Sleight of Hand: The Final Card

Chapter 3

"Trebor, stop being childish! Give me the cards!"

Ammee looked up from the battered journal she was reading on the sofa in Kurtis's living room, lounging on the part of the sofa that was bathed with golden sunlight.

She'd put on a pair of comfy shorts and a t-shirt, and her feet—which were crossed under her—were decked in fuzzy socks though it was late in the summertime.

She put her finger in the book to keep her place just as Trebor came stumbling into the room. Aivilo entered behind him, trying to grasp what Trebor was holding high above their heads: a stack of multicolored trading cards. The cards that the Superhumans' lives were bound to. The company in Kurtis's house had discovered this fact a week ago, when they encountered the Mage a sec­ond time. The Mage had killed Trebor by crumpling the trading card in his hand like an insignificant piece of paper. Luckily, Aivilo had been able to restore the card and the lifeline tied to it before also reviving Trebor alongside his mother, who was a healer.

"Aiv, I'm not letting you do it anymore!" Trebor asserted, stopping in the middle of the room and facing Aivilo as she hopped, trying to reach his hand. But Trebor was about a foot taller than her, and when he stood on his toes like he was doing now with his arm stretched up as far as it could go, there would be no way for her to reach the cards.

At least, not on her own. As Ammee watched, Aivilo's eyes began to glow bright blue, the same color as her irises. This was a signal, a telltale sign of the Super­humans that meant they were summoning their power.

"What's going on in here?" Kurtis demanded as he walked in. He must've heard the commotion and come to investigate.

Kurtis was the Superhumans' trainer and mentor. He was old, around seventy, with pure white hair covering his head that grew down into a neatly-trimmed beard. His blue eyes hardened as he took in the scene.

"Give them to me, Tre," he said severely, and held out a hand. Trebor, thin-lipped, obeyed. Aivilo scowled at him as he flopped down into an armchair.

"Now, would either of you care to explain what's going on?" Kurtis asked, glaring at the two of them. The other Super­humans in the room looked at each other warily, Ammee included. She shared an apprehensive glance with Hanna. Aivilo and Trebor had never been the ones to get in trouble with Kurtis before.

They both started talking at once, and Kurtis silenced them with merely a raised hand. Ammee thought it was amusing that Kurtis had so much power over the Super­humans, even though he was only human. Probably because they all thought of him as a sort of grandfatherly mentor, and felt he deserved their respect.

Kurtis motioned to Trebor, and he said, "Aiv was trying to break the links again, and so I took the cards so she couldn't. Then she started chasing me, demanding that I give them to her."

"That's not fair!" Aivilo protested, her hands clench­ing into fists. She turned to Kurtis.

"I'm trying to do what we all decided was the next best thing to stop the Mage and Hali! We all agreed we couldn't defeat them unless we got the rest of our power back!"

"Aivilo, you can't just keep trying, especially when it's not working," Trebor tried.

"Trebor, there's no other way!" Aivilo cried, impa­tience getting the best of her. "We can't stop the Mage and Hali unless we are no longer linked to the cards! I have to do that, otherwise we have no chance!"

"Aiv, you can't!" Trebor shouted, shooting up from his chair. "You have proved to all of us that you cannot break the links to the cards without all of your power! You've already tried many times and you've gotten nowhere! You're going to hurt yourself and we'll be no better off!"