“Give us the necklace, and we’ll let you live,” he growled. “Otherwise . . .”

He swung his sword in a vicious arc, right at my shoulder level.

“Off with my head?” I murmured. “How cliché.”

He shrugged.

My hand dropped to my waist and the sword that was belted there. I considered sliding the weapon free of its black leather scabbard, raising it into an attack position, and charging forward, but I decided not to. No way was I going to the extra trouble of fighting three guards, not for the pittance that Mo was paying me.

“Come on,” he rumbled. “I don’t like carving up little girls, but I’ve done it before.”

I didn’t think he was being overly insulting with the little girl crack, since he looked to be at least fifty.

So I sighed and slumped my shoulders, as though I were beaten. Then I reached into my coat pocket, drew out the black velvet box, and held it up where the leader could see it. His eyes weren’t as good as mine—few people’s eyes were—but he recognized the box.

“This necklace?”

He nodded, stepped forward, and held out his hand.

I grinned and tucked the box back into my pocket. “On second thought, I think I’ll hang on to it. Later, fellas.”

I hopped onto the ledge of the roof, took hold of the drainpipe, and stepped off into the night air.

The wet metal slid through my fingers like greased lightning. It would have laid the flesh of my palms open to the bone if I hadn’t been wearing my gloves. The wind whipped through my black hair, pulling pieces of it free from my ponytail, and I let out a small, happy laugh at the sheer, thrilling rush of plummeting toward the earth. At the last moment, I gripped the drainpipe much tighter, until the screech-screech-screech of metal rang in my ears. But the motion slowed my descent and even caused a bit of smoke to waft up from my gloves.

Five seconds later, my sneakers touched the sidewalk. I let go of the drainpipe, stepped back, and looked up.

The guards were hanging over the side of the roof, staring at me with gaping mouths. One of them lurched toward the drainpipe, as if to follow me, but in his rush, he ended up ripping the top part of the metal completely away from the brownstone. The rest of the drainpipe broke free from the wall and clattered to the ground, causing a few rusty sparks to shoot through the air. Looked like he was a magick after all, one with a Talent for strength. Chagrined, that guard turned to face the leader and held out the length of pipe.

The leader slapped him upside the head with the hilt of his sword. The second guard dropped out of sight, probably knocked unconscious by the hard blow. Apparently, the leader had also had a strength Talent. The third guard eyed the sidewalk, like he was thinking about leaping over the ledge, but the roof was more than sixty feet above the pavement. There was no way he could survive that high a fall, not unless he had some sort of healing Talent. Even then, it would be a big risk to take and not worth the pain of the broken bones. The guard knew it, too, and backed away from the ledge, which was exactly what I’d been counting on.

When he realized they weren’t going to catch me, the leader screamed out his rage and brandished his sword in the air, but that was all he could do.

I gave him a mock salute, then slid my hands into my coat pockets and strolled down the sidewalk, whistling a soft, cheery tune.

Nothing that I hadn’t done before.

Despite the late hour, the cobblestone streets of Cloudburst Falls were not deserted.

Far from it.

Lights blazed in the shops, hotels, and restaurants, the golden glows banishing the worst of the shadows in the surrounding alleys, if not the things that lived in them. Mortals and magicks of all shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities flowed up and down the sidewalks and into the storefronts, all of which were decorated with castles, swords, and other magic-themed art. In one diner, customers ate at a counter, while winged pixies barely six inches tall flitted through the air, steaming plates of meat loaf and mashed potatoes balanced on their tiny heads.

The customers all looked like normal humans, but it was still easy to tell the magicks from the mortals. The magicks were focused on their cheeseburgers, shakes, and fries, while the mortals let their food get cold, too busy gaping at the pixies zipping all around them to nosh on their tuna melts, grilled cheeses, and club sandwiches. Rubes, most magicks derisively called the mortals, and with good reason.

I stopped at a crosswalk, watching the traffic. Cars with out-of-state license plates and tour buses, mostly, with a few magicks on bicycles pedaling by, using their Talents for strength or speed to easily or quickly churn their legs and pull the cutesy carriages full of canoodling couples along behind them. A sign planted in a flowerbed in the median featured a carving of a white castle. Words in a fancy script on the sign claimed that Cloudburst Falls was “the most magical place in America,” a tourist town where “fairy tales are real.”

I snorted. Yeah, fairy tales were real here all right—including the monsters that went along with them. Monsters that were fe-fi-fo-fum hungry for all the blood and bones they could sink their teeth and claws into, mortal, magick, or otherwise.

While I waited for the light to change, I raised my gaze to Cloudburst Mountain, the rugged peak that loomed over the city. White clouds cloaked the top of the mountain, the thick fog made out of mist that continually drifted up from the dozens of waterfalls tumbling down the sides. The mist wrapped around the peak like whipped cream on top of a sundae, but the mountain, the falls, and the sweeping views from the top were what the tourists came here to see.