Page 130 of Heart of Thieves

But before he speaks, the door swings wide, and Estelle rushes in, trailed by Jade, Soren, Arden, and Isla.

“Is she all right?” Estelle leans over Laurel’s bed to inspect a bandage on her chest.

“She’ll pull through,” Nic says. “It was already beginning to heal by the time it was all cleaned up.”

“Which means we don’t have much time,” Jade says.

When I glance toward her, she’s not looking at Estelle and Laurel. She’s looking at me. All of the Tentacles are, faces stony.

Guilt burns through me alongside the memory of them finding me with Nic in the theater. With shaking hands, I push myself gingerly to a seated position.

“Careful.” Nic reaches for me, but I face the Tentacles, setting my jaw despite the dizziness.

“I owe you all an apology,” I say.

They listen silently as I tell them everything. Finding out about my magic during the Liar’s Dice Tournament, wanting answers from Enzo, using the Unbreakable Lie, joining the Tentacles hoping I could learn what I was and why Enzo had done what he had.

And then I dive into the whole Nocturne plot and how it led to the meeting with Estelle at the Liar’s Den and the game we came up with to create a new moonshard to save Enzo and Nic from Laurel.

“Wait . . .” Enzo holds up a hand. “A new moonshard?”

“That’s brilliant,” Nic says, staring at me.

“Thank you,” I say, smiling past him at Estelle. Then I meet Soren’s eyes. “I’m so sorry for lying to you all. I understand if you can’t trust me or forgive me, but I wanted to say it. You didn’t deserve my duplicity or the way I drove a wedge between you and Enzo.” I swallow and repeat once again, “I’m so, so sorry.”

Soren steps forward, seizing me around the shoulders and pulling me in for a bone-cracking hug.

That’s when the tears break free, pouring down my cheeks and soaking into his shirt.

“I’m sorry, too,” he soothes, squeezing me.

Jade, Isla, and Arden join him in a massive tangle of limbs. In spite of the tears stinging my skin, my heart feels lighter than it has in months.

“What are we going to do?” Estelle asks when we finally break apart. “Laurel’s not going to be unconscious for much longer.”

“We don’t need to keep her here forever,” I say slowly, scrubbing the tears from my cheeks. “Just until the eclipse in the morning.” I look up at the clock on the wall. It’s already two hours past midnight, which means we have only about six hours until we can seal the moonshard. Can we hold Laurel that long?

“What if we lock her in the vault?” Enzo asks.

His suggestion ignites a spark of hope inside me. “We’d only have to keep her in there a few more hours,” I say. “Totally doable.”

“The vault won’t stop her,” Nic points out. “It’s a good plan, but she’ll be able to control our bodies as soon as she wakes.”

“What if we knock her out every time she regains consciousness?” Soren suggests.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Estelle snaps.

“Why not?” Enzo puts in. “If she’s like Nic and me, then she’ll heal just fine.”

Estelle’s eyes flash. “You’re not hurting her any more than absolutely necessary.”

“Define ‘absolutely necessary,’” Enzo shoots back.

Estelle jabs a finger in his face. “I will never understand what Lola sees in you.”

I interrupt before they come to blows. “Any ideas how we could cut Laurel off from her power without knocking her out?”

“What if we removed the voratium pieces from her arms?” Jade asks, lifting Laurel’s encrusted hand. “Pulled them out like Nic did with the bullet?”