Free The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn 1) by K.C. Finn Page A

cracked of pain. She turned angrily to find the owner of said elbow, the music now impossibly loud and irritating her every sense.
    Then she saw the flames around her fist.
    Quickly putting her hand back down into the cover of the crowd, Lily shook it out frantically until the embers died. It had left a few faint pink marks along her knuckles which she rubbed, surprised to find them as warm as if she’d been holding a hot tea mug against them.
    “You all right there?” Michael shouted over the swarming clubbers.
    Lily turned to him and shook her head rapidly. “No, it’s too busy here,” she yelled back. “I’m going out for air.”
    With Jazzy at the bar, Lily took her chance to break out into the fresh night air. She sidled along from Guttersnipe’s main entrance until she was away from all the smokers, standing alone on the corner as she filled up her lungs with cool winter oxygen. It was a bad idea, she concluded, to come out without her jacket, which was still thrown over her chair in the club. She rubbed her arms as goose pimples bubbled up and pulled her dress down straight so that it warmed a little more of her legs.
    “Would you care to borrow my coat, Mademoiselle?”
    The smooth, exotic voice did not startle her the way it should have. Baptiste Du Nord was crossing the empty road in front of her, a cigar in one hand and his long velvety jacket in the other. The MC smiled and gave her a little bow as he arrived at her side.
    “It’s okay,” she lied. “I’m going back in soon.”
    “Good,” Baptiste replied. “It’s dangerous for young ladies to be out here alone.”
    Lily glanced at the row of people smoking outside the nearby club. Someone rushed out and abruptly spewed their guts on the street, collapsing onto their knees.
    “I’m not sure it’s much better inside,” Lily remarked.
    Baptiste gave a little laugh, puffing away at his cigar. It had a strange smell of spices to it, almost like some food that had been cooking and was gradually starting to burn. Lily’s trembling skin was strangely calm on the side that was next to him, though the flesh on the opposite arm still reacted wildly to the cold.
    “Lemarick tells me you are one of his kind,” Baptiste mused.
    So they all knew at the theatre what he was. Lily pondered over the way the elegant MC had worded his statement.
    “I wondered if you might be too,” she endeavoured. “If they all were, down at the Imaginique?”
    Baptiste shook his head. “Novel always insisted he was the only one in this tiny town,” he explained, “but now there is you.”
    It disturbed Lily that the MC had not really answered her question. He turned to her, throwing what was left of his cigar into the gutter. Those dark, foreign eyes sparkled, reflecting the gold chain of a pocketwatch as he raised it to check on the time. Baptiste put one warm hand on her shoulder, and Lily felt a strange serenity in her core.
    “Just be careful with him, dear girl,” he warned. “Lemarick can be somewhat temperamental. That doesn’t always end so well for the rest of us.”
    He released her from his touch, his warning made, and Lily found herself shivering again as Baptiste Du Nord retreated into a nearby shadow. She watched his long elegant form waltzing casually into the darkness. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Shadelore 101
     
    It took Lily quite a while to work up the courage to see Novel, particularly after Baptiste’s enigmatic but ultimately vague and useless warning. She had seen for herself that the strange illusionist could get into quite a froth, particularly when he was trying to get a point across, but he had never deliberately done anything to hurt her. She reasoned with herself that not learning to keep a lid on her newfound abilities might result in more ‘fist of fire’ moments like she’d had in the club, which was going to produce some very awkward questions if it happened in a more obvious public setting.
    Belnerg let her in