Page 131 of Heart of Thieves

“Those shards are fused to her skin,” Estelle says slowly. “It would be like pulling off fingernails. She’d be in a lot of pain.”

“Not if we do it before she wakes up.” I shove off the stretcher as excitement pounds through me. “This could actually work.”

Estelle looks uneasy about it, so I rush on.

“I don’t want to hurt her, either, but as long as those shards are in her skin, she has the power to control us.” I grasp Estelle’s hands. “We’re so close. We just need a couple of hours.”

Estelle sniffs, then nods. “All right. But I want to bandage her up afterward. Apply ointment and all that. I don’t want to permanently damage her hands.”

“Hand me that medical kit,” I tell Nic, moving in next to Laurel. “Let’s get to work.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but a shout from outside draws our attention to an exterior window. Frowning at one another, we cross to it, pulling back the curtain.

Two dozen people swarm on the sidewalk near the front entrance of the Liar’s Den. One pounds on the door. “Liar!” he barks. “Let me in!”

“Is that . . . ?” I say, squinting to make out the man’s features.

“Magnus St. James,” Nic growls. “How predictable of him.”

I back away from the window so my father won’t see me and turn to Enzo. “You and the Tentacles bar the doors. We can’t let him interrupt this.”

“Got it.” Enzo and his gang dart as one into the hall as I turn toward Nic and Estelle, nodding at Laurel on the bed.

“All right,” I say. “Which one of us feels up to performing surgery?”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

LOLA

“I’ll do it,” Estelle says, crossing to the cabinets and pulling on a pair of gloves. “But removing the moonshard pieces might be painful enough to wake her. Can you use magic to keep her numb?”

“Yes,” I say as Nic hands her a fresh set of tweezers. “We both can.”

He and I stand at the head of the bed as Estelle sets Laurel’s arm on a clean towel. Taking a deep breath, she leans over the pieces of voratium, cinching the tweezers onto the largest one. “Ready?”

I meet Nic’s eye, and together we tap into his magic, pulling it out and weaving it into a cocoon of numbness around Laurel.

“Go ahead,” I say to Estelle.

With a shaking hand, she pulls out the first piece.

I watch, barely daring to breathe, scanning Laurel’s face for signs of movement as I keep a firm hold on the sensory illusion. Thankfully, she does not so much as twitch.

Nic’s hand finds mine, his fingertips ghosting lightly between my own, his thumb dragging featherlight along the inside of my wrist.

Plink. Plink. Plink. One by one, Estelle drops the pieces of metal into a dish. Vaguely multicolor blood pools under Laurel’s wrist. The clock on the wall ticks as loudly as a bomb, only drowned out by the desperate hope raging in my heart. There are thousands of voratium chunks in her arms—most as small as splinters, though many are large enough to resemble small blades. The longer it goes, the dizzier with dread I become. I scurry back and forth between the window and the head of the bed, checking to make sure Enzo and the Tentacles are still holding strong against my father outside.

As the hours wear on, Nic’s magic weakens further, until it’s like trying to pull a flood through a tiny straw in order to keep the illusion going. Sweat beads on my brow, and he’s gone quite pale. But he draws me in against his side, his only-half-healed arm coming protectively around me to keep me upright.

The clock is nearing six in the morning by the time every piece of metal has been removed. Nic takes Estelle’s place to clean and bandage the wounds, and I keep my eye on Laurel’s face, holding the illusion steady.

But without Nic to hold me up, I sway, and the magic threads slip through my mental grip. I lean on the wall to stay upright.

“Wait—” I try to say as Estelle dabs a warm, wet cloth onto the wounds. She freezes, looking up at me, eyes wide. “What?”

Laurel’s mouth twitches, and my stomach bottoms out.

“She moved,” I say, lungs squeezing as I scrutinize her features.