Dark Heart of Magic (Black Blade #2)(3)

“Please, Lila,” Devon said. “Try to talk to the troll.”

I sighed. “Sure. Why not?”

Most magic fell into three categories—strength, speed, and senses, such as sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch. So lots of magicks had a Talent for sight, whether it was the ability to see great distances, in microscopic detail, or even in the dark. But I had the more unusual Talent of also being able to see into people and feel their emotions as though they were my own, whether it was love, anger, jealousy, or something else. Soulsight, it was called. I’d never used it on a monster before, though, but I supposed there was a first time for everything.

So I stepped forward, tipped my head back, and peered up at the creature. Maybe it sensed what I was trying to do because it stopped jumping up and down and focused on me as intently as I was staring at it. My eyes locked with the monster’s, and my soulsight kicked in.

The tree troll’s red-hot anger slammed into my chest like a flaming fist, but that emotion, that feeling, was quickly smothered by another, stronger one—stomach-churning fear.

I frowned. What could the troll have to be so worried about? Sure, Devon, Felix, and I were all wearing swords belted to our waists, but so did most everyone in the Families. It wasn’t like we were actually going to hurt the creature. Or maybe that’s what the other mobs did. I wouldn’t put it past the Draconi Family to slaughter the monsters that dared to wander into their territory, either down here in the city or up on Cloudburst Mountain, where the Draconi mansion was located.

But whatever the troll was so worried about, it wasn’t going to leave or even calm down until it had been taken care of. As if the troll could sense my thoughts, it cheeped again, then skittered up a branch, moving higher and higher into the tree, and disappearing into the green clusters of leaves.

“What did you do to it?” Felix asked.

“I didn’t do anything to it,” I said. “Here. Hold this.”

I unbuckled the black leather belt from around my waist and passed it over to Felix. He clutched the belt and the attached sword and scabbard in his hands.

“What are you doing, Lila?” Devon asked.

“It’s worried about something. I’m going to find out what that is.”

I went over and circled around the tree, my dark blue gaze going from one branch to the next as I mentally calculated how I could best get up to where the troll was.

Felix looked at me, then at the tree. “You’re going to climb up there? With the troll?” He shook his head. “Sometimes, I forget how totally cray-cray you are.”

I scoffed. “The only one here who is cray-cray is you, Romeo.”

Felix’s face scrunched up with worry at my not-so-veiled reference to his love life. On the surface, Felix might seem like a terrible flirt, but it was all an act to hide how crazy he was about Deah Draconi, daughter of Victor Draconi, the most powerful man in town. Naturally, Victor hated all the other Families, especially the Sinclairs, because that’s how these kinds of doomed love stories always went. My mom and dad were proof of that.

Devon glanced back and forth between Felix and me, but he didn’t say anything. If he knew what I was talking about, he didn’t pipe up and say so.

I shut Devon and Felix out of my mind, stepped forward, and took hold of the tree. The blood persimmon was old and sturdy, with lots of thick branches that would hold my weight. I’d always enjoyed climbing, no matter the surface or what I was scaling, and it was practically a job requirement for a thief.

So I shimmied up the trunk, then reached up for the first branch. I quickly went up ten, fifteen, twenty feet, smiling all the while and enjoying the earthy smell of the tree and the rough scrape of the bark against my hands. I might be an official member of the Sinclair Family now, with a thin veneer of legitimacy, but I still liked practicing all my old tricks. You never knew when they might come in handy, especially with Victor Draconi plotting something against all the other Families.

Finally, when I was about thirty feet up, that distinctive cheep-cheep-cheeping sounded again. I looked up to find the troll perched on a branch up and off to my left. The creature regarded me with open suspicion, its emerald-green eyes narrowed to slits, another blood persimmon clutched in its long, curved black claws. Three fresh, jagged scars raked down the right side of the troll’s face, as if it had tangled with a much bigger monster recently—and won. This one was a fighter. Good thing I was too.

I wrapped my legs around the branch, making sure that I wouldn’t fall, then held my hands out to my sides, trying to let the troll know that I wasn’t here to hurt it. The creature kept staring at me, but it didn’t make a move to bean me in the face with the fruit. Finally, some progress.

I dropped my right hand down to my side and unzipped one of the pockets on my cargo pants. The troll cocked its head to the side, its small, gray, triangle-shaped ears twitching at the sound of several quarters jingle-jangling together in my pocket.

But instead of coins, I drew out a dark chocolate bar, held it up above my head, and waved it back and forth. The troll’s black nose twitched, and its green eyes brightened in appreciation and anticipation.

Monsters might have more teeth and talons than the rest of us, but it was easy enough to deal with most of them. You just had to know what to bribe them with, something I totally appreciated as a thief. Most of the time, a drop of blood or a lock of hair was enough to get you safe passage through a monster’s territory. Some monsters, like the lochness that Felix had mentioned, required quarters and other shiny coins, but tree trolls went in for more immediate gratification.