Page 4 of Heart of Thieves

“I just pulled up to the north curb,” Isla adds over the radio. “I’m in a pink Rifton 450.”

“Pink?” Enzo’s brows rise. “Aren’t getaway vehicles supposed to be less . . . conspicuous?”

“It was the only Rifton they had, and I’ve never driven one!”

Enzo sighs, then shrugs. “Fine. As long as it’s fast.”

“Oh, it’s fast.”

“Detonation in three . . . ,” Jade pipes up. “Two . . .”

BOOM!

I cling to the lip of the windowsill as the building quakes.

“The guards are on the move,” Soren says. “Ninety seconds until they reach you, Arden.”

“Let’s have some fun,” comes Arden’s chuckling reply.

An instant later, another BOOM! shakes from a lower floor.

“Are you ready?” I whisper to Enzo, breathless.

Enzo meets my eyes as the third explosion detonates right outside the door below, lighting up the night.

“Always.” Enzo winks and ripples into noncorporeality, bleeding through the windowpane. He appears on the other side, unlatching the lock and pushing the pane open for me to leap through.

Now that the guards who typically stand watch outside this laboratory are out investigating Jade’s explosions, Enzo and I are free to ransack the place without fear of being caught. But their search of the grounds and the planned distraction with Arden as a constable in the courtyard will only give us so long. We’ll need to be quick.

“Here.” Enzo pulls a piece of parchment from his pocket and shoves it into my hands. “Tell me if you see anything that looks like this.”

I unfold the paper and pretend to inspect it, but I don’t really need to. I’ve studied this diagram a hundred times over the past few weeks. Not that Enzo knows that.

It’s some sort of lumenoring device—a contraption used by the scientists who work with voratium and starlight. Enzo has told me he wants it to help him track down the moonshard. Since all our previous leads turned out to be false, thanks to Nic’s machinations to keep us chasing our tails, Enzo claims it’s time to turn to something that will never lie to us: science.

But every time he tells that story, a frisson of something trickles through our heart. Something I would never have noticed before the tournament, but that I now recognize as the slight stroke of shame he feels when he’s not being entirely truthful.

What do you really intend to use this contraption for? I try to say, but the words get caught behind my teeth, exactly as every question I’ve attempted to ask him about anything remotely important has since I spoke that Unbreakable Lie. What is your plan now? I want to scream as he scuttles to the other side of the laboratory and starts riffling through cabinets. Why did you pretend to save me? What am I?

But my tongue won’t move, and that unbearable buzzing under my skin intensifies, the whispers of my Unbreakable Lie ricocheting like wind in my ears.

I trust you. I trust you. I trust you.

Except I don’t trust him. I never will again.

So, as has become my approach since the tournament, I ball my fists and look for answers on my own.

Which, tonight, means scouring the laboratory for this mysterious device and seeing if there’s any other information I can glean from the scientists’ notes without Enzo realizing what I’m up to.

“Soren, how are our security guard friends doing?” Enzo murmurs into the radio as I cross to a set of shelves full of odd devices.

“Arden’s leading them on a chase across the street. You’re still good,” comes Soren’s gruff response.

Enzo’s heart rate hammers in my throat. Whatever we’re looking for is a lot more important than he’s let on. My own hands shake as I move boxes of loose bits of voratium and metal contraptions out of my way. Then I yank down several crates, only to find folders marked with odd combinations of numbers and letters.

Sighing, I set those aside and turn toward another set of shelves. I riffle among the instruments on each one, heart sinking. If Enzo locates the mysterious device first, I won’t get a chance to uncover any other hints about what it might be. And if we don’t find it at all, then where else am I supposed to look for answers?

I pause, breath stilling as my eyes land on a complicated brass device on the top shelf.