Page 60 of Heart of Thieves

His mouth twitches. “So you’ve reconsidered my offer?”

“I’ll trap him for you on two conditions.” I raise a pair of long, slender fingers with nails tipped in black. “One: I need a slab of voratium. These dimensions.” I place a piece of parchment atop his ledger. “Tonight.”

He frowns as he reads. “That’s a significant size. I’m not sure I could get it that quickly.”

“Then, perhaps,” I say, voice lowering, “I won’t be able to rescue Magnolia after all.”

“What’s the second condition?” He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest so his cuff links twinkle at me like eyes.

“You stay away from the game. The Thief and his Tentacles won’t come near it if they suspect you’re there.”

He scowls. “I can’t very well allow that magical favor to end up in enemy hands.”

“There is no prize,” I retort. “The game is a farce.”

He studies me for a long moment, then finally rises and holds out his hand. “I can get you the voratium by tomorrow at noon. The largest piece I have will have to be rushed in from Solada, and it’s just not possible to get it here before then.”

That’s cutting it close, but if there’s no way to obtain it sooner, I won’t win anything by fighting. “Very well. Noon and not a minute later.” I put my hand in his and shake it. “You have yourself a deal.”

It’s not ideal, but Estelle and I should still be able to set it up in time.

His eyes narrow, and his grip tightens. He yanks me closer, a ferocity in his eyes I’ve never seen before. A violence that sends a bolt of terror through me.

Channeling Enzo’s magic, I render my hand noncorporeal to withdraw it from his grasp in the same instant I channel all that terror into an illusion of pain. It slams into him, and he screams, stumbling backward.

Horrified, I release it, heart pounding. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, hadn’t even thought about it. But the fear had been so sharp I’d just . . . reacted.

Trying to regain my composure as my stomach lurches into my throat, I draw more illusion magic to mask the tremble in my voice. “You try anything like that again, and you’ll never see your daughter alive.”

“You’d threaten me, seaspawn?” he snarls, pressing his palms to his desktop.

“Absolutely.” I make the illusion grow, my eyes darkening, my teeth sharpening.

He pales and backs away, raising his hands. “Of course. That was unkind of me. I apologize.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow to gather the voratium,” I snap. “It had better be the highest quality. No inclusions. Fully raw and never before infused.”

“Of course.”

I sweep away, whipping my illusions into nothing before pelting, noncorporeal, back to the ground floor and past Arden, who’s sitting on the reception desk lighting one of the cigars for the man seated behind it.

When I flicker back into my physical form outside, I stumble to the nearest light pole, leaning on it as I gasp for air. A moment later, Arden sidles out of the door behind me. “How did it go?” he asks, and then, catching sight of my face, he gasps. “Are you all right?”

I vomit into the gutter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

LOLA

It takes several minutes of convincing Arden I’m fine before he finally leaves me in my room. Once the door clicks shut behind him, I dive for my bed, riffling under the mattress for a few spare pieces of voratium. I had hoped Arden would spend the afternoon napping, as usual, but his concern for my well-being has me thinking he’ll return soon to make sure I’m all right, which means I have to leave an illusion here of me asleep in my bed before I can get to work on the game.

Sifting through the frigid threads of Nic’s magic, I spin together an image of me slumbering quietly. The nose isn’t quite right, and I can’t seem to get the angle of my cheekbones to match, but hopefully Arden won’t look that closely. Once I’m satisfied, I gather the handful of voratium and slip, noncorporeal, through the door, past where Arden is speaking in low tones to Isla, who seems to have deconstructed an entire motorcar on the floor in the hall. Skirting around the corner, I dart down to the treasury.

The largest cavern in the volcano, the treasury is a dark, rounded space complete with craggy black rock formations chock-full of the Tentacles’ spoils. Crowns, piles of plats, jewelry, keepsakes, portraits from wealthy politicians’ manors, glittering vases as tall as I am, and even whole statues lifted from Aetheran temples.

Shoving down the guilt gargling in my throat, I retrieve an infused voratium lantern from the wall and pick my way through the wealth and wonder, searching among the glinting shapes for the lumenoring equipment Estelle and I need.

Spotting the astral diffuser from the other night, I rush over, inspecting it and the other devices in turn and crafting an illusion to match each, binding their images to voratium pieces I’ll leave in their places. As long as nobody needs the equipment over the next few days, these illusions should keep any of the Tentacles from realizing they’ve gone missing.