The old man had collected a lot of stuff in his time on this earth. Furniture, plates, tools, odd bits of metal, wood, glass. I hadn’t had the heart to clean any of it out yet. The air stilled smelled faintly of him—like sugar, spice, and vinegar swirled together.

But the kitchen, the kitchen was mine. Always had been, from the moment I’d moved in as a homeless teenager to when I’d taken up residence again several weeks ago after Fletcher’s funeral. I stepped inside and flipped on the light.

The kitchen was one of the largest rooms in the house, and a long, skinny island divided it from a small den that contained a television, stacks of books, a sofa, and a couple of recliners. Copper pots and pans hung from a metal rack over the island. A brand new, high-end stove, refrigerator, and freezer flanked half of the back wall, while a series of picture windows took up the other side. Several butcher blocks full of silverstone knives also populated the kitchen. On the island. On the counter. In the spice rack. Behind the microwave. You could never have too many knives lying around if you loved to cook like I did—or were a former assassin.

I poured myself a glass of lemonade, then wrapped my hand around the container and concentrated, reaching for the cool power deep inside myself. In addition to being a Stone elemental, I also had the rare talent of being able to manipulate another element—Ice. My Ice magic was far weaker, though. All I could really do with it was make small shapes, like cubes or chips. The occasional lock pick. A knife, when the need arose. But often it was the little things that saved you. A lesson I’d learned when battling Alexis James a few weeks ago. The Air elemental would have killed me, would have flayed me alive with her magic, if I hadn’t formed a jagged icicle with my power and cut her throat with it.

I reached for my cool Ice magic, and a moment later, small, snowflake-shaped Ice crystals spread out from my palm and fingertips. They frosted up the side of the glass, arced over the lip, and ran down into the lemonade. Then I held my hand palm up and reached for my magic again.

A cold, silver light flickered there, centered in the spider rune scar embedded in my palm. After a moment, the light coalesced into a couple of Ice cubes, which I dropped into the tart beverage.

I took my lemonade into the den, plopped down in one of the recliners, and put my socked feet up on the scarred coffee table. As always, my eyes flicked to a series of framed drawings propped up on the mantel over the fireplace. Three pencil drawings I’d done for one of my community college classes and another, more recent, one.