Stolen Sign

Chapter 2

A week later, we arrive at the party dressed in our best. Lyssa wears a sapphire-blue gown that had cost me a month's wages (though she doesn't know this). I wear the same plain black suit I wore to our parents' funeral. That was three years ago, but it still fits, and it's the only suit I own.

I might be drab, but Lyssa is stunning, and as we mount the marble steps to the grand entrance, my stomach clenches with dread. The Spellwright boys aren't the only sharks in these waters.

"Do me a favor, 'kay?" I whisper as we approach the dour-faced man guarding the door. "If any old dudes ask if they can 'show you something' in another room, don't go."

She pokes me in the ribs. "Tell yourself that. You're the clueless one."

She has a point, and she doesn't know the half of it.

I hold out the invitation and the doorman takes it. He studies it with suspicion for a moment, looking from Lyssa to me, but then he sets it aside and waves us through.

Once we're in, I see the reason for his misgivings. Lyssa fits in fine, but I look very much like I've worn a funeral suit to a party.

The men are as vibrantly dressed as the women, in rainbows of silk and satin, iridescent and metallic threads, and jewels that sparkle at wrist, throat, and ear.

It's a garish display of wealth and social standing, of which I have neither.

Which is fitting, I suppose, since it's largely the Spellwright's fault that this is true.

Not that they'd remember. It might have meant everything to Lyss and me, but it was just business to them.

The Spellwrights are Relic dealers, and that's what they're auctioning tonight under the guise of 'charity.'

A Crafter's Sign can be any object used to Create. My grandmother's was a wooden spoon, my mother's a violin, and my father's a fountain pen. Lyssa's is an ivory crochet hook she found in an antique store while shopping with our mom. In other words, a Sign can be anything that resonates with the Crafter's magic and allows them to channel it into spells.

Then, when a Crafter dies, their Sign becomes a Relic.

Relics are rare and valuable, and carry the trace of their former owner's power, making them primary ingredients in many high-level spells. Some sell for fortunes, and given that many Crafters are worth more dead than alive, the sale of Relics is highly regulated.

Relics also symbolize a family's status and power, and act as strong protective charms. Most families keep their Relics for this reason—if they can afford to.

After our parents died, it quickly became clear that Lyssa and I could not so afford, and I'd arranged to have their Relics sold by the only registered dealers in Harbor City: the Spellwrights.

Trusting and naive, I'd signed whatever papers the lawyers put in front of me, and unwittingly handed over most of our share of the profits. In the end, we'd gotten almost nothing while the Spellwrights had made, as they say, a killing.

I'd been ashamed, and kept most of it from Lyssa. She knows I sold the Relics and that we didn't get much; she doesn't know it's because I'm a fool.

She also doesn't know the other reason I hate the Spellwrights, which I'd only learned after they'd sold our Relics: the thing that killed our parents—a curse-removal gone awry—had been a Spellwright job.

✧✧✧

At least Lyssa is having fun.

She's popular and outgoing, and a few of her friends from school are here with their parents: Sadie Green, whose family talent lies with herbs and growing things, and the Weaver twins, who excel at any magic involving yarn or thread. They coo with admiration as Lyssa shows them a piece of lace she'd Crafted with her Sign, and into which she'd woven a minor spell of attraction.