Careful of the falling persimmons, Devon Sinclair stepped up beside me and craned his neck back. His black T-shirt and khaki cargo pants were splattered with even more persimmon pulp than mine, making it look as though he’d been caught in a red rainstorm. The only part of him not covered in fruit was the silver cuff that glimmered on his right wrist, one stamped with a distinctive design—a hand holding a sword aloft. The symbol of the Sinclair Family.
“He’s not a very happy fellow, is he?” Devon murmured in his deep, rumbling voice. “No wonder the tourists are complaining about him.”
Cloudburst Falls was known far and wide as “the most magical place in America,” a place where “fairy tales are real,” so tourism was the name of the game around here. People from all over the country and the world came to see the magnificent views from Cloudburst Mountain, the rugged, fog-covered peak that loomed over the city. They also enjoyed the shops, casinos, restaurants, hotels, and other attractions that ringed the Midway, the main drag in the center of town.
But monsters were also drawn to the area because of all the bloodiron, a magical metal that had been mined out of Cloudburst Mountain over the years. At least, that’s what the local legends and tall tales claimed. Tourist rubes might like to ooh and aah at the monsters in the various zoos in the Midway and photograph the creatures in their natural habitats during tours and expeditions up the mountain, but the out-of-towners didn’t appreciate tree trolls lobbing persimmon grenades their way as they walked down the sidewalk. And the tourists didn’t care to be attacked or eaten by dangerous monsters lurking in dark alleys and shadowy spots around town. So it was the job of the Families, or mobs, to make sure the monsters stayed in their designated areas. Or at least didn’t snack on too many tourists.
This particular troll had taken up residence in a tall blood persimmon tree that sat at the edge of one of the shopping squares off the Midway. Since this particular square was part of the Sinclair territory, we had been called in to deal with the creature. For the last three days, the troll had been fruit-bombing everyone who dared walk by its tree, causing several tourists to drop and break their expensive phones and cameras. Nothing pissed off a tourist more than losing their fancy new phone. I knew, since I’d spent the last few years swiping phones out of the pockets, purses, and fanny packs of every out-of-towner who looked like an easy mark.
Beside me, Devon shifted on his feet, moving out of the bright, direct sun into a pool of dappled shadows closer to the tree. The warm rays filtered down through the branches and danced across his muscled body, showing off his intense green eyes, rugged features, and the honey highlights in his dark chocolate brown hair. I breathed in, catching a whiff of his crisp pine scent, mixed in with the sticky sweetness of the splattered persimmons. Just standing near Devon made my heart do a funny little pitter-patter in my chest, but I ignored the sensation, just as I’d been doing for weeks now.
“What do you want to do about the troll?” I asked. “Because I don’t think he’s coming down from there without a fight.”
Devon was the bruiser, or second-in-command, of the Sinclair Family, responsible for overseeing all the Family guards and dealing with the monster problems that arose in Sinclair territory. Most of the bruisers for the various Families were arrogant jerks who enjoyed bossing people around and taking advantage of the other perks of their powerful position. But Devon was a genuinely good guy who treated everyone in his Family equally, from the smallest pixie to the toughest guard. Plus, he would do anything to help his friends and the folks he cared about, something he’d proven by putting himself in danger time and time again.
Devon’s inherent goodness and devotion to others were two of the many things that made me like him way more than I should. His soulful green eyes, teasing grin, and rocking body didn’t hurt matters, either.
Me? Good and I weren’t exactly close friends, and the only devotion I had was to myself, and making sure I had plenty of cash in my pockets, food in my stomach, and a warm, dry place to sleep. I was a loner thief who’d spent the last four years living in the shadows, until a few weeks ago when I’d been recruited to be Devon’s bodyguard. Not that he really needed a guard. Devon was a tough fighter who could take care of himself—and then some.
“Well, I say we pick up all the fruit that’s still in one piece and chuck it right back at the troll,” another voice suggested in a snide tone. “Let him see how it feels to get splattered for a change.”
