Page 20 of Heart of Thieves

I rub my chest, gasping for air. What just happened? Why did she run?

Could something like this have happened before? Her taking over someone to the point of stopping their heart?

Pondering what that might mean for my goal, I shove the pistol into my belt and stride toward the place where Enzo disappeared. He’s flickering back into view, groaning as he regains consciousness.

“Enzo, you fool.” I crouch next to him, taking in the dozen or so pendants hanging from his neck, my gaze settling on a gold chain sporting a bluish-violet shard of voratium. Unlike the others, where the soullight inside flickers like a phantom caught in a glass, this one pulses a steady rhythm.

That must be the one from the secret Lola accidentally revealed during my game, where Enzo pressed a gem to her chest and forged some sort of heart bond with her. I wrap my fingers around it, and it thrums, steady and sure, in my palm.

“This is her, isn’t it?” I murmur.

“None”—Enzo coughs—“of your business.” He seizes me by the throat and slams me to the pavement, pinning me with his teeth bared.

“Good to see you, too,” I grit out, not even bothering to fight.

He glares down at me, the ring on his thumb digging into my windpipe. “I envy all the people who don’t know you.”

“Do you now?”

“You tried to turn Lola against me.” His eyes flash.

“Oh, it doesn’t seem like you needed me at all for that.”

He pushes off me and dusts his jacket. “Piss off.”

“I’ll think about it.”

I catch a faint new thread of magic braiding through him, vibrating with the same wrongness I saw in Laurel’s veins.

Lola must have used her Unbreakable Lie on him.

“Do me a favor and go lie down on some train tracks,” Enzo says, jogging off before I can get a better look at it.

“See you later,” I call after him.

“I sure the depths hope not.” He shifts first into a shadow and then into nothing, leaving me alone on the street. I sigh, pushing to my feet and crossing to the bushes where Lola disappeared, clambering through to the road on the other side. She was incredibly weakened, so she can’t have gotten far.

I tap into my magic, trailing it up the street and around a corner. When it pulls me closer to the Liar’s Den, however, doubt curls in. Laurel’s sure to seize control over me again soon. Do I really want her to find me with Lola after I just told her I didn’t care about her?

I slow to a stop, hands clenching. I need to apologize to Lola. Explain as best I can. Warn her.

But Laurel knows how to access my body. That makes me a liability. A risk.

I need to draw her as far away from Lola as I can.

Gritting my teeth, I swivel south and jog several blocks away, then meander through the streets, hoping that when she finally looks for me, she’ll think this nothing more than a quiet evening stroll.

Far too soon, a prickle dances in the back of my head. An awareness slipping into my bones. Laurel turns my gaze this way and that, likely checking to see where I am and what I’m doing. Using my own eyes for surveillance.

“Time to come home, Nic,” she says with my mouth, and the eeriness of her speaking to me with my own voice sends goose bumps pimpling down my arms. “I’ve found just the place for us.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

LOLA

I hobble down the road, my legs ready to give out.

“Come on, come on, come on,” I mutter, checking my watch for the thousandth time. I’m supposed to be meeting Jade now, but I still am two blocks away, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot pick up my pace.