Page 166 of A Thief Among Fae

I charge back home. Arguing further isn’t worth my time. My thoughts are whirling for a way to fix this. Break them out. That’s what I have to do, and I already know where they’re being held.

The house is a blur as I focus on one thing alone: leaving. The pound of my boots on our bedroom floor is a distant thud, and even Evie shouting my name doesn’t register until she’s tugging on my arm.

“What?” I snap. I break away, then strip out of my nightdress. The clothes Nog made for me are folded in my nightstand. The form-fitting pants. The gambeson vest. The straps for my daggers.

I put it all on with the speed of a madwoman, ignoring Evie until her babbling excuses startle me. “You said they used you!”

“So what if they did? That didn’t give you the right to betray me!” Gods, I should’ve known better. I should’ve known she’d panic. I suck in a breath when I realize that’s precisely why Desmond was reluctant to open up to me. Because, for all my assurances, I didn’t keep my mouth shut.

She wrings her hands. “But I felt complicit!”

My own guilt curdles my insides. “I trusted you!” I snap, and I know half the anger is really at myself.

But Evie flinches like I’ve hit her. “I trusted you! And you left us!” she screams, tears streaking down her cheeks. “You left me worried sick about you! Do you have any idea how selfish that was? I had nightmares every single night that you’d never come home. That a fae took you away, or that a troll ate you, or that you just didn’t love us anymore!”

The accusation rings, the air between us heavy and tense.

“You can’t leave again,” Evie begs. “I don’t care where we are, Nettlerock or Mythos, but we’re sisters! We’re supposed to stick together!”

“I don’t want to!” I yell back.

She gasps. Her lips quiver.

I wince as I turn away from her. I shouldn’t have said that. Yet as angry as I am, I can’t bring myself to take it back. “I have to go.” I throw my belongings into my pack, barely registering what I grab. A hairbrush. A pouch of gold coins from the tomb. A handful of jewelry, other valuables that I barely glance at, and Olin’s crown. I don’t know what getting help will cost me, but I’m leaving my family with more than enough to start new lives.

If they choose to.

Evie slams her palms against my back, startling me. “You can’t abandon me here, Cynthia! I didn’t want the treasure. I wanted you!”

She’s a fountain of grief and rage. It pains me to my core, but I don’t give in. “Evie, listen to me. I will never be happy here. I will never be satisfied with the life that you want. I brought the treasure so I could finally leave and lied to everyone that it wasn’t selfish, most of all myself. But you know what? I have a right to be selfish. I have a right to want my own life.”

I force her hands off my shoulders, entwining her fingers with mine. “While I was gone, I found myself. I belonged somewhere, Evie. Nothing will keep me here in Nettlerock,” I whisper. “Not even you.”

Evie chokes back a cry as I step away. She watches me leave, but she doesn’t follow. And I don’t look back, even when she lets the sobs rack through her body.

This time, she doesn’t scream my name as I leave.

Chapter 49

The horse I borrowed in Nettlerock protests being led off the path. It tosses its mane, whinnying nervously as I lead it up the hill to the thieves’ guild headquarters. It even glares at me as I coerce it into the hidden cave. Enbarr stands forlornly near the back. She saunters up to me and nuzzles my shoulder. Her long-lashed eyes stare at me with what I can only describe as sorrow.

“I’ll get him back,” I murmur as I stroke her mane. “Don’t you worry.”

She snorts as I walk away, but I can’t afford to be careless with my time. I knock on the boulder three times and wait, tense enough that I’m tempted to bite my nails.

The boulder rolls partway over. Nog scowls through the gap. “We don’t welcome traitors. Betray and be hanged, human.”

“Wait!” I cry out as she rolls it shut. “I want to save them! I never meant for this to happen.”

It doesn’t move. So I make it, with a burst of untethering so strong that the boulder slams against the hill’s rocky slope, jostling the bookshelves in the foyer.

Nog is gone. The foyer is eerily quiet, the faint crackling of a dying hearth the only sound as I navigate to the kitchen. Maeve isn’t here. Neither are the fae.

The door to Rune’s office creaks open. He leans against the doorway, brows raised. “I daresay, I’ll need to have a word with Brandur about acquiring a heavier boulder.”

“Not even a mountain would’ve stopped me.”

“Ah.” Rune’s frown doesn’t wane. He raps his fingers on the doorframe. “So you’ve come to boast of your triumph? Or join the guild, perhaps? We’d be honored to have you here after a thorough review of our ethics. Can’t say the others will take kindly to your return once I inform them of what happened, but how I interpret it, you made no move against the guild. The fae, on the other hand. . .”