I looked over at Felix Morales, Devon’s best friend and another Sinclair Family member. With his wavy black hair, bronze skin, and dark brown eyes, Felix was even more handsome than Devon, despite the fact he was also covered in pulp. Not that I would ever tell him that. Felix was already a terrible flirt. We’d been in the square for ten minutes, and he’d spent more time grinning at the tourist girls who wandered by than trying to figure out what to do about the troll.
Felix winked at two girls in tank tops and short-shorts who were sitting on a nearby bench sipping lemonade, then waggled his fingers at them. The girls giggled and waved back.
I elbowed him in the side. “Try to pay attention.”
Felix shot me a sour look and rubbed his side.
“What do you normally do about tree trolls who throw things at tourists?” I asked.
Devon shrugged. “Usually, we don’t have to do all that much. Most of the trolls stay in the trees in their designated habitat areas in and around the Midway. Whenever they start making pests of themselves, we send some guards over to tell them to either cut it out or move back up the mountain where they can do whatever they want.”
I nodded. Like most monsters, tree trolls could understand human speech, even if mortals and magicks couldn’t really understand them all that well.
“Usually, that’s the end of it, but this guy doesn’t seem to want to leave,” Devon said. “He’s still here, despite the guards that I sent over yesterday. And he’s not the only one. I’ve heard rumors that all the other Families are having similar problems with trolls. Seems like something has them spooked, causing them to come down the mountain in record numbers.”
As soon as Devon said the word leave, the tree troll started jumping up and down even faster than before, its cheep-cheep-cheeps growing louder and louder. The high-pitched shrieks stabbed into my brain, making me grateful that enhanced hearing wasn’t one of my Talents. The creature was plenty loud enough already without the sound being magically amplified.
All around us, the tourists stopped slurping down their jumbo sodas, noshing on their giant wads of cotton candy, and snapping photos of the bubbling fountain in the middle of the square. They all turned to stare in our direction, curious about the commotion. I dropped my head and slid behind Felix, trying to blend into the background as much as possible. As a thief, I’d never liked being the center of attention. Kind of hard to pick someone’s pocket or snag a watch off her wrist when she was looking straight at you. I might not be here to steal anything, but old habits die hard.
Devon looked at me. “Do you think you can use your soulsight to see what he’s so upset about?”
“Yeah,” Felix chimed in. “Let the great Lila Merriweather do her magic mojo. She is the monster whisperer, after all.”
I reached over and punched him in the shoulder.
“Hey!” Felix said, rubbing his arm. “What was that for?”
“I am not a monster whisperer.”
He rolled his eyes. “Did you or did you not feed three guys to a lochness a few weeks ago?”
I winced. That was exactly what I’d done. I didn’t even feel bad about it, since the guys had been trying to kill Devon and me at the time. But I’d always been secretive about my magic, my Talents, and all the things my mom had taught me about dealing with monsters. I’d had to be, since I wanted to keep my magic firmly inside my own body and not have someone rip it out of me to use himself. So I wasn’t used to Felix or anyone else joking about it so openly. Every time he or Devon made a comment about m
y magic, I looked around, wondering who might have overheard and what they might do to me in order to get my power.
Devon noticed my worried expression, and he put his hand on my shoulder. The warmth of his fingers soaked through my T-shirt and burned into my skin. That was something else I liked a lot more than I should. I shrugged out from under his touch, trying not to notice the flash of hurt in his eyes.
“Please, Lila,” Devon said. “Try to talk to the troll.”
I sighed. “Sure. Why not?”
The majority of magic fell into three categories—strength, speed, and senses. 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, hate, anger, or something else. Soulsight, it was called. I’d never used it on a monster before, but I supposed there was a first time for everything.
I stepped forward, tipped my head back, and peered up at the creature. Maybe it sensed what I was trying to do because it actually 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 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.
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 it could sense my thoughts, the troll cheeped again, then skittered up a branch, moving higher into the tree and disappearing into the green cluster of leaves.
“What did you do to it?” Felix asked.
“I didn’t do anything,” 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 try to find out what that is.”
I went over and circled around the persimmon tree, my dark blue gaze going from one branch to the next as I mentally calculated how I could best scramble up to where the troll was now perched.
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 with a passion, 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 said nothing. If he knew what I was talking about, he didn’t let on.
