City of Villains by Estelle Laure

Author:Estelle Laure [Laure, Estelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

“THEY WERE AWFUL, JAMES. COLMAN AND MAHONY. They asked all these questions and you could tell they were anti-Legacy and they made Ursula sound like she was totally worthless and it was to be expected she’d be kidnapped or taken out or something. They made it sound like it was her own fault.” James and I are roaming in his car, looking for signs of Ursula while the boys keep their eyes out at Wonderland. I can’t go there and face Dally and all his prying questions, especially when I don’t have any answers for him. I don’t know where Mally is. I don’t know where Ursula is. I know nothing.

After my epic meltdown in front of the chief yesterday, Bella let me off the hook for casework today while she did some digging into the Mally Saint case. But I can’t just take the rest of the day off. I’m too restless.

James pulls over in front of Mally’s apartment building. The birds are flying overhead against the night, and a cornmeal-yellow light can be seen upstairs in Jack Saint’s apartment. I hope he’s having a better time up there than I’m having down here.

We get out and sit on the hood of the car.

“Come here,” James says.

I scoot into him and we sit for a few minutes, both of us distracted by our rushing minds.

“James,” I say.

“Yeah?”

I want to ask him about the blue light. It’s been hanging between us since Wednesday night, and ever since then life seems to have accelerated so there hasn’t even been time to talk about something that has to be monumentally important. Ever since we were little, James has been saying he would find a way to bring magic back, that he would use his intuition to do it. He may not officially be a Magicalist, but he has the same ideas. Magic is dormant and, like oil or any other natural resource, can be harvested if it can be found. And now it seems like he’s found it. That’s huge.

James draws me in closer. “You want me to tell you everything?”

“I don’t know, do I? We’ve never kept secrets from each other before.”

“If I told you everything, you would wish I hadn’t. There’s a mandatory reporting law for anything even remotely magical in the Scar, and you’re a cop. I’m not going to say anything else.” He peers around us at the empty street. “It’s up to you, Mary. If you want me to tell you everything, I’ll tell you. But I won’t be able to take it back once I do.”

Being away from James is hard. Going to work, not knowing what he’s doing with his boys, what they’re up to, if they’re doing something dangerous. But being close to him is hard, too—looking into his brown eyes, those long lashes, not having the words to tell him he’s the only thing I have left other than a dream to make this city into something we can both live with.

“No,” I say.

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