Page 74 of Heart of Thieves

Enzo pulls out a candy wrapper. “This is not going to be big enough to write on.”

“It’s okay. I think I remember,” Jade says. “Something to do with maps?”

“Writing our maps. Growth and collapse . . .” Enzo taps his chin. “Something confusing perhaps, and maybe prolapse?”

“Gross.” I giggle. “Writing our maps. Growth and collapse. Stars and their gaps. Two hundred laps.”

“Whoa.” Jade gapes at me. “That was freaky.”

“Freakishly impressive,” I correct. “We all know I’m the smart Tentacle.”

“Is that what we all know?” Arden asks, raising a brow.

I stick out my tongue at him, dodging a glance to where Nic is wringing water from his tuxedo jacket with one hand and fishing his smooshed fedora from the fountain with the other. He raises an eyebrow at me and smirks.

Enzo doesn’t seem to have noticed his brother is here, and he’s certainly not going to be happy about it. Though he’s going to figure it out eventually, I don’t think I have the mental fortitude to deal with the inevitable fistfight that will ensue if he does right now.

“Why don’t we go somewhere a little more private?” I ask, steering Enzo and the others in the opposite direction. “That way no one will overhear us when we figure out where the first enclosure is.”

“I’ll get us some pastries for the road. Let’s meet in there in five minutes.” He waves at a record shop locked up for the night on the corner before elbowing through the crowd toward the refreshment table.

“You go on ahead,” I tell the others. “I’m going to grab some water.”

They nod and dart away.

I take the chance to compose myself, tugging my glove down as discreetly as I can to check on the voratium on my wrist.

Someone claps behind me, slow and deliberate.

“Bravo, my dear.”

I turn to see a very waterlogged Nic continuing his dramatic applause, hair hanging over his scarred brows and dripping down his cheek.

“Truly incomparable magic,” he continues, a sardonic grin on his maddening face. His eyes, unlike before, bear that disconcerting pale glow. The walls are up. The Nic I know is buried in magic again, it seems. “Pity you had to steal it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

LOLA

I’m seriously tempted to use Nic’s own glamours to singe him with the fire in my glare. “You knew from the start.”

“Knew what?” he asks innocently, leaning against a light pole and digging at his nails as though he has not a care in the world.

“That I was . . . her,” I whisper, darting a glance around to make sure no one is paying attention. “You deceived me.”

“How very surprising of me.” He smirks, dropping his hands into his pockets and sidling toward me, shoes squelching with fountain water. “The real question now seems to be why you are doing this game at all.”

I tip my head back to keep eye contact when he comes to a stop mere inches away. The ocean breeze lifts the soft, familiar scent of cigar smoke and cinnamon from his jacket, and I find myself breathing in deeply in spite of myself.

“You’re not charging admission, so it’s clearly not for profit,” he continues when I do not reply. “Could this be an elaborate decoy to draw the city’s attention away from something else?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Does my brother know?” he asks. “Who Nocturne is?”

“No,” I snap. “And you’re not going to tell him.”

“He’d probably appreciate being informed.” Nic makes an exaggerated show of going up on his tiptoes and cupping his hand over his brow to shade out the sun that fully set twenty minutes ago. “Where did he get off to?”