“And magic?”
He crinkled his brow, as if he didn’t understand. “Magic is in everything.”
Lila flexed her hands, focusing on the tension in her fingers, because she needed to focus on something. “Tyger Tyger, burning bright …” Nothing.
“You’re trying too hard.”
Lila let out an exasperated sound. “I thought I wasn’t trying hard enough!”
“It’s a balance. And your grip is too tight.”
“I’m not even touching it.”
“Of course you are. You’re just not using your hands. You’re exerting force. But force isn’t the same as will. You’re seizing a thing, when you need only cradle it. You’re trying to control the element. But it doesn’t work like that, not really. It’s more of a … conversation. Question and answer, call and response.”
“Wait, so is it waves, or doors, or conversations?”
“It can be anything you like.”
“You’re a wretched teacher.”
“I warned you. If you’re not up to it—”
“Shut up. I’m concentrating.”
“You can’t glare magic into happening.”
Lila took a steadying breath. She tried to focus on the way fire felt, imagined the heat against her palms, but that didn’t work, either. Instead she drew up the memories of Kell, of Holland, of the way the air changed when they did magic, the prickle, the pulse. She thought of holding the black stone, summoning its power, the vibration between her blood and bones and something else, something deeper. Something strange and impossible, and at the same time, utterly familiar.
Her fingertips began to burn, not with heat, but something stranger, something warm and cool, rough and smooth and alive.
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, she whispered silently, and an instant later, the fire came to life against her palms. She didn’t need to see what she’d done. She could feel it—not only the heat, but the power swimming beneath it.
Lila was officially a magician.
* * *
Lila was still trying to wrangle the fire into shape when Sar’s first ball of earth—it was basically a rock—slammed into her shoulder. The burst of light was sharp and fleeting as the plate broke. The pain lingered.
There was no time to react. Another mass came hurtling toward her, and Lila spun out of Sar’s line of attack, ducking behind a pillar an instant before the earth shattered against it, raining pebbles onto the arena floor. Thinking she had time before the next attack, Lila continued around the pillar, prepared to strike, and was caught in the chest by a spear of earth, crushing the central plate. The blow slammed her back into a boulder, and her spine struck the rock with brutal force, two more plates shattering as she gasped and fell to her hands and knees.
Four plates lost in a matter of seconds.
The Veskan made a chuckling sound, low and guttural, and before Lila could even get upright, let alone retaliate, another ball of earth struck her in the shin, cracking a fifth plate and sending her back to her knees.
Lila rolled to her feet, swearing viciously, the words lost beneath the cheers and chants and snapping pennants. A puddle of fire continued to burn on the oil-slicked ground. Lila shoved against it with her will, sending a river of flame toward Sar. It barely grazed the Veskan, the heat licking harmlessly against the armor. Lila cursed and dove behind a barrier.
The Veskan said something taunting, but Lila continued to hide.
Think, think, think.
She’d spent all day watching the matches, making note of the moves everyone made, the way they played. She’d scraped together secrets, the chinks in a player’s armor, the tells in their game.
And she’d learned one very important thing.
Everyone played by the rules. Well, as far as Lila could tell, there weren’t that many, aside from the obvious: no touching. But these competitors, they were like performers. They didn’t play dirty. They didn’t fight like it really mattered. Sure, they wanted to win, wanted to take the glory and the prize, but they didn’t fight like their lives were on the line. There was too much bravado, and too little fear. They moved with the confidence of knowing a bell would chime, a whistle would blow, the match would end, and they would still be safe.
Real fights didn’t work that way.
Delilah Bard had never been in a fight that didn’t matter.
Her eyes flicked around the arena and landed on the judge’s platform. The man himself had stepped back, leaving the ledge open. It stood above the arena, but not by much. She could reach it.
Lila drew the fire in and tight, ready to strike. And then she turned, mounted the wall, and jumped. She made it, just barely, the crowd gasping in surprise as she landed on the platform and spun toward Sar.
And sure enough, the Veskan hesitated.
Hitting the crowds was clearly not allowed. But there was no rule about standing in front of them. That hitched moment was all Lila needed. Sar didn’t attack, and Lila did, a comet of fire launching from each hand.
Don’t fight it, don’t force it, be an open door.
But Lila didn’t feel like an open door. She felt like a magnifying glass, amplifying whatever strange magic burned inside her so that when it met the fire, the force was its own explosion.
The comets twisted and arced through the air, colliding into Sar from different angles. One she blocked. The other crashed against her side, shattering the three plates that ran from hip to shoulder.
Lila grinned like a fool as the crowd erupted. A flash of gold above caught her eye. At some point, the prince had arrived to watch. Alucard stood in the stands below him, and on her own level, the judge in white was storming forward. Before he could call foul, Lila leaped from the platform back to the boulder. Unfortunately, Sar had recovered, both from her surprise and the hit, and as Lila’s foot hit the outcropping, a projectile of earth slammed into her shoulder, breaking a sixth piece of armor and knocking her off the edge.
As she fell back, she flipped with feline grace and landed in a crouch.
Sar braced herself for an attack as soon as Lila’s boots struck stone, which was why Lila launched the fire before she landed. The meteor caught the Veskan’s shin, shattering another plate.
Four to six.
Lila was catching up.
She rolled behind a barrier to recover as Sar stretched out her thick fingers, and the earth strewn across the arena shuddered and drew itself back toward her.
Lila saw a large clod of dirt and dropped to one knee, fingers curling around the earth the moment before Sar’s invisible force took hold and pulled, hard enough to draw the element, and Lila with it. She didn’t let go, boots sliding along the smooth stone floor as Sar reeled her in without realizing it, Lila herself still hidden by the various obstacles. The boulders and columns and walls ended, and the instant they did, Sar saw Lila, saw her let go of the ball of earth, now coated in flame. It careened back toward the Veskan, driven first by her pull and then by Lila’s will, crashing into her chest and shattering two more plates.
Good. Now they were even.
Sar attacked again, and Lila dodged casually—or at least, she meant to, but her boot held fast to the floor, and she looked down to see a band of earth turned hard and dark as rock and fused to the ground. Sar’s teeth flashed in a grin behind her mask, and it was all Lila could do to get her arms up in time to block the next attack.