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. It was practically a job requirement for a thief because it was often the most convenient way to get into and out of locked, guarded places—places I wasn’t supposed to be.
So I shimmied up the trunk, then reached 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 old tricks. You never knew when they might come in handy, especially with Victor Draconi plotting something against the other Families.
Finally, when I had reached thirty feet, that distinctive cheep-cheep-cheeping sounded again. I found the troll perched on a branch off to my left. The creature regarded me with open suspicion, its emerald-green eyes narrowed to slits. It clutched another blood persimmon in its long, curved black claws, ready to chuck the fruit at me. 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 I wouldn’t fall, then held my hands out to my sides, trying to assure the troll 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.
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 mortals or magicks, but it was easy enough to deal with the creatures—most of the time. You just had to know how to bribe them. Oftentimes, 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 required immediate gratification.
Dark chocolate, and lots of it.
“C’mon,” I crooned. “You know you want it. I’m just paying the toll for climbing your tree and invading your personal space—”
The troll scrambled down, snatched the chocolate bar, and returned to its previous branch, its lightning-quick movements almost too fast for me to follow.
Zip-zip-zip.
Its black claws made quick work of the wrapper, and the troll sank its needle-sharp teeth into the chocolate. More little cheep-cheeps sounded, but this time, they were squeaks of pleasure.
I waited until the troll had downed another bite before starting my spiel, such as it was. “Listen, little furry dude. I’m not here to make trouble. But you know how it is. You start acting out and throwing stuff at tourists, then the Sinclair Family is going to make you move on. You know that. So what’s got you so upset?”
The troll chomped down on another piece of chocolate, staring at me all the while, green eyes locking with mine. Once again, its anger and worry punched me in the heart, mixed in with a bit of warm happiness brought on by eating the chocolate. Nothing strange there. Chocolate made me happy, too.
But the longer I stared at the troll, the brighter and greener its eyes became, until they were practically glowing like stars in its furry face. It almost seemed as if the creature had the same soulsight that I did and was peering into me the same way I was into it. Judging whether or not I was trustworthy. So I focused on remaining calm and trying to look as nonthreatening as possible.
Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight streaming down through the leaves, but I swear that I felt something . . . shift inside me. As if I were somehow calming down the troll just by staring at it and thinking good thoughts. Despite the hot summer day, a chill swept over me, cold enough to raise goose bumps on my arms.
I shivered and blinked, breaking the strange spell. The troll was just a troll again, and everything was normal. No glowing eyes, no odd emotions in my chest, no more cold chills. Weird. Even for me.
&nb
sp; The troll cheeped again, then reached up and pushed back a branch beside its head, revealing a large nest.
Twigs, leaves, and grasses had been braided together in a crook of the tree, along with several candy bar wrappers. Looked like this particular troll really loved its chocolate. I scooted up higher on my branch so that my head was level with the nest. A moment later, another tree troll—a female given her dark gray fur—popped her head up out of the nest, along with a much smaller, fuzzier head. A pair of small, innocent green eyes stared back at me. The male tree troll handed the rest of the candy bar to the female, and she and the baby vanished back down into the bottom of the nest, out of my line of sight.
So the monster was watching out for his family, which was the reason for all the fruit bombs. No doubt the creature saw everyone who approached the tree as a potential threat. Well, I couldn’t blame him for that. Not in this town. I might be a thief, but I knew what it was like to try to protect your Family—mob or otherwise.
And to fail miserably.
The old, familiar, soul-crushing grief twisted my chest, but I shoved the emotion down into the bottom of my heart where it belonged.
“All right,” I said. “You can stay here until your baby is big enough to travel. If you’re looking for someplace a little quieter, there are some nice, tall trees over by the lochness bridge. You should scout them out.”
The tree troll cheeped at me again. I hoped that meant he understood me.
I pointed at him. “But no more throwing fruit at the tourists, okay? You leave them alone, and they’ll leave you alone. Capisce?”
The troll cheeped at me a final time, which I was going to take for a yes.
I unhooked my legs from around the branch and started climbing down. The troll watched me all the while, jumping from one branch to the next, following me down the tree, but he didn’t throw any blood persimmons. More progress. Maybe I really was a monster whisperer after all. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.