Magic Edge by Ella Summers Page B

reached them yet—but it was spreading fast.
    Alex looked up. “That’s not a real dragon.”
    “Of course not. There are no dragons anymore. It’s dragon magic summoned by a mage.”
    “No,” she said, reaching out her hand toward the bonfire of flames. “It’s not even that. It’s an illusion.”
    “It sure looks real.”
    Ah, but sight was only a tiny piece of the magic pie. It was easiest one to fool, though. “Reach for the flames. They’re not hot.”
    Logan extended his hand slowly, then quickly pulled it back. “They are hot.”
    “Really? Odd.” Alex waved her hand through the flames. Magic prickled at her skin.
    “Your hand is on fire.”
    “Is it?” she asked, looking down at her arm. Sure enough, flames licked up and down it. She shook it out, and the phantom fire dissolved.
    “Does this have something to do with the super-secret magic you’re pretending you don’t have?”
    Uh, probably. Oops. “No. I’m just more observant than you.”
    “Well, I observed that dragon setting the vampire elf on fire.” Logan pointed at the charred corpse across the field. “He’s dead.”
    “That was real fire.”
    “You’re not making any sense.”
    “Maybe a mage piggybacked a spell on the illusion.” She shrugged. “Don’t you think it’s awfully convenient that he happened to be set on fire right before we were going to talk to him? And then there were the thieves who attacked us. And the bartender at Impulse who was found dead before anyone could ask him anything about the Orbs.”
    “You think this is a conspiracy,” he said.
    “I sure as hell don’t think it’s a picnic. Someone is after the Orbs. And I think it’s pretty obvious that someone will do whatever it takes—kill whoever it takes—to get what they want.”
    “There’s someone up there.” Logan nodded toward the now-empty audience seating.
    Or maybe not so empty. “Is there?” She squinted into the stands. Sure enough, a cloaked figure lurked in a dark corner. “What do you want to bet that he’s our illusionist?”
    “Assassins don’t bet,” he replied coolly. “We act.”
    A gunshot echoed inside the dome. Alex scanned the area, honing in on a quartet of men standing at one of the four doors that fed into the field. They were all human, but they had really big guns.
    From the way the humans were staring into the flames, they knew the fire wasn’t real. But not because they could see through the illusion. Someone had told them. The fake heat was still bothering them. They were keeping to the edge of the field.
    “Ok, you go act on those gunmen,” she told Logan as she took off running toward stairs that led into the stands. “I’ll take care of our hooded friend.”
    She sped up those stairs as fast as she could push herself. Seeing that running up stairs was a regular ingredient to her workouts, that was pretty damn fast. Her stubborn streak certainly didn’t hurt either.
    It wasn’t enough.
    She reached the right level, but the cloaked figure had already fled. Somehow. Alex didn’t see any clear escape paths. Above, the dragon lingered on for a few seconds before its fiery form began to fade—then just winked out. A few more booms echoed off the glass walls, followed by a series of pained grunts. Logan sure hadn’t wasted any time.
    Metal scratched against the rough concrete floor, and Alex looked down to find a broken piece of silver beneath the toe of her boot. Other pieces—also broken—were scattered in an uneven circle, right where the cloaked figure had been standing. She slid on her leather gloves, then plucked one of the pieces from the ground. She held it lightly between two fingers, careful not to let the spiked edges puncture her gloves. Who knew what sort of magic was on them.
    “Alex.”
    “Stop. Don’t step on anything. I’ve found evidence here,” she told Logan, turning the metal piece in front of her eyes. Magic always left a footprint. The question was whether her