Page 122 of Heart of Thieves

“Fine,” Nic says, bending to set Paol down gently on the street before meeting Enzo’s otherworldly glare head-on. “You wanted me out of the vehicle, and you want me to do your bidding.” He spreads his hands, one still holding the pistol, as though to say, I’m all yours.

“You’ve betrayed me before,” Laurel says through Enzo’s mouth.

“That’s the thing about forcing compliance,” Nic bites back. “You’ll never be sure if the people you make bend to your will are truly yours.”

Enzo’s smile is all wrong. “I have my ways.”

“There’s always another test with you.”

I’m vibrating with tension watching that voratium leech soullight from Soren’s collarbone. I try not to imagine him toppling the way Paol did moments ago, attempt to keep my attention on pulling at the unmovable threads of Nic’s magic, but it’s getting harder to focus the more panicked Enzo and I become.

“Will you pass this test?” Laurel snaps. “Or keep postulating about it?” Enzo presses the voratium harder against Soren’s skin, and the glow in the metal intensifies.

Nic’s nostrils flare, but he raises the pistol, pointing it at Soren’s forehead.

“No!” I whimper, but without a body, my voice makes no sound.

Soren has put his neck on the line for me more times than I can count, has saved my life, has fought alongside me in dozens of heists. Despite his scrutiny over my behavior the past few days, he’s one of the most loyal people I know.

Nobody deserves this less than he.

And Enzo . . . Gods, I can already feel him breaking. Splinters of his panic, of his pain, of his fear raze through me, so hot and so fast I can barely see. Soren is the Tentacle that has been with him the longest.

This would utterly destroy him.

I scream as I dig my mental grip into Nic’s magic, and though I’m noncorporeal, I feel that scream shred through every sinew.

Come on.

But the magic won’t budge. Buzzing builds inside me, vibrating in my bones.

The Unbreakable Lie won’t let me wield their magic, not here where Enzo could see.

Shuddering, I try to let go of Nic’s magic, but if anything, the Unbreakable Lie ratchets higher, singing in my nerves, my bones, my teeth.

And that’s when I realize it. While the Unbreakable Lie is preventing me from using my magic, it also wants me to. Because if I don’t stop this—if I let Enzo kill Soren now—Enzo will shatter. Much like how Nic started believing long ago that he wasn’t worth caring for, Enzo will define himself as a danger.

He won’t accept my trust anymore, real or false.

Damned if I use my magic, because he’ll find out I didn’t trust him. Damned if I don’t, because he’ll stop believing himself worthy of trust.

I have to break the Unbreakable Lie.

Tightening my grip on my voratium, I drag at the magic so hard my teeth sing.

An inferno blazes through me.

My body flickers back into corporeality as I focus everything on cutting off Enzo’s power while using Nic’s to create an illusion in his hand of pain so intense he’ll drop the gun.

My fingernails dig into my palm. The voratium pierces my skin. Blood slicks hot through my knuckles as my teeth grind hard enough my jaw cracks.

The Unbreakable Lie screams in my ears, in my skull, in my heart, tearing me asunder.

The voratium in my hand implodes, slamming pain up my arm.

I glance down as I open my fingers, and sparkling dust falls with my blood to the ground.

Even voratium isn’t strong enough to break the unbreakable.