Page 140 of Heart of Thieves

“Your mother would be so proud,” St. James wheezes on one last, shuddering breath. Then his eyes go empty. His jaw goes slack.

My father is gone.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

LOLA

Laurel’s gun goes off.

I look up, but Nic hasn’t moved. Swiveling, I catch sight of Estelle, who has leaped onto Laurel’s back. The pistol rolls away from them down the side of the roof, pitching off the edge.

My father’s blood covers my hands. Grief cleaves me in two. I can barely breathe.

I turn my gaze on the horizon, where only the barest sliver of sun-light peeks around the eclipse.

This was our chance to stop Laurel. To save the brothers from their curse.

To win back my freedom.

But the diffuser is gone.

And Laurel cannot be stopped.

I stare at my father, the man who once watched stars with me on the roof and told me stories, who made promises as sweet and as pretty as the candies Enzo loves, who mourned me and missed me when he thought I had died.

Now I have finally and truly lost him.

Enzo’s and Nic’s hands grip each of my shoulders. Their heart-beats thrum inside my own, steadying me. Calming me. Reminding me that, despite everything, I am not alone. My father may be gone, but I still have a family here worth fighting for.

I’ve already lost one person I love today. I refuse to lose any more.

New tears spring to my eyes, but these ones aren’t tears of mourning. They are not tears of fear, nor are they tears of desperation.

They are tears of fury.

I look at the brothers. “I think it’s time we finish the moonshard. What do you think?”

“That device is gone, though,” Nic rasps as though he’s spent hours screaming. His legs wobble, but he keeps himself upright, peering at me with tired eyes.

“I’m a conduit,” I say. “Who needs lumenoscopes and diffusers? We’ll direct the starlight through me.”

Enzo frowns, chewing on one of the hoops in his lower lip. “I don’t know, Lola. That is unstable magic. Channeling that much could destroy you.”

He’s right. My body barely handled what Laurel funneled through me earlier. How long would I last with the magic of all three of them streaming through me, unstable and ready to detonate?

I meet their eyes as a thought occurs. A terrifying idea that fills me with a fear rooted deeper than any I have felt tonight.

For months, I haven’t been able to trust either of them. Enzo hid things from me. Nic was under Laurel’s control, a stranger in his own skin. Both of them proved, over and over, what I thought I learned at the Liar’s Den during the tournament: that I can’t trust anyone but myself.

Yet here they are. I could be the answer to their release. The breaking of their curse. I’m standing here, offering to do it, and they’re telling me no.

Because, in their messy way, these two brothers love me. And they’ve made mistakes and they’ve caused me pain and they’ve lied and they’ve hurt me . . .

But I’ve lied to and manipulated and tricked them as well.

Maybe that’s the problem. We’re all so busy trying to protect one another at our own expense, we haven’t ever stopped to trust each other.

Perhaps trust, after everything, is what I need to do.