I looked down at my hand, but the two deep, red puncture wounds from the crusher’s fangs were gone. So was the pain in my face and head. In fact, all my cuts, bumps, and bruises had been healed, including the broken bones in my hand, and I felt perfectly fine. Felix and Angelo must have used their healing magic on me, along with a whole lot of stitch-sting. But I was well and whole again, except for the old, familiar ache in my heart, one that seeing my mom had only intensified.
“We were standing on the balcony outside my room at the Sinclair mansion, looking down at the Midway,” I whispered. “She looked so beautiful, just like I remember. And the way she smiled at me, talked to me, it was like she was really there.”
“Maybe she was,” Claudia murmured.
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Sight magic is a very powerful thing, especially in the Sterling Family. Seleste can see the future, Deah can see people well enough to copy their every movement with her mimic magic, and you can actually see into people’s hearts with your soulsight. Who’s to say that you can’t see something else? Sometimes, the living and the dead aren’t that far apart, especially in a place like Cloudburst Falls.”
I didn’t know if I believed all that or not, but my mom had seemed so real to me in the dream or vision or whatever it had really been. If nothing else, seeing her again, even if it was only a figment of my imagination, had given me a little peace. I was comforted by the idea that she was in a better place, in some other version of Cloudburst Falls where she was alive and well and watching over me.
“So what happened after the fight at the warehouse?” I asked. “Where did you guys go? And how did you end up here at the Ito mansion?”
Claudia sat back in her chair, lacing her fingers together and making her silver Sinclair cuff flash on her wrist.
“I was pretty out of it myself, but the others took me to your library basement. Angelo and Felix used their magic and your supply of stitch-sting to heal me, Mo, and everyone else who had been injured,” she said. “The guards and pixies told us what had happened at the mansion, so we knew that we couldn’t go back there, but there wasn’t room for all of us in the library basement. So I reached out to Hiroshi, hoping that he had escaped the restaurant. He had and he suggested that we join forces. I agreed and, well, here we are.”
“And Devon and the others?”
She gestured to an empty chair that had been pulled up close to the other side of my bed. “He was sitting right there, watching over you, until I finally made him go get some sleep,” she said. “Everyone’s fine, thanks to you.”
I nodded, tears pricking my eyes. I’d hoped that Devon had escaped with the others, but it was such a relief to hear that he had. That he was all right. That everyone was okay.
For now.
“And this is fine too.”
She leaned down, picked up something from beside her chair, and raised it where I could see it.
My mom’s sword glinted in her hand.
My breath caught in my throat, and Claudia reached over and laid the sword down on the bed beside me. I eagerly traced my fingers over the stars engraved in the blade, then the single one carved into the hilt. I’d thought that my mom’s sword had been lost in the fight with the Draconi guards, that it was another piece of her that had been ripped away from me forever. But to see it here, now, to hold it in my hand again.... My heart lifted and tears scalded my eyes.
“How . . . who . . .” So many emotions were rushing through me that I couldn’t even get my questions out.
Claudia realized what I was asking. “Oscar,” she said. “He couldn’t save you from the Draconis, but he managed to dart in, scoop up your sword, and fly away with it before they could stop him.”
Despite their small size, pixies were quite strong and could lift and carry several times their own body weight, but this . . . this was amazing. A truly incredible feat on his part. I didn’t know how I would ever repay Oscar for saving this piece of my mom for me.
I ran my fingers over the sword a final time, then focused on Claudia again. “So what happens now?” I asked. “Victor told me that he challenged you to a duel. That you either had to face him, or he would order his guards to kill anyone who has anything to do with the other Families.”
She grimaced. “So he did. A one-on-one magic battle. Winner take all. You should like this. He wants it to take place on the lochness bridge.”
I frowned. “Why would he pick that spot?”
Claudia shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“You can’t face him. He’ll kill you with his lightning magic. You know he will.”
A wry smile curved her lips. “Concerned about me, are you, Lila?”
“Of course I am. I’ve grown rather used to living in a mansion, eating all the bacon I want, and sleeping in a nice, warm, soft bed every night. I’d hate to have to give that up just because you went and did something as silly as getting yourself killed.”