Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton Read Free Book Online

shoulder, and headed through the garage door and into the kitchen. Maybe I could get to my bedroom and pretend I’d been there doing homework for the past two hours.
    But no, Lilith was in the kitchen with a flowered apron tied around her waist like a goddamn Susie Homemaker. Her maroon nails were curled into claws and dripped gore as she turned away from the half-demolished chicken corpse. My lips twitched. It was so fitting. “Hey,” I said before she could accuse me of being morose.
    “Nick!” She smiled and took a towel from the granite counter to wipe her hands. “You’re so late. You didn’t get a detention, did you?”
    I blinked. It would be easy to lie, and neither of them would check. But I’d have to spill eventually. “No.”
    She paused. “Where’ve you been?”
    “Around.” I hooked a foot onto one of the tall bar stools under the center island and sat. There was a bowl of jalapeno-stuffed olives next to a ceramic chicken holding an egg thatread: THE COOK CAME FIRST . I popped an olive into my mouth. “What’s for dinner?”
    “Chicken caprese.”
    “Where’s Dad?”
    “Up in his office.”
    I ate another olive. Had I been social enough to earn an easy evening alone in my room? It all depended on Lilith’s mood. She continued to clean the chicken. She was taller than me when she wore even short heels, and taller than Dad barefoot. Skinny, long, and sharp, with black hair styled even when she slept, and with this way of arching her eyebrows in constant disapproval. “Well,” I said, standing up from the stool. “Later.” Lilith nodded, and I stared out over the checkerboard tiles.
    “Oh, Nick.”
    “Yeah?” I paused with my back to her. That light tone always meant she was about to slam me with something.
    “We have flashlights in the front hall closet, and also just inside the basement door.”
    Not what I’d been expecting. “Okay, whatever.” I let myself make a face of annoyance since she couldn’t see.
    “For sneaking around the wilderness in the dark.”
    I held my breath.
    The faucet turned on, and I heard the oven door creak open. But it felt like she was directly behind me, flicking her dragon tongue on the back of my neck in order to smell my fear. She’d played this game all the months I’d known her.
I know what you’re doing, Nicky, and I can tell your father anytime I want to
I took a deep, quiet breath and pushed it away. Dad heard me go outside every evening, too. It wasn’t like Lilith could possibly know about Silla and the cemetery. I turned, flashed her a smile, and said, “I’ll do that. Thanks.”
    I tromped up the curved stairs, one hand loosely dragging along the twisted steel banister, bypassed the second floor completely, and ran up to my attic bedroom. The chaos of my room was always a relief after the starkness downstairs. I’d plastered my walls with movie posters and flyers I’d taken from bulletin boards back home. They were confetti-colored reminders of what I’d loved and what I wouldn’t get here in Yaleylah, punk rock bands and slam poetry in particular. Not to mention coffee shops and being able to walk to Lincoln Square. The only nightlife around here was the bar on the corner next to that Dairy Queen.
    Dumping my bag on the desk, I grabbed my angriest CD and shoved it into the player. NARKOTIKA hissed to life in a rattle of drums and pounding keyboard. I turned the sound up, then dragged a small box out from under the bed.
    The trunk was scratched and old, decorated in lacquer with black birds flying against a purple sky. The key had broken off in the locked position when I threw the trunk across the room once after Mom left. A couple of years later, I had pried it back open. Now the bronze lock hung ruined, and I flicked it aside before opening the box.
    Inside were three rows of six small wooden compartments, and slim glass jars slid perfectly into fifteen of them. Each jar contained powder or chunks of metal, dried flower petals,