Blood Magic Read Online Free PDF

real.
    And tonight, I’d show it to Reese. I’d prepared all I could, read through everything. Now I needed Reese. Needed to prove to him it was real so that he could stop hating Dad, so that he could help me unlock all the secrets. I’d resurrect something more impressive than a leaf, and he’d have to believe me.
    Finally it was three-thirty, and I escaped to the auditorium. There, I could pull on the masks of the theater and lose myself in the words that weren’t my own. It was a relief to sit on the edge of the stage, to dangle my feet as Wendy and Melissa argued about whether all the songs from
Wicked
were overdone on the audition circuit. Their conversation echoed up the rows and rows of red seats, and the smells of old paint and musty curtains grounded me back into my body. I’d always loved the theater. Here, I could be anyone, not just the girl who’d found her parents murdered on the floor, not just the skinny, fading kid with dropping grades and choppy hair, but Ophelia or Laura Wingfield or Christine Daaé. Pretending I was someone else, that their words were my words, their heartaches and loves my own; it made me feel like I knew who I was.
    Or it had. When I’d been Silla Kennicot: most likely to star in movies, president of the drama club, and forensics champion.
    Eric walked in with Nicholas Pardee and raised his middlefinger in my direction. I frowned, but Wendy giggled. “He probably found my flyers,” she said.
    Melissa laughed, too. “I saw that.”
    I pulled my feet up onto the stage and sat cross-legged, watching Nicholas. I’d been thinking of him that way, the way he’d introduced himself to me in the cemetery, of him being something that belonged there, with a long, old-fashioned name to go with it. But here in the real world, everyone was calling him just Nick. And away from all the death and blood and magic, it was hard to see him as anything more mysterious. It suited the way he walked between the rows of seats and the sharp way he sat down next to Stokes, the teacher, while Eric stomped up the stairs and glared at the three of us. “Cute flyers,” he said.
    “Like your butt, sweetie.” Wendy kissed the air in his direction.
    Flipping her off again, Eric joined Trent upstage, and they kicked off their shoes to start some warm-up stretches.
    “I want my witches front and center!” Stokes called before turning to Nick, who stood beside him.
    It was good I knew the layout of the stage well, because I didn’t stop watching Nick even to head out with Wendy and Melissa to wait for our cue. He was tall, even all cramped up in the small theater seat where he’d sat after talking to Stokes. His hair was longish and sort of slicked back in a way none of the boys here wore it. It opened up his face so that I could see it better than I had Saturday night.
    “Jeez, Silla, you might want to close your mouth,” Melissa said.
    I glanced down at the scuffed stage, then up at Melissa with my lips pursed into a frown.
    Wendy nudged her. “Leave her alone. It’s great she’s showing interest at all.”
    My gratitude for her intercession dried up, and I glared at them both.
    “He is cute,” Melissa offered.
    “He lives in that old farmhouse up the road from me,” I said. “Just moved in.”
    They both watched me like I’d sprouted a conjoined twin on the side of my face. Wendy winced as Melissa laughed. “No kidding, Sil, we know. Everybody’s been talking about him all day. Jerry said he’s Mr. Harleigh’s grandson.”
    “Oh.” He didn’t look like Mr. Harleigh, who’d been stooped over like he was holding a secret against his stomach.
    “And his stepmother is like some huge, famous writer. She must use a pen name, though. Weren’t you listening at lunch when Eric and Doug were starting up the betting pool on what she writes?”
    Stokes waved his pudgy hands toward the stage, and the three of us shifted to where he wanted us. “Why would a famous author move here?” I asked,