I told them about the dead tree trolls we’d found in the ravine close to the Draconi compound. I also pulled out the candy bar I’d taken from the trap and showed it to everyone, but it was just chocolate, the sort of thing you could buy at any store.
“That just sounds like Victor being Victor,” Claudia said. “He’s always been the sort to pull the wings off a butterfly just because he can. Trapping and killing tree trolls is right up his alley.”
“Blake’s too,” Devon agreed. “Either one of them could have put that cage in the woods.”
“But what about the troll we found next to that dumpster yesterday?” I asked. “That wasn’t anywhere near the Draconi section of the Midway.”
Devon shrugged. “Blake could have done that too. We ran into him and Deah a few minutes before we found the troll, remember?”
I nodded. He was probably right, but I still couldn’t help but feel there was something more to the monsters’ deaths. Sure, Victor and Blake delighted in their cruelty, but they also didn’t waste their time on things that wouldn’t help them. What could they possibly hope to gain from murdering a bunch of monsters?
I didn’t know, but I had a bad, bad feeling that it was the key to Victor’s plot against Claudia and all the other Families.
There was nothing else for us to report, so Devon, Felix, and I said our goodnights. Mo shooed us out of the library, claiming that we needed to get as much sleep as possible, since the Tournament of Blades would start bright and early again in the morning.
Yippee-skippee.
I went back to my bedroom, where Oscar was sitting on the front porch steps of his trailer. Tiny was on his back, snoozing in the corral, not looking like he had moved an inch in all the hours I’d been gone, although the tortoise’s feet were twitching in time to the twangy country music drifting out of the pixie’s trailer.
Oscar drained the rest of his honeybeer, then crumpled the miniature can in his hand and tossed it out onto the lawn, where it clattered against the ones already littering the grass. His violet gaze locked onto my coat. “I see you’ve been out.”
I shrugged out of the sapphire-blue spidersilk and hung it up on one of the posters on the bed. “It’s what I do.”
“And where did you go skulking off to tonight?”
“Nowhere special,” I said. “Just the Draconi compound.”
“What!” Oscar’s voice rose to a shriek that was loud enough to drown out the music.
Tiny grumbled and cracked one of his black eyes open, giving the pixie a reproachful look for disturbing his nap. Oscar ignored him and hopped to his feet, yanking his black cowboy hat off his head and whipping it back and forth in agitation.
“Why in the world would you go over there?” Oscar demanded, his voice climbing up another octave. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”
I winced at his screech. “Of course I do. But it wasn’t any more dangerous than living on the streets for four years. First Devon, now you. It seems like all anyone ever does around here is tell me what I shouldn’t do.”
“Well, maybe you should listen to us,” Oscar sniped back. “Because we’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have, cupcake. Call me crazy, but I’m not in a hurry for you to get yourself killed, especially not over a piece of scum like Victor Draconi.”
I winced, this time at my own stupid thoughtlessness. Oscar had lost a lot of friends to the Draconis over the years, so he was a bit sensitive about my putting myself in danger. In a way, the pixie and I were just alike. We didn’t want to care too much about people because we knew how easily they could be taken away from us—and how much it hurt when your heart was broken over and over again.
“Oscar, I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to worry you—”
“Forget it,” he spat out. “I don’t care to hear your lame-ass apology right now.”
The pixie glared at me, then slapped his cowboy hat back onto his head, stormed into his trailer, and used one of his boots to kick the door shut behind him. The resulting bang was hard enough to rattle the trailer windows and make a few more loose shingles slip off the roof and drop down onto the lawn. A few seconds later, Oscar turned his music up as loud as it would go, assaulting my ears with the twangy tunes.
I sighed. So far tonight, I’d fought with Deah, Felix, and Devon, and now Oscar was upset too. Plus, I still had no idea what Victor was really up to, I’d gotten some creepy, cryptic warning from Seleste Draconi, who might or might not be able to see the future, and I’d stumbled upon a mass grave full of tortured, murdered monsters.
Perfect end to a perfectly miserable day.