But I wasn’t my mom, and I had to figure all that out for myself. The thought made me miss her more than ever before.

“You look so sad,” a voice called out. “What are you thinking about?”

I looked up to find Devon standing at the entrance to the children’s section.

“My mom,” I said. “She used to bring me here every summer when we stayed in Cloudburst Falls. It was one of my favorite places to visit with her.”

Devon nodded, walked over, and sat down in the kid-size seat next to mine. “My mom’s told me stories about Serena. Sounds like she was a really great person.”

“She was,” I whispered.

Devon reached out and put his arm around me. I scooted closer to him and laid my head down on his shoulder. We stayed like that for several minutes, just holding and leaning on each other.

“I know you’re worried about tonight and what’s going to happen,” he finally said. “But I’m not.”

I pulled back and looked at him. “Why not?”

He flashed me a grin. “Because I’ve got Lila Merriweather, thief extraordinaire, watching my back.”

Sincerity shined in his green eyes, along with absolute certainty that we could rescue the others and not get captured or killed ourselves. It was a certainty I didn’t feel and a confidence—a trust—I didn’t deserve.

“Deah said the same thing to me right before she got captured,” I said, my stomach churning with guilt again. “And look how well that turned out.”

“Deah said that because she knows you’ll do everything in your power to save her and all the others,” Devon said. “Just like I know it.”

He kept smiling at me, that certainty flaring a little brighter and hotter in his eyes, mixed with another, deeper emotion, one that took my breath away with its pure intensity.

Devon cleared his throat. “No matter what happens tonight, I want you to know something—I love you, Lila.”

Tears stung my eyes, my throat closed up, and I couldn’t speak. All I could do was just stare at him, wondering what I’d ever done to deserve such a great guy in my life. The answer? Nothing—nothing at all. But now that I had him, I was going to keep him safe—no matter what.

I cupped his face in my hands, leaned over, and kissed him, pouring all the emotion, all the feeling, all the love I had for him into this one kiss, this one moment. Devon’s arms tightened around me and he pulled me over, so that I was sitting on his lap. All the while, we kept kissing, our lips, our mouths, our hearts fusing together time and time again, trying to make the most of right now, since we both knew this quiet would end all too soon—and that we might never be together again.

A minute later, we broke apart, both breathing hard and staring into each other’s eyes again. I wanted to say those same three words back to Devon, and I opened my mouth to do just that. But at the last second, I chickened out.

“I . . . care about you too,” I whispered. “So much that it scares me sometimes.”

And it did. So much so that I didn’t want to tell him I loved him too. I didn’t want to say the words out loud. Because I’d loved my mom, and Victor had killed her. I didn’t want to lose Devon the same way. Yeah, yeah, it was silly to think that just saying the words would put him in even more danger than he was already in, but I couldn’t help feeling it would be a horrible jinx all the same. So I bit my lip and looked at him, trying to let him see what was in my heart as best I could.

A bit of disappointment flashed in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant. Devon wrapped his arms around me, pulling me even closer. “I know exactly how you feel. But we’ll get through this—together. You’ll see. Everything will be okay after we get the others back.”

I nodded and laid my head down on his shoulder again, listening to the steady thump-thump-thump of his heart. I didn’t believe him about everything turning out okay, but I knew one thing for certain.

I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that Devon and the rest of my friends made it through the night.

Finally, around seven o’clock, we gathered up our gear and left Tiny behind to guard the library basement. Devon wasn’t supposed to meet Victor until nine, but we were too tense to stay in the library any longer. Besides, the sooner we got to the warehouse, the more time we’d have to look around and hopefully spot any traps that Victor might have set for us.

I took the lead, since I knew the bad part of town a whole lot better than Devon, Felix, and Oscar did. The Draconi warehouse wasn’t all that far from the library, and I stopped at one of the street corners. In the distance, I could see the lochness bridge arching over the Bloodiron River, but we couldn’t go that way right now, since it was within view of the front of the warehouse and the Draconis would spot us coming. Devon would cross the bridge later on tonight, though, when he went to meet with Victor.

I led the others through the side streets and around the bridge, finally stopping in an alley across from and at the opposite end of the street from the warehouse. I bent down and peered around the corner at the warehouse, with Devon beside me.

The Draconi warehouse looked like any other in this part of town—a sturdy building made out of faded red bricks that had seen better days. A door was set into the center of the building, framed on either side by a couple of large rectangular windows. Even though the sun hadn’t started to set yet, lights blazed in the warehouse, the golden glow spilling out onto the street and highlighting the more than two dozen guards patrolling outside, doing a slow, steady circuit around the entire building. Through the windows, I could see more guards moving inside the warehouse, their red cloaks billowing around their shoulders.

“Victor certainly has a lot of guards here,” Devon said.

“Of course he does,” I muttered. “If he captures you, then he’ll have all the Sinclair Family leaders and the black blades. He’ll have everything he needs to exterminate the other Families and finally take control of the entire town.”

“We’re not going to let that happen, remember?” he said, flashing me a grin.

I made myself smile back at him, even though my heart wasn’t in it. But I wasn’t going to just let Devon walk straight into the monster’s den without doing my part to help, so I studied the warehouse again, looking at the doors, windows, and all the other ways that I might sneak inside and rescue the others.