“Is that why you hardly ever carry a sword?”

Devon nodded, a brief smile flickering on his face. “My dad liked solving certain problems with his fists. I guess I do, too. Sometimes, it just feels good to punch something, you know?”

“Yeah.”

He blew out a tense breath. “If it was just my dad who was gone, that would be one thing. But it’s not.”

“What do you mean?”

He pressed the water bottle to his forehead, as if the condensation on the plastic would cool his own turbulent thoughts.

“I mean it’s everyone in the Family. My mom, Felix, Angelo, Grant, Reginald, the guards, the pixies. Everyone around me whenever I go down to the Midway or anywhere else outside the mansion. It’s everyone I’m close to. Everyone I . . . care about.”

He didn’t look at me as he said the last few words, but my heart fluttered all the same.

“They’re all at risk because of me,” he continued. “Because I have this compulsion Talent, and some people out there would kill whoever got in their way just so they could take my magic for themselves.”

“Is that what happened with your dad?”

He nodded and started picking at the label on the bottle. “It was just like the attacks at the pawnshop and the library. The two of us had gone to a party that the Itos were throwing for the other Families. When it was over, we decided to walk through the Midway. But once we got to the car in the Family parking lot, these guys surrounded us.”

“Was it the mystery man? Did you see him?”

Devon shook his head. “Nah. It happened so fast, and it was too dark for me to see anyone’s face. My dad and I fought them off the best we could, but my dad stepped up, protecting me.” He paused. “A guy ran him through with a sword right in front of me.”

I hesitated, then reached over and squeezed his hand. His fingers felt warm, swollen, bruised, and sweaty from where he’d been pounding on the bag, but Devon squeezed back, gently curling his fingers around mine, almost as if they were something precious that he was handling with great care. His thumb idly stroked over my skin, as soft as a raindrop sliding across it over and over again. My stomach clenched, and heat surged through my body.

“Sometimes, I wish I could get rid of my stupid magic,” Devon muttered. “I don’t want it. I never wanted it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I drawled, trying to focus on his words instead of the feel of his skin against mine. “I think it would be a pretty cool Talent to have. Getting folks to do anything you want with just a few words. I’d love to be able to use it on Oscar, if only to get him to like me, just a little.”

“You’d think so, until you realize that it’s not real,” he said. “What I can make people do . . . it’s not what they want to do. It may sound corny, but I want people to like me for me, not because I can force them to or because of who my mom is or who I am in the Family. You know?”

He raised his green gaze to my blue one. “That’s one of the things I like about you, Lila. You don’t care about any of that.”

“Just one of the things?” I teased, trying to make him laugh a little, just so he’d forget his guilt and grief, if only for a few moments.

“Just one.” His voice took on a low, husky note. “I could list all the others, if you want.”

My gaze locked with his and my soulsight kicked in, showing me all of his emotions. And I felt them, too—more intensely than I ever had before. His heart still ached with that soul-crushing guilt, and it always would. But that hot spark I’d seen inside him that first day at the Razzle Dazzle had finally ignited into a roaring fire, burning as hot and bright as my own emotions were right now.

Devon hesitated, then leaned in, just a little. My breath caught in my throat.

He inched forward a little more. I wet my lips.

He came even closer, so close that his warm breath brushed my cheek and his scent flooded my nose, that sharp, fresh tang of pine. Clean and crisp, just like he was, inside and out. I sighed. Suddenly, my hands itched to touch him, to trace my fingers over the sharp planes of his face, and then slide them lower, over all of his warm, delicious muscles . . .

“Lila,” he whispered.

I shivered, loving the sound of my name on his lips—lips that were heartbreakingly close to mine—

“There you are!” a voice called out.

I jerked back, the spell shattered, reality slapping me in the face again. I’d almost kissed Devon Sinclair. The guy I had blamed for my mom’s murder for so many years. The guy who had turned my life upside-down by walking into the Razzle Dazzle. The guy who was the reason I’d almost been killed tonight.

But Devon had looked at me with those forest-green eyes, and I’d forgotten about everything except wrapping my arms around his neck, touching my lips to his, and pressing my body against his until we blazed, burned, and melted together into the heat, darkness, and dangerous swirl of emotions. Part of me still wanted that—part of me ached for it.

Footsteps slapped across the roof, and Felix appeared.

“You know that you’re in my chair, right, Lila?” he asked in a teasing voice.

“I wasn’t aware it had your name stitched on it,” I sniped back, trying to play it cool and pretend everything was fine and that my heart wasn’t alternately pounding and breaking for too many reasons to count.

“I’m sure I can ask one of the pixies to help me with that,” he said.