I moved between them like a ghost, not making a sound if I could help it, letting my eyes suck up all of the information.
Ford Mustangs with widened rear tires. Dodge Chargers built heavier, built meaner. Camaros tuned up to scream down the straights. Each car carried its own personality in the details, custom spoilers, reinforced frames, enchanted fuel lines etched with faint glowing script.
Near the center aisle, an air mage crouched beside a vehicle fitted with an acid spray attachment. A thin stream hissed outward, eating a clean line into a test slab of metal before dissipating. A small circle of onlookers leaned in closer.
Behind him, a fire mage worked at the rear drag wing of another car. Heat shimmered around his fingers as he pressed them against the metal. The wing softened beneath his touch, edges bending by degrees so small most wouldn’t notice.
I watched the angle shift, the line of the wing tilted upward just enough to change airflow.
My jaw tightened.
That adjustment would smooth the corners. Sure, but the straights would suffer, and in the end, no matter how well you drove it, it wouldn't be a winner.
“The stability will just hinder the speed with that bend.”
The low, whispered words slipped out before I could stop them and I wished with all of my being that no one heard. That everyone would just ignore the human girl.
I had no such luck.
The fire mage’s head snapped toward me. The heat around his hands flared, and a few nearby supes followed his line of sight.
“What the fuck do you know, human?” he barked.
His words carried, and the conversations around us thinned. Heads turned. The small circle widened, creating space between me and everyone else.
My hands lifted instinctively. “Nothing!” I took a few steps back. “I didn’t?—”
A car door slammed. The sound cut through everything.
From the driver’s side of the modified vehicle stepped a tall man with plum-colored hair slicked back from a sharp widow’s peak. His eyes were narrow, calculating. Irritation pulled tight at the corners of his mouth.
“What’s the hold up?” he snapped at the mage. “The wing should already be mounted. That’s what I’m paying you for.”
His wings burst free in a flash, fluttering furiously as he lifted off the ground, moving forward in a single smooth motion.
The crowd gave him space immediately.
He descended until he was directly in front of me.
Up close, his shadow swallowed the neon glow. His boots touched down slowly, deliberately. The air around him stirred with displaced magic. I gulped, my body frozen in front of him.
His gaze dragged over me from head to toe.
“What’s a human doing here?” he asked, not looking at me but at the surrounding crowd. “Anyone going to claim her?”
Silence.
No one moved. No one made a sound.
His lips curved as his eyes narrowed cruelty on me.
“Soooo a rat slipped in, huh?”
His wings folded back into nothing, vanishing as if they’d never been there. He stepped closer.
“You wanted a better look?” he murmured, leaning down just enough that I could see the faint sheen of magic flash across his eyes. “You walked into the wrong den, human.”
The fairy’s shadow covered me completely.
