.”

Deah yanked the sneaker back and tried again.

This time, the sneaker bridged the distance but landed too far to the right of the chopsticks for Deah to snag them.

“Again!” I hissed. “Quick!”

“Be quiet!” she snapped back. “You're ruining my concentration!”

I really wanted to snap at her again, but I forced myself to grind my teeth together and keep quiet.

Eyes narrowed, Deah looked at the chopsticks lying on the floor—
really
looked at them, the same way I would have with my sight magic. She hefted the sneaker in her hand, judging its weight and the distance. Then she let it fly.

The sneaker landed just beyond the chopsticks. Deah and I both sucked in breaths, and she pulled the sneaker toward her, one slow, careful inch at a time. The shoe bounced across the floor and Deah stopped. She fiddled with the laces for a few seconds and managed to flip the sneaker right side up. Then, she slowly drew it toward her again.