“I’m good,” I said. “You gave me enough strength to haul the weapons out of the mansion and then some. That’s all I need.”

She nodded. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Claudia went over and unlocked the training room doors. She started to open one of them to slip outside, but she stopped and glanced back over her shoulder at me.

“Good luck,” she said.

I arched my eyebrows. “You keep telling me that, but luck has nothing to do with it. It’s all part of our plan, remember?”

“I know, but it still doesn’t hurt to say it. Besides, Serena always used to wish me luck whenever I was doing something important for the Family. I like upholding her tradition.” Claudia gave me a soft, sad smile. “And I think that we’ll need all the luck we can get before this battle with Victor is over.”

She smiled at me again, but her expression was even more troubled than before, and she quickly dropped her gaze from mine, turned off the lights, and slipped out of the training room.

I shivered, but not from the cold magic coursing through my body.

No, this time, I shivered because her words were likely all too true.

I grabbed the two duffel bags full of weapons, went back over to the window that I’d slid through before, and hefted the bags up and out of it, before crawling through the window myself and back out onto the mansion lawn. Then I closed the window behind me, shouldered the heavy bags, clutching them both against my chest to avoid any telltale clank-clanks, and crept through the shadows, avoiding the guards until I was able to slip into the woods that surrounded the mansion.

While I’d been in the training room, thick, heavy rain clouds had slid in front of the moon and stars, obscuring their silvery light and making it even darker than before. But my sight magic let me easily navigate through the trees to my ultimate destination—the Sinclair Family cemetery.

I stepped out of the trees and into a large clearing. No guards were stationed this deep in the woods, but I still glanced around, making sure that I was alone. And I was, except for a few tree trolls that peered at me from their nests in the treetops, their green eyes burning like electrified emeralds in the darkness. A few of them cheep-cheeped, chiding me for disturbing their sleep, but I’d make it up to them later.

A black, wrought-iron fence ringed the cemetery itself, and I dropped the two duffel bags by the fence before pushing through the gate and walking to the very back of the cemetery.

I stopped in front of a black tombstone with a five-pointed star carved into the top, along with the name SERENA STERLING. I stepped forward and laid my hand on the tombstone, which was cool and damp with mist. Claudia had shown me my mom’s grave several weeks ago, when I’d first joined the Sinclair Family, and I’d been coming here ever since. Even though my mom had been dead for four years now, just seeing her tombstone made me feel a little closer to her, like she was still with me in spirit, like she was watching over me from wherever she was. Coming out here and having these quiet moments didn’t keep me from missing her, but they made my heartache over her loss just a little easier to bear.

I ran my hand over the star carved into her tombstone, the same symbol that was etched into the hilt of my— her—sword. The motion made a star-shaped sapphire ring on my finger gleam, the gem shimmering like a dark blue tear that was about to drop from my hand and splatter against the tombstone. My mom’s engagement ring, the last present my dad had given her before he’d died.

I could have stayed here longer—much longer—just thinking about my mom and how much I missed her, but I still had work to do. So I drew in a breath, then let it out, turned around, and walked back through the gate.

I grabbed the two bags of weapons from where I’d left them in the grass and headed over to a large blood persimmon tree that leaned over the cemetery, right above my mom’s tombstone. I slung the two bags across my chest, making sure that I wouldn’t lose them, then took hold of the trunk and started climbing.

I always enjoyed climbing, whether it was snaking up a tree so I could get a better view of my surroundings, scurrying up the drainpipe on my balcony to go see Devon at the mansion, or scaling the outside of some brownstone in town in order to get on the roof so I could sneak inside and see what all I could steal. But the two bags of weapons were heavy and awkward and made this particular climb more difficult than normal. I couldn’t have managed it at all, if not for the extra boost of strength that Claudia had given me in the training room.

That extra magic burned out of my body just as I reached the spot in the tree that I wanted. I leaned back against the trunk, wiped the sweat off my forehead, and caught my breath. Then I carefully removed the two bags from across my chest, making sure that I had a good grip on them, and shimmied up a little higher in the tree, getting into position.

At my chest level, two thick branches split off from the main trunk, dipping down before rising up and out and snaking skyward again. Together, the branches formed a perfect, sturdy crook for me to nestle the bags in. For extra insurance, I drew out a long length of spidersilk rope from one of my coat pockets, looped it around both bags several times, and tied them down to the branches. This way, I didn’t have to worry about the bags falling out of the tree or some troll getting curious about what might be inside them, jumping up and down on the branches, and knocking the bags down to the ground.

Of course, a treetop in the woods wasn’t the most secure place, but the weapons would be okay here for a day or two until I could take them to my other, better hiding spot. It was the same procedure I’d used with all the other black blades we’d stolen from Victor, sneaking them away from the mansion and over to my final hiding spot a few at a time, and it had worked like a charm so far.

Besides, it wasn’t like I could get into a car and drive down to the city. Not this late at night. At least, not without attracting the attention of the guards on duty. They might not spot me creeping through the shadows, but a car was another matter. The guards would wonder where I was going and what I was doing, which was exactly what I wanted to avoid. So it was better to leave the weapons out here in the woods where there was little chance that anyone would find them.

Once the two bags were secured to the branches, I climbed down the blood persimmon. The trolls in the neighboring trees were still watching me, their green eyes full of curiosity, and a couple of them cheep-cheeped at me again. So I reached into my coat pockets and drew out several bars of dark chocolate. Many folks were afraid of monsters, but not me. My mom had taught me that most monsters were actually pretty easy to get along with, if you knew what toll to pay to get them to leave you alone. In the tree trolls’ case, dark chocolate was the preferred bribe of choice.