Page 134 of Heart of Thieves

And while I’ve halted the shame, I still carry the responsibility. How can I hurt Laurel now when I am the one who caused this? How can I strike her, when that Unbreakable Lie I created is the reason she’s become what she has?

My secrets fade, and present-Laurel flickers into view. She grins, the pupils of her eyes eaten away to white soullight. Even the interior of her mouth glows when she bares her teeth, as though every bone and nerve and sinew is saturated.

“You are not going to hurt me,” she says, her voice calm and steady and unnaturally cheerful in a way that sounds almost childlike. “You are going to help me.”

“Laurel,” I bite out. “Leave them alone.”

Her hand shoots out, clamping around my throat, and my magic tears through me harder and faster. The screams of all the people I’ve loved and failed reaches a fever pitch, clouding my vision, sending barbs along every nerve in my body.

But then an echo of Enzo’s voice the other day in the temple. Do you know how exhausting it has been my whole life, carrying the weight of you and the way you’d take responsibility for whatever thing I might do?

Let me make my mistakes. Let me own them. They’re not yours to carry.

Do I blame Enzo because I followed him into the temple to steal the moonshard? Do I blame my father for raising me to believe what he did when that was all he’d ever known? Do I blame Lola for bringing scrutiny to my casino when her intent was only to save my brother? All of those actions led me here, but I do not hold them responsible for my choices.

So why do I take ownership of theirs?

I failed, yes. I hurt people. More than I can count. I disappointed my father and deceived my brother and pushed away Lola and meddled in the affairs of thousands of others.

I may have created the Unbreakable Lie that runs through Laurel now, but Lola showed that magic is breakable. She broke it herself in order to do the right thing earlier tonight.

Which means Laurel could have, too, if she’d wanted it enough.

She chose this. Not me.

I did not make her what she’s become. I can be sorry for my part, but her actions are her own weight to bear.

Not mine.

And since she will not stop what she has begun, I can choose to end it.

So I let the screams splinter through my nerves, the ice carve my flesh, the agony devour my soul. I welcome it, and then I plunge the voratium shard toward her throat.

She shrieks, jolting sideways. My makeshift blade grazes the side of her neck, and fury boils in her eyes. She sinks her fingers around my throat, cutting off the blood supply in the arteries on either side of my neck. I scrabble at her hands as darkness eats the edges of my vision.

“You cannot stop me,” her voice ricochets in my ears. “With a conduit in my grasp, I will finally be what the gods intended. Powerful enough to destroy everyone who stands in their path and make sure their will is obeyed.” Her voice drops to a whisper somehow loud enough to make me wince. “And I will be one of them.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, pulling every ounce of pain and regret and terror and fear—the things I’ve been running from for so long I cannot remember a time when I ever wasn’t—and I raise my blade once more. Another blow will take her, will break this, will save us.

“Put it down,” Laurel cries, tracking the movement.

“I’m—” I try to say, but the word sorry is caught by my curse in my throat, and I can’t breathe around it.

Laurel’s lips curl as tears spill over her lashes. Lola jolts to her feet, lunging for me with jerky, puppeted movements.

Laurel’s got her.

I swing my arm to strike Laurel, but Lola’s fingers close around my throat, dragging me backward as Laurel wrenches the makeshift voratium blade from my hands.

With a guttural roar, she hauls back and cleaves it deep into my heart, right through the epicenter of the glowing scar, fracturing the icy power in my chest.

Soullight funnels through me, screaming into the blade as I topple backward.

I look at her, meeting her eyes, mouth dropping open as pain tears my veins asunder.

“—sorry,” the word finally bursts free as I hit the ground.

Darkness claims me.